Israel Zangwill

“ A blush overspread many cheeks.
'But not always in the shape it came to Joseph. In this congregation, where, by the blessing of the Almighty, we are free from almost every form of wrong-doing, there is yet one temptation which has power to touch us—the temptation of unholy profit, the seduction of Sabbath-breaking.'
A great sigh of dual relief went up to the balcony, and Simeon Samuels became now the focus of every eye. His face was turned towards the preacher, wearing its wonted synagogue expression of reverential dignity. ”

“ The first appearance in synagogue of a new settler was an event in itself; but that this Sabbath-breaker should appear at all was startling to a primitive community. Escorted by the obsequious and unruffled beadle to the seat he seemed already to have engaged—that high-priced seat facing the presidential pew that had remained vacant since the death of Tevele the pawnbroker—Simeon Samuels wrapped himself reverently in his praying-shawl, and became absorbed in the service. ”

“ It's a fight between you and Simeon Samuels.'
'May his name be blotted out!' impatiently cried the minister in the Hebrew imprecation.
'No, no,' replied the Parnass, smiling. 'His name must not be blotted out—it must be mentioned, and—unmistakably.'
'It is against the Talmud. To shame a man is equivalent to murder,' the minister persisted.
'Yet it is written in Leviticus: "Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him."' And the Parnass took a triumphant pinch. ”

“ We are most careful not to touch money. We are going to trust our customers, and keep our accounts without pen or ink. We have invented a most ingenious system, which gives us far more work than writing, but we have determined to spare ourselves no trouble to keep the Sabbath from unnecessary desecration.'
'And once the customers don't pay up, your system will break down. No, no; I shall write to the Chief Rabbi.'
'We will explain our motives,' said Mendel.
'Your motives need no explanation. This scandal must cease.'
'And who are you to give orders?' shrieked Solomon Barzinsky. ”

“ The Parnass's complacency collapsed like an air-ball at a pin-prick. 'Oh, nonsense, everybody knows he couldn't mean you.'
'I don't know so much. There are always people ready to think one has just been discovered keeping a back-door open or something. I shouldn't be at all surprised to get a letter from my father-in-law in London—you know how pious old Cohn is! As for Simeon, he kept looking at me as if I was his long-lost brother. Ah, there comes our precious minister.... Look here, Mr. Gabriel, I'll have the law on you. ”

“ The plate-glass window still flashed in iniquitous effrontery; still the ungodly proprietor allured the stream of custom.
'He does not even refuse to take money,' Solomon Barzinsky exclaimed to Peleg the pawnbroker, as they passed the blasphemous window on their way from the Friday-evening service.
'Why, what would be the good of keeping open if you didn't take money?' naïvely inquired Peleg.
'Behemah (animal) !' replied Solomon impatiently. 'Don't you know it's forbidden to touch money on the Sabbath?'
'Of course, I know that. But if you open your shop——!'
'All the same, you might compromise. ”

“ The Parnass, meeting his minister later in the street, took a similar view.
'You really must preach again next Sabbath,' he said. 'The congregation is terribly wrought up. There may even be a riot. If Simeon Samuels keeps open next Sabbath, I can't answer that they won't go and break his windows.'
'Then they will break the Sabbath.'
'Oh, they may wait till the Sabbath is out.'
'They'll be too busy opening their own shops.'
'Don't argue. You must preach his shop shut.'
'Very well,' said the Reverend Gabriel sullenly.
'That's right. A man with a family must rise to great occasions. ”

“ Five-sixths of his Sabbath profits depend on the marine-dealers closing, and when he sees he's breaking the Sabbath in vain——'
'Rubbish! You are asked to stop a congregational infection, and you——'
'Vaccinate ourselves with the same stuff, to make sure the attack shall be light.'
'It's a hair of the dog that bit us,' said Mendel, who, with Peleg, had lingered to back up Barzinsky.
'Of the mad dog!' exclaimed the Parnass. 'And you're all raging mad.'
'It's the only sane way,' urged Peleg. 'When he sees his rivals open——'
'You!' The President turned on him. 'You are not even a marine-dealer. ”

“ VIII
'Simeon and Levi are brethren ... into their assembly be not thou united: in their self-will they digged down a wall.'
The Parnass applauded mentally. The text, from Jacob's blessing, was ingeniously expurgated to meet the case. The wall, he perceived at once, was the Sabbath—the Jews' one last protection against the outer world, the one last dyke against the waves of heathendom. Nor did his complacency diminish when his intuition proved correct, and the preacher thundered against the self-will—ay, and the self-seeking—that undermined Israel's last fortification. ”

“ The one bright spot in the story of the Sudminster Sabbath is that the congregation of which the present esteemed Parnass is Solomon Barzinsky, Esq., J.P., managed to avert the threatened split, and that while in so many other orthodox synagogues the poor minister preaches on the Sabbath to empty benches, the Sudminster congregation still remains at the happy point of compromise acutely discovered by Simeon Samuels: of listening reverentially every Saturday morning to the unchanging principles of its minister-elect, the while its shops are engaged in supplying the wants of Christendom. ”

“ One could always give one's self a device,' he concluded in Yiddish.
'But it is written in Job, "He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise." Have a little of Job's patience, and trust the Lord to confound the sinner. We shall yet see Simeon Samuels in the Bankruptcy Court.'
'I hope not, the rogue! I'd like to see him ruined!'
'That's what I mean. Leave him to the Lord.'
'The Lord is too long-suffering,' said Solomon. 'Ah, our Parnass has caught us up. Good Shabbos (Sabbath) , Parnass. This is a fine scandal for a God-fearing congregation. ”

“ When you were in India you probably noted that the Mohammedans keep Friday. A poor Jew in the bazaar is robbed of his Hindoo customers on Friday, of his Jews on Saturday, and his Christians on Sunday.'
'The Fourth Commandment is eternal!' said the Parnass with obstinate sublimity.
'But the Fifth says, "that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." I believe this reward belongs to all the first five Commandments—not only to the Fifth—else an orphan would have no chance of long life. Keep the Sabbath in the land that the Lord giveth thee ”

“ The strange apathy of the pavement and the sky, the remissness of the volcanic fires and the celestial thunderbolts in face of this staring profanity, lent the cosmos an air almost of accessory after the fact. Never had the congregation seen Heaven so openly defied, and the consequences did not at all correspond with their deep if undefined forebodings. It is true a horse and carriage dashed into Peleg, the pawnbroker's, window down the street, frightened, Peleg maintained, by the oilskins fluttering outside Simeon Samuels' shop ”

“ I then remind him of the weakness of womenkind for such trophies of their menfolks' travel.'
'Excellent. I won't tell your competitors.'
'Oh, those cattle!' Simeon snapped his fingers. 'If they stole my idea, they'd not be able to carry it out. It's not easy to cajole a captain.'
'No, you're indeed a honeyed rascal,' thought the Parnass.
'I also do a brisk business in chutney,' went on Simeon. 'It's a thing women are especially fond of having brought back to them from India. ”

“ The broad plate-glass glittered nakedly, unveiled by a single shutter; the waxen dummy of the sailor hitched devil-may-care breeches; the gold lace, ticketed with layers of erased figures, boasted brazenly of its cheapness; the procession of customers came and went, and the pavement, splashed with sunshine, remained imperturbably, perturbingly acquiescent. ”

“ Barzinsky was taken aback.
'Well, we don't want foreigners, do we?' he murmured.
'And you caught an Englishman in Simeon Samuels,' chuckled the Parnass, in whose breast the defeat of his candidate had never ceased to rankle.
'Not he. An Englishman plays fair,' retorted Barzinsky. He seriously considered himself a Briton, regarding his naturalization papers as retrospective. 'We are just passing the Reverend Gabriel's house,' he went on. 'Let us wait a moment; he'll come along, and we'll give him a piece of our minds.'
'I can't keep my family waiting for Kiddush' (home service) , said Peleg. ”

“ The time has come for desperate measures. We must root out the plague-spot with our own hands.'
'Hear, hear,' said the rest of the Sub-Committee.
XIX
On the succeeding Sabbath Simeon Samuels was not the only figure in the synagogue absorbed in devotion. Solomon Barzinsky, Ephraim Mendel, and Peleg the pawnbroker were all rapt in equal piety, while the rest of the congregation was shaken with dreadful gossip about them. Their shops were open, too, it would seem.
Immediately after the service the Parnass arrested Solomon Barzinsky's exit, and asked him if the rumour were true. ”

“ Mr. Barzinsky! I had the rolling-up of the Scroll the time you had the elevation of it.'
'Ah, indeed. At these solemn moments I scarcely notice people. But I am very glad to find you patronizing my humble establishment.'
'I don't want a barometer,' said Solomon hurriedly. ”

“ To mix up religion with the almanac. People who find that your Sabbath wall shuts them out of all public life and all professions, just go outside it altogether, and think themselves outside the gates of Judaism. If my father—peace be upon him—hadn't had your narrow notions, I should have gone to the Bar instead of being condemned to shop-keeping.'
'You are a very good devil's advocate now,' retorted the minister.
Simeon Samuels stroked his beard. 'Thank you. ”

“ And it came to pass that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph....'
The congregation looked startled. Really this was not a text which they wished their pastor to enlarge upon. There were things in the Bible that should be left in the obscurity of the Hebrew, especially when one's womenkind were within earshot. Uneasily their eyes lifted towards the bonnets behind the balcony-grating.
'But Joseph refused.'
Solomon Barzinsky coughed. Peleg the pawnbroker blew his nose like a protesting trumpet. The congregation's eyes returned from the balcony and converged upon the Parnass. ”

“ Mendel, 'she served in the shop while he was at synagogue.'
'Yes,' hissed Barzinsky; 'and in spite of the synagogue he served in the shop. A greater mockery was never known!'
'Not at all, not at all,' said the Parnass judicially. 'If a man breaks one commandment, that's no reason he should break two.'
'But he does break two,' Solomon thundered, smiting the green cloth with his fist ”

“ The sudden appearance of Simeon through the other swing-door cut the speaker short. 'Good Shabbos,' said the shameless sinner. 'Ah, Mr. Gabriel, that was a very fine sermon.' He stroked his beard. 'I quite agree with you. To dig down a public wall is indefensible. Nobody has the right to make more than a private hole in it, where it blocks out his own prospect. So please do not bracket me with Mr. Levy again. Good Shabbos!' And, waving his hand pleasantly, he left them to their consternation.
IX
'What an impudent face!' said the Gabbai (treasurer) , who witnessed the episode. ”

“ The rubber continued cheerlessly. 'A man who keeps his shop open on Sabbath is capable of anything,' said the lanky Mendel, gloomily sweeping in his winnings.
The Parnass took snuff judicially. 'Besides, he may have a Christian partner who keeps all the Saturday profits,' he suggested. ”