That night, the tombstone of Rebecca the daughter and wife of Secret Charity cracked, the Rebecca who was the mother of the grandmother of Rebecca Sorka who would come to the Land of Israel on the first day of the twentieth century and be called Rebecca Schneerson. Deaf Yossel, who went to the cemetery with his hands stained with the blood of the rooster he had slaughtered right after they found him safe and sound from the fire, saw the tombstone of Rebecca Secret Charity bending over and straightening up again.
When a crow swooped down on him, he tried to flee but couldn't budge from his place. Yossel, who contemplated Rebecca's birth, understood that the devil came back to lodge in the city and Rebecca Secret Charity accepted the birth of Rebecca Sorka with a blessing. That was the anniversary of a bold struggle remembered by only three men, the struggle between the rabbi of Lody and Rabbi Israel of Koznitz.
The fate of Napoleon Bonaparte at the siege of Moscow then hung in the balance. The rabbi of Lody, nine hundred kilometers from Moscow, feared the secularization of the Jews that would come with the destruction of Moscow, while the rabbi of Koznitz thought the fate of the Jews would be better if Napoleon won. After a bitter struggle between the opponents, the two decided that if neither side overcame, the war would intensify and a bitter fate was in store for the Jews. Hence, the question was not only to bring the war to a quick conclusion, but also which side should lose. On Sunday, the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Israel immersed in the ritual bath, prepared himself for prayer, and wanted to get to the blowing of the shofar before the rabbi from Lody started praying. When he put the shofar to his mouth his heart grew faint and he felt that the rabbi of Lody took the blasts from him without taking the shofar from him. And so he shouted: He came before me, snatched the blasts and won! The device of snatching the blasts, brought Napoleon his immediate downfall. The rabbi grew excited in private and at night they said they saw tears wandering around his room seeking to return to his face. Meanwhile, deaf Yossel returned to the city. He told how the tombstone of Rebecca daughter and wife of Secret Charity had gone for a walk; the refugees in the synagogue interrupted and called yearningly to their city and the smell of burning stood in the air and Rebecca Sorka sucked slowly and important things that should have been done were forgotten. Leah Sorka, Rebecca's mother, didn't forget and said, They should have taken the demon out of Rebecca and now it's too late.
Avrum ben ha-Rav Kriv begat the Vulgar of Vilna. The Vulgar begat the Prayer of Israel who begat Isaac Unworthy in His Faith May He Live Long, who saw the fire and his eyes grew dim. Unworthy in His Faith May He Live Long begat Secret Charity. Secret Charity met the messiah Frank riding on a horse with a naked woman rabbi. The messiah carried a torch and coined phrases good for all times. Secret Charity stood at a window on a winter night and saw the messiah get into his daughter's virginal bed. That was after he carried the Torah in a splendid ceremony whose cursed origin is remembered by the old people. In those turbulent years visions were seen as sunsets or rain are seen today. Secret Charity saw the Shekhinah in Exile and his heart broke at the injustice and he wanted to repair. He knew the world had to be purified to fit the letters of the Torah that were created before it was created. Because the messiah Frank converted, Secret Charity understood that messianism was a secret to be hidden and not to be revealed, and that there was an urgent need to be ravished, to confound the world to restore it to its origin. After the death of the convert messiah he stopped the moon for two whole days and the moon didn't set. Profoundly contemptuous of his ability to change the creation without knowing if that was the right way, he married a woman, went into the cellar, and lived buried there his whole life. He performed rituals, made calculations with the letters of the Torah, and discovered that in a certain order the words of the Torah sound like a melody that subdues all grief. From the rabbi of Lody, he learned to snatch shofar blasts and even groans of Jews who didn't know their groans were snatched by him. He decided to tell his fabrications only to himself; that way he could not believe them. Upstairs in his house, his wife sold bread, challahs, and bagels, and refused to admit the existence of her husband. She raised the sixteen children he'd beget in brief but very joyous sorties to her room, and there he also told her about his ravishment in the cellar, about the repairs he made in his solitude, and his children now and then were exiled to the cellar to take part in rituals where they saw their father connecting phrases. Then Secret Charity died full of yearnings for the messiah, and the most beautiful of his daughters was Rebecca Secret Charity whose grave shifted the day Rebecca Sorka was born a hundred years later. And Boaz Schneerson, the grandson and son of Rebecca, eighty years later, when he'll return safe from the war, will shout at his grandmother: Why didn't I die? I could have died, I had no reason to live when my friends died, why did you say Psalms for me all the days of the war and save me? and he hit her.