When he was about to leave he said, “It is not right to sing a man’s praises to his face, but we may sing part of them. Daniel, my son, was once a good Jew, as strict in his observance of minor duties as of major ones. Isn’t that so, son?” “Just like all the good Jews who obey the commandments without thinking what they are doing,” replied Daniel Bach. “Who asks you for thoughts!” said Reb Shlomo. “What does God demand of you, except to fear Him and love Him?” “In return for my love, He is my adversary,” said Daniel, to the tune of the scriptural chant. A sadness unlike any other appeared on his face.
“Do you remember the episode of the tefillin?” said Reb Shlomo. Daniel Bach’s eyes darkened and his forehead wrinkled as he recalled the story. “The episode of the tefillin is one out of many,” said he, looking at his father. “It happened only to test you,” said Reb Shlomo. “There’s never a trouble but they explain it as a test,” replied Daniel. Said Reb Shlomo, “And how else would you fulfill the commandment to love God ‘with all thy soul,’ as our sages explain: even if He takes your soul?” “A man can bind himself on the altar and give up his life for the glory of God,” cried Daniel. “With his dying breath he can pronounce the confessions of faith, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One,’ and prolong the final ‘One,’ like the great Rabbi Akiba in his torment, until his soul departs. But to be bound every day, every hour, every moment, on seven altars, to have one limb consumed today and another tomorrow — that is something not every man can stand. I’m only a human being, flesh and blood, and when my flesh rots and my blood stinks, my lips cannot utter the praises of the Almighty. And if I do utter His praises, is it to the glory of God if a lump of rotting flesh or a skinful of stinking blood cries out, ‘Thou are righteous, no matter what befalls me, and I have been wicked,’ and even then He does not lift His hand from me and continues to afflict me?” “What have you to do with the secrets of the Merciful One?” said Reb Shlomo. “Whatever the trouble that befalls a man, they sweeten it for him with a saying of the sages,” replied Daniel.
Reb Shlomo smoothed his beard with one hand and said, “On the contrary, my son, let us be grateful to our rabbis for elucidating matters and explaining events; for were it not for them we should have had to wear ourselves out, but now that they have given the explanation for every single thing we can spend our lives in study and good deeds, and no one need waste his time on questionings, but can serve his Creator and obey His commandments. And a man should make a particular effort to obey commandments in which he is weak, like you, my son, with the commandment to put on tefillin.” “Father,” said his son, “just as it is right to give an injunction that will be obeyed, so it is right not to give an injunction that will not be obeyed.” “In what connection?” “In connection with what you have said,” replied Daniel. “Meaning?” “Meaning the matter of putting on tefillin. I give you my solemn word that I shall not put on tefillin.” Said Reb Shlomo, “How can a man swear not to do a thing that he has been sworn to do ever since Mount Sinai?”
“What are you so excited about?” I asked Daniel Bach. “Ach, nonsense!” replied Reb Shlomo. “Something happened to him during the war.” Daniel Bach jumped up from his chair in a rage and shouted, “Nonsense you call it?” “What is the story?” I said to him. “Were you in the war?” he asked. “I was sick,” I replied, “and they did not find me fit to fight the Emperor’s wars.” “I went to war from the beginning, and continued fighting until the final defeat,” said Daniel Bach. “I was a great patriot, like all the other Jews in this country. As the days went on my patriotism grew less, but once you go in you don’t get out again. All the time I was in the army I did not eat a forbidden thing and observed all the commandments, and it goes without saying that I was careful to put on tefillin every day.” Reb Shlomo looked at his son with great love, nodding his beard above the stick on which he leaned as he sat, and his warm eyes shone in his face.
Daniel went on: “So careful was I to put on tefillin every day that if I did not manage to put them on I ate nothing the rest of the day. One night I was lying in the trenches, buried up to the neck and over in soft, rotting earth. The guns fired without stopping; piles of dirt erupted and slid into the trench, and the smell of burnt flesh rose all around me. I felt the fire had caught my flesh and I was being burned to death, and I was almost sure I would not come out alive: I would either be consumed by the fire or buried in the ashes. At that moment the sun appeared in the sky; the time had come for the morning prayer. I said to the Angel of Death: Wait for me until I fulfill the commandment of tefillin. I put out my hand to seek my tefillin. My hand touched a tefillin strap. I thought a bullet had struck the bag where the tefillin were kept and they had been scattered all around. But when I pulled the strap and touched the tefillin, I was struck by a stench. I saw that one strap was fastened to the arm of a dead man, for that trench was a mass grave, and that arm belonged to a Jewish soldier, who had been blown to pieces as he stood in prayer adorned with his tefillin.”
Reb Shlomo wiped his eyes with both hands, and the stick on which he was leaning fell. He choked down his sighs and looked at his son with great compassion. No doubt he had heard the story many times before, yet his eyes were moved and he wanted to weep. Daniel bent down and lifted the stick, and the old man leaned on it once more. Daniel tucked in his legs and rubbed his left knee with his right hand, and a kind of smile hung on his lips, like a child who has done wrong and then been caught in his naughtiness.
The people of the hotel had gone to sleep; Reb Shlomo, Daniel his son, and I sat silent. Daniel’s smile faded away; a look of melancholy appeared on his lips, spread, and was absorbed in his sunken cheeks.
I took Daniel Bach’s hand and said to him: “Let me tell you a story; I read it in the book The Rod of Judah. It tells of a group of exiles from Spain, who set out to sea. On the way something went wrong with the ship, and the captain cast them ashore at a desolate spot where no one lived. Most of them died of hunger, but the survivors summoned up strength and set out to look for a place of human habitation. One woman collapsed by the road and died. The woman’s husband took up their two children in his arms and went on. All three of them fainted away for hunger. When the man came to himself he found his two children dead. He stood up and said, ‘Lord of the Worlds, Thou dost much to make me abandon my faith; know that in spite of heaven I am a Jew and a Jew I shall be, and all that Thou hast brought upon me and may bring upon me will be of no avail.’ So he gathered dust and grasses, covered up the boys, and went to seek a place of habitation. The group of Jews had not waited for him, lest they too should die of hunger, for each was engrossed with his suffering and paid no heed to the sufferings of his fellows.”