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I give Tchernigof to Sviatoslaf; Pereaslavle to Vsevolod; and Smolensk to Viatcheslaf. I hope that each of you will be satisfied with his inheritance. Your oldest brother, in his quality of sovereign prince, will be your natural judge. He will protect the oppressed and punish the guilty." On the 19th of February, 1054, Yaroslaf died, in the seventy-first year of his age.
According to the ancient custom of Russia, the right of succession transferred the crown, not to the oldest son, but to the brother or the most aged member belonging to the family connections of the deceased prince. The energetic Monomaque violated this law by transferring the crown to his son, when, by custom, it should have passed to the prince of Tchernigof.
"Reb Bensef being very much distressed by the death of Rabbi Jeiteles, went to Tchernigof to ask counsel of the bal-shem and has just returned." "Well, what did the wise man advise?" asked Jentele, burning with impatience, while her partially washed baby lay kicking in her arms. "Listen, I am coming to that," answered Itzig, with provoking slowness.
Hirsch and Miriam could witness his suffering no longer, but went to their own room and gave free vent to the tears which would not be repressed. "Oh, if the answer from the Rabbi were but here," sighed Miriam. "Itzig will have just arrived in Tchernigof," said her husband, despondingly. "We can expect no answer until Monday morning."
He told them that, having left the wagon half-way to Tchernigof, he had walked the rest of the distance, reaching his destination that very morning at eleven o'clock. The holy man, being advised by mysterious power of his expected arrival, awaited him at the door and said: "Itzig, thou hast come about a sick boy at Kief."
When Chune Benefski's little boy was so sick that they thought he was already dead, a parchment blessed by the bal-shem brought him back to life. Is Mendel less to you than your own son would be?" "God forbid," said Hirsch; then added, reflectively: "but to-day is Thursday. It will take a day and a half to reach Tchernigof, and the messenger will arrive there just before Shabbes.
He refused no one his assistance, declined no one's proffered gifts. It was finally decided to send to the bal-shem to effect Mendel's cure. But time was pressing, Mendel was growing visibly worse and Tchernigof was a long way off! Hirsch rose to go in search of a messenger. "Whom will you send?" asked his wife, accompanying him to the door.
Sviatoslaf, prince of Tchernigof, was roused to intense hostility, and gathering around him the nobles of his province, resolved with a vigorous arm to seize for himself the throne. Enlisting in his interests several other princes, he commenced his march against his sovereign. Vsevelod prepared with vigor to repulse his assailants.
Mstislaf the Bold, then Prince of Galitch, persuaded all the dynasties of Southern Russia to take up arms against the Tartars: his nephew Daniel, Prince of Volhynia, Mstislaf Romanovitch, Grand Prince of Kiev, Oleg of Kursk, Mstislaf of Tchernigof, Vladimir of Smolensk, and Vsevolod, for a short time Prince of Novgorod, responded to his appeal.
The busiest man during these troublous times was Itzig Maier, the beadle, whose acquaintance we have already made as the messenger sent by Bensef to the bal-shem at Tchernigof. The condition of Itzig and his family had not improved since we last saw him.
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