After the prayer the Holy Congregation of Jerusalem celebrated with a fine repast in their honor, with grape wine and brandy wine, which each man makes for himself at the time of the vintage shortly before the Sukkot holiday. Householders from all over town sent them preserves of citron, of figs, and of other fine fruits for which the Land of Israel is famous; and they showed them every manner of affection. But above all they showed their affection for Hananiah, who had accepted the covenant of suffering and the Covenant of the Land. Indeed, they wished to place him at their head, but he belittled himself and took the lowest place next to the door. When our righteous Messiah comes, said he, we shall not be able to push too close to him, and then he will have to invite me higher up if he wants me. And then I shall know that I have some slight degree of importance as far as he is concerned. And if I have not, then who am I anyway to be seated at the head?
Thus they sat and drank of all the wines and many times blessed the One who is good and who does good, and they studied the passage dealing with the ten sanctities whereby the Land of Israel is sanctified more than all other lands. A vegetable was brought to our comrades which tasted like fowl fried in goose fat. How remarkable is the Land of Israel! Here is a vegetable which you can buy in the market two for a penny. Take and fry it in sesame oil, and it tastes like fowl fried in goose fat. Then they said the grace for wine and food, and washed their hands for the feast.
Chapter fourteen. In the Presence of the Divine Presence
After the Sabbath our comrades hired themselves a dwelling near the Western Wall, the windows of which directly faced the site of the Temple; and so they found themselves in the presence of the Divine Presence. The women purchased themselves garments of white wool and the choicest food and drink of the Land, and of its fruits. They cooked and baked and conducted their households with wisdom. They lacked for nothing, even having goat’s milk for the Shavuot holiday.
Our comrades resided before the Lord in the Land of Life, in Jerusalem, devoting themselves to Torah and prayer and good deeds and the practice of charity, and to love and to fear and to humility. And on the eve of the New Moon and the other days on which the Prayers of Supplication are said, they would go out to the Holy Places and pray for themselves and their brethren in exile.
All hours are not the same. It is widely known that every righteous man who comes up from outside the Land to the Land of Israel must begin by falling from his original level. For the air of the Land of Israel is holy and retreat needs precede and advance. But God came to their aid and gave them the strength to accept submissively all that befell them, until they were worthy to receive a fresh mindset, namely the intelligence of the Land of Israel. Day after day they were tried and tested, by insults and by curses, by loss of money and injury to their persons. For Jerusalem is not as the places that are outside the Land, since never has a man gone to sleep in Jerusalem bearing unrequited sins. For day after day the Holy One, blessed be He, settles that day’s accounts, in order that the spiritual debts of Jerusalem might not increase and multiply. Like a judge of flesh and blood, who considers and reconsiders the cases of those brought before him that they might be found innocent; so the Holy One, blessed be He, turns, as one might say, His eyes on Jerusalem and chastises its inhabitants that they might be cleansed of every iniquity.
Pessel, the daughter of Rabbi Shelomo, perished from the kick of a mule, and Feiga perished from the blows of Ishmael. For once a water carrier brought water to Feiga on a day when it was raining heavily and all the cisterns and wells were full, so that she did not need his water. Thereupon he emptied his water-skins over her, and she caught a chill and died.
But our men of good heart lovingly accepted everything that befell them, not rebelling at their sufferings or making claims against God. Instead they bore all their losses and comforted themselves, saying that on the morrow the Holy One, blessed be He, would redeem them and then all their troubles and distress would be over. And when the common people used to ask why the Holy One, blessed be He, did not exact vengeance upon the wicked nations who treated his children like captives, they would reply, Our answer is in the words of your question: Once there was a king whose son was attacked by enemies. Thereupon the king said, Why should I go to the trouble of sending soldiers to avenge myself on them? I shall immediately go forth myself with all my army to expel and sentence them for making my son suffer; and I shall bring my son back home with much joy and honor.
All trouble is hard to bear, but hardest of all is the trouble of making a living. When a man becomes poor, hunger irks him every day. There seemed to be a hole in our comrades’ pockets and their money ran out. Before the end of the year they felt the hardships of making a living, since the Land of Israel has been purged of all vanities and there is no source of money save the money that a man brings with him from abroad. And so at length they were compelled to obtain their sustenance from the Exile.
When that time came, Leibush the butcher separated from the group and made up his mind to return to Buczacz. For Leibush said, Have you ever seen a country where nothing is to be had but mutton? From the very beginning he had not been pleased with Jerusalem. What he sought he did not find, while with what he did find his body was not satisfied. On the other hand, Rabbi Yosef Meir also had to prepare to leave. He wished to dwell in the Land of Israel but was not permitted to, on account of an ancient ordinance that no man may dwell in Jerusalem without a wife for more than a single year.
But the Holy One, blessed be he, will use one and the same means for chastising the unrighteous and for doing good to the righteous. The ship on which Leibush returned to the Exile had brought with it the divorced wife of Rabbi Yosef Meir. On her arrival he sent her greetings and afterwards brought her under the bridal canopy, and Rabbi Yosef Meir lived to see a generation of upright, God-fearing and God-loving descendants. Rabbi Pesach and Tzirel were likewise found worthy in the course of their residence in the Holy City, and their house was built by sons and by daughters who in due course of time were enlisted in the legions of the Lord of the Universe.
And so our redeemed brethren dwelled together within the Holy Congregation of the Holy City, joyously fulfilling the commandment to dwell in the Land of Israel; until their end came and they passed away, returning their souls unto Him to whom all souls belong, and leaving their bodies to the bosom of their mother; for they were found worthy to be buried in the soil of the Holy Land on the Mount of Olives at Jerusalem, facing the Temple of the Lord, at the feet of the Holy One, blessed be he; until the time comes for them to awaken to everlasting life, on the day of which it is written: ‘And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives.’
But Hananiah lived many long years, strength and energy accruing to him year by year. When he was a hundred years old, he was like a lad of twenty in his fulfillment of the commandments and performance of good deeds; and neither weakness nor weariness could be recognized in him. Many fanciful tales are told about that same Hananiah, such as the tale that when our men of good heart arrived on shore at Jaffa, they found Hananiah drying his kerchief in the sun. But this is not the truth, as Hananiah was already in Jerusalem ere his comrades had arrived in the Land. All kinds of fanciful tales are likewise told about his kerchief; for instance, that the Emperor Napoleon saw it and made a flag out of it and was victorious in his wars. But that is not the truth either, since, when Hananiah had passed away, they covered his eyes with his kerchief.