AS IT WAS TOLD

Frishman, David

AS IT WAS TOLD David Frishman This is a story of three who ate. Not on an ordinary day did these three eat, but on the Day of Atonement; not hidden where no one could see them, but openly, in the...

...He spoke then of the dreadful plague, of the horror of its pains and of the trail of woe it left behind it...
...1 began to cry loudly, but I was not heard...
...J knew him as a holy man whose wisdom was respected afar, and whose word and judgment were as the word of Moses...
...Around and around immense wax candles burned...
...They approach and rise on the almemar...
...And, as I stood there in my corner, 1 too began to cry, the tears running to the comers of my mouth...
...He wanted Jews to eat on the Day of Atonement...
...Then I heard him say: "And when a man sees that great sorrows have befallen him, then it is that he should search his deeds in his relation to his God, but also in his relation to himself, his own body, his very flesh, his daily needs...
...That scene will remain with me to my dying day...
...And like a small child he pleaded: "Eat...
...The worshipers stood facing the east wall, wrapped in their white prayer shawls, swaying to and fro in silence...
...He no longer pleaded, but commanded: "I order you to eat...
...In a little while the beadle returns from the rav's home with wine and cake...
...It spread pestilence in the streets...
...Evening in the synagogue...
...And yet they remained, even after having eaten in public on the Day of Atonement, the most honored citizens of the community...
...From the streets reports filtered in...
...In the house opposite we heard, one night, the loud lamentations of the sick, but in the morning there was not a sound...
...How long the list of names...
...His voice rose...
...but his eyes, unlike the eyes of old men, were black and glowing...
...Yes, those were bitter days...
...We must live by them, our virtues, and not die on account of them...
...one-two...
...He stood there pleading, assuring them that he would take upon himself their sin of eating and drinking on this fearful day...
...Silent through the nights and invisible through the days it reaped its harvest...
...Shadows of the dead who, finding no peace in their graves, had come to hear Kol Nidre...
...There was no house but had its dead...
...At first his voice was low and weak, but it gradually gained in strength and volume...
...The minutes passed one after another, and there seemed to he no end to his enumeration of the victims of the plague...
...Then 1 saw the rav mounting the almemar...
...Like flies people fell, young and old...
...the tallest of them, in the center, with one dayyau to the right of him and one dayyan to the left of him...
...The pale cheeks flushed, and the blue lips turned red...
...But no one spoke of them or asked questions, so afraid were they to know what might be in their homes...
...below us, in the cellar, a mother and her four children...
...But no one in the synagogue stirred...
...It seems God's will that I should not die before I have fulfilled this too...
...And did he not fear that Satan might overhear him now, in such a time, such a bitter time...
...The rav now spoke with a firm clear voice, then added: "Blessed be the Name of the Lord...
...Reprinted by permission of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Publishers...
...And yet even more frightful was the day that followed...
...I! I! I!" His words darted forth like arrows...
...A deadly silence settled on the synagogue...
...I heard the men chanting: "And the angels flutter through the air, and fear and trembling embraces all...
...branding thirst and hunger as evil powers that come, in time of a plague, to kill and destroy mercilessly...
...Did he mean to deliver a sermon to console the mourners and strengthen their faith...
...You wanted me to do it—and I did it...
...Who could enumerate the names of all who died during those days...
...I stood in my corner looking at him, at the glowing black eyes that shone from his white face with its white hair...
...His face turns ash white, his head sinks upon his breast, and a heartrending sigh escapes his throat...
...And the shadows on the walls swayed with them...
...Like a rushing tide the realization of what the rav asked of us swept over me...
...And with a dry, submissive voice he adds: "Eighty-two years have I lived and not been brought to such a trial...
...Go and eat...
...Those prayers will ever be vivid in my memory...
...A sigh passes through the congregation and is hushed by the voices of the three on the almemar chanting in unison: "With the grace of God and the forbearance of the assembled, that you may not grow faint in this time of plague—we permit—you—to eat—and to drink—today...
...What did the rav mean...
...not hidden where no one could see them, but openly, in the great synagogue before the entire congregation, did they eat...
...Go and eat...
...of the three heroic holy men who ate in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement before the entire congregation...
...The scene of the three who ate...
...Thus the summer passed...
...He wanted us to eat...
...Even now, if 1 close my eyes for a second, I can see the scene...
...And the rav calls: "ShammashV The beadle approaches...
...from heaven—cholera...
...But no one moves...
...Who could count the fresh mounds of earth of the graves...
...Shadows swam about the walls and among them I seemed to recognize the recent dead—passing in endless procession...
...There is even a time when it is better that a man destroy all of the Torah if thereby he saves a life for the world!' " What did the rav mean...
...Then I heard him say: "In the holy Gemara it is said: 'And he shall live by his virtues and not die through them.' And again the wise men said: 'There comes a time when it is considered a virtue to trespass a law of the Torah...
...The congregation was silent, waiting for their leader to speak...
...For heroes they were...
...No one stirred...
...The rav pauses...
...And the three on the almemar wept...
...For I was not alone...
...And when the prayers were over no one left the synagogue...
...His face, too, was white...
...He spoke of the holiness of yom tov, and what the Giver of the Torah had meant to convey thereby...
...It seemed to me I could see the clouds through the fog, and the angels fluttering up and down, up and down...
...Now the three are standing there, the rav...
...No one stirred...
...Above us, on the second floor, nine had died in one day...
...of thirst and of hunger...
...Or were they the shadows of the dead swaying to and fro upon the walls...
...And the dayyanim plead along with him...
...Then 1 saw that the rav was weeping...
...The rav's voice rose suddenly, accompanied by his two dayyanim, with a great sigh that penetrated the congregation...
...And the tallest of the three wept like a child...
...Suddenly the rav's voice changed...
...Who were now the sinners...
...At what did his words aim...
...And the worst of its grim work the plague did in the Jewish ghetto...
...There comes a time when it is a virtue to trespass a law of the Torah...
...No one left the synagogue that night, yet in the morning two were gone...
...But the rav did not begin a sermon...
...Because of the plague...
...Nor were they strangers whom no one knew and nobody cared about, but the most honored citizens of the community: the rav and his two dayyanim...
...I listened...
...whispers to them, and they nod their heads in assent...
...I had known the rav from my earliest childhood...
...That Day of Atonement I shall never forget...
...Of what did he want to persuade his congregation on that day of days...
...The plague...
...Despite custom and ritual, he intoned a prayer for the recent dead...
...Must you drive me to the last extremity...
...On the almemar stood the rav with his head high and proud...
...and in the houses it heaped up horror a hundredfold...
...And among them I discerned in the darkness the Black Angel with his multitudinous eyes—from head to foot eyes—everywhere eyes—and what eyes...
...They were not prayers but a painful moan—a long moan that rose from the hearts of the congregation to pierce the heavy skies...
...And worst of all—he said—no end to its devastations seemed in sight...
...And the holiest of all—the Day of Atonement...
...Silence...
...That Yom Kippureve I shall not forget...
...Who can measure the struggle that must have torn their hearts...
...I was but a child then, but I remember that I suddenly turned cold...
...The rav was old, eighty or more years old, his beard was white with a silver whiteness, and the hair on his head was as newly fallen snow...
...he murmurs...
...The rav whispers in his ear, and the beadle leaves the synagogue...
...Two who died in their prayer shawls—ready to be taken from the house of prayer to the house of the dead...
...A looming dark fear swooped down upon me, and it seemed to me that the same fear fell upon the entire congregation, young and old...
...What does he whisper in their ears that they suddenly turn pale...
...They who buried the dead grew weary...
...And the congregation ate—ate and wept...
...I stood there through the night and fell as if a fog rested on my eyes...
...that they would appear innocent before God...
...I remained in my comer and heard my heart beating: one...
...The silence of a graveyard...
...And there came the Holy Days...
...A great calamity had befallen us From THE JEWISH CARAVAN selected and edited by Leo W. Schwarz Copyright 1935, © 1963, 1965 by Leo W. Schwarz...
...And then the words were heard: "With the grace of God and the forbearance of the assembled, we permit you to pray together with the transgressors...
...I was but a child then, understanding little of the significance of the thing they did, yet I vaguely realized that a stirring event had taken place in those bitter days...
...he spoke of living and dying, of the living and the dead...
...And then the rav spoke of the cleanliness that kept us alive, and the uncleanliness that bereaves us of life...
...Fear and trembling...
...The time is such...
...It is the will of God...
...Noon of the Day of Atonement...
...Have I not suffered enough this day of days...
...Were they really shadows...
...That day I shall not forget...
...The corpses lay upon the ground, body against body, yet people no longer cared...
...The congregation listened with bent heads...
...Then the rav turns to his dayyanim...
...Who can weigh their pain and suffering...
...Even now, as I close my eyes, 1 can see the rav stretch out his hand and beckon to his dayyanim...
...Why do they lower their heads...
...From far away, from the depths of Asia, it had come to our little town...
...Again the rav pleads tearfully: "Why have you all united against me...
...Many wept...
...one . . . And an inexplicable dark fear seized me...
...Before the ark stood, not the cantor and two honored citizens, as is the custom, but the rav and his two dayyanim...

Vol. 1 • September 1975 • No. 3


 
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