Once I saw Reb Abraham. I happened to have risen early to go to school, and I saw an old man, handsome and of goodly appearance, dressed in satin, going up the steps of the synagogue, with the satchel for his tallit and tefillin under his arm. And it seemed to me as if he and that velvet satchel containing his tallit and tefillin had been born together. On one other occasion I saw him in his house. It happened that he and my father met at a festive meal. My father expressed a view on a point of Torah, and Reb Abraham took a different view. Father went into the Beit Midrash, searched, and found in the book The Hands of Moses proof of what he had said. So my father sent me to Reb Abraham, and I found him sitting in a large room, full of beautiful pictures and many mirrors hanging on every wall, except for one wall on which there was no mirror, but a space a cubit square, neither painted nor decorated. “Who are you, my son?” Reb Abraham asked. “I am the son of the man who differed from Reb Abraham,” I replied. If you will look at this book, The Hands of Moses, which I have here, sir, you will see whether what my father said was right.” He looked at it two or three moments and said, “Your father understood it rightly.” My spirits rose. Every mirror reflected my image, and I saw that there were many like me.
Reb Jacob Moses, Reb Abraham’s son, and my father, may they rest in peace, were very good friends; they used to tell each other every new meaning they found in the Torah, and on Sabbath they would send their sons to each other to be examined in their studies. Even in death my father was not parted from him, and appointed him the guardian of his orphans, until he too died during the war.
Now that I heard his widow had come to ask for me, I remembered the high repute of her fathers, and I was sorry that gentle soul had taken the trouble to come to see me. So I put on my coat and went to her house.
The house was in ruins and its head had been taken off. A man whose head has been cut off is not alive; the same is true of a house. And it was even hard to tell whether the storey that still remained — the base of the body, with the large store that had provided a livelihood for so many families — was still standing or in ruins. Nevertheless, Sarah lived there cramped together with her four sisters-in-law, the wives of her husband’s brothers, some of whom had been killed in the war and some of whom had died of hunger.
Sarah looked at me in surprise. I had often been in her husband’s house when I was a child, and now my years were as his were then. Many years had passed since then, and if they had passed without trials she would have faced the final day with smiles, but since they had not passed without trials, she looked at me affectionately and sighed from the heart. Sarah took a chair and put it in front of me. I sat down before her in silence, and she too sat in silence. I wanted to ask about her children, but I said to myself: I will not ask, in case — heaven forbid — they are dead. Since the war overwhelmed us you do not know whether your friend is alive, and if he is alive whether his life is worth living. The good years have passed when you used to ask about a man and they would tell you: He has had a wedding in his house, he has had a circumcision in his house, his grandson has celebrated bar mitzvah, his son-in-law is adding a third storey to his house. Thou art righteous, O Lord, and Thy judgments are upright. The sufferings Thou hast sent to Israel, Thou alone knowest whether they are for good or for ill.
Four women came in one after the other: her four sisters-in-law, who had been left widowed of their husbands. This war has widowed the women of Israel.
A verse came to my lips: “She has become as a widow.” When Jeremiah saw the destruction of the First Temple, he sat down and wrote the Book of Lamentations, and he was not content with all the lamentations he wrote until he had compared the congregation of Israel to a widow and said, “She has become as a widow”—not a true widow, but like a woman whose husband has gone overseas and intends to return to her. When we come to lament this latest destruction we do not say enough if we say, “She has become as a widow,” but a true widow, without the word of comparison.
So this lamenter sat before the five gentle widows from good families, whose husbands had gone away and not returned. He searched his heart for a word to say to console them. But since the word of comparison had been taken away he found no consolation.
Said Sarah, “Forgive me, sir, that I have made you take this trouble. Truly there was no need to trouble. I would have come again.” I bowed my head before her and said, “On the contrary, it is a great honor to me that I have been honored to come here. I remember this house when I used to gaze at it in humility and say, Happy the house in which learning and abundance are to be found in one place, and happy are they that dwell in it, who observe the Torah in the midst of wealth.”
Said one, “Of all that wealth nothing is left us but one single book.” Said a second, “And this book we wish to sell.” Said a third, “Perhaps you will help us in this, sir.” Said a fourth, “This book is a manuscript that has been left us by our grandfather, the illustrious author of The Hands of Moses.” Said I, “Is it possible that any work by that great scholar has been left unpublished?” “We are referring to the book The Hands of Moses”, said Sarah. “But The Hands of Moses has already been printed several times,” said I. Said one, “The book has been printed, but the manuscript is in our hands.” Said a second, “And it has a special virtue for women in the hour of childbirth; I too was helped by it when my son, peace be upon him, was being born.” When she mentioned her son, she burst into tears, for he was killed in the war and his limbs were scattered, so that he could not be given a Jewish burial. “Stop, Sarah’le, stop,” said the third. “You have wept enough. Do not arouse the divine judgment, heaven forbid.” And she too burst into tears.
“I will explain, sir,” said one. “It is like this. This manuscript has a special virtue, for if a woman has a hard childbirth, when it is put on her side she bears easily. And I can say that since this has been known there have been no mishaps here to women in childbirth. Be good enough, Sarah’le, bring the book.”
Sarah rose, went into another room, and returned bringing a large book, like the tractate Sabbath or some other large talmudic volume, and put it before me on the table. She stroked it with her hand and said, “This is the book.” An odor of phenol and medicaments rose from the book, filling the whole house.
I opened the book and looked into it a little here and there. The writing was beautiful and clear, and the letters elegant and legible, as our forefathers used to write a hundred years ago, when they loved writing. Each letter shone from the paper, and the paper shone like a mirror. But my joy was not complete; my eyes rejoiced at the sight, but my heart did not take part in this joy.
I turned over the pages and looked into it again, here and there a little. The words were truly divine; not for nothing has the book been accepted throughout the dispersions of Israel. Nevertheless, I did not feel more in it than a man who holds an ordinary manuscript. It came into my mind that this was not the manuscript of the author. But if it was not the manuscript of that righteous man, how was it the women had been helped by it?