Life is like a river; we are fish. The water's wholesome and fresh and we would swim forever, but for a black figure on the riverbank.
There Satan stands, in his hands a fishing rod, and catches fish.
With a worm that eats the dust, a little lust, a moment's pleasure, the line is baited.
Hardly a flick and the pike flies in the pan to be fried or roasted on the flames of hell.
May his name be obliterated! we know whose work it is— Satan's— and why it works so well. The cause is the little worm; it draws and draws—
And so the story I'm about to tell. Listen!
There was a prodigy, precisely when and where is hard to say, but in Poland, in olden days, and he was raised in a pious house.
Pious father, pious mother; the family , one after another, scholars all, known and praised everywhere, and those who know best say they'll all be surpassed by our hero—Monish.
He's only seven, eight.
Yet always at his studies day and night.
He laps up Torah like a sponge. His mind is lightening; it can plunge from the highest to the most profound, and can sound the Taz and the ocean of Shas', however stony the Rambam, he finds a cleft in the rock.
And he's beautiful. Black as night, his locks; his lips are roses; black arching eyebrows and sky-blue eyes, fire-bright.
A joy to see. Ah, the blushes and sighs when the maidens see Monish go by.
The young rebetsin at kheyder watches Monish, nothing else, and she melts; and the pots in the oven spill and burn as she sits, her hands in her lap, seeming to hear how the children learn.
And the neighbor, pretty Odl, lets her needle fall as she listens to Monish: her hand on her heart, her ear to the wall, tears rolling down her cheek.
But Monish is as good as gold; he knows nothing of this! What does Monish seek?
His love—Gemara, reason and hypothesis: shor shenoygakh es hapora "If an ox should gore a cow..." He's as good as gold—
And in those days Monish was renowned.
Scholars from abroad, rabbis near and far, came to hear him out, "A new star!" say the silver beards dancing for joy— "Happy the mother who bore him, happy the father and the place!" (I say only what I heard, word for word. But is that what they would say on Ararat?)
Those were the days of the worth men of old: brass-rimmed spectacles, tfiln housed in silver, talis crowned in gold, and their minds were as towers. Other times, other powers.
The house of study full, and the people overflowed to the entry and the step; the lamp burned steady past the middle of the night, and judgment and Torah abundant as the light.
Now the mountain peaks are plentiful, but the Bible's Ararat is not the average snowy peak; Ararat's unique, for there when the flood waters crested Noah's ark rested, and the One Above Us drew the line; and, as we've heard, granted life forever to the earth.
"Dear people," He said, "steal, betray, and slaughter. You will not be drowned in water, for I avert my eyes," and in the sky he hung a bow for a sign.
That was once, a pack of years ago, but the ark is still buried deep in snow, and there live Sammael and Lilith—man and wide— grateful for the chill, and to pass the time away, far away from Gehenna, and isn't it a pretty tête-à-tête?
One morning as Sammael lay in bed smoking cigarettes, and Lilith saw to her toilette by the light of the tsoyer the doorbell tinkled in the foyer: "Enter!" and there a trembly demon stood, teeth all a-clatter, who flung himslef flat on his face and then flatter.
"May lord and sire, You've hidden your face from your people. You've heard and seen nothing, and now it's too late! Your throne is going to topple!"
Satan leaped up. "Sir Baron, what transpires?"
"In the kingdom of Poland where the border is drawn stands a shtetl as big as a yawn.
The place doesn't matter, it's rarely mentioned, houses like nutshells, prayers are their mansions! The Jews drift around as if these were their last days, with nothing to eat, living on fast days.
No business to do, and so Torah can flourish, and all the genius its study can nourish.
A boy who lives there will shame and hush Lithuania, Poland, Bohemia, and Prussia. Let him mature undiminished, and we go under— you're finished! We'll be thrashed with iron rods and the flames of Gehenna extinguished, he'll pursue us with frightening hate to the end and bring the Messiah, Heaven forfend!"
The moment Satan heard these words, the party was over; his passion stirred, his eyes turned red, and devil's sweat rose like the mist of a steaming cauldron, and he rushed at Lilith wagging his fist.
"It's her fault, only hers!" "The nut is hard, good sirs," said Lilith, "but wait. A good set of teeth can crack it. Victory's sweet. Warm up the spit, the meat will come on its own!" and she flew with the wind and was gone.
Tantivy-tan-ton! What transpires? Did somebody see the Messiah?
When is the shoyfer blown? Elul, not Tamuz. Has he gone crazy, the shames?
The rise and fall, of the trumpet call, whipcrack! the wheels go round, and a coach rolls into town! Trumpet blare and whipsnap! mouths drop open, people stare:
"What's up?" What's up? A German's come from Danzig. And he's dealing in wheat, dealing in rye. Everything's suddenly fine. Now here's a client who knows how to pay! The small change glitters, the dollars shine. It's raining credit all around, the roads are full of the wagon sound of peasants coming to town, and ah! the wheeling and dealing of slaughterers, judges, perpetual scholars chasing the dollars, buying and sending things on. God blessed the shtetl with luck!
Golden times and daily display of stain and silk, whatever impresses, weddings every day in the week, and every tailor up to his ears in orders for wedding dresses. All the musicians are worn out and weary, the khupe is torn, the poles are as dull as the guests, who havn't the strength to laugh at the badkhn, and there's no wax left for havdoles. Their hunger forgotten once and for all— who eats bread or bothers to bake it? Plum pastry, honey cake, and liquor—a lake of it.
Now the German brought an only daughter with him—a jewel. Golden hair falling to her feet, and eyes as bright as stars, so sweet, to hear her voice, so sweet. Dressed all in velvet, and when she spoke, to tell of it, it was a fiddle playing. Her laugh was a cascade of joy. The porter under his load, the hermit fasting and praying, laughed when she laughed, and their own music flowed when the music of her song came thronging, and the fiddle spoke and sang, sweet and full of longing.
Long, long, long, on his way to his studies at the koyz day by day, MOnish passed her house, lingered at the gate, and his ears drank her song till like wine it made him drunk (an erring mortal, dust and ashes), and when he turns to Rashi, held by its power, he hums the tune she sang hour after hour. The kloys listens stunned to such musical sorrow, neither shepherd nor folk song, so strong it draws the marrow from your bones.
Perplexed, Monish sits alone, trembling as if he'd caught a fever, his forehead white as chalk, gazing past the holy text at something far away. "What's wrong with you, Monish?" says his friend. "Tell me." And so it goes day after day after day.
His mother sees him pining away: "What's wrong, my child? What wind put out the light in your eyes, my bright havdole candles? Why are all the tunes you sing lamenting?
"You used to sing other things. my heart would laugh When you sang with the cantor or at the Sabbath meal, free as a bird, clear as a bell. And now there's something else. What is it, child? Tell me! It frightens me!"
"Do I know, Mamma, what song is singing in me? It's not that I want to sing; it sings itself. The sounds rise like birds from the nest, and these are the songs they bring me."
Now from olden days there was a ruin in that place— (I won't attempt to say whether church or castle; let that much remain in doubt, I can tell you only what I've read about it.) There are goblins in the ruin, imps that crow and laugh for spite, bark,meow, and haunt at night, hurl stones through the air from their lair at the houses underneath; and on the roof in the dark a wild dog with tangled fur, always on the prawl, who never has been hear to bark, he only grinds his teeth. Flesh and blood tremble. Jews and Christians both stay well away from that street and its tumbledown houses overgrown with weeds.
One night in the shadow of the walls a solitary figure creeps toward the ruin; all along the street there's no one else: it's Monish clutching his lapels.
Two angels go with him, one on either side; the evil on the left, and the good, weeping tears, on the right.
His good angel whispers in his ear, "Have pity on yourself, fear the Lord your God. He created all the world, heaven, earth, and the seventy nations who live by the sword. But the essence of all people are the Jews, whom He treasured, and for them He weighed and measured six hundred and thirteen commandments. Three hundred and ten worlds are for those who guard His Torah. Tell me that it's worth it to lose them for a girl!"
His evil angel sneers in his other ear: "When it's over, repent. He'll forgive you. Why should you fear? Reuben sinned, David and Bathsheba sinned, yet without stint He gave them paradise, because He's good by nature. A wretched look, a tear, fasting on a winter day; only groan and state your never-evers, and He'll believe anything you say."
Monish listened to his angels but didn't ponder long. She appeared in a window, he was spellbound by her song.
He had hardly seen and heard her and he flew to her; and his fears he left behind him with the angel weeping tears.
Their love in the ruin, how it burns; the bats and spiders hear how they sing, laugh, kiss, and how they vow.
She tells him he must swear to her and tell her true: I'll never choose another, I never will forget you.
He swears by his teacher, by his father, by his mother, and by all of them together.
"What else?" she whispers. "What else?" And he swears by his earlocks, his fringes, his tfiln. And at every stage his vow is more fevered, more outrageous. "But what else, Monish? Tell me," and her smile compels.
"For a boy will mislead a girl and leave her in the dark—" And he swears by the curtain of the ark that holds the Torah.
And she cries out: "Higher, higher!" She so wants to be certain. And her eyes are on fire, magic as her lips are magic, pure flowing magic, and he barely stops to reason, he swears by the Messiah and his shoyfer. "Higher! Higher!" The last prod— he sinfully speaks the name of God and is struck by the thunder of His rod.
Laughter in Gehenna, a reek of sulfur in the room, and fast as a bowshot he flies through the air on a broom.
Ararat goes crazy— one hilarious, profuse shrieking party in the ark, all Gehenna breaking loose.
Ten Gypsy orchestras, Gehenna's top musicians, champagne by the bucket while the demons do the can-can with precision.
Lamps—a thousand barrels full of pitch— the wicked are the wicks— and a special sexton with his scissors at the ready goes a-trimming wicked wicks to keep them burning steady.
Fire in her eyes, the queen of all that place, Lilith goes before, Sammael behind, carrying her train of Spanish lace.
Monish stands at the side, nailed by his earlobe to the doorway of the ark; the fire's lit, the spit is ready, and the rest is dark.
צו װאָס איז אונדזער לעבן גלײַך? צו אַ טײַך! און די מענטשן — צו די פֿיש!