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A short story by Isaac Loeb Peretz |
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Kabbalists |
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Title: Kabbalists Author: Isaac Loeb Peretz [More Titles by Peretz] When times are bad, even Torah, "the best ware,"[54] loses in value.
The head of the academy is on old, thin Jew, with a long, pointed beard and old, extinguished eyes; Lemech, his beloved pupil, is a young man, likewise thin, tall, and pale, with black, curling ear-locks, dark, glowing eyes, heavily-ringed, dry lips, and sharp, quivering throat; both with garments open at the breast, with no shirts, and both in rags; the teacher just drags about a pair of peasant boots; the pupil's shoes drop from his sockless feet. That is all that remains of the celebrated academy! The impoverished little town sent less and less food, gave fewer and fewer free meals to the poor students, and these crept away elsewhere! But Reb Yainkil intends to die here, and his pupil remains to close his eyelids! And these two are often hungry. Eating little means sleeping little, and whole nights without sleep or food incline one to the Kabbalah! If one has to wake whole nights and hunger whole days, one may as well get something by it, if only fasting and flagellations, so long as these open the door to the world of mystery, of spirits, and of angels! And they have been studying the Kabbalah for some time! Now they are sitting at the one long table. With everyone else it is "after dinner," with them still "before breakfast." They are used to that. The teacher rolls his eyes and holds forth; the pupil sits with both hands supporting his head and listens. "Therein," said the teacher, "are many degrees of attainment: one knows a bit of a tune, another half a one, another a whole. The Rebbe of blessed memory knew a whole one with the accompaniment. I," he added sadly, "have only been found worthy of a bit like that!" He measured off a tiny piece of his bony finger and went on: "There is one kind of tune that must have words, that is a low order of tune. But there is a higher kind: a tune that sings itself, but without words--a pure melody! But that melody must have a voice--and lips, through which the voice issues! And lips, you see, are material things! "And the voice itself is refined matter, certainly, but matter none the less. Let us say, the voice stands mid-way between the spiritual and the material. "However that may be, the tune that finds expression through a voice and is dependent on lips is not pure, not entirely pure, not yet really spiritual! "The real tune sings itself without a voice--it sings itself inside one, in the heart, in the thoughts! "There you have the meaning of the words of King David: 'All my bones shall say,' etc. It ought to sing in the marrow of the bones, that is where the tune should be--that is the highest praise we can give to God. That is no human tone that has been thought out! It is a fragment of the melody to which God created the world, of the soul He breathed into it. Thus sings the Heavenly Family, thus sang the Rebbe, whose memory be blessed!" The teacher was interrupted by a shock-headed lad with a cord round his waist--a porter. He came into the house-of-study, put down on the table, beside the teacher, a dish of porridge with a piece of bread, said gruffly: "Reb Tebil sends the teacher some food," turned his back, and added, as he went out: "I'll come back presently for the dish." Recalled by the rough tone from the divine harmonies, the teacher rose heavily, and went to the basin to wash, dragging his great boots. He continued to speak as he went, but with less assurance, and the pupil followed him with greedy ears and glowing, dreaming eyes. "But I," repeated Reb Yainkil, sadly, "was not even worthy of understanding to what category it belongs, of knowing under what heading it is classified. However," he added with a smile, "the initiatory mortifications and purifications, those I do know, and perhaps I will teach them you to-day." The pupil's eyes seem about to start from their sockets with eagerness; he keeps his mouth open so as to catch every word. But the teacher is silent, he is washing his hands; he repeats the ritual formula, comes back to the table and says "Thou who bringest forth,"[55] with trembling lips. [Footnote 55: Hebrew blessing before eating bread.]
Having warmed his face with his hands, he wrinkles his forehead, purses his thin lips, and begins to blow the porridge. The pupil has not taken his eyes off him the whole time, and when the teacher's trembling mouth met the spoonful of porridge, something came over him, and he covered his face with both hands and withdrew within himself. A few minutes later another boy came in with a bowl of porridge and some bread: "Reb Yòsef sends the pupil some breakfast!" But the pupil did not remove his hands from his face. The teacher laid down his spoon and went up to the pupil. For a while he gazed at him with affectionate pride, then he wrapped his hand in the skirt of his kaftan, and touched him on the shoulder: "They have brought you something to eat," he said gently, by way of rousing him. Slowly and sadly the pupil uncovered his face. It was paler than ever, and the black-ringed eyes had grown wilder. "I know, Rebbe," he answered, "but I will not eat anything to-day." "The fourth fast?" asked the teacher, wondering, "and without me?" he added, with a playful pretense at being hurt. "It is another kind of fast," answered the pupil, "it is a penance." "What do you mean? You and a penance?" "Yes, Rebbe! A penance. A minute ago, when you began to eat, I was tempted to break the commandment: 'Thou shalt not covet!'" * * * * * Late that night the pupil woke the teacher. They slept on the benches in the Kläus, opposite to one another. "Rebbe, Rebbe!" he called in a weak voice. "What is it?" and the teacher started up in alarm. "Just now I attained to a higher degree!" "How so?" inquired the teacher, still half asleep. "It sang within me!" The teacher sat up: "How so? how so?" "I don't know myself, Rebbe," replied the pupil in his feeble tones, "I couldn't sleep, and I thought over what you told me. I wanted to get to know the tune--and I was so sorrowful, because I could not, that I began to weep--everything in me wept; all my limbs wept before the Creator. "Then I made the invocations you taught me--and, wonderful to say, not with my lips, but somehow inside me--with my whole self. Suddenly it grew light; I shut my eyes, and still it was light to me, very light, brilliantly light." "There!" and the teacher sat bending toward him. "And I had such pleasant feelings as I lay in the light, and I seemed to weigh nothing at all, no more than if my body had been a feather, I felt as if I could fly." "You see, you see, you see!" "Then I felt merry and lively, I wanted to laugh--my face never moved, nor my lips either, and yet I laughed--and so heartily." "You see, you see, you see!" "Then there was a humming inside me like the beginning of a melody." The teacher sprang down from his bench, and was across the room. "Well, well?" "Then I heard something begin to sing within me." "What did you feel like? Tell me quick!" "I felt as though all the doors of sense in me were shut, and as though something sang within me--as it ought to do--without any words, like ... like...." "How was it? How was it?" "No, I can't! I knew, before--and then the singing turned into--into--" "Into what? What became of it?" "A kind of playing--as though (lehavdîl) there were a fiddle inside me--or as if Yoneh, the musician, were sitting there and playing hymns, as he does at the Rebbe's dinner-table. Only it was better, more beautiful, more spiritual. And without a voice, without any voice at all--it was all spiritual." "Happy, happy, happy, are you!" "Now it's all gone (sadly), the doors of sense are reopened, and I am so tired, I am so--so--tired, that I-- "Rebbe!" he called out suddenly, clapping a hand to his heart, "Rebbe, say the confession of sins with me! They have come for me! They have come for me! There is a singer wanted in the Heavenly Family! An angel with white wings! Rebbe, Rebbe! Hear, O Israel! Hear, O Is--" * * * * * The entire little town wished as one man that it might die as blessed a death; but the Rebbe was not satisfied. "Another fast or two," he groaned, "and he would have died beneath the Divine kiss!"[56] [Footnote 56: According to the Talmudic legend like Moses and other saints.] [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |