The Spinoza of Market Street - Isaac Bashevis Singer [57]
When the rabbi came out of his study, he intoned the verses, "Peace be with you," and "A woman of worth, who can find?" Then he blessed the wine and said a prayer over the white bread of the Sabbath. He ate a morsel no bigger than an olive. Immediately thereafter, he began the Sabbath table chants. But this wasn't mere chanting! His body swayed; he cooed like a dove; it sounded like the singing of angels. His communion with God was so complete that his soul almost left his body. Everybody could see that the holy man was not here but high up in heaven.
Who knows what heights he reached? How can one describe it? As the Talmud says, "He who has not seen joy like this has never seen joy at all." He was at the same time at the court in Kuzmir, and high above in God's temples, in the Nest of the Bird, at the Throne of Glory. Such rapture is impossible to imagine. I forgot about my father-in-law and even about myself. I was no longer Baruch from Rachev--but bodiless, sheer nothing. It was one o'clock in the morning before we left the rabbi's table. Such a Sabbath service never happened before and never will again--maybe, when the Messiah comes.
But I am forgetting the main thing. The rabbi commented on the law. And what he said was connected with what he had told my father-in-law at their meeting. "What should a Jew do if he is not a pious man?" the Rabbi asked. And answered: "Let him play the pious man. The Almighty does not require good intentions. The deed is what counts. It is what you do that matters. Are you angry perhaps? Go ahead and be angry, but speak gentle words and be friendly at the same time. Are you afraid of being a dissembler? So what if you pretend to be something you aren't? For whose sake are you lying? For your Father in Heaven. His Holy Name, blessed be He, knows the intention and the intention behind the intention, and it is this that is the main thing."
How can one convey the rabbi's lesson? Pearls fell from his mouth and each word burned like fire and penetrated the heart. It wasn't so much the words themselves, but his gestures and his tone. The evil spirit, the rabbi said, cannot be conquered by sheer will. It is known that the evil one has no body, and works mainly through the power of speech. Do not lend him a mouth--that is the way to conquer him. Take, for example, Balaam, the son of Beor. He wanted to curse the children of Israel but forced himself to bless them instead, and because of this, his name is mentioned in the Bible. When one doesn't lend the evil one a tongue, he must remain mute.
Why should I ramble on? My father-in-law attended all three Sabbath meals. And when, on the Sabbath night, he went to the rabbi to take leave of him, he stayed in his study for a whole hour.
On the way home, I said, "Well, father-in-law?" And he answered: "Your rabbi is a great man."
The road back to Rachev was full of dangers. Though it was still midwinter, the ice on the Vistula had cracked--ice-blocks were floating downstream the way they do at Passover time. In the midst of all the cold, thunder and lightning struck. No doubt about it, only Satan could be responsible for this! We were forced to put up at an inn until Tuesday--and there were many Misnagids staying there. No one could travel further. A real blizzard was raging outside. The howling in the chimney made you shiver.
Misnagids are always the same. These were no exception. They began to heap ridicule upon Hasids--but my father-in-law maintained silence. They tried to provoke him but he refused to join in. They took him to task: "What about this one? What about that one?" He put them off good-naturedly with many tricks. "What change has come over you?" they asked. If they had known that he was coming from Rabbi Chazkele, they would have devoured him.
What more can I tell you? My father-in-law did what the Rabbi had prescribed. He stopped snapping at people. His eyes glowed with anger but his speech was soft. And if at times he lifted his pipe about to strike someone, he always stopped