Jossi sighed. It would mark the first time in his life he had openly gone against his father’s wishes. “Very well,” he whispered, and all that day asked forgiveness for what he was about to do.
The brothers told their father they were going to say Kaddish, a mourner’s prayer, for a friend who had recently died. They sped off to the shop of Hacohen, the candlemaker. It was a tiny basement shop like their own home. It smelled of wax and sweet scents. Curtains were drawn over the windows. Guards were posted outside on the street. Jossi was surprised at how many familiar faces he saw in the packed room. The speaker was a man from Odessa named Vladimir.
Vladimir neither looked nor acted like them. He had no beard or side curls. He wore boots and a black leather jacket. As he began to speak Yakov became entranced, and around the room a half dozen hecklers started up.
“Are you the Messiah who has come to lead us back?” someone called.
“Did you find the Messiah under your bed when you hid during the last pogrom?” Vladimir rejoined.
“Are you sure you are not one of the Czar’s spies?”
“Are you sure you are not one of the Czar’s next victims?” Vladimir retorted.
The room quieted down. Vladimir spoke softly. He reviewed the history of the Jews in Poland and in Russia and then expanded his summary to include Germany and Austria as well. Then he spoke of the expulsions from England and France-then of the massacres at Bray and York and Spires and Worms.
Vladimir spoke of how the Pope had called upon the Christians to regain the Holy Land from the Moslems and of how five Crusades over three hundred years were directed against the Jews in the name of God.
Vladimir spoke of one of the most horrible periods of all -the Spanish Inquisition, during which unbelievable atrocities against the Jews were committed in the name of the Church.
“Comrades, every nation on the face of this earth has derided us. We must arise again as a nation. It is our only salvation. Pinsker has seen it and the Lovers of Zion see it and the Bilus see it. We must rebuild the House of Jacob!”
Yakov’s heart was pounding as the boys left the meeting. “See, Jossi! What did I tell you! You saw tonight that even Rabbi Lipzin was there.”
“I must think about it,” Jossi said defensively. But even as he spoke he knew that Vladimir was right and Yakov too. It was their only salvation. The street was quiet and dark and they walked briskly. They reached their home, quickly kissed the mezuzah, and went in.
A candle was burning on Simon’s bench. He stood behind it in his long nightshirt with his hands clasped behind him.
“Hello, Papa,” they said quickly, and tried to duck into their alcove.
“Boys!” Simon commanded. They walked slowly before his bench.
Their mother walked into the room and squinted. “Simon,” she said, “are the boys home?”
“They are home.”
“Tell them they shouldn’t be on the streets so late.”
“Yes, Mama,” Simon said. “Go to sleep and I shall speak to them.”
Simon looked from Yakov to Jossi and back to Yakov.
“I must tell Mrs. Horowitz tomorrow that her husband can surely rest in peace because my sons joined in a minyan for him tonight.”
It was impossible for Jossi to lie to his father. “We weren’t at minyan for Reb Horowitz,” he mumbled.
Simon Rabinsky feigned surprise and held his hands aloft. “Oh … so! I should have known. You boys were courting. Just today Abraham, the matchmaker, was in the shop. He said to me, ‘Simon Rabinsky,’ he said, ‘you have a fine boy in Jossi. Jossi will bring you a handsome dowry from the family of some very fortunate girl.’ Can you imagine … he wants to make a shiddoch for you already, Jossi.”
“We were not courting,” Jossi gulped.
“Not courting? No minyan? Perhaps you went back to the synagogue to study?”
“No, Father,” Jossi said almost inaudibly.
Yakov could stand it no longer. “We went to a Lovers of Zion meeting!”
Jossi looked up at his father sheepishly, bit his lip, and nodded red-faced. Yakov seemed glad it was in the open. He stood defiant. Simon sighed and stared at both his sons for a full five minutes.
“I am hurt,” he announced at last.
“That is why we did not tell you, Father. We did not want to hurt you,” Jossi said.
“I am not hurt because you went to a Lovers of Zion meeting. I am hurt because the sons of Simon Rabinsky think so little of their father they no longer confide in him.”
Now Yakov squirmed too. “But if we’d told you,” he said, “you might have forbidden us to go.”
“Tell me, Yakov … when have I ever forbidden you to pursue knowledge? Have I ever forbidden a book? God help me … even the time you took the notion into your head that you wanted to read the New Testament? Did I forbid that?”
“No, sir,” Yakov said.
“I think a talk is long overdue,” Simon said.
The candlelight seemed to blend with the red of Jossi’s hair. He stood half a head taller than his father and now as he spoke he did not falter. Although Jossi was slow in making up his mind, once it was made up he rarely changed it. “Yakov and I did not want to hurt you because we know how you feel about the Lovers of Zion and the new ideas. But I am glad I went tonight.”
“I am glad you went too,” Simon said.
“Rabbi Lipzin wants me to sign up for ghetto defense,” Jossi said.
“Rabbi Lipzin departs from so many traditions I am beginning to wonder if he is a Jew,” Simon said.
“That is just the point, Father,” Jossi said. “You are afraid of the new ideas.” It was the first time Jossi had ever spoken thus to his father and he was immediately ashamed.
Simon walked around the counter and put his hands on his sons’ shoulders and led them into their alcove and bade them sit down on their beds. “Don’t you think I know what is going through your minds? New ideas, indeed. There was exactly the same talk about auto-emancipation and ghetto defense when I was a boy. You are only coming to a crisis that every Jew comes to … to make your peace with the world … to know your place. When I was a boy I even thought once of converting … don’t you think I know how it feels?”
Jossi was astonished. His father had thought of conversion!
“Why is it wrong for us to want to defend ourselves? Why is it made a sin by our own people to want to better our conditions?” Yakov demanded.
“You are a Jew,” his father answered, “and being a Jew entails certain obligations.”
“To hide under my bed while people try to kill me?”
“Don’t raise your voice to Father,” Jossi admonished.
“No one said it is easy to be a Jew. We were not born on this earth to live from its fruits. We were put here to guard
the laws of God. This is our mission. This is our purpose.”
“And this is our reward!” Yakov snapped back.
“The Messiah will come and take us back when He is good and ready,” Simon said, unruffled, “and I do not believe it is for Yakov Rabinsky to question His wisdom. I do believe it is for Yakov Rabinsky to live by the laws of the Holy Torah.”
There were tears of anger in Yakov’s eyes. “I do not question the laws of God,” he cried, “but I question the wisdom of some of the men who interpret those laws.”
There was a brief silence. Jossi swallowed. Never had anyone spoken so harshly to his father. Yet he silently applauded his brother’s courage, for Yakov was daring to ask the very questions he himself dared not ask.
“If we are created in the image of God,” Yakov continued, “then the Messiah is in all of us and the Messiah inside me keeps telling me to stand up and fight back. He keeps telling me to make my way back to the Promised Land with the Lovers of Zion. That is what the Messiah tells me, Father.”
Simon Rabinsky would not be shaken. “In our history we have been plagued with false messiahs. I fear you are listening to one of them now.”