The Collected Stories

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    It was the month of Elul. A blight struck the leaves which tore loose from the trees and whirled about in circles in the wind. The heat of the sun blended with the frigid breeze from the Congealed Sea. The birds that migrate to distant lands, held a meeting on the rooftop of the synagogue, chirped, twittered and argued in avian language. Bats swooped about at evening and girls feared leaving their homes, for if a bat got tangled in someone’s hair, that person would not live out the year. As usual at this season my disciples, the Shades, began to perpetrate their own brand of mischief. Children were struck down by the measles, the pox, diarrhea, croup and rashes, and although the mothers took the usual protections, measured graves and lit memorial candles, their offspring perished. In the prayer house the ram’s horn was sounded several times each day. Blowing the ram’s horn, is, as is well known, an effort to drive me away, for when I hear the horn I am supposed to imagine that the Messiah is coming and that God, praised be His name, is about to destroy me. But my ears are not that insensitive that I cannot distinguish between the blast of the Great Shofar and the horn of a Kreshev ram …
    So you can see I remained alert and arranged a treat for the people of Kreshev that they would not forget in a hurry.
    It was during services on a Monday morning. The prayer house was crowded. The sexton was about to take out the Scroll of the Law. He had already turned back the curtain before the Holy Ark and opened the door when suddenly a tumult erupted through the entire chamber. The worshippers stared at the place where the noise had come from. Through the opened doors burst Shloimele. His appearance was shocking. He wore a ragged capote, its lining torn, the lapel ripped as if he were in mourning; he was in stockinged feet as if it were the ninth day of Ab, and about his hips was a rope instead of a sash. He was ashen, his beard tousled, his sidelocks askew. The worshippers could not believe their eyes. He moved quickly to the copper laver and washed his hands. Then he stepped to the reading desk, struck it and cried out in a trembling voice: “Men! I bear evil tidings! Something terrible has happened.” In the suddenly still prayer house, the flames in the memorial candles crackled loudly. Presently as in a forest before a storm, a rustle passed through the crowd. Everyone surged closer to the lectern. Prayer books fell to the floor and no one bothered to pick them up. Youngsters climbed up on benches and tables, upon which lay the sacred prayer books, but no one ordered them off. In the women’s section there was a commotion and a scuffling. The women were crowding the grate to see what went on below amongst the menfolk.
    The aged rabbi, Reb Ozer, was still amongst the living and ruled his flock with an iron hand. Although he wasn’t inclined to interrupt the services, he now turned from his place along the eastern wall where he worshipped in prayer shawl and phylacteries and shouted angrily: “What do you want? Speak up!”
    “Men, I am a transgressor! A sinner who causes others to sin. Like Jerobom, the son of Nebat!” Shloimele exclaimed and pounded his breast with his fist. “Know ye that I forced my wife into adultery. I confess to everything, I bare my soul!”
    Although he spoke quietly, his voice echoed as if the hall were now empty. Something like laughter emanated from the women’s section of the synagogue and then it turned to the kind of low wailing that is heard at the evening prayers on the eve of the Day of Atonement. The men seemed petrified. Many thought Shloimele had lost his reason. Others had already heard gossip. After a while Reb Ozer, who had long suspected that Shloimele was a secret follower of Sabbatai Zevi, raised the prayer shawl from his head with trembling hands and draped it about his shoulders. His face with its patches of white beard and sidelocks became a corpse-like yellow.
    “What did you do?” the patriarch asked with a cracked voice full of foreboding. “With whom did your wife commit this adultery?”
    “With my father-in-law’s coachman, that Mendel … It’s all my fault … She did not want to do it, but I persuaded her …”
    “You?” Reb Ozer seemed about to charge at Shloimele.
    “Yes, Rabbi—I.”
    Reb Ozer stretched out his arm for a pinch of snuff as if to fortify his wasted spirit, but his hand trembled and the snuff slipped from between his