It was the Yom Kippur; but I never knew it until we reached town at the time they were praying the Closing Prayer. At once I flung myself off the carriage, and took off my shoes, and entered the synagogue, and lay outstretched, and wept all that night and all of the day following. There I heard the Land of Israel being mentioned. So I gave ear and heard people telling one another how the men of Buczacz had decided to go up to the Land. At once I started off and came here to you; and since I went barefoot, my legs became swollen and it took a long time.
They went and fetched him boots, but he would not accept them. Rabbi Akiva, they reminded him, ordained seven things, and one of them was to be careful to wear shoes. To which Hananiah replied, These feet did not feel the sanctity of Yom Kippur; let them remain bare.
After Hananiah had told all this, he untied his kerchief, took out a Book of Psalms, and read until the time arrived for the Afternoon Prayer. Following the prayer, he took a candle and went on reading. Seeing that the lamp had grown rusty, he took his kerchief and made a knot in it. Next morning, when he took out his tallit and tefillin from that kerchief, he said to himself, What is this knot for? To remember that rusty lamp.
So he took the lamp and all the other vessels for light in the House of Study, and mixed sand and water, and went and sat him down behind the stove, and rubbed them and polished them until they shone like new. That day people said, the lamps in our House of Study are worthy of lighting before Him who hath light in Zion.
And Hananiah did something else; he made little hollow dishes for the lamps; for in the lands of Edom tallow candles are lit and thrust upright into the candlestick, but in the Land of Beauty it is the custom to light oil lamps, a dish being filled with oil and the wick placed within it. Therefore Hananiah went and set dishes under the candlesticks, that they might fill them with oil.
But it was not only the illuminating vessels that Hananiah rubbed and polished. He also took the washing basin and the pitcher and the holy vessels and all those vessels and implements within which the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, conceals herself; and made them all shine. He likewise repaired the torn books, setting them in fresh boards and wrapping them up in fine skins. The day before, they had been torn and sooty, but that day they rejoiced as on the day they had been given to the children of Israel on Mount Sinai.
Are you a coppersmith? Hananiah was asked.
No coppersmith am I, said he to those who asked, nor yet a bookbinder; but when I see a defective vessel, I feel pity for it and I say, This vessel seeks its completion. Then the Holy One, blessed be he, says to me, Do this or do that, and I do it.
Here is a simple man, said the comrades. Yet every word he utters teaches a virtue. Wherever such a man may wander, God will be with him.
Perhaps, one of them asked Hananiah, you know how to make a box for carrying goods?
Perhaps I do, answered he.
After all, said this man, we are going a long way and we require things for the journey. Perhaps you can make me a box or trunk.
I can try, said he.
How do you try? said the other to him.
Hananiah went out to the forest and brought lumber, and sawed it into planks which he squared and planed and joined, and made into a box and painted red, which is a good color for utensils to be.
The other men who were going up to the Land saw how fine the box was and asked Hananiah to make boxes for them as well. So out he went to the forest, brought lumber and made the same sort of boxes for them. He also made a Holy Ark for the Torah Scroll which they were going to take up to the Land of Israel. He used iron nails to join all the boxes except the Holy Ark, which he joined with wooden pegs; so that if, God forbid, they should come to magnetic mountains which draw iron from vessels, this Ark would not fall apart.
Hananiah made boxes for all the travelers, but as for himself he remained satisfied with his kerchief.
Chapter two. Those Who Prepared
The greater part of Adar had already passed. The clouds which had been obscuring the sun’s course began to shrink, while the sun grew gradually larger. What only yesterday had been the time for the Evening Prayer became the time for Afternoon Prayer today; while yesterday’s getting-up time became the time to start saying the Morning Prayer today.
The snow warmed up and began to melt, and the trees of the field grew black. One day they were black as earth; the next, they would be putting forth leaves and blossoming like the Lebanon. The pools and marshes were covered by a film, and the birds began to chirp. Every day a different kind of bird would come around and there began a cheeping on every roof. Our men of good heart started going out and asking when the road would be fit for travel; they meant the month, of course, when the road would be fit for wayfarers.
Never in all their lives had these good folk so feared death as at that particular period. How great is the sanctity of the Land of Israel though it be in ruins! And what is the body’s strength even at its height? For after all, suppose a man wishes to go up to the Land of Israel and does not go up, what if his soul should suddenly depart from his body and he be left lying like a dumb stone without having gone up; what would become of all his hopes?
Those who knew enough to study the Bible sat and studied the Bible; those who knew enough to study the Mishnah sat and studied the Mishnah in order to strengthen their hearts with the study of the Torah. Throughout those days neither the sun nor the moon ever saw a single one of them sitting idle. Although they were busy selling their houses and casting up their money accounts, they nevertheless crowned their days with Torah and prayer.
The Passover festival came to an end. The sun pitched its camp in the sky, and all the water in the swamps and marshes dried up. Even the big swamps had no water in them. The roads fairly asked to be put to use, and the wagoners set out on their ways. Horses began posting from one end of the world to the other, their bells jingling as they went; and the wagoners tugged at the reins and shouted, Geeup! Whoa there!
Those who were to go up to the Land gathered together at their House of Study. In came old Rabbi Shelomo, a well-disposed kohen who had dealt in commerce all his life, but had finally given up the estates of this world and set his heart on going up to the Land of Israel. Rabbi Shelomo used to say, If a king is angry with his servants they ought never to go far away from him. Instead, let them stand at the king’s gate and lament their misfortune until he sees their distress and takes pity on them.
And then in came Rabbi Alter, the slaughterer-and-inspector, who had handed over his butcher’s knife to his son-in-law; and together with him came Rabbi Alter the teacher, who was his brother-in-law’s son and who had spent all his days in the tent of the Torah, studying keenly and casuistically with his students. Once while he sat studying in the tractate Ketuvot about marriage contracts, it occurred to him that after all the Land of Israel is a marriage contract between Israel and the Holy One, blessed be he; and it is an accepted principle that a man must never be without his marriage contract. Whereupon he felt that as long as he continued to dwell outside the Land he would have no rest. So he ceased his studies, and dispersed his students, and sold his house and his set of the Talmud and the commentary of Alfasi, and went and inscribed himself in the list of those who were going up to the Land.
And in came Rabbi Pesach, the warden of the House of Study, who was going to the Land with his wife Tzirel, for their benefit and advantage in the hope that the merits of the Land of Israel might give them the merit of children.