Satan in Goray - Isaac Bashevis Singer [5]
these things were quietly talked about, the news passing from ear to ear, so as not to cause a stir among women and uneducated men, whose understanding was limited. Nevertheless, the common people, too, had their own way of predicting the help that would surely come to the Jews. In almost every town one person ran about testifying that the Jews would all soon be redeemed. Some declared that they could hear the great ram's horn being blown, signifying the end of days; others aroused the people to return to God, reckoning up their own as well as the sins of others; still others danced in the street for joy, and beat drums. Ordinary women dreamed remarkable dreams. Dead kin told them all about the wonders that would soon occur. Sleeping and waking, people saw, riding an ass, that pauper who was to be the Messiah; they heard Elijah the Prophet call: "Redemption cometh to the world!" A great cloud lowered, and all the Jews with their wives and children sat on it to fly to Jerusalem. Before them flew their prayer houses and study houses. A servant girl from Bechev related how, dozing, she had seen a fiery building as high as heaven, and bright as the sun. Around it, Jews in silken garments, wearing the fur caps of the devout, kneeled and sang the Sabbath psalms of praise. Her master, a learned man, immediately understood that the girl had been considered worthy to glimpse the heavenly Temple, with the Levites in attendance; he had made the rounds of the communities with her, that she might describe her vision. Gentile soothsayers divulged that more than once they had observed, in the eastern sky, a tiny star at war with all the others, gradually assimilating them and waxing larger until it became the size of the moon. This was taken as a sign that the smallest and most humble of nations would overcome the peoples of the earth and rule them. Priests, also, testified that they had seen the battle of Armageddon waged in Heaven, with Israel victorious. Incomprehensible things occurred everywhere. Vagabonds who wandered from town to town and from land to land told of a hail of flintstones that had fallen in Bohemia. During a rainstorm in Turkey a gigantic snake had slithered from the sky, overwhelmed a number of cities, and killed many Jew- haters. In Shebreshin a water carrier had heard a heavenly voice, and in Pulav a fish had cried, "Hear, 0 Israel!" while being scaled in honor of the Sabbath eve dinner. Some had heard a voice from Mount Horeb crying, "Return, 0 my wayward children!" A sinful leech, to whom this heavenly voice came three times running, deserted his wife and children, girded sackcloth on his loins, and went into exile. He lay down on the threshold of the study house in every town he came to, and all who entered or left had to step on him and spit in his face, while he, sobbingly, confessed all his misdeeds. A great deal of emphasis was placed on the fact that in these dreadful times, when Jews were being tormented and driven out of town after town, the number of converts from Christianity increased in every land. Very often, converts had themselves circumcized secretly and took on the yoke of the holy teachings, despite the harsh punishment this brought. These were all distinct omens that an end was coming to the long, dark night of servitude, and that the time of liberation was drawing near. But people most often spoke of one great and holy man, Sabbatai Zevi, who was said to be the one for whom Israel had been waiting these seventeen hundred years and who would be revealed in a short time. Some insisted that he was Messiah, the son of Joseph, who, as the holy volumes indicated, was to be killed as the precursor of the true Messiah; others argued that Messiah, the son of Joseph, had already come in the person of one Reb Abraham Zalman, who had perished in Tishevitz, martyred for the sanctification of God's name, and that Sabbatai Zevi would be the true Messiah, the son of David. Various rumors concerning him were passed around. Some said that he dwelt in a palace in Jerusalem, others that he hid with his disciples