The third era, and it is the last of the eras and the end of all the eras, is the era in which we are now living. And we are tired of the eras that came before, when we wandered wearily on the mountains, “scattered on the mountains as sheep,” and we have suffered the fulfillment of the verses, “And I shall lay thy flesh upon the mountains…. I shall water the land with blood, the blood that flows from you, even as high as the mountains.” Similarly with the field: “And the hail smote every herb of the field and shattered every plant of the field.” And it is also said, “And what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat,” and it is said, “And all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field,” and “as dung upon the open field.” But what we have to seek is “according to the beauty of a man, to dwell in the house.” And when every house should close its doors, let us build a house of our own, so that we may dwell with Him “as a woman liveth with her husband in one house in joy.” And it is of this that David said, “He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord.”
It is stated in the books that the virtues of the three Patriarchs sustained Israel in the three exiles. The virtues of Abraham sustained us in the Egyptian exile, as it is said, “For He remembered His holy promise and Abraham His servant. And He brought forth His people with joy, and His chosen with gladness.” The virtues of Isaac sustained us in the Babylonian exile, and the virtues of Jacob in this last exile of ours. Therefore we should cling most closely to the conception of Jacob, the conception of “O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.” And it was of this that Jacob said, “So that I come again to my father’s house in peace,” and of this that the rest of the verse is written, “then shall the Lord be my God.”
From that Sabbath on, we used to come to the Beit Midrash after the meal, and I would discourse on the portion of the week, reading the Midrash and expounding it.
I made another great improvement in our old Beit Midrash. Since the beginning of the war the eternal light had been out, so I lit it in front of the tablet on the wall on which the names of the sacred communities killed in the pogroms of 1648 are engraved. Now, do the sacred martyrs need light from this world below? Surely the soul of every single righteous man who is killed by the Gentiles shines before the throne of glory, and even the seraphim cannot look upon them. But we do this in order that men should see and remember how far-reaching is the love of Israel for their Father in heaven: even when their lives are taken, they do not part from Him. And also because I have heard that it is stated in the Midrash that every single righteous man outside the Land who is killed by the Gentiles enters into the Land of Israel and does not wait until the end of days, when all those who die abroad will have to roll their way under the ground to the Land. But he who was killed for love of God enters the Land of Israel whole in body, while he who was killed through fear enters only with the limb or organ through which he died, and the rest of his limbs look out and gaze at the one that has been privileged to be interred in the Holy Land. When we light a candle for them, we help them to see the happiness of that limb and the happiness that is in store for them in the future.
On that day when I lit the eternal light for the first time, I looked at the Beit Midrash, and saw a stove burning, and an eternal light kindled, and the basin full of water, and the lamps full of kerosene, and the floor swept and clean; for once every two or three days Hanoch brings me wood for the stove and candles and a container of kerosene, and fills the basin, and on Sabbath eves he sweeps the floor and I give him wages for his trouble, sometimes generously and sometimes cordially. And here I will reveal something without shielding myself. Sometimes I take out two zlotys from my pocket, and when I see how humble he is I put one zloty back in my pocket and give him only one. If Hanoch had been clever, he would have said to me: Fix my wage, not sometimes a lot and sometimes a little. But because he is always selling haberdashery to the Gentiles, his mind is humble and he asks for nothing. And when my own heart says to me: Fix his wage and make him a beadle, so that he should not imperil his life on the roads, I put off my heart from today to tomorrow and from tomorrow to the day after.
Chapter five and twenty. In Daniel Bach’s House
At the end of the Sabbath, after the benediction, I went to Daniel Bach’s house to pay him for the wood. It was long since I had been so happy over the payment of a debt. First, because Daniel Bach would get money, of which he was in need; second, because the wood had given me pleasure and I wanted to thank him who had provided the wood. Although Daniel Bach and I live wall by wall, I had never been in his house before that night, except on one occasion.
This house consists of one room with a kitchen added. You enter through the woodshed and come into the kitchen, and from there to the living room. This is the home of Mr. Bach and his wife, and Erela their daughter, and Raphael their son, who lies in bed with a torn soldier’s cap on his head. At first glance he looked to me like a child; at a second glance like a young man; and at the third glance like neither a child nor a young man, but a heap of skin and flesh in which the Creator has fixed two aged eyes. Or perhaps the order was reversed: at first glance Raphael looked like a heap of skin and flesh — and so forth; but I do not remember clearly, because of the things that happened that night. Raphael has already reached the age of bar mitzvah, but his limbs are still not straight and his bones are weak, so most of the time he lies in bed. Everyone looks after him and he is loved by all. Even Erela, his sister, who boasts that she has no concern with anything that cannot be explained by reason, shows more love for her brother than her reason can explain. When I came in, Erela was sitting beside him while he fingered a picture book she had brought him. One of his hands pointed to the picture of a horseman in the book, and the other pointed to his heart, while he read, “I am Jacob and you are Esau.” He did not notice the arrival of a guest, but his father, mother, and sister were excited at my coming and rose to welcome me with joy and cordiality.
Mr. Bach you are acquainted with; we have often had occasion to speak of him. I do not know if I have described his appearance and the other things that distinguish him from his fellows, apart from his steady companion, that is, his wooden leg. But if I have not told you before I will tell you now.
Daniel Bach is a tall man; his face is not exactly long and not exactly round, and it is surrounded by a little beard which is not exactly pointed and not exactly blunt; he seems to take care that his beard should not grow beyond the measure he has fixed for it; and in spite of his wooden leg, he is always merry. Sometimes he jests at himself and sometimes at the troubles of the times, but he never jests at others. The history of that leg has only surprises. Considering Daniel Bach’s character, he was hardly the right kind of man to smuggle saccharin in his socks, as some women do. But Daniel Bach is not surprised at that. First, says Daniel Bach, no one knows what is seemly for one to do and what is not, except for the moralists, who know what is permissible and what is not. (And even then — I thought — it is doubtful whether, had they been in his place, they would not have done the same.) Second, says Daniel Bach, the war had taught men to do squalid deeds. And once a man had been given leave to do such things, he no longer distinguished between doing them for the Emperor and doing them for himself and his livelihood. It should be added that Daniel Bach is a lean man and his hair is chestnut in color, with some sprinkling of grey, which makes him handsome. Not like his wife, Sara Pearl, whose hair is black and gleaming; she is round and looks fat, although she is not really so. Erela, on the other hand, is neither dark nor chestnut but faded in color. As Erela is different from her father and her mother in the color of her hair, so is she different in other things.