"Did he leave you some money at least?" I asked.

"There is a little left."

"Maybe something can still be done."

"Too late."

We sat without speaking, and the lessons of the moral primers came back to me. No word goes astray. Evil words lead to iniquitous deeds. Utterings of slander, mockery, and profanity turn into demons, hobgoblins, imps. They stand as accusers before God, and when the transgressor dies they run after his hearse and accompany him to the grave.

As if Rivkele guessed my thoughts, she said, "You made me see America like a picture. I dreamed of it at night. You made me hate my home-Yantche, too. You promised to write me, but I didn't get a single letter from you. When Morris arrived from America, I clutched at him as if I were drowning."

"Rivkele, I have to report for conscription. I'm liable to be sent to the barracks tomorrow."

"Let's go away somewhere together."

"Where? America has closed its gates. All the roads are sealed."

III.

Nine years went by. It was my third year in New York. From time to time, I published a sketch in a Yiddish newspaper. I lived in a furnished room not far from Union Square. My room was dark. I had to climb four stories to get to it, and it stank of disinfectant. The linoleum on the floor was torn, and cockroaches crawled from beneath it. When I turned on the naked bulb that hung from the ceiling, I saw a crooked bridge table, an overstuffed chair with torn upholstery, and a sink with a faucet that dripped rusty water. The window faced a wall. When I felt like writing-which was seldom-I went to the Public Library at Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue. Here in my room, I only lay on the sagging bed and fantasized about fame, riches, and women who threw themselves at me. I had had an affair, but it ended, and I had been alone for months. I kept my ears cocked to hear if I was being summoned to the pay phone below. The walls of the house were so thin that I could hear every rustle-not only on my floor but on the lower floors as well. A group of boys and girls who called themselves a "stock company" had moved in. They were getting ready to put on a play somewhere. In the meantime, they ran up and down the stairs, shrieking and laughing. The woman who changed my bedding told me that they practiced free love and smoked marijuana. Across from me lived a girl who had come to New York from the Middle West to become an actress, and for whole days and half the nights she sang wailing melodies that someone told me were called the "blues." One evening, I heard her sing over and over again in a mournful chant: He won't come back, Won't come back, Won't come back, Never, never, never, never.

Won't come back!

I heard footsteps and my name being called. I sat up so hastily that I nearly broke the bed. The door opened and by the dim light of the hall I saw the figure of a woman. I didn't put on my light because I was ashamed of the condition of my room. The paint on the walls was peeling. Old newspapers lay scattered around, together with books I had picked up along Fourth Avenue for a nickel each, and dirty laundry.

"May I ask who you are looking for?" I said.

"It's you. I recognize your voice. I'm Rivkele-Lazar the shoemaker's daughter from Old-Stikov."

"Rivkele!"

"Why don't you put on the light?"

"The light is broken," I said, baffled by my own lie. The blues singer across the way became quiet. This was the first time that I had ever had a visitor here. For some reason her door stood always ajar, as if deep inside her she still hoped that he who wouldn't come back would one day come back after all.

Rivkele mumbled, "Do you at least have a match? I don't want to fall."

It struck me that she spoke Yiddish in an accent that wasn't exactly American but no longer sounded the way they had spoken back home. I got off the bed carefully, led her over to the easy chair, and helped her sit down. At the same time I snatched one of my socks from the back of the chair and flung it aside. It fell into the sink. I said, "So you're in America!"

"Didn't you know? Didn't they write you that-"

"I asked about you time and again in my letters home, but they never answered."

She was silent for a time. "I didn't know that you were here. I only found out about it a week ago. No, it's two weeks. What a time I had finding you! You write under another name. Why, of all things?"

"Didn't they tell you from home that I'm here?" I asked in return.

Rivkele didn't reply, as if she were thinking the question over. Then she said, "I see you know nothing. I'm no longer Jewish. Because of this, my parents have disowned me as a daughter. Father sat shivah for me."

"Converted?"

"Yes, converted." Rivkele made a sound that was something like laughter.

I pulled the string and lit the naked bulb that was half covered with paint. I didn't know myself why I did this. My curiosity to see Rivkele in the role of a Gentile must have outweighed any shame I felt about my poverty. Or maybe in that fraction of a second I decided her disgrace was worse than mine. Rivkele blinked her eyes, and I saw a face that wasn't hers and that I would never have recognized on the street. It seemed to me broad, pasty, and middle-aged. But this unfamiliarity lasted only an instant. Soon I realized that she hadn't really changed since the last time I had seen her in Warsaw. Why, then, had she seemed so different at first glance? I wondered.

Apparently Rivkele went through the same sensations, because after a while she said, "Yes, it's you."

We sat there, observing each other. She wore a green coat and a hat to match. Her eyelids were painted blue and her cheeks were heavily rouged. She had gained weight. She said, "I have a neighbor who reads the Yiddish paper. I had told her a lot about you, but since you sign your stories by another name, how could she know? One day she came in and showed me an account of Old-Stikov. I knew at once that it was you. I called the editorial office, but they didn't know your address. How could that be?"

"Oh, I'm here on a tourist visa and it's expired."

"Aren't you allowed to live in America?"

"I must first go to Canada or to Cuba. Only from the American consul in a foreign country can I get a permanent visa to return."

"Then why don't you go?"

"I can't go on a Polish passport. It's all tied up with lawyers and expenses."

"God in heaven!"

"What happened to you?" I asked. "Did you have a child?"

Rivkele placed a finger with a red, pointed nail to her lips. "Hush! I had nothing. You know nothing!"

"Where is it?"

"In Warsaw. In a foundling home."

"A boy?"

"A girl."

"Who brought you to America?"

"Not Morris-somebody else. It didn't work out. We split up and I went to Chicago, and there I met Mario ..." Rivkele began to speak in a mixture of Yiddish and English. She had married Mario in Chicago and adopted the Catholic faith. Mario's father owned a bar that was patronized by the Mafia. Once, in a quarrel, Mario stabbed a man and he was serving his second year in prison. Rivkele-her name was now Anna Marie-was working as a waitress in an Italian restaurant in New York. Mario had at least a year and a half left to serve. She had a small apartment on Ninth Avenue. Her husband's friends came by, wanting to sleep with her. One had threatened her with a gun. The owner of the restaurant was a man past his sixties. He was good to her, took her to the theater, the movies, and to nightclubs, but he had an evil wife and three daughters, each one more malicious than the next. They were Rivkele's mortal enemies.

"Are you living with him?"

"He is like a father to me." Rivkele changed her tone. "But I never forgot you! Hardly a day goes by that I don't think of you. Why this is I don't understand. When I heard that you were in America and read that article about Old-Stikov, I became terribly excited. I called the paper maybe twenty times. Someone told me that you sneak into the pressroom at night and leave your articles there. So I went there late one night after work, hoping to find you. The elevator man told me that you had a box on the ninth floor where I could leave a letter for you. I went up and all the lights were on, but no one was there. Near the wall a machine was writing by itself. It frightened me. It reminded me of what they recite on Rosh Hashanah-"

"The Heavenly Book that reads itself and everyone inscribes his own sins in it."

"Yes, right. I couldn't locate your box. Why are you hiding from the newspapermen? They wouldn't denounce you."

"Oh, the editor adds all kinds of drivel to my pieces. He spoils my style. For the few dollars he pays me, he makes me look like a hack."

"That article about Old-Stikov was good. I read it and cried all night."

"Do you miss home?"

"Everything together. I've fallen into a trap. Why do you live in such a dump?"

"I can't even afford this."

"I have some money. Since Mario is in jail, it would be easy for me to get a divorce. We could go to Canada, to Cuba-wherever you ought to go. I'm a citizen. We'll marry and settle down. I'll bring my daughter over. I didn't want any children with him, but with you ..."

"Idle words."

"Why do you say that? We are both in trouble. I got myself into a mess and was feeling hopeless. But when I read what you wrote everything came back to me. I want to be a Jewish daughter again."

"Not through me."

"You are responsible for what has happened to me!"

We grew silent, and the girl across the way who had stopped singing and seemed to be listening to her own perplexity, like the cricket in Old-Stikov, resumed her mournful song: He won't come back, Won't come back, Won't come back, Never, never, never, never.

Won't come back ...

Translated by Joseph Singer.

Passions.

"WHEN a man persists he can do things which one might think can never be done," Zalman the glazier said. "In our village, Radoszyce, there was a simple man, a village peddler, Leib Belkes. He used to go from village to village, selling the peasant women kerchiefs, glass beads, perfume, all kinds of gilded jewelry. And he would buy from them a measure of buckwheat, a wreath of garlic, a pot of honey, a sack of flax. He never went farther than the hamlet of Byszcz, five miles from Radoszyce. He got the merchandise from a Lublin salesman, and the same man bought his wares from him. This Leib Belkes was a common man but pious. On the Sabbath he read his wife's Yiddish Bible. He loved most to read about the land of Israel. Sometimes he would stop the cheder boys and ask, 'Which is deeper-the Jordan or the Red Sea?' 'Do apples grow in the Holy Land?' 'What language is spoken by the natives there?' The boys used to laugh at him. He looked like someone from the Holy Land himself-black eyes, a pitch-black beard, and his face was also swarthy.

"Once a year a messenger used to come to Radoszyce, a Sephardic Jew. He was sent to collect the alms that were given in the name of Rabbi Meir the Miracle Worker, that he should intercede for them in the next world. The messenger wore a robe with black and red stripes and sandals that looked as though they were of ancient times. His hat was also outlandish. He smoked a water pipe. He spoke Hebrew and also Aramaic. His Yiddish he had learned in later years. Leib Belkes was so fascinated by him that he went with him from house to house to open the alms boxes. He also took him to his home, where he ate and slept. While the messenger stayed in Radoszyce, Leib Belkes did no work. He kept on asking questions like 'What does the Cave of Machpelah look like?' 'Does one know where Abraham is buried and where Sarah?' 'Is it true that Mother Rachel rises from her grave at midnight and weeps for her exiled children?' I was still a boy then, but I too followed the messenger wherever he went. When could one see such a man in our region?

"Once, after the messenger left, Leib Belkes entered a store and asked for fifty packs of matches. The merchant asked him, 'What do you need so many matches for? You want to burn the village?' And Leib said, 'I want to build the Holy Temple.' The storekeeper thought that he had lost his mind. Just the same, he sold him all the matches he had.

"Later, Leib went into a paint store and asked for silver and gold paint. The storekeeper asked him, 'What do you need these paints for? Do you intend to make counterfeit money?' And Leib answered, 'I am going to build the Holy Temple.' The messenger had sold Leib a map, a large sheet of paper showing the Temple with the altar and all the other objects of ritual. At night when Leib had time he sat down and began to build the Temple according to this plan. There were no children in the house. Leib Belkes and his wife had two daughters but they had gone into domestic service in Lublin. His wife asked him, 'Why do you play with matches? Are you a cheder boy again?' And he replied, 'I am building the Temple of Jerusalem.'

"He managed to build everything according to this plan: the Holy of Holies, the Inner Court, the Outer Court, the Table, the Menorah, the Ark. When the people of Radoszyce learned what he was doing, they came to look and admire. The teachers brought their pupils. The whole edifice stood on a table, and it couldn't be moved, because it would have collapsed. When the rabbi had word of it, he too came to Leib Belkes, and he brought some yeshiva boys with him. They sat around the table and they were dumfounded. Leib Belkes had constructed out of matches the Holy Temple exactly as it was described in the Talmud!

"Well, but people are envious and begrudge others their accomplishments. His wife began to complain that she needed the table for her dishes. There were firemen in Radoszyce, and they were afraid that so many matches would cause a fire and the whole town might go up in flames. There were so many threats and complaints that one day when Leib returned from his travels his temple was gone. His wife swore that the firemen came and demolished it. The firemen accused the wife.

"After his temple had been destroyed, Leib Belkes became melancholic. He still tried to do business, but he earned less and less. He often sat at home and read Yiddish storybooks that dealt with the land of Israel. At the study house he bothered the scholars and yeshiva boys by asking them questions about the coming of the Messiah. 'Will one huge cloud take all the Jews to the Holy Land, or will a cloud descend for each town separately?' 'Will the Resurrection of the Dead take place immediately, or will there be a waiting period of forty years?' 'Will there still be a need to plow the fields and to gather the fruit from the orchards, or will manna fall from the sky?' People had something to scoff at.

"Once, late in the evening, when his wife told him to close the shutters, he went outside and did not return. There was an uproar in Radoszyce. Some people believed that the demons had spirited him away. Others thought that his wife nagged him so much that he ran away to his relatives on the other side of the Vistula. But what man would run away at night without his overcoat and without a bundle? If this had happened to a rich man, they would have sent out searchers to find him. But when a poor man disappears, there is one pauper less in town. His wife-Sprintza was her name-was deserted. She earned a little from kneading dough in wealthy houses on Thursday. She also got some support from her daughters when they married.

"Five years passed. Once on a Friday, when Sprintza was standing over the oven and cooking her Sabbath meal, the door opened, and in came a man with a gray beard, dusty and barefooted. Sprintza thought it was a beggar. Suddenly he said, 'I was in the Holy Land. Give me some prune dessert.'

"The town went wild. They all came running, and Leib was taken to the rabbi. The rabbi questioned him, and he learned that Leib had gone on foot to the Holy Land."

"On foot?" Levi Yitzchok asked.

"Yes, on foot," Zalman said.

"But everyone knows that to get to the Holy Land one must travel by ship."

Meyer Eunuch clutched his chin where a beard should have grown and said, "Perhaps he lied?"

"He brought letters from many rabbis, as well as a sack of holy earth that he dug himself at the Mount of Olives," Zalman said. "When someone died he placed a handful of it under the corpse's head. I saw it myself; it was as white as crumbled chalk."

"How long did the trip take him?" Levi Yitzchok asked.

"Two years. On the way back he went by boat. The rabbi asked him, 'How can a man do a thing like that?' And he answered, 'I yearned so much that I could not bear it any more. That night when I went out to close the shutters and I saw the moon running among the clouds I began to run after it. I kept running until I reached Warsaw. There, kind people showed me the road. I wandered over fields and forests, mountains and wasteland, until I arrived at the land of Israel.' "

"I am astonished that the beasts did not devour him," Levi Yitzchok half asked, half stated.

"It is written that the Lord preserves the simple," Meyer Eunuch said.

For a while all three were silent. Levi Yitzchok took his blue glasses off his nose and began to wipe the lenses with his sash. He suffered from trachoma. One of his eyes was milky white, and he could not see with it at all. Levi Yitzchok owned a cane that once belonged to the preacher of Kozienice. Levi Yitzchok never parted with it even on the Sabbath. He limped, and a crutch is not forbidden. For a long while he rested his chin on this cane. Then he straightened himself and said, "Stubbornness is a power. In Krasnystaw there was a tailor by the name of Jonathan. He sewed for women, not men. As a rule, a women's tailor is a frivolous person. When one sews a garment for a female, one has to take her measurements, and sometimes she may be in her unclean days. Even if she is in her clean days, it is not proper to touch a woman, especially if she is married. Well-but there must be tailors. You cannot make all garments by yourself. This Jonathan happened to be a pious man but uneducated. However, he loved Jewishness. On the Sabbath he read the Yiddish Bible with his wife, Beila Yenta. When a book salesman came to town, Jonathan bought from him all the tomes and storybooks in Yiddish. There was in Krasnystaw a congregation of psalm reciters and a society of Mishnah students. Jonathan belonged to both of these groups. He listened to the lectures, but he was afraid to say anything, because whenever he uttered a word in Hebrew he mangled it and the scholars made fun of him. I see him before my eyes: tall, lean, pockmarked. Gentleness looked out from his eyes. It was said that one couldn't find a better tailor even in Lublin. When he made a dress or a cape, it fitted like a glove. He had three unmarried daughters. When I was a boy I used to see him often, because a friend of mine, Getzel, an orphan, was his apprentice. Other masters mistreated their apprentices, beat them, and did not give them enough to eat. Instead of teaching them the trade, they sent them on errands, and ordered them to rock the babies or to carry the slops so that they should never learn the skill properly and have to be paid a salary. But Jonathan taught the orphan the trade, and, from the day he learned to make a buttonhole and to sew on a button, Jonathan paid him four rubles a year. Getzel had studied at a yeshiva before he became a tailor's helper, and Jonathan used to ask him all kinds of impossible questions-like 'What was the name of the mother of Og the King of Bashan?' 'Did Noah take flies into the Ark?' 'How many miles between paradise and Gehenna?' He wanted to know everything.

"Now, listen to this. Everyone knows that on the day of the Rejoicing over the Law the honored citizens, the learned, the affluent are called to carry the scrolls first-before the laborers, the simple people, those of little income. This is the way it is all over the world. But in our town the head of the synagogue was not a native. He knew very few people, and someone had to give him a paper listing the order of those to be called. There was another Jonathan in town, a scholar and a rich man, and the head of the synagogue confused the two men and he called Jonathan the tailor first. In the study house there was murmuring and giggling. When Jonathan the tailor heard that he had been called first, along with the rabbi and the elders, he couldn't believe his own ears. He realized that it was a mistake, but when a man is summoned to carry the scroll he dare not refuse. Among the workers and the apprentices praying at the west wall there was laughter. They began to push Jonathan and to pinch him good-naturedly. It was in the time before the government took over the sale of vodka, and vodka was cheaper than borscht. In every half-decent home, one could find a keg of vodka, with straws for drinking, and over it hung a side of dried mutton to munch afterward. On the day of the Rejoicing over the Law, people allowed themselves to take a sip before prayers, and almost everyone was tipsy. Jonathan the tailor came over to the reading table and was given the scroll. Everybody stared, but only one person said anything-Reb Zekele, a usurer. He exclaimed, 'Who calls up an ignoramus to carry the scroll first?' And he returned his own scroll to the beadle. It was beneath his dignity to carry the scroll with Jonathan the tailor.

"In the study house a commotion arose. To give back a scroll was sacrilege. The head of the synagogue was bewildered. To shame a person in the presence of a whole community is a terrible sin. No one sang and danced with the scrolls this time. The same simple people who had laughed at Jonathan and the honor given to him now cursed Reb Zekele and gnashed their teeth. When the ceremony was over, Jonathan the tailor approached Reb Zekele and said in a loud voice that all could hear, 'It is true that I am ignorant, but I swear to you that in a year from now I will be a greater scholar than you are.'

"The usurer smiled and said, 'If this happens, I will build you a house in the marketplace for nothing.' Reb Zekele the usurer dealt in lumber. He owned mortgages on half the houses in town.

"Jonathan stood for a while in perplexity. Then he said, 'If I am not a greater scholar than you are, I will sew for your wife-and for nothing-a fox-fur coat reaching to the ankles, lined in velvet and with ten tails.'

"What went on in the town that day is indescribable. In the women's section of the synagogue they heard about the bet and there was bedlam. Some women laughed, others cried. Still others quarreled and tried to snatch the bonnets off each other's head. There were many poor people in town and a few rich ones, but in those times no one skimped on a holiday. Every third citizen invited guests to his house for a drink. There was dancing in the marketplace. The women had cooked huge pots of cabbage with raisins and cream of tartar. They had baked strudels, tarts, all kinds of fruitcakes. The Burial Society gave a banquet and mead was poured like water. One of the elders who had special merit in the eyes of the community was honored by having a pumpkin with lighted candles placed on his head, and being carried on the shoulders of the people to the synagogue yard. Bevies of children, the holy sheep, ran after him baaing. There was in town a he-goat that was not allowed to be slaughtered because he was first-born, and urchins put a fur hat on his horns and led him into the ritual bath. On that particular day there was only one topic of conversation-Jonathan the tailor's oath and the usurer's promise. Reb Zekele the usurer could easily afford to build a house for nothing, but how could Jonathan become a scholar in one year? The rabbi immediately announced that such an oath was not valid. In times of old, the rabbi said, Jonathan would have been hit thirty-nine times with a belt for breaking the commandment 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.' But what could be done today? The town became divided into two parties. The scholars maintained that Jonathan should be fined and that he must come in his stocking feet to the synagogue to repent in public for giving a false oath. And if he refused, he should be excommunicated and his shop should not be patronized. The rabble threatened to burn the usurer's house and drive him out of town with sticks. Thank God, there are no Jewish robbers. In the evening of the holiday everybody became sober. It began to rain, and everyone returned to his bundle of troubles."

"Did they forget the whole thing?" Zalman the glazier asked.

"Nothing was forgotten. Just wait," Levi Yitzchok said.

Levi Yitzchok took out his wooden snuffbox, opened it, sniffed, and sneezed three times. His snuff was famous. He put into it smelling salts used at the Day of Atonement to revive the fasters. He wiped his red nose with his large kerchief and said, "If Getzel the apprentice had not been my friend I would not have known all the details. But Getzel boarded at Jonathan's, and he told me everything. When Jonathan came home that evening, the moment he opened the door he exclaimed, 'Beila Yenta, your husband has died! From today on you are a widow! My daughters, you are all orphans!' They began to cry, as on the ninth day of Ab, 'Husband-Father-how can you leave us?' And Jonathan answered, 'From today until the day of the Rejoicing over the Law next year, you have no provider.'

"He had hidden behind his Passover dishes a nest egg of one hundred guldens saved as a dowry for his oldest daughter, Taube. He took the money and left the house. There was in town a man called Reb Tevele Scratch-me. Scratch-me was of course a nickname. In his young years he had been a Talmud teacher. Like all teachers, he had in front of him on the table a hare's leg attached to a leather thong. Yet he did not use it to whip the children but to scratch himself. He suffered from eczema on his back. When it began to itch he handed the hare's leg to one of his pupils and ordered, "Scratch me." That is how he got his name. In his old age he gave up teaching and lived with his daughter. His son-in-law was a pauper, and Tevele Scratch-me lived in dire poverty. Jonathan the tailor went to Reb Tevele and asked him, 'Do you want to earn some money?' 'Who doesn't want money?' Tevele asked back. And Jonathan said, 'I will pay you a gulden a week if you will teach me the whole Torah!' Tevele burst out laughing. 'The whole Torah-even Moses did not know that! The Torah is like tailoring, without an end!' They spoke a long time, and finally it was decided that Tevele would teach Jonathan for a whole year and make him a greater scholar than Zekele. Jonathan calculated that if one studied seven pages of the Talmud each day of the year, all the thirty-seven tractates would be learned. It was said that Zekele had not gone through even half of this. Well-but the Talmud isn't enough. One had also to study Midrash, the commentaries. Why draw it out? Jonathan the tailor became a yeshiva boy. He sat at a table in the study house day and night and studied with Tevele. In the middle of the week, when the women's section was empty, they carried their volumes up there in order not to be disturbed. If I tell you that they studied eighteen hours a day, this is no exaggeration. All week long Jonathan slept on a bench in the study house. He went home to sleep only on the Sabbath and holidays."

"What happened to his family?" Zalman asked.

"What happens to all families when the provider goes? They did not die of hunger. The girls all went into service. Beila Yenta was a seamstress and she accepted light work. My friend Getzel slowly became the master. Jonathan did one thing-he studied. Such diligence the world has never beheld! Two or three nights a week he didn't sleep at all. The story soon spread to neighboring villages, and people came to stare at Jonathan as though he were a miracle worker. At the beginning, Reb Zekele laughed at the whole business. He said, 'If this simpleton can become a scholar, hair will grow on the palms of my hands.' Later on, toward the end of the year, people began to speak of the wonders of Jonathan's acquired knowledge. He recited by heart whole sections from the Gemara. He could anticipate the questions of such commentators as Rabbi Meir of Lublin and Rabbi Shlomo Luria.

"Now Zekele the usurer grew frightened. He too began to burn the midnight oil to overtake Jonathan. But it was already too late. Besides, he was up to his neck in business, and he was in the middle of a lawsuit to boot. His wife, Slikka, a greedy creature with a big mouth, was terribly eager for Jonathan to make her a fox coat with ten tails without cost, and for the first time in her life she drove her husband to study. But it did not work. I will make it short. On the eighth day of Sukkoth, the seven elders of the town and a number of other scholars gathered at the house of the rabbi, and they examined Zekele and Jonathan as if they were yeshiva boys. Zekele had forgotten a lot. For years he had studied only on the Sabbath-and there is a proverb that says, 'He who studies only on the Sabbath is only a seventh part of a scholar.' As for Jonathan, he remembered almost all of the Talmud by heart. His teacher, Tevele, had remarked that in teaching Jonathan he himself became erudite. Not only did Jonathan show knowledge but he showed astuteness as well. The rabbi's house was jammed with people. Others had to stand outside to hear Jonathan discuss the Law with the rabbi. At the beginning, Zekele tried to discover flaws in Jonathan's answers, but soon the tables were turned and Jonathan corrected Zekele. I wasn't there, but those who saw Zekele wrangle with Jonathan the tailor about some difficult passage of Maimonides or about the meaning of an obscure sentence of Rabbi Meir Schiff swore that it was like the fight between David and Goliath. Zekele screamed and gasped and scolded his opponent, but to no avail. No, Jonathan the tailor did not swear falsely. The rabbi and the seven elders unanimously gave the verdict that Jonathan was more of a scholar than Zekele. Jonathan's wife and daughters were sitting in the kitchen, and when they heard the verdict they fell upon each other wailing. The town seethed like a kettle. Synagogue Street was full of tailors, shoemakers, combers of pig bristles, coachmen, and such. It was their victory.

"The next day, Jonathan was called to take the scroll first-not by error this time. The most honored people invited him for a drink. There was talk that now Jonathan could become a rabbi or an assistant rabbi, or at least a ritual slaughterer. But Jonathan let it be known that he was returning to his scissors and iron. Zekele tried to avoid payment by contending that he did not swear but only promised, and a promise does not have to be kept. But the rabbi ordered him to build a house for Jonathan, quoting from Deuteronomy: 'That which is gone out of thy lips thou shalt keep.' Zekele procrastinated as long as he could, but after the Feast of Shevuoth the house already had a roof. Only then did Jonathan make it known that he didn't want the house for himself but as an inn for yeshiva boys and poor travelers. He signed a document giving the house away to the community."

"He remained a tailor, eh?" Zalman the glazier asked.

"To the end."