The Collected Stories

for a while in perplexity. Then he said, ‘If I am not a greater scholar than you are, I will sew for your wife—and for nothing—a fox-fur coat reaching to the ankles, lined in velvet and with ten tails.’
    “What went on in the town that day is indescribable. In the women’s section of the synagogue they heard about the bet and there was bedlam. Some women laughed, others cried. Still others quarreled and tried to snatch the bonnets off each other’s head. There were many poor people in town and a few rich ones, but in those times no one skimped on a holiday. Every third citizen invited guests to his house for a drink. There was dancing in the marketplace. The women had cooked huge pots of cabbage with raisins and cream of tartar. They had baked strudels, tarts, all kinds of fruitcakes. The Burial Society gave a banquet and mead was poured like water. One of the elders who had special merit in the eyes of the community was honored by having a pumpkin with lighted candles placed on his head, and being carried on the shoulders of the people to the synagogue yard. Bevies of children, the holy sheep, ran after him baaing. There was in town a he-goat that was not allowed to be slaughtered because he was first-born, and urchins put a fur hat on his horns and led him into the ritual bath. On that particular day there was only one topic of conversation—Jonathan the tailor’s oath and the usurer’s promise. Reb Zekele the usurer could easily afford to build a house for nothing, but how could Jonathan become a scholar in one year? The rabbi immediately announced that such an oath was not valid. In times of old, the rabbi said, Jonathan would have been hit thirty-nine times with a belt for breaking the commandment ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’ But what could be done today? The town became divided into two parties. The scholars maintained that Jonathan should be fined and that he must come in his stocking feet to the synagogue to repent in public for giving a false oath. And if he refused, he should be excommunicated and his shop should not be patronized. The rabble threatened to burn the usurer’s house and drive him out of town with sticks. Thank God, there are no Jewish robbers. In the evening of the holiday everybody became sober. It began to rain, and everyone returned to his bundle of troubles.”
    “Did they forget the whole thing?” Zalman the glazier asked.
    “Nothing was forgotten. Just wait,” Levi Yitzchok said.
    Levi Yitzchok took out his wooden snuffbox, opened it, sniffed, and sneezed three times. His snuff was famous. He put into it smelling salts used at the Day of Atonement to revive the fasters. He wiped his red nose with his large kerchief and said, “If Getzel the apprentice had not been my friend I would not have known all the details. But Getzel boarded at Jonathan’s, and he told me everything. When Jonathan came home that evening, the moment he opened the door he exclaimed, ‘Beila Yenta, your husband has died! From today on you are a widow! My daughters, you are all orphans!’ They began to cry, as on the ninth day of Ab, ‘Husband—Father—how can you leave us?’ And Jonathan answered, ‘From today until the day of the Rejoicing over the Law next year, you have no provider.’
    “He had hidden behind his Passover dishes a nest egg of one hundred guldens saved as a dowry for his oldest daughter, Taube. He took the money and left the house. There was in town a man called Reb Tevele Scratch-me. Scratch-me was of course a nickname. In his young years he had been a Talmud teacher. Like all teachers, he had in front of him on the table a hare’s leg attached to a leather thong. Yet he did not use it to whip the children but to scratch himself. He suffered from eczema on his back. When it began to itch he handed the hare’s leg to one of his pupils and ordered, “Scratch me.” That is how he got his name. In his old age he gave up teaching and lived with his daughter. His son-in-law was a pauper, and Tevele Scratch-me lived in dire poverty. Jonathan the tailor went to Reb Tevele and asked him, ‘Do you want to earn some money?’ ‘Who doesn’t want money?’ Tevele asked back. And Jonathan said, ‘I will pay you a gulden a week if you will teach me the whole Torah!’ Tevele burst out laughing. ‘The whole Torah—even Moses did not know that! The Torah is like tailoring, without an end!’ They spoke a long time, and finally it was