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Updated: June 22, 2025
Yea, I, even I, Melchitsedek Pinchas, will light the fire forthwith." "Nay, not to-day," said Reb Shemuel, with his humorous twinkle; "it is the Sabbath." The Rabbi was returning from synagogue and Pinchas was giving him his company on the short homeward journey.
Simcha groaned and fell into her chair with a crash that rattled the tray and shook the cups. "Here's the end of the week coming," she sobbed, "and I shall have no fish for Shabbos." "Do not blaspheme!" said Reb Shemuel, tugging a little angrily at his venerable beard. "The Holy One, blessed be He, will provide for our Shabbos"
But thank God I know it in time." "Finding out what?" said David, fearing the old man's reason was giving way. "My daughter cannot marry you," said Reb Shemuel in hushed, quavering tones. "Eh? What?" said David blankly. "It is impossible." "What are you talking about. Reb Shemuel?" "You are a Cohen. Hannah cannot marry a Cohen." "Not marry a Cohen? Why, I thought they were Israel's aristocracy."
I don't want any of your Jewish men coming round to examine me as if! were a horse, and wanting to know how much money you'll give them as a set-off. Let me be! Let me be single! It's my business, not yours." The Rebbitzin bent eyes of angry reproach on the Reb. "What did I tell thee, Shemuel? She's meshugga quite mad! Healthy and fresh and mad!" "Yes, you'll drive me mad," said Hannah savagely.
I feel as if I had never known you before to-night." "What is it, my daughter?" said Reb Shemuel, stumbling into Yiddish in his anxiety. "What hast thou done?" "I have betrothed myself," she answered, unwittingly adopting his dialect. "I have betrothed myself without telling thee or mother." "To whom?" he asked anxiously.
Reb Shemuel had not of course expected him till the next morning, but he welcomed him as heartily as Hannah could desire. "The Most High bless you!" he said in his charming foreign accents. "May you make my Hannah as good a husband as she will make you a wife." "Trust me, Reb Shemuel," said David, grasping his great hand warmly.
"Elijah has sense enough to stay in heaven and not go wandering about shivering in the fog and frost of this God-accursed country." The old Rabbi answered, "Atschew!" "For thy salvation do I hope, O Lord," murmured Simcha piously in Hebrew, adding excitedly in English, "Ah, you'll kill yourself, Shemuel." She rushed upstairs and returned with another coat and a new terror.
"You'll ruin me, Shemuel!" moaned Simcha, wringing her hands. "You'd give away the shirt off your skin to a pack of good-for-nothing Schnorrers." "Yes, if they had only their skin in the world. Why not?" said the old Rabbi, a pacific gleam in his large gazelle-like eyes. "Perhaps my coat may have the honor to cover Elijah the prophet." "Elijah the prophet!" snorted Simcha.
Then, anxious to complete the conciliation of the old snuff-and-pepper-box, as he mentally christened him for his next acrostic, he added: "If there is anything in this manuscript that you cannot decipher or understand, a letter to me, care of Reb Shemuel, will always find me. Somehow I have a special genius for filling up lacunae in manuscripts.
There, a few yards from him, rooted to the pavement, with stony staring face, was Reb Shemuel. The old man wore an unbrushed high hat and an uncouth unbuttoned overcoat. His hair and beard were quite white now, and the strong countenance lined with countless wrinkles was distorted with pain and astonishment. He looked a cross between an ancient prophet and a shabby street lunatic.
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