The Fifth Servant (13 page)

           
A great commotion rattled the benches and churned up the hall.

           
“And what action do you expect the court to take in this matter?” said Rabbi Aaron, shouting over the noise.

           
“The Jewish community needs to ask
keyser
Rudolf to transfer Reb Federn from the stock house to the royal prison, or else we’ll have to bail him out ourselves.”

           
“Look who’s talking like he’s part of the community,” said Reb Bernstein.

           
Rabbi Aaron said, “How much is that going to cost us?”

           
I had no idea. The monetary disputes in Slonim were pretty small by comparison.

           
Rabbi Loew came to my aid. “In capital cases of this kind, bail is usually set around ten thousand gulden.”

           
A collective gasp escaped from the spectators’ lips, as if they had all been slapped in the face at the same time. The
gildn
is a small gold coin worth about ten dalers.

           
“That is a great deal of money to spend on one man,” said Rabbi Hayyot.

           
“A merchant of feathers, no less,” someone said, bringing smiles to the round faces in the first few rows of benches.

           
I told them, “This is not about one man. They’re going to seal off the whole ghetto. And if the city authorities torture him, by Sunday night he’ll be telling them the Jews drink blood, and by Monday morning we’ll all be in deep
tsures
.”

           
“Then why hasn’t it been announced by the city criers?” Rabbi Aaron said, and cautioned me to be mindful of how I addressed this distinguished body. I had forgotten to use their titles.

           
I said, “Forgive me, your honors. Sometimes I have the manners of a Polish peasant. I don’t always knock on doors, either.”

           
Rabbi Joseph ignored my unseemly remarks and said, “There is a reasonable precedent in a case like this. The last time the
goyim
tried to expel us from
Silesia
, we bought them off with a couple of thousand gold pieces.”

           
“And we only had to put up one-fifth of the total amount,” said Rabbi Aaron. “The rest was collected from the communities in
Moravia
and the three lands—”

           
“We only have three days, your honors,” I insisted.

           
There were so many ways to make the case, but I needed time to prepare
and
the respect of my listeners, and I didn’t have much of either.

           
“Too bad you can’t pummel your way out of this one,” someone said, turning my hard-earned reputation against me.

           
“Yeah, we’re not a bunch of drunken Cossacks,” someone else agreed.

           
I searched the book-lined corridors of my mind for the best place to start the discussion. Always begin with a joke, urged a Babylonian sage cited in the tractate on Shabbes, but that wasn’t appropriate to every situation. So I appealed to the Sanhedrin, the council of seventy wise men convened to pronounce judgment on the weightiest issues.

           
Somehow my tongue turned my scattered thoughts into a reasonably coherent argument. “Your honors, esteemed burghers of
Prague
, and members of the Jewish community: the Rabbis taught us that no one member of our tribe may be sacrificed for the good of the many. If a group of Jews in a strange land is surrounded by a heathen mob who say, ‘Give us one of your number, or we will kill you all,’ they all must be killed, for no Israelite may be deliberately delivered to the heathen.”

           
The room grew tense as each of the spectators imagined his own death. They saw themselves run through with pikes and steel swords, felt the rough brown hemp tighten around their throats, the horses’ hooves crushing their bones, the Inquisitional flames consuming their clothes, hair, and flesh.

           
“Your logic is certainly to the point, except for one problem,” Rabbi Aaron replied. “The Christians aren’t heathen. And the rabbis also ruled that if the mob specifies an individual by name, we must surrender him and save our own lives.”

           
The benches exhaled with collective relief.

           
I was ready for that one. “But in what circumstances does this apply? Rabbi Karo teaches that ransoming captives is the most supreme act of charity, more than building a shul or feeding the poor—”

           
Rabbi Aaron dismissed Rabbi Karo’s modern interpretation of ancient law. “The Talmud clearly states that captives should not be ransomed at excessively high prices, or else our enemies will learn to profit from it.”

           
“But that ruling doesn’t apply in this case,” I said. “Reb Federn hasn’t been kidnapped. He’s been arrested.”

           
“Big difference,” said one of the merchants, a spice trader in the fourth row.

           
Rabbi Aaron countered with a Midrash: “Rabbi Joshua once stopped at a roadside inn, where a woman prepared lentils for his meal—”

           
“Some say it was beans,” Rabbi Joseph interjected.

           
The judges took a moment to discuss this discrepancy among themselves, nodding their heads as they debated the issue.

           
I looked to Rabbi Loew for direction. He gestured for me to be patient. So I stood there watching a drowsy merchant in the second row whose eyelids were fluttering on the edge of sleep.

           
Rabbi Aaron resumed his homily. “We have decided that the question as to whether it was lentils or beans must be left for Elijah the Prophet to resolve when he returns to bring peace to the world. The point is that after the meal, Rabbi Joshua overheard one of the other travelers talking about the dark days of the Empire, when the Romans surrounded the holy city of
Jerusalem
, and a group of hot-headed radicals urged the Jews to fight to the death.”

           
He paused to make sure that everyone was listening closely. They were.

           
“Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, may his name be exalted, didn’t want to see his beloved people die in a pointless standoff. So after careful deliberation, he decided that the best possible action was to accept that the Romans had won, and to try to negotiate with them. However, he was well aware of the fact that if the Jews saw him approaching the enemy camp, the gossip might spread that he was betraying them. What could he do? I’ll tell you. He had himself smuggled out of the city in a coffin, risking his own life in order to save many.”

           
I told the court, “So what’s your solution? Sneak everyone out of the ghetto and hope the Christians don’t notice? Any idea where we can get three thousand coffins on such short notice?”

           
The astonished burghers rose up like waves in a storm, and Rabbi Hayyot called for order.

           
Someone shouted, “Yeah, why don’t we just dig a tunnel under the wall all the way to
Jerusalem
while we’re at it?” and I sensed a shifting of the tide as bits of laughter cascaded down from the galleries.

           
Rabbi Aaron’s eyebrows collapsed into an angry V. “We can’t risk provoking the Christians in such a manner. That would only inflame their anger and make things worse.”

           
I couldn’t help saying, “How could it get any worse? They already think we cook with blood.”

           
Rabbi Loew stepped in. “Your honors, and my longtime friends in the community, in difficult times we must remember the words of Rabbi Akiva, may his light shine in Paradise, who taught us to attend to God first, then to our own needs. He taught us that if a Jew in the desert has only enough water left to drink or to wash, but not enough for both, it is better to die of thirst than to eat without purifying the hands.”

           
Good strategy
. Hold a mirror up to their own mortality. Nobody wants to look death in the face unless God is by their side.

           
“We must act together to save Jacob Federn,” said Rabbi Loew. “As it is written,
Loy samed al dam reyekhoh.
” Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor.

           
Yes, a commandment.
That’ll shame them into action.

           
“I agree that this is definitely a test of our worthiness,” said Rabbi Joseph. “We need to enter into a state of purity and concentration in order to find a way out of this dilemma. Normally, the first step in the process would be fasting, but since we cannot fast during the festival of Pesach, we must first purify our bodies by immersion in the
mikvehs
and by staying away from women and other unclean things for several days.”

           
I said, “We don’t
have
days.”

           
Reb Bernstein threw up his hands in disgust. “Your honors, when are we going to discuss
my
situation?”

           
Rabbi Joseph said, “In a moment, Reb Bernstein. Don’t you realize that the cause of this terrible problem could very well be that one of our mezuzahs is written incorrectly? I have heard of cases where a single misspelled word—
even a single letter
—can bring about such tragedies. It is therefore my opinion that we must organize a committee to inspect all the mezuzahs in the
Yidnshtot
. We’ll need some volunteers.”

           
Several voices from the floor answered the call.

           
The sleeping merchant’s head jerked up.

           
“What are we discussing?” he asked, confused about the flurry of activity.

           
I said, “Your honors, we still need an official request from the Jewish community for
keyser
Rudolf to transfer the accused, Jacob Federn, from the city jail to the royal prison in the castle.”

           
The spice trader spoke up again. “Your honors, am I the only one who remembers that another Hapsburg
keyser
named Rudolf ordered the confiscation of Jewish property in
Speyer
, and
Mainz
, and the rest of the lower
Rhineland
? So why should we trust a second Rudolf?”

           
Talk about a long memory
. That was a hundred years
before
the big Easter pogrom, but it might as well have been yesterday.

           
Rabbi Hayyot nodded in agreement. “Without proof of Federn’s innocence, such a request would only anger the gentiles. It’s too risky.”

           
Rabbi Loew said, “Fine, fine, we’ll get proof. But we will need a small allotment of funds in order to proceed effectively.”

           
Rabbi Aaron said, “What do you need money for?”

           
Reb Bernstein said, “Your honors,
please
—”

           
Rabbi Loew cut him off: “Since the alleged bloodcrime took place in the Christian part of the city, we’re going to need to speak to Christian witnesses. And that’s going to take a little
gelt
.”

           
Rabbi Aaron was outraged. “Are you suggesting that the
kehileh
support the deplorable practice of
bribery
when it is written that a bribe corrupts the mind and perverts justice?”

           
I objected. “Your honor, those passages of Scripture specifically refer to taking a bribe as payment for finding an innocent person guilty of a crime they did not commit.”

           
But Rabbi Aaron overruled me. “You should stick to studying the Talmud instead of that heretic Rambam and other books which ought to be burned in the fire. Haven’t we learned from Rabbi Eliezer that whoever teaches his daughter Torah teaches her to be a whore?”

           
Even though I was a newcomer, I knew that was a personal attack on Rabbi Loew’s family.

           
“Bring us proof of Federn’s innocence, and we’ll take up the matter in a special session on Sunday.”

           
Rabbi Hayyot said, “Call the next case.”

           
The secretary announced Reb Bernstein’s case.

           
“Finally,” said Reb Bernstein.

           
I said, “Your honors, just give us a few dalers to finance the investigation.”

           
But they refused even that.

           
“We’ll meet again on Sunday.”