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His heart, schooled in the wisdom of many nations, had surrendered unconditionally to the charm of Recha, the beautiful dark-eyed daughter of Rabbi Jeiteles. Recha was rapidly nearing her seventeenth year and each month, nay each day, added to her charms.
Sermons, as we understand them, were not in vogue among the Russian Jews, and lectures in the synagogue on topics unconnected with religion or morality had not been dreamed of. Jeiteles would at times discourse upon some knotty point in the Torah, and on the more important holidays expound the meaning of certain ceremonials.
The first to visit, aid and counsel the stricken community was Rabbi Jeiteles, whose unselfish devotion to duty led him from house to house, administering simple remedies to the suffering, closing the eyes of the dead and consoling the grieving survivors. He knew no fear, no hesitation. To his wife's anxious words of warning he had but one reply, "We are all in God's hands."
Rabbi Jeiteles wiping his perspiring brow with a large red handkerchief, sat down upon a moss-grown log and bade the boy sit at his side. "My dear Mendel," he began, "you are scarcely old or experienced enough to comprehend the gravity of your question. It is important for Israel the world over to remain unpolluted by the influence of gentile customs.
This evening I shall be pleased to see at my house all those who are willing to devote their time and money to the great cause, and we will there discuss the ways and means of driving out the cholera, and thus avenging the death of our beloved and regretted Rabbi Jeiteles." Such enthusiasm as greeted the speaker when he descended from the pulpit had never been known in the synagogue.
And yet how much better this training, confusing and bewildering though it be, than the absolute ignorance, the unchecked illiteracy of the Russian Christians. Rabbi Jeiteles interrupted his class to amplify upon the passage just read.
There are nearly fifteen thousand of our co-religionists in that city; and, while their lot is not an enviable one, it is decidedly better than vegetating in a village. Our celebrated Rabbi Jeiteles is getting old and we will soon need a successor. It is an honorable position and one which our little Mendel will some day be able to fill. Would you not like living in a big city, my boy?"
"By no means," said Philip, eagerly. "If Rabbi Jeiteles will pardon my speaking upon a subject concerning which he is better instructed and which he is better qualified to expound than myself, I will endeavor to tell why. You well know that until after the destruction of the second Temple the Jews had no Talmud.
The house of Rabbi Jeiteles was hemmed in on three sides by decaying and overcrowded dwellings, facing on the fourth a narrow, neglected lane. There was nothing in its appearance to attract a passer-by. The interior, however, was neatly and tastefully, if not luxuriously, furnished. On entering, one found himself in a comfortably arranged reception-room.
Among them was Rabbi Jeiteles, who shook the suave and smiling stranger by the hand, congratulated him upon his appearance and asked him a hundred questions about his travels. Indeed, it seemed as though the worthy Rabbi intended to monopolize his company for the rest of the evening.
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