Nahman knows what Wajge?e cares about most. Everyone asks about the same thing, everyone wants to know about intercourse, as if that were the only thing that mattered; they don’t ask about virtue, about the struggles of conscience connected with higher matters—everyone only ever asks about intercourse. That disappoints Nahman a great deal—people are not so different from animals. When you talk to them about copulation, about all those things that go on from the waist down, they turn bright red.
“Is there something wrong with a person joining with another person? Is not copulation good? You just have to give yourself over to it without thinking, and eventually pleasure will come of it, and this pleasure is a blessing of the act. Yet even without pleasure it is good, maybe even better, for then you are aware of crossing the Dniester and entering into a free country—just imagine, if you so desire.”
“But I don’t want to,” says Wajge?e.
Nahman sighs: the women always have a bigger problem with it. The women seem to cling more to the old laws; they are, after all, more frivolous and shyer by nature. Jacob has said that it is the same as with slaves—for women are to a considerable extent slaves of this world, knowing nothing of their freedom, having not been taught how to be free.
People who have already been initiated, the elders, treat it like people used to treat the mikvah. The body itself and the heart strive toward it, and when it comes time to extinguish the candles, it is like a holiday—a holy marker. For joining together is good—there’s nothing wrong in someone copulating with someone else. Between people whose bodies have overflowed into each other a new bond arises, a special connection, subtle and indefinable, as there are no words that can fully convey the nature of such a relationship. And it can happen that afterward people become close to one another, like brother and sister, and cling together, while others—this can also happen—feel some embarrassment toward one another and take some time to grow accustomed to each other. There are even those who cannot look into each other’s eyes, and then no one knows how things will work out between them.
People tend to have a greater or lesser inclination toward one another—something attracts them a little or a lot. These things are very complicated, which is why women are so sensitive to them. Better than men, they are able to figure out why . . . Why, for example, has Wittel always refused Nahman, and why has Nahman always been attracted to Hayah Shorr? And why has such a deep friendship arisen between young Yachne of Busk and Isaac Shorr, even though they both already have spouses?
What was until this time banned is now not only permitted, but actually required.
Everyone knows that Jacob takes upon himself those weightiest of Strange Deeds, and also that in doing so, he attains a special power. Whoever helps him in this is also anointed.
The greatest power, however, belongs not to corporeal action, but rather to action that unites with words, as the world was created out of words, and its foundations are the word. Thus the greatest Strange Deed, the Exceptional Act—is pronouncing out loud the Name of God, Shem haMephorash.
Jacob will do it soon in the presence of those closest to him, the two circles of chosen men and women.
Lately they have been eating bread that is not kosher, as well as pork. One of the women went into convulsions, but not from the meat—the meat is innocent—just from not being able to bear committing such an act. “This is not an ordinary act. It is a special thing. Ma’ase Zar, a Strange Deed,” says Jacob. He pronounces these words as though chewing something over, as though chewing over pork gristle.
“What is the meaning of Strange Deeds?” asks someone who clearly hasn’t been paying attention.
So Jacob explains it again, starting from scratch. “We are to trample all the laws because they are no longer in effect, and until they are trampled, the new ones cannot appear in their place. Because those old laws were from that other time, for an unsaved world.”
Then he takes the hands of those standing next to him, and soon a circle forms. Now they will sing, as always.
Jacob plays with the children. They make silly faces, and the children love it. After the communal meals, the afternoons are dedicated to the children; the youngest are accompanied by their mothers, and they—only barely out of childhood themselves—like playing, too. They squeal and compete over who can make the scariest face. It is hard to make little children’s faces disgusting, but Jacob’s face can truly transform. Shrieks resound when he is playing monsters and demons, when he acts like the limping ba?akaben do. When the children have calmed down, he has them sit down around him, and he tells them complicated fairy tales, about princesses on glass mountains, simpletons, and princes. There are adventures at sea and evil wizards who turn people into animals. The ending he often puts off until the next day, leaving the whole of Ivanie’s younger population distracted, living for what the morrow will bring. Will the hero be able to free himself from the donkey’s body to which he was condemned by a jealous woman?