Stories and Pictures Part 69

But it had one result! He never persecuted again.

XXVI

THE IMAGE

Great people have been known to do great wonders; witness the time when they attacked the Ghetto in Prague, and were about to a.s.sault the women, roast the children, and beat the remainder to death. When all means of defense were exhausted, the Maharal[145] laid down the Gemoreh, stepped out into the street, went up to the first mud-heap outside the door of a school-master, and made a clay image.

He blew into its nostril, and it began to move; then he whispered a name into its ear, and away went the image out of the Ghetto, and the Maharal sat down again to his book. The image fell upon our enemies who were besieging the Ghetto, and threshed them as it were with flails--they fell before him as thick as flies.

Prague was filled with corpses--they say the destruction lasted all Wednesday and Thursday; Friday, at noon, the image was still at it.

"Rabbi," exclaimed Kohol, "the image is making a clean sweep of the city! There will be no one left to light the fires on Sabbath or to take down the lamps!"[146]

A second time the Maharal shut his book; he took his stand at the desk and began to chant the psalm, "A Song of the Sabbath Day."

Whereupon the image ceased from work, came back to the Ghetto, entered the synagogue, and approached the Maharal.

The Maharal whispered into its ear as before, its eyes closed, the breath left it, and it became once more a clay image.

And to this day the image lies aloft in the Prague synagogue, covered up with cobwebs that stretch across from wall to wall, and spread over the whole arcade, so that the image shall not be seen, above all, not by the pregnant women of the "women's court." And the cobwebs may not be touched: whoever touches them, dies!

No man, not the oldest there, recollects having seen the image; but the Chacham Zebi, the Maharal's grandson, sometimes wonders, whether, for instance, such an image might not be included in one of the ten males required to form a congregation?

The image, you see, is not forgotten--the image is there still.

But the name with which to give it life in the day of need has fallen as it were into a deep water!

And the cobwebs increase and increase, and one may not touch them.

What is to be done?

GLOSSARY

(ALL WORDS GIVEN BELOW, UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED, ARE HEBREW.)

CHANUKAH Feast of Dedication, or Feast of Lights, commemorating the victory of Judas Maccabeus.

CHa.s.sIDiM _See_ Chossid.

CHEDER Private religious school.

CHOSSID (pl. Cha.s.sidim). Briefly, a mystic. _See_ the article Ha.s.sidim, in the Jewish Encyclopedia, V.

DAYAN a.s.sistant to the rabbi of a town.

DREIER (Ger.). A small coin.

ESROG (pl. Esrogim). The "fruit of the tree Hadar," used with the Lulav on the Feast of Tabernacles. _See_ Lev. xxiii. 40.

FELDSCHER (Ger.). a.s.sistant army surgeon; the successor to the celebrated Rofeh of twenty or thirty years ago.

GEHENNA The nether world; h.e.l.l.

GEMOREH The Rabbinical discussion and elaboration of the Mishnah. _See_ Talmud.

GEVIR (pl. Gevirim). Influential rich man.

GROSCHEN (Ger.). A small coin.

GULDEN (Ger.). A florin.

GuTER YuD (Ger., "Good Jew"). Cha.s.sidic wonder-worker. _See_ Rebbe.

HAVDOLEH Division; the ceremony ushering out the Sabbath or a holiday.

HEKDESH Free hospital.

KABBALAH A mystical religious philosophy, much studied by the Cha.s.sidim.

KADDISH Sanctification; a doxology. Specifically, the doxology recited by a child in memory of its parents during the first eleven months after their death, and thereafter on every anniversary of the day of their death.

KEDUSHAH Sanctification; an important part of the public service in the synagogue.

KISSUSH Sanctification; the ceremony ushering in the Sabbath or a holiday.

KLaUS (Ger.). House of study; lit., hermitage.

KOHOL The community; transferred to the heads of the community.

KOPEK (Russian). Small Russian coin, the hundredth part of a ruble.

KOSHER Ritually permitted.

LaMED-WFNIK. One of the thirty-six hidden saints, whose merits are said to sustain the world. Lamed is thirty; wf is six; and nik is a Slavic termination expressing "of the kind."

LEHAVDiL Lit. "to distinguish." Elliptical for "to distinguish between the holy and the secular." It is equivalent to "excuse the comparison"; "with due distinction"; "pardon me for mentioning the two things in the same breath"; etc.

LULAV (pl. Lulavim). The festal wreath used with the Esrog on the Feast of Tabernacles. _See_ Lev. xxiii. 40.

MAARIV The evening service.