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SIMON EICHELKATZ

THE PATRIARCH

GLOSSARY




Simon Eichelkatz

The Patriarch

Two Stories of Jewish Life

By Ulrich Frank

Translated
From the German

[Illustration: colophon]

Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication
Society of America

1907





SIMON EICHELKATZ


      SEPTEMBER 9, 1900.

To-day I was called to attend an old man who lives at the Flour Market,
almost opposite the "New" Synagogue. The messenger told me I could not
possibly miss the house, because the steps leading up to the old man's
rooms were built on the outside; and this is in peculiar contrast to the
modern architecture prevailing in the city. In fact, I do not know
whether another house so curiously constructed is to be seen anywhere
else in the place. And so I found it without much questioning. At any
rate, I knew of the New Synagogue. I have never entered it, yet a soft,
secret wave of religious feeling creeps over me each time I pass it, and
that happens frequently. The synagogue lies on the road to the extensive
factory quarter built up by one of the large manufacturers for his
employees. My professional duties often take me there.

The synagogue!--I always look at the simple structure, devoid of
ornament, with mixed feelings of veneration and awe. I hold tradition in
high regard. After all it counts for something that a man is the
offspring of a pious race, which cherishes learning and _Yichus_. How
does the Hebrew word happen to come to me? The synagogue keeps its grip
on what belongs to it--and on me, too! Yet I should not be able to pray
within its walls--although it was in such a place as this synagogue that
my father taught the word of God.

In fact, is it possible for us moderns still to pray? And then those
remarkable Hebrew words, unintelligible to most of us now--_Ovinu
Malkenu!_ The Church has converted them into the Lord's Prayer, the most
fervent of its prayers. _Ovinu Malkenu!_ I see myself a little chap
standing next to my father. How surcharged these words with belief and
faith and hope when spoken by him: _Ovinu Malkenu chosvenu be-Sefer
Parnossoh ve-Chalkoloh_--"Give us this day our daily bread!"

Synagogue and church! Hebrew or German or Latin? The shrill call of the
Shofar, or the soft sense-enslaving tones of the organ? I believe modern
man can pray only in the dumb speech of the heart.

It seems to me, if I were all alone in a synagogue, a devout mood would
come over me; I would pray there. In Florence this happened to me once.
It was very early in the morning; I was alone in a small church on the
other side of the Arno, Santa Maria del Carmine, whose frescoes, painted
by Masaccio, declare the joy and jubilation of man over his beauty and
greatness. But, I remember, the words were Hebrew that sprang up in my
heart, even if they did not pass my lips. So the dumb language of the
soul has its familiar tones, its words endeared by association.

Truth compels me to admit that it was Simon Eichelkatz who prompted me
to put these thoughts of mine down in writing.

My patient at the Flour Market! When I climbed the steep stairway,
thoroughly scoured and strewn with white sand, I little suspected I
should soon stand in the presence of one of the most interesting persons
it had ever been my good fortune to meet. The stairway led directly into
the kitchen. A long, lank individual received me there, and on my asking
for Herr Eichelkatz, he answered testily: "I guess he's in the floored
room." At the moment I could not imagine what he meant. Then I noticed
that the flooring of the kitchen was only of cement, and I realized that
he meant to convey that the room in which the patient waited had a
wooden flooring.

"Will you lead me there?" I asked politely.

"Lead!" with a deprecating shrug of the shoulders. "Why should I lead?
It's right here. They must be led. These new-fashioned people must be
led. Can't they walk by themselves?" At these not very friendly words,
he pushed a door open and bawled in: "The doctor is here--the Herr
Kreisphysikus. I should lead him to you, Reb Shimme. By himself he would
never find you. Reb Shimme, should I drive him in with the white or the
black horse? It's too far for him, Reb Shimme, the new-fashioned people
want to be led; they want to be announced by a vally. Whether they come
to a king or to Reb Shimme Eichelkatz, it's all the same, they must be
announced."

All this was accompanied by scornful chuckles; and he looked at me
angrily, quite taken aback, when I pushed him aside with a sweep of my
arm just as he cried out again: "Herr Kenig, the doctor is here!"

I stood in the middle of the room, the "floored" room, and, verily, I
stood in the presence of a kingly man, I stood before Simon Eichelkatz.


      SEPTEMBER 16.

What is it that draws me to this old man? I am almost glad he needs my
care as a physician. Remarkable egotism this on my part; but fortunately
the sickness is not serious; a slight indisposition, such as often comes
in old age. My patient is well on in the seventies, and is really
wonderfully fresh and vigorous. A sudden spell of faintness induced his
servant to send for me--the wrathful, snarling servant who received me
with so little grace on my first visit. Now I am used to Feiwel
Silbermann's quirks and sallies. I know his intentions are not bad; and
then his great merit in my eyes is his rare fidelity to Simon
Eichelkatz. After I had finished examining the patient on my first
visit, Feiwel crept after me, caught hold of me as I stood on the lowest
step, and anxiously inquired:

"What is the matter with Reb Shimme? Is he, God forbid, really sick?
He's never been this way before. I've known him--may he long be
spared--these twenty years, but as he was to-day--"

Feiwel tried to take my hand. "I must scold, _nebbich_. That's what he's
used to. And if I were suddenly to come along with fine manners, he
might think, _Chas ve-Sholem_, it was all over with him. Now, I ask you,
Herr Kreisphysikusleben, if a man always scolds and means well, isn't
that as good as if a man speaks softly and is false? A treacherous dog
doesn't bark. Praised be God, Reb Shimme knows what he's got in me.
Twenty years I've been with him, since Madame Eichelkatz died. His only
son is professor at the University in Berlin. A _Meshummed_, Herr
Doktor. Baptized," he added, his voice growing hoarse. "Since the
gracious Madame Eichelkatz died, we live here, at the Flour Market. And
he never saw his son again, Herr Doktor. But now, if he should, God
forbid, get sick--he's an old man--I don't know what I should do."

Ah! So Simon Eichelkatz has a skeleton in his closet, not an every-day
skeleton, either. I should not have suspected it from what I saw of the
gentle, gay-spirited old man. As to Feiwel, I set his worries at rest. I
told him the illness was not serious, a mere weakness, not unusual in a
man of Simon Eichelkatz's age, and it would pass without serious
consequences. Feiwel gave me a look of such devout gratitude that I was
touched. "Of course," I said, "you must be watchful, and must take good
care of him, because at his age every symptom must be taken into
account."

"What, symtohn he has?" Feiwel asked, anxious again. "Can symtohn become
dangerous? Is it a very bad trouble? Symtohn!" He repeated the word
several times. "I've heard of people's getting heart disease, or kidney
trouble, may I be forgiven for my sins, or rheumatiz, but to get
symtohn!"

I explained the meaning of the word to him, and he breathed a sigh of
relief.

"Praised be God, if it's nothing more than that--I'll look out for the
symtohns, you can be sure of that, Herr Kreisphysikusleben."

"I'll come again to-morrow to find out how Herr Eichelkatz is doing," I
said, "and I hope it won't be necessary to let Herr Professor Eichelkatz
know--"

At that moment it occurred to me I had never heard of a university
professor of that name.

"He isn't called Eichelkatz at all," Feiwel whispered with spite in his
voice. "If a man can have himself baptized, he can throw his father's
name away, too. Why not? What should a man be named Eichelkatz for if
he's a professor? If he's a professor, it's better for him _evadde_ to
be named Eichner--such a name!"

Eichner! Professor Friedrich Eichner, the most powerful of modern
thinkers, the philosopher of world-wide renown, a son of Simon
Eichelkatz!


      SEPTEMBER 22.

I see the New Synagogue now every day. It was dedicated over forty years
ago, but it is still called "New." They had a rabbi come from Berlin to
dedicate it, and that after their own rabbi had worked for ten long
years to make the building possible, after he had gone to great pains to
scrape the money together, after his ardent appeals had succeeded in
warming his people up to the undertaking, after he had removed all the
difficulties presented by the authorities--after he had brought things
so far, his congregation found it in their hearts to humiliate him at
the crowning point of his achievement, they found it in their hearts to
set him aside at the dedication in favor of another.

Have honor and justice come back to you? Have the years left their
traces upon you, O ye, whom I love, my brethren in faith? Forty years!
New generations have blossomed since those days when pride and false
ambition brought sorrow to a noble spirit, and sought to deprive him of
the fruits of his labor, blessed and pleasing to the Lord. Another was
permitted to take his place and consecrate the work he had called into
being. On the day of his greatest glory they poured gall into his soul,
filled his heart with bitterness. But he forgave!

Gradually I am learning all sorts of stories about the congregation.
Simon Eichelkatz tells them to me when I visit him, and that happens
almost daily. It is now one of my favorite recreations to hunt up this
old man, this wise old man; for what he says in that easy, simple way of
his always awakens new thoughts in me. He little suspects the abundance,
the wealth of ideas that arise and take form in his mind. They all well
forth so unconsciously, the most profound and the most exalted. One day
a granite rock of Kantian philosophy towers up before me; the next day
the trumpet tones of a Nietzsche reveille sound in my ears. And this
feeble old man, who gives utterance to these deep thoughts, never read
any other book than the book of life, life in a small town remote from
the bustle of the world, life in a Jewish community, with its
intellectual backwardness and provincial peculiarities. The _Khille_, it
is true, with its concentric circles, its conservatism, its solidarity,
its self-sufficiency, was rich soil to foster individuality and develop
reserve strength. Nothing is wasted there, nothing consumed too quickly
in those communities thrown back upon themselves, leading, forced to
lead, a life apart from the rest of the world. How much that is of
import to the world has gone forth from such communities! When the seed
had grown strong and healthy in its native soil, and was then
transplanted to fresh soil, how it blossomed forth, fruit-bearing,
fructifying!

Now it seems to me as though Professor Friedrich Eichner could not
possibly have been of other parentage. The son, the heir of Simon
Eichelkatz! With amazement, with rapture we listened to his lectures, to
which students from all the other departments also crowded; and when the
world-philosophies he unfolded loomed before our eyes in gigantic
proportions, a feeling came over us of shuddering awe and admiration.
Who was this man? A radical, an iconoclast. And now, out of the mouth of
an old man, I hear ideas, conceptions, truths that might have laid the
foundations for the philosophy of the other, the younger, man. Not that
the relation between them was that of teacher and pupil; for Professor
Friedrich Eichner knew nothing of his father's wisdom, and the father
knew nothing of his son's philosophic systems. The father does not
mention his son--he probably is ignorant of his son's life, of his son's
importance to science. Only once he referred to him, recently, in
telling me about the "New" Synagogue. Sunk in thought he said:

"The first _Bar-Mitzvah_ that took place there was my son's. I still
remember the speech our _Rav_ delivered then--about the love of parents
and fidelity to those who lead us in our youth--Herr Kreisphysikus, our
Rav was a fine, sensible man, but he did not understand just what a
child should be. The child should grow away from us, above us, larger,
stronger, and higher--and we mustn't ask anything of him, and we mustn't
say to him, 'Come and stay here with me, where it is cramped and stuffy
for want of air--enough air for an old man, but too little for you. And
you shall not be my child, not a child, a filly, that neighs for the
stable where its father and mother roll on the straw like animals. You
must keep on growing--you must be a man, not a child.'"

Simon Eichelkatz--Friedrich Eichner!

My heart is tender, and I love my dear mother, whom a kindly fate has
preserved for me unto this day; and I bless and honor the memory of my
dead father. My opinion about filial and parental relations is entirely
different from Simon Eichelkatz's; but it seemed to me as though I were
listening to a chapter of Nietzsche's Zarathustra. Never did this name
sound in your ears, Simon Eichelkatz. You never left the Khille, and for
twenty years you have been living alone with your bodyguard, Feiwel
Silbermann. But your son has written great works concerning the
Zarathustra doctrine.


      SEPTEMBER 24.

The members of the Jewish community here are beginning to look upon me
as a queer sort of person. In a measure, it is the duty of a new
physician of the Jewish belief to associate with the "gentry" among his
co-religionists. That is what is expected of me; and certainly I ought
long ago to have left my card at the doors of the Jewish families that
are well-to-do, and, as they think, aristocratic and cultivated. On my
desk lies a long, imposing list of persons of consequence, and it is my
firm intention to pay them my respects; my predecessor urgently
recommended me to do so. "You will get into things most quickly," he
said, "if you make your way among the well-to-do Jewish families. The
community has a reputation from of old for setting great store by
culture and refinement; and what better for you in a small
out-of-the-way place than a stimulus now and then in the form of a visit
to some pleasant home? The evenings are long; you can't forever be
playing Skat." I certainly can't, because I know precious little about
the game--and so the cultivated Jewish families are my future here. For
the present I have found something else, which gives me more than I can
expect from the stimulus of would-be aesthetic Jewish wives and maidens.

I dearly love my fellow-Jews. But my love for them must not blind me to
their weaknesses, and among their weaknesses I count an assumption of
culture, a pseudo-refinement of the intellect, which has taken
increasing hold upon the daughters of our race. How often I was
disagreeably impressed by them in Berlin when they spoke about anything
and everything, with that half-culture which produces the feeling that
they are not concerned with knowledge, but with the effect to be created
by their apparent "information" upon all subjects. What don't they know!
What don't they want to know! How often I was tempted to say to one or
another of them: "The learning of many things does not cultivate the
mind; learn to believe and to think." And must I repeat the same
experience here? I am uneasy; my predecessor sentimentalized too much
about the "educated" Jewesses. Some of them, he unluckily told me, had
been "finished off" in prominent educational institutions in foreign
countries. I know all that, and I'm afraid of it, this finishing-off
process of the ladies' seminaries! But probably there will be nothing
else for me to do. If the winter evenings here are really so long and
dreary, I may not be able to resist the torment of hearing young lips,
soft and rosy for kissing, put the question to me: "