Books: The Rise of David Levinsky

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"Study the Word of God, Davie dear," he would say, taking my
hand into his.

"There is no happiness like it. What is wealth? A dream of fools.
What is this world? A mere curl of smoke for the wind to scatter.
Only the other world has substance and reality; only good deeds
and holy learning have tangible worth. Beware of Satan, Davie.
When he assails you, just say no; turn your heart to steel and say
no. Do you hear, my son?"

The anecdotes and sayings of the Talmud, its absurdities no less
than its gems of epigrammatic wisdom, were mines of poetry,
philosophy, and science to him. He was a dreamer with a noble
imagination, with a soul full of beauty

This unsophisticated, simple-hearted man, with the mind of an
infant, was one of the most quick-witted, nimble-minded scholars
in town.

His great delight was to tackle some intricate maze of Talmudic
reasoning.

This he would do with ferocious zest, like a warrior attacking the
enemy, flashing his tortoise snuff-box as if it were his sword.
When away from his books or when reading some of the fantastic
tales in them he was meek and gentle as a little bird. No sooner
did he come across a fine bit of reasoning than he would impress
me as a lion

On one occasion, after Reb Sender got through a celebrated tangle
with me, arousing my admiration by the ingenuity with which he
discovered discrepancies and by the adroitness with which he
explained them away, he said: "I do enjoy reading with you.
Sometimes, when I read by myself, I feel lonely. Anyhow, I love
to have you around, David. If you went to study somewhere else I
should miss you very much." On another occasion he said: "You
are like a son to me, Davie. Be good, be genuinely pious; for my
sake, if for nothing else. Above all, don't be double-faced; never
say what you do not mean; do not utter words of flattery."

As I now analyze my reminiscences of him I feel that he was a
yearning, lonely man. He was in love with his wife and, in spite of
her devotion to him, he was love-lorn. Poor Reb Sender! He was
anything but a handsome man, while she was well built and pretty.
And so it may be that she showed more reverence for his learning
and piety than love for his person. He was continually referring to
her, apparently thirsting to discuss her demeanor toward him

"The Lord of the Universe has been exceptionally good to me," he
once said to me. "May I not forfeit His kindness for my sins. He
gives me health and my daily bread, and I have a worthy woman
for a wife. Indeed, she is a woman of rare merits, so clever, so
efficient, and so good. She nags me but seldom, very seldom." He
paused to take snuff and then remained silent, apparently
hesitating to come to the point. Finally he said: "In fact, she is so
wise I sometimes wish I could read her thoughts. I should give
anything to have a glimpse into her heart. She has so little to say to
me.

She thinks I am a fool. There is a sore in here "--pointing at his
heart.

"We have been married over twenty-two years, and yet--would you
believe it?--I still feel shy in her presence, as if we were brought
together for the first time, by a match-maker, don't you know. But
then you are too young to understand these things. Nor, indeed,
ought I to talk to you about them, for you are only a child. But I
cannot help it. If I did not unburden my mind once in a while I
might not be able to stand it."

That afternoon he composed what he called a "very sad tune," and
hummed it to me. I failed to make out the tune, but I could feel its
sadness

I loved him passionately. As for the other men of the synagogue, if
they did not share my ardent affection for him, they all, with one
exception, liked him. The exception was a middle-aged little
Talmudist with a tough little beard who held everybody in terror
by his violent temper and pugnacity. He was a pious man, but his
piety never manifested itself with such genuine fervor as when he
exposed the impiety of others. He was forever picking quarrels,
forever challenging people to debate with him, forever offering to
show that their interpretation of this passage or that was all wrong.
The sound of his acrimonious voice or venomous laughter grated
on Reb Sender's nerves, but he bore him absolutely no ill-will.
Nor did he ever utter a word of condemnation concerning a
certain other scholar, an inveterate tale-bearer and gossip-monger,
though a good-natured fellow, who not infrequently sought to
embroil him with some of his warmest friends.

One Talmudist, a corpulent old man whose seat was next to Reb
Sender's, was more inclined to chat than to study. Now and again
he would break in upon my friend's reading with some piece of
gossip; and the piteous air with which Reb Sender would listen to
him, casting yearning glances at his book as he did so, was as
touching as it was amusing

My mother usually brought my dinner to the synagogue. She
would make her entrance softly, so as to take me by surprise while
I was absorbed in my studies. It did her heart good to see me read
the holy book. As a result, I was never so diligent as I was at the
hour when I expected her arrival with the dinner-pot. Very often I
discovered her tiptoeing in or standing at a distance and watching
me admiringly. Then I would take to singing and swaying to and
fro with great gusto. She often encountered Reb Sender's wife at
the synagogue. They did not take to each other.

On one occasion my mother found Reb Sender's daughter at the
house of prayer. Having her father's figure and features, the girl
was anything but prepossessing. My mother surveyed her from
head to foot

That evening when I was eating my supper at home my mother
said: "Look here, Davie. I want you to understand that Reb
Sender's wife is up to some scheme about you. She wants you to
marry that monkey of hers. That's what she is after." I was not
quite fifteen

"Leave me alone," I retorted, coloring

"Never mind blushing. It is she who tells Reb Sender to be so good
to you.

The foxy thing! She thinks I don't see through her. That scarecrow
of a girl is old enough to be your mother, and she has not a penny
to her marriage portion, either. A fine match for a boy like you!
Why, you can get the best girl in town."

She said it aloud, by way of flaunting my future before our
room-mates. Two of the three families who shared the room with
us, by the way, were the same as when I was a little boy. Moving
was a rare event in the life of the average Antomir family

Red Esther was still there. She was one of those who heard my
mother's boastful warning to me. She grinned. After a little, as I
was crossing the room, she sang out with a giggle: "Bridegroom!"

"I'll break your bones," I returned, pausing

She stuck out her tongue at me

I still hated her, but, somehow, she did not seem to be the same as
she had been before. The new lines that were developing in her
growing little figure, and more particularly her own consciousness
of them, were not lost upon me. A new element was stealing into
my rancor for her--a feeling of forbidden curiosity. At night, when
I lay in bed, before falling asleep, I would be alive to the fact that
she was sleeping in the same room, only a few feet from me.
Sometimes I would conjure up the days of our childhood when
Red Esther caused me to "sin" against my will, whereupon I would
try to imagine the same scenes, but with the present
fifteen-year-old Esther in place of the five-year-old one of yore.

The word "girl" had acquired a novel sound for me, one full of
disquieting charm. The same was true of such words as "sister,"
"niece," or "bride," but not of "woman." Somehow sisters and
nieces were all young girls, whereas a woman belonged to the
realm of middle-aged humanity, not to my world

Naphtali went to the same seminary. He was two grades ahead of
me. He "ate days," for his father had died and his mother had
married a man who refused to support him. He was my great
chum at the seminary. The students called him Tidy Naphtali or
simply the Tidy One. He was a slender, trim lad, his curly brown
hair and his near-sighted eyes emphasizing his Talmudic
appearance. He was the cleanliest and neatest boy at the yeshivah.
This often aroused sardonic witticism from some of the other
students. Scrupulous tidiness was so uncommon a virtue among
the poorer classes of Antomir that the painstaking care he
bestowed upon his person and everything with which he came in
contact struck many of the boys as a manifestation of girl-like
squeamishness. As for me, it only added to my admiration of him.
His conscience seemed to be as clean as his finger-nails. He wrote
a beautiful hand, he could draw and carve, and he was a good
singer. His interpretations were as clear-cut as his handwriting. He
seemed to be a Jack of all trades and master of all. I admired and
envied him. His reticence piqued me and intensified his power
over me. I strove to emulate his cleanliness, his graceful Talmud
gestures, and his handwriting. At one period I spent many hours a
day practising caligraphy with some of his lines for a model

"Oh, I shall never be able to write like you," I once said to him, in
despair

"Let us swap, then," he replied, gaily.. "Give me your mind for
learning and I shall let you have my handwriting."

"Pshaw! Yours is a better mind than mine, too."

"No, it is not," he returned, and resumed his reading. "Besides, you
are ahead of me in piety and conduct." He shook his head
deprecatingly and went on reading. He was one of the noted "men
of diligence" at the seminary. With his near-sighted eyes close to
the book he would read all day and far into the night in ringing,
ardent singsongs that I thought fascinating. The other reticent
Talmudists I knew usually read in an undertone, humming their
recitatives quietly. He seldom did. Sparing as he was of his voice
in conversation, he would use it extravagantly when intoning his
Talmud

It is with a peculiar sense of duality one reads this ancient work.
While your mind is absorbed in the meaning of the words you
utter, the melody in which you utter them tells your heart a tale of
its own. You live in two distinct worlds at once. Naphtali had
little to say to other people, but he seemed to have much to say to
himself. His singsongs were full of meaning, of passion, of
beauty. Quite often he would sing himself hoarse

Regularly every Thursday night he and I had our vigil at the
Preacher's Synagogue, where many other young men would gather
for the same purpose. We would sit up reading, side by side, until
the worshipers came to morning service. To spend a whole night
by his side was one of the joys of my existence in those days

Reb Sender was somewhat jealous of him

Soon after graduation Naphtali left Antomir for a town in which
lived some of his relatives. I missed him as I would a sweetheart

CHAPTER II I WAS nearly sixteen. I had graduated from the
seminary and was pursuing my studies at the Preacher's
Synagogue exclusively, as an "independent scholar." I was
overborne with a sense of my dignity and freedom. I seemed to
have suddenly grown much taller. If I caught myself walking fast
or indulging in some boyish prank I would check myself, saying in
my heart: "You must not forget that you are an independent
scholar. You are a boy no longer."

I was free to loaf, but I worked harder than ever. I was either in an
exalted state of mind or pining away under a spell of yearning and
melancholy--of causeless, meaningless melancholy.

My Talmudic singsong reflected my moods. Sometimes it was a
spirited recitative, ringing with cheery self-consciousness and the
joy of being a lad of sixteen; at other times it was a solemn song,
aglow with devotional ecstasy. When I happened to be dejected in
the commonplace sense of the word, it was a listless murmur,
doleful or sullen. But then the very reading of the Talmud was apt
to dispel my gloom. My voice would gradually rise and ring out,
vibrating with intellectual passion

The intonations of the other scholars, too, echoed the voices of
their hearts, some of them sonorous with religious bliss, others
sad, still others happy-go-lucky. Although absorbed in my book, I
would have a vague consciousness of the connection between the
various singsongs and their respective performers. I would be
aware that the bass voice with the flourishes in front of me
belonged to the stuttering widower from Vitebsk, that the
squeaky, jerky intonation to the right came from the red-headed
fellow whom I loathed for his thick lips, or that the sweet,
unassertive cadences that came floating from the east wall were
being uttered by Reb Rachmiel, the "man of acumen" whose
father-in-law had made a fortune as a war-contractor in the late
conflict with Turkey. All these voices blended in a symphonic
source of inspiration for me. It was divine music in more senses
than one

The ancient rabbis of the Talmud, the Tanaim of the earlier period
and the Amorairn of later generations, were living men. I could
almost see them, each of them individualized in my mind by some
of his sayings, by his manner in debate, by some particular word
he used, or by some particular incident in which he figured. I
pictured their faces, their beards, their voices.

Some of them had won a warmer corner in my heart than others,
but they were all superior human beings, godly, unearthly,
denizens of a world that had been ages ago and would come back
in the remote future when Messiah should make his appearance

Added to the mystery of that world was the mystery of my own
singsong. Who is there?--I seemed to be wondering, my tune or
recitative sounding like the voice of some other fellow. It was as
if somebody were hidden within me.

What did he look like? If you study the Talmud you please God
even more than you do by praying or fasting. As you sit reading
the great folio He looks down from heaven upon you. Sometimes I
seemed to feel His gaze shining down upon me, as though casting
a halo over my bead

My relations with God were of a personal and of a rather familiar
character.

He was interested in everything I did or said; He watched my every
move or thought; He was always in heaven, yet, somehow, he was
always near me, and I often spoke to Him as I might to Reb
Sender

If I caught myself slurring over some of my prayers or speaking ill
of another boy or telling a falsehood, I would say to Him, audibly:
"Oh, forgive me once more. You know that I want to be good. I
will be good.

I know I will."

Sometimes I would continue to plead in this manner till I broke
into sobs.

At other times, as I read my Talmud, conscious of His approval of
me, tears of bliss would come into my eyes

I loved Him as one does a woman.

Often while saying my prayers I would fall into a veritable
delirium of religious infatuation. Sometimes this fit of happiness
and yearning would seize me as I walked in the street

"O Master of the World! Master of the Universe! I love you so!" I
would sigh. "Oh, how I love you!"

I also had talks with the Evil Spirit, or Satan. He, too, was always
near me. But he was always trying to get me into trouble

"You won't catch me again, scoundrel you," I would assure him
with sneers and leers. Or, "Get away from me, heartless
mischief-maker you! You're wasting your time, I can tell you
that."

My bursts of piety usually lasted a week or two. Then there was
apt to set in a period of apathy, which was sure to be replaced by
days of penance and a new access of spiritual fervor.

One day, as Reb Sender and I were reading a page together, a very
pretty girl entered the synagogue. She came to have a letter
written for her by one of the scholars. I continued to read aloud,
but I did so absently now, trailing along after my companion. My
mind was upon the girl, and I was casting furtive glances

Reb Sender paused, with evident annoyance. "What are you
looking at, David?" he said, with a tug at my arm. "Shame! You
are yielding to Satan."

I colored

He was too deeply interested in the Talmudic argument under
consideration to say more on the matter at this minute, but he
returned to it as soon as we had reached the end of the section. He
spoke earnestly, with fatherly concern: "You are growing, David.
You are a boy no longer. You are getting to be a man. This is just
the time when one should be on his guard against Satan."

I sat, looking down, my brain in a daze of embarrassment

"Remember, David, 'He who looks even at the little finger of a
woman is as guilty as though he looked at a woman that is wholly
naked.'" He quoted the Talmudic maxim in a tone of passionate
sternness, beating the desk with his snuff-box at each word

As to his own conduct, he was one of three or four men at the
synagogue of whom it was said that they never looked at women,
and, to a very considerable extent, his reputation was not
unjustified

"You must never tire fighting Satan, David," he proceeded. "Fight
him with might and main."

As I listened I was tingling with a mute vow to be good. Yet, at the
same time, the vision of "a woman that is wholly naked" was
vividly before me

He caused me to bring a certain ancient work, one not included in
the Talmud, in which he made me read the following: "Rabbi
Mathia, the son of Chovosh, had never set eyes on a woman.

Therefore when he was at the synagogue studying the Law, his
visage would shine as the sun and its features would be the
features of an angel. One day, as he thus sat reading, Satan
chanced to pass by, and in a fit of jealousy Satan said: "'Can it
really be that this man has never sinned?' "'He is a man of spotless
purity,' answered God

"'Just grant me the liberty,' Satan urged, 'and I will lead him to sin.'
"'You will never succeed.' "'Let me try.' "'Proceed.' "Satan then
appeared in the guise of the most beautiful woman in the world,
of one the like of whom had not been born since the days of
Naomi, the sister of Tuval Cain, the woman who had led angels
astray.

When Rabbi Mathia espied her he faced about. So Satan, still in
the disguise of a beautiful woman, took up a position on the left
side of him; and when he turned away once more he walked over
to the right side again. Finally Rabbi Mathia had nails and fire
brought him and gouged out his own eyes.

"At this God called for Angel Raphael and bade him cure the
righteous man. Presently Raphael came back with the report that
Rabbi Mathia would not be cured lest he should again be tempted
to look at pretty women.

"'Go tell him in My name that he shall never be tempted again,'
said God

"And so the holy man regained his eyesight and was never
molested by Satan again."

The painful image of poor Rabbi M athia gouging out his eyes
supplanted the nude figure of the previous quotation in my mind

Reb Sender pursued his "exhortative talk." He dwelt on the duties
of man to man.

"If a man is tongue-tied, don't laugh at him, but, rather, feel pity
for him, as you would for a man with broken legs. Nor should you
hate a man who has a weakness for telling falsehoods. This, too, is
an affliction, like stuttering or being lame. Say to yourself, 'Poor
fellow, he is given to lying.' Above all, you must fight conceit,
envy, and every kind of ill-feeling in your heart. Remember, the
sum and substance of all learning lies in the words, 'Love thy
neighbor as thyself.' Another thing, remember that it is not enough
to abstain from lying by word of mouth; for the worst lies are
often conveyed by a false look, smile, or act. Be genuinely
truthful, then. And if you feel that you are good, don't be too proud
of it.

Be modest, humble, simple. Control your anger."

He worked me up to a veritable frenzy of penitence

"I will, I will," I said, tremulously. "And if I ever catch myself
looking at a woman again I will gouge out my eyes like Rabbi
Mathia."

"'S-sh! Don't say that, my son." About a quarter of an hour later, as
I sat reading by myself, I suddenly sprang to my feet and walked
over to Reb Sender

"You are so dear to me," I gasped out. "You are a man of perfect
righteousness. I love you so. I should jump into fire or into water
for your sake."

"'S-sh!" he said, taking me gently by the hand and pressing me
down into a seat by his side. "You are a good boy. As to my being
a man of perfect righteousness, alas! I am far from being one. We
are all sinful. Come, let us read another page together."

Satan kept me rather busy these days. It was not an easy task to
keep one's eyes off the girls who came to the Preacher's
Synagogue, and when none was around I would be apt to think of
one. I would even picture myself touching a feminine cheek with
the tip of my finger. Then my heart would sink in despair and I
would hurl curses at Satan

"Eighty black years on you, vile wretch you!" I would whisper,
gnashing my teeth, and fall to reading with ferocious zeal

In the relations between men and women it is largely case of
forbidden fruit and the mystery of distance. The great barrier that
religion, law, and convention have laced between the sexes adds
to the joys and poetry of love, but it is responsible also for much
of the suffering, degradation, and crime that spring from it. In my
case his barrier was of special magnitude.

Dancing with a girl, or even taking one out for a walk, was out of
the question. Nor was the injunction confined to men who devoted
themselves to the study of holy books. It was the rule of ordinary
decency for any Jew except one who lived "like a Gentile," that is,
like a person of modern culture. Indeed, there were scores of
towns in the vicinity of Antomir where one could not take a walk
even with one's own wife without incurring universal
condemnation. There was a lancing-school or two in Antomir, but
they were attended by young mechanics of the coarser type. To be
sure, there were plenty of young Jews in our town who did live
"like Gentiles," who called the girls of their acquaintance "young
ladies," took off their hats to them, took them out for a walk in the
public park, and danced with them, just like the nobles or the
army officers of my birthplace. But then these fellows spoke
Russian instead of Yiddish and altogether they belonged to a
world far removed from mine. Many of these "modern" young
Jews went to high school and wore pretty uniforms with
silver-plated buttons and silver lace.

To me they were apostates, sinners in Israel. And yet I could not
think of them without a lurking feeling of envy. The Gentile
books they studied and their social relations with girls who were
dressed "like young noblewomen" piqued my keenest curiosity
and made me feel small and wretched

The orthodox Jewish faith practically excludes woman from
religious life.

Attending divine service is not obligatory for her, and those of the
sex who wish to do so are allowed to follow the devotions not in
the synagogue proper, but through little windows or peepholes in
the wall of an adjoining room. In the eye of the spiritual law that
governed my life women were intended for two purposes only: for
the continuation of the human species and to serve as an
instrument in the hands of Satan for tempting the stronger sex to
sin. Marriage was simply a duty imposed by the Bible. Love? So
far as it meant attraction between two persons of the opposite sex
who were not man and wife, there was no such word in my native
tongue. One loved one's wife, mother, daughter, or sister. To be
"in love" with a girl who was an utter stranger to you was
something unseemly, something which only Gentiles or "modern"
Jews might indulge in

But at present all this merely deepened the bewitching mystery of
the forbidden sex in my young blood. And Satan, wide awake and
sharp-eyed as ever, was not slow to perceive the change that had
come over me and made the most of it

There was no such thing as athletics or outdoor sports in my world.
The only physical exercise known to us was to be swinging like a
pendulum in front of your reading-desk from nine in the morning
to bedtime every day, and an all-night vigil every Thursday in
addition. Even a most innocent frolic among the boys was
suppressed as an offense to good Judaism

All of which tended to deepen the mystery of girlhood and to
increase the chances of Satan.

I must explain that although women could not attend divine
service except through a peephole, they were free to visit the
house of worship on all sorts of other errands. So some of them
would come with food for the scholars, others with candles for the
chandeliers, while still others wanted letters read or written. One
of the several rabbis of the town was in the habit of spending his
evenings reading Talmud in the Preacher's Synagogue, so
housewives of the neighborhood, or their daughters, would bring
some spoon, pot, or chicken to have them passed upon according
to the dietary laws of Moses and the Talmud

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