Baruchiah was born exactly nine months after the death of Sabbatai Tzvi, on the ninth day of the month of Av—exactly as predicted! And on a day of mourning, the day of the destruction of the Temple. AMIRAH, as Sabbatai’s name has been written, or Adoneinu Malkeinu Yarum Hodo—Our Lord and King, His Majesty, will be exalted—returned and lived for those years as Baruchiah in Salonika. In 5476, the Christian year 1726, he was recognized as God incarnate, for the Shekhinah, which had previously gone into Sabbatai, had now descended into him. This is why all those who believe in Baruchiah’s mission have converted the day of mourning into a day of joy, to the outrage of other Jews. Women wash their hair and dry it in the August sun outside, clean their homes, adorning them with flowers, sweeping the floors so that the Messiah may arrive to a neat and tidy world. This world is terrible, it is true, but perhaps it can be spruced up a little here and there.
For on this worst and darkest of days, light is born. Sadness would be nothing without some knowledge of joy. At the very bottom of that sadness, that mourning, there is a dash of joy and holiness—and vice versa. Isaiah 61:3 says: “Bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” And of course, clients of all kinds, of every dress and language, continue to come to Abraham. Jacob and Hershel are already in the office. Who will ring up the bags of tobacco, and how many of them will fit onto the cart? Lots. Who will provide goods to the merchant from Wroc?aw who is paying in cash and placing large orders?
Clients, even those who are sworn enemies of the followers of Sabbatai Tzvi, cannot restrain their curiosity and also take a peek inside. They refuse the little glass of vodka offered by the hand of an apostate. Nay, nay, nay, they cry in alarm. Jacob plays little tricks to scare them further. His best one is when he asks them what they have in their pockets.
“Nothing,” they answer in surprise.
“Well, what about those eggs? Stole them, eh? Which of the stalls did you swipe them from?”
“What eggs?” the clients say. “What are you talking about?”
Then in a bold swoop Jacob reaches into their pocket and pulls out an egg. The little crowd bursts out laughing, the delinquent’s face turns red, and he doesn’t know what to say, which only cracks people up even more. Jacob pretends he is angry, and looks serious—he frowns, examines them with his bird’s gaze: “Tell me why you didn’t pay for this! You are a thief! An egg thief!” And quickly everyone starts to repeat the charge, until even the accused begins to struggle with the idea that he might have stolen something, even if he didn’t mean to. But then he sees on Jacob’s face a slightly raised eyebrow, an amused look, so he, too, smiles, then soon guffaws, and it’s clear that the best thing he can do under the circumstances is reconcile himself to being the butt of the joke, offer himself up as a laughingstock, and walk away.
None of this amuses Hershel. If it were to happen to him, if an egg came out of his pocket, he would die of shame. He isn’t yet thirteen and was sent here by his family, after the death of his parents. Until then he lived in Czernowitz; now he will probably stay with Abraham, a distant relation.
He doesn’t know how things are supposed to go with the fast on Tisha BeAv, no one has told him the secret, no one has initiated him into why he is to be joyful here over the course of this day, while elsewhere others are grave. In his family home, solemnity always presided on this holiday. It is only here that his experience is different, but no one has bothered to teach him the religious nuances. He understands now that Sabbatai is the Messiah—but why did he not save the world, not change anything? And how exactly would a saved world differ from an unsaved world? For his parents, simple folk, it was obvious—the Messiah would appear as a warrior, wipe the sultans off the face of the earth, along with kings and emperors, and then take over the world. The Temple of Jerusalem would rebuild itself, or God would drop it down from heaven, cast in gold. All the Jews would go back to the Land of Israel. First those who were buried there would be resurrected, followed by those who were buried elsewhere in the world, outside the Holy Land.
Here, people thought otherwise. Hershel asked about it, but Jacob said nothing.
Strange is a salvation that can’t be seen. It takes place not here, in the visible world, but somewhere—this Hershel can’t quite understand—in some other world, right nearby or maybe underneath the visible world. The Messiah has already come and inverted the lever of the world, which is a lever like that on a well pump, without anybody even noticing. Now everything is reversed: river water goes back to its source, rain to clouds, blood into wounds. It turns out that Mosaic law was temporary, that it was created just for the world before salvation, and that it is no longer in effect. In other words: now one should relate to it the other way around. While the Jews are fasting, one ought to eat and drink, and while they mourn, one must make merry.
Nobody particularly looks after him; they treat him like an idiot of sorts. Sometimes Jacob looks at him in such a way as to turn Hershel beet red. He is Jacob’s helper, he cleans his clothes, sweeps the office, brews the coffee. In the evening, as they tally the day’s take, he writes the numbers in the columns.
He isn’t sure of anything and he’s ashamed to ask, there is some sort of mystery around all of this. Since he hasn’t yet had his bar mitzvah, they don’t let him in when they gather for their prayers. They close the door. Is he supposed to fast or not fast?
So on the fasting day of Tisha BeAv, Hershel cleans the cellars, sweeps out the cotton dust and mouse droppings. He hasn’t eaten since morning, recalling this day as a fast. That was how it was before. He didn’t want to look while they were eating upstairs. Now hunger has seized him by the stomach, making his innards lament. In the cellar they keep wine and carrots. Pots of compote sit here in the cool. He could just try it. But Hershel can’t make up his mind to do it, he can’t convince himself to eat, after all, his whole life until now he wasn’t permitted to eat on fasting days, so now instead he takes just a teeny-tiny cherry out of the compote and eats half. If Sabbatai Tzvi is the Messiah, then he is fulfilling the command and breaking the law in keeping with the new law, although if he is not the Messiah, then he’s still fasting—for what is one little cherry for a whole day?
The next morning he asks Jacob. He has brought the Tractate Yoma, which reads:
“One who eats a large date-bulk of food, equivalent to a date and its pit, or who drinks a cheekful of liquid is liable to receive the punishment of karet. All foods that one eats join together to constitute a date-bulk; and all liquids that one drinks join together to constitute a cheekful. However, if one eats and drinks, the food and beverage do not join together to constitute a measure that determines liability, as each is measured separately.”