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Updated: May 24, 2025
Sometimes Moses read to his charmed hearers the description of Heaven and Hell by Immanuel, the friend and contemporary of Dante, sometimes a jargon version of Robinson Crusoe. To-night he chose Eldad's account of the tribe of Moses dwelling beyond the wonderful river, Sambatyon, which never flows on the Sabbath.
The roaring Sambatyon of life was at rest in the Ghetto; on thousands of squalid homes the light of Sinai shone. The Sabbath Angels whispered words of hope and comfort to the foot-sore hawker and the aching machinist, and refreshed their parched souls with celestial anodyne and made them kings of the hour, with leisure to dream of the golden chairs that awaited them in Paradise.
The next day was Friday, and Alexander waited until the evening to see what would happen. An hour before sunset, at the time of the commencement of Sabbath, the river ceased to flow. The rumbling died down and the Sambatyon appeared like a broad expanse of shining yellow sand.
Coleman was deeply perturbed. He was wondering whether he should plead guilty to a little knowledge, when a change of expression came over the wan face on the pillow. The doctor came and felt the boy's pulse. "No, I don't want to hear that Maaseh," cried Benjamin. "Tell me about the Sambatyon, father, which refuses to flow on Shabbos." He spoke Yiddish, grown a child again.
In that far-off City of the Rabbis called Sambatyon, where live the descendants of the Ten Tribes, the river which surrounds and protects the City with its broad and mighty flood, too strong for boats to cross, ceases to flow on the Sabbath; but it is not pretended that the people cease to live there. Of no other City can it be said that it sleeps from Saturday night till Monday morning.
So when a soul is in dolor, Cometh the sweet restful Sabbath, Singing and joy in its footsteps, Rapidly floweth Sambatyon, Till that, of God's love the symbol, Sabbath, the holy, the peaceful, Husheth its turbulent waters. * Bless Him, O constant companions, Rock from whose stores we have eaten, Eaten have we and have left, too, Just as the Lord hath commanded Father and Shepherd and Feeder.
"To-morrow I shall cross with my army," said Alexander, but next morning the Sambatyon was enveloped in dense black clouds. Alexander could not see a yard in front of him, and when he ventured on to the sand, the horses sank into it. Flames were also seen in the clouds.
Then for nine months he would disappear, the Jews meanwhile enduring martyrdom, but he would return, mounted on a Celestial Lion, with his bridle made of seven-headed serpents, leading back the lost ten tribes from beyond the river Sambatyon, and he should be acknowledged for Solomon, King of the Universe, and the Holy Temple should descend from Heaven already built, that the Jews might offer sacrifice therein for ever.
Alexander asked the Jewish soldier if he could explain. "This," said the Jew, "is the Sambatyon, the river which ceases to flow on the Sabbath." "And what lies beyond?" "The land of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel," was the answer. "None have seen this country." "Cannot the river then be crossed?" asked Alexander. "Not by all who wish to cross."
He would speak of a mighty Jewish kingdom in the East, existing in idyllic peace and prosperity; he would excite his auditors with news of the latest Messiah; he would describe the river Sambatyon, which keeps the Sabbath, and, mingling truth with fiction, with one breath would truly relate how he crossed a river on an inflated skin, and with the next breath romance about Hillel's tomb, how he had been there, and how he had seen a large hollow stone, which remains empty if a bad fellow enters, but at the approach of a pious visitor fills up with sweet, pure water, with which he washes, uttering a wish at the same time, sure that it will come true.
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