LEONARD OPREA
A TALE of RABBI COPEL and ITZAK
or A TALE ABOUT OUR LORD
The night had enveloped the ghetto. The sickly twinkle of still burning candlesticks crept through the shutters of the small, crammed, skewed houses. It was before midnight and the bluish horn of the moon alone smiled coldly to spite the pitch silence.
Itzak stood for a while in the doorway looking at his wife and son sleeping peacefully, then blew out the night-lamp on the shelf, and stepped out into the darkness.
He trudged through the foul mud of the by-street grunting and mumbling occasional supplications to God.
Sometimes he stopped and looked around in fear. But there was nobody around. No ruffians, no thieves, no gypsies or other pagans, nor the Golem. He eventually reached the end of the street and thanked God warmly that Rabbi Copel only lived a few steps from his own house.
He cast a searching look around. Nobody. And a deep silence. He quickly stole into the narrow yard. A hen crowed faintly in its sleep.
Itzak knocked timidly, as if suddenly drained of all strength.
After a while he could hear:
‘Who’s there?’ It was the severe, concerned, yet hospitable voice of the rabbi.
‘It’s me, Itzak’, the man barely replied.
The door half-opened. Itzak crept in and froze next to the door-frame. Rabbi Copel lifted his candle to his amber eyes and peered at his guest.
Itzak’s forehead was covered with sweat beads and his lower lip was trembling. The rabbi gently took him by the arm and pulled him towards the chair by his table, which was full of books. Itzak sat slowly and let out a deep sigh.
Rabbi Copel clapped his hands. Then he sat in the other chair, at the opposite side of the table.
Without a word, inaudible, Salome appeared next to them and placed two steaming tea glasses on the table. Then she vanished like a puff of smoke.
The seven branches of the candlestick played its secret lights on the dusty volumes.
‘Come, tell’, the rabbi gently commanded.
‘Oy, oy’, Itzak wailed, ‘my David, oy-oy, my David became a Christian… Oy, oy, he listened to that cursed woman…’
The rabbi suppressed his sigh:
‘Yes, yes’, he simply said and stroked his thick beard.
‘What shall I do, oy, oy, what shall I do?!…’ Itzak whined desperately.
Rabbi Copel reached for the Torah, but changed his mind and stood up abruptly and threateningly. Itzak crouched in his chair. But the rabbi’s shoulders drooped under the burden of his impotence. He started pacing up and down the low room with small steps.
‘Leave, leave, leave’, he rapped morosely.
Drained, Itzak trudged towards the door.
As he touched the handle he heard the voice again:
‘Come before the Sabbath. I will tell you then’, the rabbi let him gulp for air one more time.
For two whole days Rabbi Copel thought and studied. He smoked his pipe under Salome’s chiding eyes. He studied and thought and even drank three glasses of black currant liqueur. All under Salome’s by now angry glare.
For two days Itzak prayed and prayed and forgot all about his pastry and braga business. Sometimes he left God aside and thoroughly cursed his wife and his David. But mostly he agonized over David loosing Rose’s dowry, the daughter of Judas the usurer. He even slapped, kicked, and clubbed with the wattle broomstick his prodigal son. But David still looked lovingly upon his father and gladly suffered the sparrow-like hits from his unhappy father. For, come what may, David knew only too well that Itzak would
have given his life for him.
For, ultimately our Lord above watches and judges us.
***
Friday around noon, dressed up and stiff as a broomstick, Itzak headed for Rabbi Copel’s house.
It was sunny, the mud had dried up on the side street. The grass had sprouted. The song of birds freshly returned from their winter migration interwove with the din of the ghetto preparing for the Sabbath.
Everyone greeted Itzak and no one gave any sign that they had learned about his mishap.
But Itzak was quite familiar with the inside of his kin and would look only ahead. He grunted an unintelligible answer to each greeting and the arms of his soul reached out like those of a drowning man to God.
They were facing each other, Itzak and Rabbi Copel, in the light showers of the small room. Occasionally it became brighter with the rays determined to pierce the loose texture of the black curtains and it looked like a Ghost had petrified the two old men by the seven-branch candlestick.
Rabbi Copel coughed solemnly:
‘Itzak, look at me.’
Itzak could not.
‘O come now, Itzak,’ something gurgled in his voice and made Itzak look straight into his eyes.
And Rabbi Copel smiled half-secretly, half-awkwardly.
‘Itzak, my man, God knows I have a son too.’
Itzak started, but went on looking his rabbi straight in the eye.
‘There, now you know too. But you’ll forget it. As you leave this room you’ll forget it for everyone else, but God. Or I’ll curse you.’
Itzak quickly nodded with a dutiful, stupid smile.
‘Itzak, my Jew, my son also became a Christian… O I won’t give you the details’, he quickly added, as if talking to himself, with a determined yet mitigating voice.
Itzak started rocking in his chair. A faint high wailing sound was coming from the mouth of a fish that suddenly found itself on the shore.
‘Shut up!’ the rabbi hissed swiftly. ‘Shut up and listen’, the rabbi gently entreated. ‘Shut up, listen, and be obedient.’
The wailing ended, the rocking stopped, Itzak took a deep breath then finished in one gulp the glass full of apricot brandy.
‘That’s it’, the rabbi encouraged him. ‘Now look here, I prayed to Him day and night.
I fasted for forty days. Nothing. He never appeared to me. I bit my lip and blessed the punishment He gave me. I looked for deliverance in the sacred rolls, I cured the sick, I helped the poor, I went on pilgrimage to the Great Temple, then I fasted again for forty days… And I wished I could die of shame, though no one knew my secret… Just Him…’ He fell silent. He sipped his black currant liqueur from the small silver glass.
Itzak was staring at the rabbi. He had shrunken and looked helpless as he sat in horror with his hands in his lap by the table full of dusty volumes.
The Rabbi drew near him, put his hands on his shoulders and shook him up strongly:
‘Come, Itzak, come, for the Lord watches from up there… He did appear to me the day after I blessed my son. I saw and heard Him. Though I can’t really tell how… And he said to me: “Now Copel are you gone nuts?! Did I ever give you any sign I’m mad at you? Did I turn My face from you? Do you know yourself to be at fault with Me? Really, Copel, enough of this non-sense, you do know My Son also became a Christian!”’
Itzak yelped and Rabbi Copel felt the old man was about to faint. So he slapped him thoroughly. Then he gave him a glass of water. Itzak drank it up thirstily.
‘Now run along, Itzak, and prepare the Sabbath in good peace. And tell David to go make a living in a different town. Go now. And be sure to call me to bless your grandchildren when the time comes.’
***
Stiff as a broomstick, Itzak closed behind him the gate to the rabbi’s house.
He looked at his kin as if he was seeing them for the first time. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve.
He thought of his pastry and braga business.
Then finally he shook his head and walked back home to a new Sabbath.
(from THE BOOK OF THEOPHIL MAGUS or 40 TALES ABOUT MAN, AuthorHouse Publishing House, 2003, USA / Copyright – Leonard Oprea)