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By Root 390 0

a weeper, an angry man. As he prayed he would beat his head against the wall; on the Days of Awe he would fall to the ground at the Prayer of Petition, like the men of old, and groan out loud. He delivered funeral orations and on the eve of Yom Kippur flogged men in the prayer-house anteroom. When he fell into a fierce mood he would slap not only the young but the old as well; therefore none dared cross him. Mordecai Joseph was broad- framed, ungainly, with unkempt red earlocks and green eyes. And now, breathing hard, the cripple began to clamber up a table. Those close by lifted him so that he could stand. Reb Mordecai Joseph banged the table with his crutch. His stained coat came unbuttoned, his unkempt locks flew about wildly, and he began in his passion to stutter and gasp. "Jews, why are you silent? Redemption hath come to the world!... Salvation hath come to the world!" He beat his forehead with his left hand and all at once began to dance. His oaken crutch drummed, his large foot dangled, and, gasping, he cried one and the same phrase over and over again, a phrase which no one was able to make out. The legate turned and fixed his bright eyes on Mordecai Joseph. The tails of Mordecai Joseph's coat swung through the air, his vest billowed about him; he pushed the crumpled skullcap back on his head, stretched out both arms, the fingers curling. Women screamed; from every side hands reached for him. Suddenly Reb Mordecai fell his full length to the ground. The whole study house swayed with the crowd and the sweating walls. Someone shouted, "Help! He has fainted!"

6

Reb Mordecai Joseph

It was Rabbi Benish's practice to say his afternoon and evening prayers by himself in his study. When the news reached his ears he hurried to the prayer house. But it was already empty. Everyone had hurried home after the legate's sermon to discuss the news in the midst of the family. A few people accompanied the legate to the inn; others went to the house of Reb Mordecai Joseph. They had to rub Mordecai Joseph with snow for a long time, to prick him with needles and pinch him hard before he was himself again. On his broken bench bed he lay, dressed in all his garments; leaning back on both elbows, he related that in his trance Sabbatai Zevi had come to him and cried: "Mordecai Joseph, the son of Chanina the Priest, be not of humble heart! Thou shalt yet offer up the priestly sacrifices!" Men and women jostled one another in the narrow, unfloored room; there was no candle, and Mordecai Joseph's wife heaped several dry twigs on the tripod and lit them. The flame crackled and hissed, red shadows danced on the irregular whitewashed walls, and the rafters loomed low. In a corner, on a pile of rags, sat Mordecai Joseph's only daughter, a monstrosity with a water-swollen head and calf's eyes. Mordecai Joseph's wet beard shone in the reflection of the glowing coals like molten gold, and his green eyeballs burned like a wolf's as he divulged the mysteries he had seen in his trance. His cadence was that of a dying man speaking his last words to those nearest him. "A great light shall descend on the world! Thou-sands and thousands times greater than the sun! It shall blind the eyes of the wicked and the scoffers! Only the chosen shall escape!" That night Rabbi Benish could not sleep. The shutters were barred, and thick candles burned in the two bent brass candlesticks. The old man paced back and forth with heavy tread, stopping from time to time to cock his ears, as though listening for a scratching in the walls. The wind tore at the roof, and sighed. Branches crackled with the frost, the long-drawn-out howls of dogs filled the air. There was silence and then the howling began again. Rabbi Benish took book after book out of the chest, studied their titles and leafed through the pages searching for omens of the coming of the Messiah. His high forehead wrinkled, for the passages were contradictory. From time to time Rabbi Benish would sit down at the table and press a key to his forehead so as not to doze off; nevertheless, he would soon be snoring