The Collected Stories

He sat at the table alone, in his threadbare satin coat, worn-out fur hat, chanting Sabbath chants, dipping a piece of hallah into the glass of ritual wine. The boy (which was what Reb Mordecai Meir called Fulie) didn’t show himself on the Sabbath. The neighbor’s daughter brought in rice soup, meat, carrot pudding. Reb Mordecai Meir half sang, half moaned.
    If the old rabbi were still alive, Reb Mordecai Meir would have gone to live with him. But Reb Henokh was dead. The new rabbi was still a young man who cared more for the young Hasidim than the old. It was whispered that he was learned in worldly affairs. Many of the older Hasidim had died out and no new ones joined.
    One Sabbath day, when Reb Mordecai Meir was sitting at the table murmuring, “I shall sing with praise,” he heard the crack of a gun and a hideous scream. In the courtyard there was a din. Windows were thrown open. The sound of a police whistle pierced the air. A neighbor came in to tell Reb Mordecai Meir that the “comrades,” the strikers, had shot one of their own, a bootmaker who was said to have denounced them to the police. Reb Mordecai Meir trembled.
    “Who did it—Jews?”
    “Yes, Jews.”
    “It is the end of the world.” And Reb Mordecai Meir immediately regretted his words. It was not permitted to be sad or utter words of despair on the Sabbath.
    Because Reb Mordecai Meir awoke for midnight prayers, he went to sleep early. At nine o’clock he was already in bed, often not undressed. He took off only his boots. That night he heard the kitchen door open and he recognized Fulie’s steps. He fell asleep again, but at exactly twelve he awoke, got up, performed the ceremony of ritual hand washing, put on a housecoat and slippers, and began to lament on the destruction of the Temple. On his head he smeared a bit of ash, which he kept in a small jar. He intoned a plaintive melody. When Reb Mordecai Meir came to the verse “Rachel laments for her children,” the door opened and Fulie entered barefoot, wearing a pair of dirty underpants, without a head covering. Reb Mordecai Meir raised his eyebrows and motioned to Fulie to leave and let him finish his supplications, but the boy said, “Grandfather, are you praying?”
    Reb Mordecai Meir was not certain whether he was permitted to interrupt his prayers. After some hesitation he said, “I am reciting midnight prayers.”
    “What kind are they?”
    “A Jew must never forget the destruction of the Temple.”
    “And what are you trying to accomplish by this?” Fulie asked.
    Even though Reb Mordecai Meir understood every individual word, he did not grasp their meaning. He wanted to ask Fulie where his fringed undergarment was, but he realized that the question was pointless. He thought a moment and said, “One must pray. With God’s help, the Messiah will come and there will be an end to the exile.”
    “If he hasn’t yet come,” Fulie asked, “why should he come now?”
    “The Messiah wants to come to the Jews more than they want him to come, but the generation must be worth it. The Heavens send plenty of blessings, but we block the channels of mercy with our iniquities.”
    “Grandfather, I must talk to you.”
    “What do you want to talk about? One is not allowed to interrupt midnight prayers.”
    “Grandfather, the world won’t get anywhere from all these prayers. People have prayed for nearly two thousand years, but the Messiah still did not get here on his white donkey. It’s a battle, Grandfather, a bitter war between the exploiters and the exploited. Who incited the peasants to make pogroms on Jews? The Black Hundreds, the reactionaries. If the workers don’t resist, we will be more enslaved. Grandfather, tomorrow there will be a big demonstration and I will be the speaker. If something should happen to me, I want you to give this envelope to a girl by the name of Nekhama Katz.”
    Now, for the first time, Reb Mordecai Meir noticed the boy holding a stuffed envelope.
    He said, “I don’t know any girls. I am an old man. Why are you involved with mutineers? You may be arrested, God forbid, and you will bring suffering on all of us. The czar has many Cossacks and he is stronger than you. Since you don’t believe in the soul and the hereafter, why put yourself in danger?”
    “Grandfather, I don’t want to begin the discussion all over again. All of Europe is free and here the czar is a tyrant. We have no parliament. What he and his satraps want, they do. The