The Collected Stories

as he could, but after the Feast of Shevuoth the house already had a roof. Only then did Jonathan make it known that he didn’t want the house for himself but as an inn for yeshiva boys and poor travelers. He signed a document giving the house away to the community.”
    “He remained a tailor, eh?” Zalman the glazier asked.
    “To the end.”
    “Did he marry off his daughters?”
    “What else? There is no Jewish cloister.”
    All the time Levi Yitzchok was speaking, Meyer Eunuch was making gestures. His yellow eyes filled with laughter. Then he closed them, lowered his head, and seemed as though he was dozing. Suddenly he straightened up, clutched his beardless chin, and asked, “How did the village peddler know the road to the Holy Land? Most probably he asked. I guess he wandered over the Turkish lands, Egypt, and Istanbul. How did he manage to eat? Most probably he begged. There are Jews everywhere. Most likely he slept in the poorhouse. In warm countries one can even sleep in the streets. As for Jonathan the tailor, I assume that from his childhood he craved for learning, and the power of will is strong. There is a saying, ‘Your will can make you a genius.’ When you are idle, a year is nothing, but if you study day and night with diligence, you sop it up like a sponge. He did well not to accept the house from Reb Zekele, because it is forbidden to make a spade for digging from the Torah. As it was, he gained in addition the virtue of hospitality. Leib Belkes and Jonathan were both simple people—though not completely so. But it also happens with great men that they get an obsession in their minds. There is a saying, ‘Greatness too has its share of insanity.’
    “In Bechtev there was a Cabalist, Rabbi Mendel. He was descended from the renowned Hodel, who used to dance in a circle with the Hasidim. She did not, God forbid, hold their bare hands directly. She kept a kerchief over each hand, and the Hasidim held on to the kerchief. Rabbi Mendel could have had a large following, but he disliked crowds and discouraged them. Even in the High Holy Days he didn’t get more than a few score in his study house. His wife died young, and she didn’t leave him a child to take his place after his death. Many matches were proposed, but he refused to remarry. His followers argued with him: What about the commandment ‘Be fruitful and multiply’? But the rabbi answered, ‘I am going to get so many whips in Gehenna that a few more won’t matter. Why are they so afraid of Gehenna? Since the Almighty created it, it must be paradise in disguise.’ He should forgive me, but he was a devious kind of saint—but a great spirit just the same. There was much gossip about him, but he didn’t care a fig. It even happened that he uttered sharp words against the Lord of the Universe. Once when he was reciting the psalms, he came to the passage ‘He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh.’ Rabbi Mendel exclaimed, ‘He shall laugh—but I am crushed!’ When those who opposed him heard of this blasphemy, they almost managed to have him excommunicated.
    “The disciples of the Baal Shem did not believe in fasting. Hasidism was exhilaration, not sadness. But Rabbi Mendel indulged in fasting. He began by fasting only on Mondays and Thursdays. Then he started to fast from one Sabbath to the next. He also immersed himself in cold baths. He called the body the enemy, and he would say, ‘You don’t have to appease an enemy. Of course, you are not allowed to kill him, but neither are you obliged to pamper him with marzipans.’ His old Hasidic followers died out gradually. The younger men joined the courts of Gora and Kotzk. There remained in Rabbi Mendel’s court only twenty or thirty persistent followers, in addition to a few hangers-on who stayed with him all year and ate from the common pot. An old beadle, stone-deaf, cooked porridge for them every day. A charitable woman went from house to house for them and collected potatoes, groats, flour, buckwheat, and whatever else she was offered.
    “One Rosh Hashanah the rabbi had no more than twenty people in his study house. The following Yom Kippur he had only a quorum, including himself, the beadle, and the hangers-on. At the pulpit Rabbi Mendel recited all the prayers—Kol Nidre, the morning prayer, the midday prayer, and the closing prayer. It was already late when they finished the night prayer, and they blessed the new moon. The beadle offered the fasters some stale