I have already related how in those days the snow was falling nonstop. In our town, when the snow starts to fall it doesn’t stop falling until the beginning of Passover. And so the snow falls and falls, and all of the roads are covered with snow, especially those roads where no one comes and no one goes. Like heaps upon heaps the snows remain piled there, snow on top of snow. But the two head gravediggers, may they be remembered for good, tall Chaim who was nicknamed Long Life, and short Kaddish Leib, who was called Half Kaddish, went up to the cemetery and trudged through the deep snows to dig a grave for our rabbi the sage, may his memory be blessed.
We had hoped that he would guide us in the ways of life, but instead God took him suddenly to the bright light in the prime of his life. All that remained to us from the righteous one were his holy remains, which were laid out on the ground. Until it was time to give him over to the earth, they stood over him and recited verses, hymns and entreaties. Suddenly a frail, bird-like voice was heard and Reb Pinchas the Elder was seen leaning over the deceased reciting the Song of Songs. Immediately everyone present began to chant the Song of Songs, verse by verse, the same way they had when the sage Reb Pinchas Ba’al Mofet had been laid out on the ground before being brought over to his resting place. It has been the legend in our town from the time of our ancestors, who rest in Eden, that when our rabbi’s forefather, the sage Reb Pinchas Ba’al Mofet, had been laid to rest, the whole town had stood before the deceased and recited the Song of Songs. All that night not a soul went to bed and from the edges of town came the sound of old men and women lamenting for the righteous one. The snow came down and a pure light illuminated the night. The snow by its very nature is pure, and that night it was purer than pure. We heard from reliable sources that snow like that had not been seen before, or since. And yet, every heart was filled with darkness and gloom.
When daylight dawned the entire town came out, the young and the elderly, children and women, to escort our rabbi to his eternal resting place. No man kindled his furnace, no woman cooked her meals, not an infant remained in its crib, no sick person stayed in his bed. Rather, all came out to follow the coffin with eyes overflowing with tears, the tears freezing then melting then freezing once again. And not a person complained, “I’m cold,” and not a sound was uttered, except by the beadle who was walking and reciting, “Righteousness shall walk before him.” And so they walked on behind the bier of the righteous one until they arrived at the great synagogue. And when they got there, they set the bier on the ground and circled it seven times according to custom, and all those who had been involved in the purification of the body and in the circling of the coffin immersed themselves in a pure ritual bath. Afterwards, they proceeded to the cemetery and buried him in the grave that they had dug for him. When the snows had melted and the esteemed wife of the great sage, may his memory be blessed, came to weep over his grave and a few prayer quorums of ten men accompanied her, they observed that he had been laid next to his ancestor Reb Pinchas. Perhaps you are thinking that the gravediggers had erred, but in reality the elder sage had claimed the younger for himself. How great righteous ones are even in their death, inasmuch as on the our rabbi was buried a hundred years and one day had passed since the death of his righteous ancestor, who had stipulated with the town that no one be buried next to him until after the passage of one hundred years and that the deceased be of his own seed. And verily Reb Moshe Pinchas had also had a hand in this, because he had never made peace with Reb Shlomo and had not wanted him as a neighbor. And just as our Reb Shlomo had been a lover of peace and had always given in during his lifetime, so too did he acquiesce in death.
In recounting all of this, I did not intend to give an example of an exemplary man or to tell about the zeal of Reb Moshe Pinchas. Rather, I have merely told the tales of two scholars who were in our town two or three generations ago, at a time when Torah was the glory of Israel and all of Israel walked in the paths of Torah, which is the delight of the Lord our Fortress until the coming of the Redeemer at the end of days. At which time we will be privileged to hear God’s Torah directly from the lips of our righteous Messiah, who will sit and study Torah with all those of Israel who have studied Torah with love.
Translated by Paul Pinchas Bashan & Rhonna Weber Rogol
Annotated by the Translators with Jeffrey Saks
Annotations to “Two Scholars Who Were in Our Town”
Title: Two Scholars Who Were in Our Town / Cf. Sota 49a: “Two scholars who reside in one town, yet cannot abide each other in matters of Torah law — one will die and the other will go out to exile.”
Enhanced wisdom / Cf. Isaiah 28:29.
Wisdom calls aloud… / Proverbs 1:20.
Hoshen Mishpat / The essential work of Jewish financial law, codified in R. Yosef Karo’s 16th century Shulhan Arukh code of law.
Kloyz / A small house of study and prayer.
Fifteenth of the month of Av… / The Kloyz, in other words, was open for study and prayer around the clock, with the exception only of the month-long period of mourning (in mid-summer) for the Temple, from the fast day of the 17th of the month Tammuz until the 15th day of the following month of Av, when study did not take place in the evenings.
Joy of the Lord… / Cf. Nehemiah 8:10.
Gemara / Rabbinical analysis and commentary on the Mishnah, together the two comprise the Talmud.
Not a birthright… / Cf. Mishnah Avot 2:12.
Kosher for Passover / Since there can be no trace of leavened bread on Passover, the rabbi would have to ensure that the millstones were properly cleaned before the Passover flour for baking matzah could be ground.
Horeh Gaver on Yoreh De’ah / Reinush and his Horeh Gaver are fictitious, but cf. Job 3:3 from which Agnon takes the name of this rabbinic work, purported to be a commentary on a section of the Shulhan Arukh.
Kiddush and Havdalah / Kiddush is the benediction over the wine at the onset of the Sabbath; Havdalah is the ceremony at the end of the Sabbath separating it from the secular week.
Three parsas / A Talmudic measure of itinerant distance: one parsa is about four kilometers, approximately the distance a man can walk in 72 minutes.
Mikveh / A bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion to obtain purification.
Shemoneh Esreh / “The Eighteen” blessings, so called in reference to the original number of constituent blessings (there are now nineteen), is the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy, recited three times a day. It is also known as the Amidah (or, “Standing” prayer).
“Myriad are the needs of your people”/ Opening line of a short prayer recited during times of imminent danger or extreme stress; see Berakhot 29b.
Reb Mordechai Yafeh / Called “Ba’al (author of) HaLevushim” after the series of halakhic (religious law) works he authored, an important scholar and posek (legal arbiter) (1530–1612, Poland).
Horowitz the Holy Shelah / A Hebrew acronym for Shnei Luhot HaBrit (“The Two Tablets of the Covenant”), a book written by the revered rabbi and kabbalist R. Yesha’ayahu Horowitz (1560–1630), usually referred to as the “Shelah HaKadosh (the Holy).”
Ba’al Mofet / A saintly man or man of wonders.
Reb Moshe / Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786), German Jewish philosopher, considered the father of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), had translated the Hebrew Bible into German.