The Talmuds begin to burn that very same day, October 14, in the evening. Those carrying out the sentences find they don’t have to exert themselves too much. Only the first pile, the one in Kamieniec, is formally ignited by the local hangman after a reading of the order signed by Bishop Dembowski. From then on, things run their course.
In most cases, a small crowd breaks into a Jewish home and gets its hands on some book. All of these “talmutes,” with their impure pages, written in that twisted alphabet that goes from right to left, are instantly tossed out onto the street, where they get kicked into a heap, which then gets set on fire. The Sabbatians themselves, the Jewish heretics, are exceptionally eager to help the officials, who, being thus relieved of their duties, may go home and have their dinners. And then the goyim and the young men always looking for trouble join in with the Sabbatians. Books burn throughout Lwów, where every square of any significance has its own book burning, whether Talmudic or not. These fires are still smoldering the next day, and then in the evening they blaze back up again with the addition of new books. Now, all printed matter seems sinister, and even Lwów’s Christians begin to hide their books and barricade their printing presses, just in case. Over the course of only a few days, all this burning so emboldens everyone that the Kamieniec Jews, who have made this town home, irrespective of the law, have once more begun to move on with all of their belongings, this time to Karvasary, fearing for their lives. The sight of the burning books, their pages fluttering in the flames, draws people in, arrays them in a circle, like a magician at a fair who has ordered chickens to do as he says. People gaze into the flames and find they like this theater of destruction, and a free-floating anger mounts within them, although they don’t know whom to turn it on—but their outrage more or less automatically makes them hostile to the owners of these ruined books. Now one whoop would suffice to send the frenzied crowd into the nearest Jewish residence that the Contra-Talmudist guards, hoping to prevent the plunder of their own homes, might direct them toward.
Those who were only recently considered wretched, sinful, and accursed have now become legislators and enforcers. And vice versa, those who formerly judged and instructed now find themselves judged and instructed. The rabbi’s place is no longer the home of a rabbi, but a public house that all can enter, opening the door with the force of their feet. Inside, you pay no mind to shrieks of protest and instead proceed directly to the place you know books are usually kept, often in a glass case, and you pull them out one by one and then eviscerate them, holding them by their covers like chickens before they are boiled.
Some woman, often the oldest one in the house, throws herself in front of the books in desperation as though defending a weird, disabled grandchild who has been reduced to these paper dimensions, but the rest of the household is afraid to oppose the violence, evidently knowing already that the capricious forces of the world have switched sides, for who knows how long. Sometimes the women make their way to one of the ringleaders, and sometimes he’s a cousin misguided by the Sabbatian idea, and they take his hand and try desperately to catch his eye: “Itzele, what are you doing? Your mother and I used to play together down by the river!” The elders mutter from the corner: “Your hand will wither and drop off for this sacrilege.”
In Busk there aren’t so many Talmuds to burn, given how few Talmudists are left here. Most people are followers of Sabbatai. A little fire burns behind the synagogue, but it burns badly, smoking, since the books fell into a puddle and now don’t seem to want to catch fire. They don’t have the same determination here. Those doing the burning act as if they’re carrying out a sentence; a bottle of vodka makes its way around the fire. Young goyim try to get in on the auto-da-fé—throwing anything on flames always appeals to them, even if they don’t really know what’s happening. But they have already heard that this is some internal matter of the Jews’, so now they stand around with their hands in the pockets of their linen trousers and just gaze into the blaze.
The worst of it occurs in Kamieniec, Rohatyn, and Lwów. In these places, blood is spilled. In Lwów a madding crowd burns the whole of a Jewish library collected in a house of prayer. The windows are shattered, the pews wrecked.
The following day the riots worsen—come afternoon, the unconstrained crowd, no longer only Jewish but mixed, colorful, wild, cannot distinguish between the Talmud and other books. All that matters is that a book be filled with those bizarre letters, inherently hostile since illegible. This crowd, which has gathered for the next day’s market in Rohatyn, feels empowered to enact violence against books, and unleashes a boisterous, delighted frenzy, setting out on a hunt. People stand at the entrances of homes and demand that books be handed over, like hostages. If a homeowner is deemed to be hiding something, they strike. Blood is shed, hands and arms are broken, teeth are bashed out of mouths.
Meanwhile, outraged by the lost disputation, the rabbis have called for prayer and strict fasting, the kind of fast that has mothers refraining from breastfeeding their babies. In Lwów, Rapaport has a room for writing letters, and work there buzzes by candlelight until morning. Rabbi Rapaport himself is lying down; he was beaten in front of the synagogue, and it’s hard for him to breathe; some fear that he has broken ribs. Pinkas cries while writing out copies of letters. It certainly seems as if the end of the world is approaching, with this latest catastrophe under way, and this one is the most painful, for now people are inflicting pain on their own kind. How is it possible, how could God be putting us through such a horrendously painful trial—how can it not be a Cossack, not some wild Tatar lying in wait for our lives, but our own, our neighbors, a person with whose father or grandfather we used to play as children? They speak our language, live in our towns, and force their way into our temples, though we don’t want them there. When a people turns against itself, it means the sin of Israel is great, and God is very angry.
After a few days, when Rabbi Rapaport has more or less recovered, the representatives of the kahalim assemble and mount another fundraising campaign. The money must be conveyed to Warsaw, to the great Yavan, Brühl’s confidant, though evidently this is a bad time to bother the king with book burning—there is a war on, after all—since no answer is forthcoming.
Of Father Pikulski’s explanation to the nobles of the rules of gematria