From the birds in the sky he returned to the fish he had drawn. At that moment he was grateful to Fishl Karp, without whom he would not have seen the form of a fish. From now on, said the orphan to himself, if I come to draw the sign of Pisces, I won’t look in old festival prayer books, but I’ll draw as my eyes instruct me.
At that moment there was no one happier in Buczacz than Bezalel Moshe, the orphan, and no one in Buczacz was sadder than Reb Fishl, the moneylender. This is indeed a wonder: here is a poor person without enough food for a single meal, and here is a rich man who could have held banquets and celebrations all his life with the interest on his interest. The one was happy because of the birds in the sky, and the other was grieved because of his fish, which he was kept from eating.
Fishl saw there was no point in standing in the synagogue and shouting “Nu, nu” when there was no one to hear his “nu, nus.” The thought came to him that perhaps he had left the head tefillah in his tallit and tefillin bag when he had sent off the fish. Without further delay he removed his tallit and covered the arm tefillah with the sleeve of his garment and rushed home. He already visualized himself with the head tefillah adorning his head, praying swiftly and washing his hands for a meal. He swallowed his saliva and planned to double each of his steps and not to delay for anything in the world.
I too shall do as Fishl did and I shall not tarry until I reach the end of the story. For everything that has a beginning has an end. Happy is he whose end is finer than his beginning. Here, with the story of Fishl, though its beginning is apparently fine, its end is certainly not fine. If you wish to know, here it is before you.
12
The Thoughts of a Hungry Man
Indeed Fishl charged his legs according to the saying taught in the midrash: The belly charges the legs. However, our sages of blessed memory meant that by the power of eating the body has the power to charge its legs, whereas I interpret the teaching thus: Because he craved food, he found the power in his legs to bear the charge of his belly.
Thus Fishl hurried and did not tarry. He did not tarry, but the fortune of his meal tarried. He was not delayed; others delayed him. Where did they delay him? Close to his home, right next to the door of his house. So many people were there that he could not find the door. What did all of those people want at his house, and why had they gathered there, and why were they noisy and turbulent, and what caused them to besiege his house? Go and ask them when you are forbidden to speak, because you are in between the head and arm tefillin. As much as his soul clamors to know, no one tells him. Of such a situation it is fitting to say: There is no servant woman who has not got six mouths. Yet when you want to hear something, there is not one mouth to tell you.
He had a little girl whom he loved more than all of his other daughters, and she loved him too. She saw her father. She came and rose up on her tiptoes and wrapped his neck in her two arms and said, “Oy, Papa, oy, Papa.” He could no longer restrain himself and asked her, “Why has the whole town gathered in front of our house?” The girl repeated, “Oy, Papa, don’t you know?” And she said no more. Being small, she believed that her father knew everything and that he had asked in order to test her. If it’s something that everyone knows, does her father not know more than they? She answered him in kind, “Papa, don’t you know?” Fishl saw that the world was conspiring against him, and even the daughter of his old age, whose voice chattered on and on without stopping, would not tell him. Nor were his astonishments finished yet. While he was aching to know what had happened, he heard people saying, “He did well to lie down and die. In any event, he must be buried.” Fishl understood that someone had died, but he was puzzled about why they said he had done well. Is death a fine thing? There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink, and if one is dead, not only does one neither eat nor drink, but one becomes food for maggots. He stooped in sadness and lowered his eyes to the earth. The earth raised itself up and whispered to him, “Now you are treading upon me with your feet. Tomorrow I shall cover you.” It also whispered, “You may believe that I am sad because of you. I am sad for those who will bear your coffin, who will have to carry such a big-bellied man as you.”
As he looked at the earth, he saw that the earth was dry. He began to converse with himself. He said, If a man dies, the neighbors pour out their water, and here, besides sewage, there is no sign that they have poured out water. Little by little his mind reached the truth — that no person had died here. When his mind reached that truth, it did not know what to do with it. For if no person had died, why must there be a burial? But they had explicitly said that he must be buried. And if there is no dead person, why need there be a burial? One way or another, did they not say that he had laid himself down and died?
Had Fishl been full, he would not have wasted time with such thoughts, but he would have entered his house, washed his hands, and sat down to eat, and after the meal he would have wiped his mouth and said, “What is that rumor that I heard, that someone died there? Who died?” Now that he was weak from hunger he turned his thoughts to death. He thought again: Since they mentioned burial, that means there is a dead person there. If so, if there is a dead person there, why isn’t the beadle calling, Come out and accompany the dead? His thoughts began to devolve from person to person. He was alarmed lest someone who owed him money had died.
The thoughts that did him ill now turned kinder to him, for the idea came to mind that no person had died, for had a person died, they would have poured out water, and the beadle would be summoning people to the funeral. If so, what had died? A firstborn beast had died, which had to be buried, as is the law for a firstborn animal that dies. In any event, Fishl was somewhat puzzled as to why it had died at his house and not elsewhere. In any event, it had done a good deed in dying, for the city was released from its mischief. That it died at his house was a coincidence.
Although Fishl said that it was by chance, his mind was nevertheless disturbed, lest the animal had purposely chosen to die at his house, as in the story of the ewe and the old man.
What is the story of the ewe and the old man? It happened in our city that when the flock went out to graze every day, one ewe would leave the rest and go and stand before a certain house and bleat. One day the owner of the house fell ill. The ewe came and bleated. Every day its voice was thin, but this day its voice was strong. Every day its voice was short, and this day its voice was long. People saw that the patient’s face was changing because of his great suffering, for his heart was tormenting him because of his misdeeds, and his torments were etching themselves in his face. They believed that his face had changed because of his pains, and were he to sleep without disturbance, his torments would abate. They went out to drive away the ewe, but it would not move. They hit it with a stick, and it would not move. That day a soothsayer came to town. He heard and said, “You are struggling to drive it away in vain.” “Why?” He said, “I shall tell you a story. There were two friends in the town. One fell ill and was about to die. At the time of his death he deposited a purse full of coins in his friend’s hands and said to him, ‘My daughter is young and does not know how to keep money. Keep these coins for her until she reaches maturity. And when she finds a good match, give her her coins as a dowry.’ One man took the coins and the other turned his face to the wall and died. The orphan girl was close to maturity, and the holder of the deposit did not deliver the coins to her, but he buried them for himself under the threshold of his house. He said, ‘No one was present when the coins were transferred. If I don’t deliver them to the dead man’s daughter, no one will claim them.’ No one was present when the orphan girl’s coins were transferred. Just a creature of the Holy One, blessed be He, was present to see and to hear. It was a ewe from the flock. And when the orphan girl reached maturity, the ewe pitied her and came to bleat and remind the man that the time had come for him to keep his word to his dead friend and return the money that the orphan girl’s father had deposited with him for a dowry. As long as he doesn’t return the orphan girl’s money, the ewe won’t leave the threshold of his house.” They went and asked the dying man, “The money that your friend deposited with you — where is it?” He did not manage to tell them before he died. And the ewe died too. They sought to remove its body from the house, but they could not. The miracle worker said to them, “Dig beneath it and remove it with the earth.” They dug and found a purse full of coins. They went and handed the coins over to the rabbi for the orphan girl. The ewe relinquished its place and they buried it.