Jacob speaks of it more and more often, calling it a she but rarely using her name at first, and yet this new and powerful presence in Ivanie spreads fast.
“The Maiden goes before the Lord,” pronounces Jacob at the close of one long winter evening. It’s after midnight already, the furnaces have cooled, and a bitter chill sneaks into the room like a little mouse through the cracks in the walls. “She is the gateway to God, who can only be reached through Her. As the peel precedes the fruit.”
They call her Everlasting Virgin, Heavenly Queen, Benefactress.
“And we are going to get under Her wing,” Jacob continues his teaching. “Each and every one of us will look upon Her in his way.”
“You thought up until now,” he says one winter morning, “that the Messiah would be a man, but under no circumstances can that occur—the Maiden is the foundation, and it is She who will be the true savior. She will conduct all worlds; all weapons will be surrendered to Her. David and the First came in order to pave the way to Her, but they completed nothing. That’s what I’ll be doing, finishing what they started.”
Jacob lights his long Turkish pipe. A warm, soft light flits from it into his eyes and disappears under his lowered eyelids.
“Our ancestors had no idea what they were even searching for so long and hard. Perhaps a few of them knew that in all their writings and all their wise teachings, ultimately what they were looking for was Her. Everything depends on Her. As Jacob found Rachel by the well, so Moses, when he reached the source, came to the Maiden.”
Of Yankiel of Glinno and the terrible smell of silt
Yankiel, the young rabbi of Glinno, a widower who recently buried both wife and child, found himself in Ivanie in the spring at the urging of Nahman, with whom, years earlier, he was a student of the Hassidim. They act boisterous together, as if to emphasize their mutual attachment. But it would seem that more divides them than unites them. In the first place, stature—Yankiel has grown, and Nahman has not. They look like a poplar and a juniper. Seeing them walk together makes people smile, whether they intend to or not. Nahman is an enthusiast, while Yankiel of Glinno is all sad reserve, and fearful, too, here in Ivanie, for this place frightens him. He listens to Frank’s words and watches how people react to them. Those who sit closest never take their eyes off him—not a single one of his movements escapes them—while those in the back, despite the tenuous light of several lamps, can barely see and hear. But when the word “Messiah” is spoken, a sigh spreads through the room, almost a moan.
Thanks to a relative in the Lwów kahal, Yankiel of Glinno brings them the news that Talmudist Jews from all over Podolia have gathered together and written a letter to Jacob Emden in Altona to request his counsel. They also have Yavan, who continues to whisper into Minister Brühl’s ear on every possible occasion, encouraging him to take a view of the whole matter that is favorable to the Talmudists. Brühl borrows money from Yavan, sometimes even for the Polish king, giving this Jew considerable influence at the royal court.
And Yankiel says that the rabbis have once again sent a message to the highest ecclesiastical authority—to Rome itself, to the pope.
Yankiel has already received the ironic nickname of Mr. Gliniański, a Polish name, since he carries himself like a Pole and turns up his nose like a Pole. He seems pleased to be the center of attention. He speaks briefly and waits a moment for his words to take effect.
He sees that his news disturbs the assembly. They have gone silent, aside from the occasional cough. The barn, which they have repurposed to be a kind of common room, with a stove in the middle, now transforms into a ship sailing in the dark through stormy waters. Everywhere you look some new danger lurks. It is strange to be aware that everyone out there, on the outside, wishes them ill. The wooden walls of this ship, this Ivanie ark, are too thin to block out the enemies’ whispers, their scheming, their accusations and slanders.
Jacob, the Lord, who senses all emotions better than anyone else, intones a joyful song in his powerful, low voice:
Forsa damus para verti,
seihut grandi asser verti.
Which, in the language of the Sephardim, means:
Give us the power to see thee
and the great fortune to serve thee.
And now everyone is singing “para verti,” the whole barn, their voices uniting into something singular and strong, leaving no room for and no memory of Yankiel of Glinno and his bad news.
Nahman and his very young wife, Wajge?e, whose nickname is the Little Ant, have taken Yankiel in. Sometimes, pretending to be asleep, Yankiel eavesdrops on his arguing hosts; she wants to go back to Busk. She is very thin and prone to fevers and coughs.
The fact that they all have to go through the motions of accepting the Nazarene faith and acting more Christian than the Christians themselves strikes Yankiel as dishonest. It is fraud. He likes having to live piously, humbly, not saying much, keeping his thoughts to himself. The truth should be in your heart, not on your lips. And yet: converting to Christianity!
Nahman dispels his doubts: accepting the Christian faith does not mean becoming Christian. They cannot, for instance, marry Christian women, or even have concubines from among them, for although Se?or Santo Baruchiah repeated: “Blessed is he who permits all forbidden things,” he also said that the daughter of a foreign God is forbidden.
Yankiel of Glinno is mostly impervious to these arguments. That’s how he is—he never goes too close to anything, standing instead to one side, not listening to the teachings but leaning up against a tree, against the doorframe, as if he were just pausing for a moment on his way out. He observes. Two years have passed since his wife’s death, and he, a rabbi living on his own in poverty-stricken Glinno, has endured much angst over one Christian woman, older than he, a governess on an estate near Busk. They met by accident. The woman was sitting on the riverbank, dipping her feet in the water. She was naked. When she saw Yankiel, she simply said, “Come here.”