Stories and Pictures Part 18

They told me that my father had died, that his soul washed itself in the gla.s.s and dried itself with the linen; that when once I began to say the Kaddish it would fly straight up into heaven.

And I fancied the soul was a bird.

2

One evening the "helper" was leading me home from Cheder. A few birds flew past me, quite low.

"Neshome'lech fliehen, neshome'lech fliehen!"[30] I sang to myself. The "helper" turned round upon me:

"You silly!" he said, "those are birds, ordinary birds."

Afterwards I asked my mother how one could tell the difference between an ordinary bird and a soul.

3

At fourteen years old, I was studying Gemoreh with the commentaries, and, as luck would have it, under Zerach Kneip.

To this day I don't know if that was his real name, or whether the boys gave it him because he used to pinch (_kneipen_) without mercy.

And he did not wait till one had deserved a pinch; he gave it in advance. "Remind me," he would say, "and by and by we shall settle up our accounts."

He was a Mohel, and had one pointed, uncut finger nail, and every pinch went to the heart.

And he used to say: "Don't cry; don't cry about nothing! I only pinch your body! What is it to you if the worms have less to eat when you are in your grave?"

"The body," said Zerach Kneip, "is dust. Rub one palm against the other, and you will see."

And we tried, and saw for ourselves that the body is dust and ashes.

"And what is the soul?" I asked.

"A spirit," answered the rabbi.

4

Zerach Kneip hated his wife like poison; but his daughter Shprintze was the apple of his eye.

_We_ hated Shprintze, because she told on us, and--we loved the rebbitzin, who sold us beans and peas on credit, and saved us more than once from the rabbi's hands. I was her special favorite. I was given the largest portions, and when the rabbi had hold of me, she would cry: "Murderer! what are you after, treating an orphan like that? His father's soul will be revenged on you!"

The rabbi would let go of me, and the rebbitzin got what was left.

I remember that one winter's evening I came home from Cheder so pinched by the rabbi and so penetrated by the frost that my skin was quite parched.

And I lifted my eyes to heaven and cried piteously and prayed: "Tatishe, do be revenged on Zerach Kneip! Lord of the world, what does he want of my soul?"

I forgot that he only pinched the body. But a man is to be excused for what he says in his distress.

5

On a school holiday, when Zerach Kneip shut the Gemoreh and began to tell stories, he was a different person.

He took off his cap and sat in his bushy locks (the skull-cap was hidden by them); he unb.u.t.toned his kaftan, smoothed out his forehead. His lips smiled, and even his voice was different.

He taught us in the hard, gruff, angry voice in which he spoke to the rebbitzin; he told us stories in the gentle, small, kind voice in which he addressed Shprintze, his dear soul.

And we used to implore him as though he were a brigand to tell us a story. We were unaware of the fact that Zerach Kneip knew only one chapter of the Talmud, with which his course for little boys began and ended, and that he _had_ to fill up the time with stories, specially in winter when there are no religious holidays. We little fools used to buy stories of him with peas and beans, and once even we saved up to buy Shprintze a red flannel spencer.

For the said spencer, Reb Zerach told us how the Almighty takes a soul out of his treasure-house and blows it into a body.

And I pictured to myself the souls laid out in the Almighty's store-room like the goods in my mother's shop, in boxes, red, green, white, yellow, and blue, and tied with string.

6

"When G.o.d," said the rabbi, "has chosen a soul and decided that it is to go down into the sinful world, it trembles and cries.

"In the nine months before birth an angel teaches it the whole Torah; then he gives it a fillip under the nose, and the soul forgets everything it has learned.

"That," added the rabbi, "is why all Jewish children have cloven upper lips."

That same evening I was skating on the ice outside the town, and I observed that the Gentile boys, Yantek, Voitek, and Yashek, had cloven upper lips just like ours.

"Yashek," I risked my life and asked, "_ti takshe mayesh dushe_?"[31]

"What does it matter to you, soul of a dog?" was the distinct reply.

7

Beside going to the rabbi, I had a teacher for writing. This teacher was supposed by the town to be a great heretic, and the neighbors wouldn't borrow his dishes.[32]

He was a widower, and people never believed that Gutele, his daughter, a girl about my age, knew how to make meat kosher.

But he was exceedingly accomplished, and my mother was determined that her only son should learn to write.

"I beg of you, Reb teacher," she said to him, "not to teach him anything heretical, nothing out of the Bible, but teach him how to write a Jewish letter, just a 'greeting to any friend' letter."

But I don't know if he kept his word. When I gave him the poser about the cleft lips, he went into a fury; he jumped up from his chair, overturned it with his foot, and began to caper about the room, crying out:

"Blockheads! murderers! bats!" By degrees he grew calm, sat down again, wiped his spectacles, and drew me to him:

"My child," he said, "never believe such rubbish. You took a good look at the Gentile boys who were skating? What are their names?"

I told him.