The Collected Stories

bread with herring and some chicken soup. None of them had any teeth left, and their stomachs had shrunk from undernourishment. Rabbi Mendel was older than any of them, but his voice remained young. His hearing, too, was good. The rabbi sat at the head of the table and spoke: ‘Those who run after the pleasures of the world don’t know what pleasure is. For them gluttony, drinking, lechery, and money are pleasures. There is no greater delight than the service of Yom Kippur. The body is pure and the soul is pure. The prayers are a joy. There is a saying that from confessing one’s sins one does not get fat. It’s completely false. When I confess my sins I become alive and vigorous. If I could have my say in heaven, every day would be Yom Kippur.”
    “After the rabbi said these words he rose from his chair and exclaimed, ‘I have no say in heaven, but in my study house I do. From today on for me it will be a perpetual Yom Kippur—every day except for the Sabbath and Feast Days!’ When the people of the village heard what the rabbi was about to do, there was pandemonium. The scholars and the elders came to the rabbi and asked, ‘Isn’t this breaking the Law?’ And the rabbi replied, ‘I do it for purely selfish reasons, not to please the Creator. If they punish me high up, I will accept the punishment. I also want to have some pleasure before I go!’ The rabbi called out to his beadle, ‘Light the candles; I am going to recite Kol Nidre.’ He ran over to the pulpit and started to sing Kol Nidre. I wasn’t there, but those who were present declared that such a Kol Nidre had not been heard since the world began. All of Bechtev came running. They thought that Rabbi Mendel had lost his mind. But who would dare to tear him away from the pulpit? He stood there in his white robe and prayer shawl and recited, ‘It shall be forgiven’ and ‘Our supplications shall rise.’ His voice was as strong as a lion’s, and the sweetness of his singing was such that all apprehensions ceased. I will make it short. The rabbi lived two and a half years more, and those two and a half years were one long Yom Kippur.”
    Levi Yitzchok took off his dark glasses and asked, “What did he do about phylacteries? Didn’t he put on phylacteries on weekdays?”
    “He put them on,” Meyer Eunuch answered, “but the liturgy was that of Yom Kippur. Toward evening he read the Book of Jonah.”
    “Didn’t he eat a bite at night?” Zalman the glazier asked.
    “He fasted six days of the week unless a holiday fell in the middle of it.”
    “And the hangers-on fasted with him?”
    “Some left him. Others died.”
    “So did he pray to the bare walls?”
    “There were always people who came to look and wonder.”
    “And the world allowed something like this?” Levi Yitzchok asked.
    “Who was going to wage war against a holy man? They dreaded his irritation,” Meyer Eunuch said. “One could clearly see that heaven approved. When a man fasts so long, his voice grows weak, he doesn’t have the strength to stand on his feet. But the rabbi stood for all the prayers. Those who saw him told how his face shone like the sun. He slept no longer than three hours—in his prayer shawl and robe, with his forehead leaning on the Tractite Yoma, exactly like at Yom Kippur. At midday prayer he kneeled and intoned the liturgy concerning the service in the Holy Temple of Jerusalem.”
    “What did he do when it actually was Yom Kippur?” Zalman the glazier asked.
    “The same as any other day.”
    “I never heard this story,” Levi Yitzchok said.
    “Rabbi Mendel was a hidden saint, and of those one hears little. Even today Bechtev is a forsaken village. In those times it was far away from everything—a swamp among forests. Even in the summer it was difficult to reach it. In the winter the snow made the roads impassable. The sleighs got stuck. And there was the danger of bears and wolves.”
    It became quiet. Levi Yitzchok took out his snuffbox. “Nowadays something like this would not be permitted.”
    “Greater transgressions than that are allowed in our day,” Meyer said.
    “How did he die?”
    “At the pulpit. He was standing up reciting, ‘What can man attain when death is all he can gain?’ When he came to the verse ‘Only charity and prayer may mitigate death’s despair,’ the rabbi fell down and his soul departed. It was a kiss from heaven—a saint’s death.”
    Zalman the glazier put some tobacco into the bowl of his