The True Messiah and the Skeptics

By ISAAC LOEB PEREZ

glance. He will have no armies and a burning, restless glance. He

"Of wings?"
"Yes, of wings, and they are

Fditor's Vote: This classic story by.lsaac Loeb Perez is from the col- with him, he will ride on no horse, also is looking at a book, but the
book is quite small, and he holds growing—"
lotion of his narratives, "Stories. and Pictures," published by the Jewish and there will be no sword at it close to his bright, unquiet eyes.
The old man remains sitting in
Publication Society and reprinted here:by special arrangement with the his side—"
He continually lowers it, however, perplexity, the second is lost in
"Then, what?"
JPS.
and throws a glance of mingled wonder, the youngest fairly leaps

"He will have wings Messiah
As in all the Jewish towns in the river, and eithen,I lost myself
every _ I fear and respect at the old man, for joy.
Galicia, big and little, so in the in, thought, or in 'staring about, will have wings, and then eve
"Good, good! Let them grow,
one will have wings. It will be another, with a half-ironic smile, may they grow into wings, big,
one where my parents lived, there or I simply forgot that after day like
this: suddenly there will be at his father, and then leans over
was a lunatic.
comes night. Suddenly I see them born a child with wings, and then to hear what is going on, on the strong ones!- Good, good!"
And as in most cases, so in this raise the bridge; there is a grating
"What is there to be glad about?"
curta in .
ruoletr side of the ideo
one, the lunatic was afraid of no- • in the ears, the gates swing to, and a second, a third, and se it will f
the tird- inquires his father.
body, neither of Kohol, nor of the my heart goes by leaps and bounds. go on. At first people will be
"A dreadful deformity!" sighs
woman
a
ghtened, by degrees they will tain comes moans as of fri
rabbi or his assistants, not even No help for it! I must pass the
the old man.
of the bather or the grave-digger, night outside the walls — and get used to it, until there has in childbirth —
* * *
"Why so?" asks the grandson.
who are treated with respect by strange to say, night after night, arisen a whole generation with
I am about to cough, so that they
"Wings," said the old man, stern-
the richest men. On the other as I lay in my warm bed at home, wings, a generation that will no
be aware of me. At this mo- ly, "raise one into the height—
hand, the whole of the little town, I had dreamt of the free world longer struggle in the mud over may
ment a fold of the curtain is pushed when one has wings one cannot
Kohol with all the Jewish authori- outside the fortress; and now that a Parnosseh-worm."
aside and there appear two wom- keep to the earth."
ties and the bather and the grave- my dreams had come true, I was He talked on like this for some en: an old one with a sharp, bony
* * *
digger, trembled before the luna- frightened. There ensued the usual time, but I had already ceased face and sharp eyes, and one of
"Much it matters!" retorts the
tic, closed door and window at his ' dispute between head and heart. to understand him. Only his voice middle age with a gentle, rather
grandson,
defiantly.
"One is quit
approach. And although the poor The head cried: Steady! Now, for was so sadly-sweet that I sucked flabby face and uncertain glance.
lunatic had never said an abusive once, you may enjoy the free air it up like a sponge. The day was They stand looking at the men, of living here and wallowing in the
word, never touched any one with and the starry sky to the full! And breaking when he ceased — they and waiting to bb questioned. The mud, one lives in the height. Is
his little finger, everybody called the heart, all the while, struggled had opened the gates and were oldest does not see them—his soul heaven not better than earth?"
him names, many people hit him, and fluttered like a caged bird. letting down the bridge.
The old man grows pale, and the
has melted into the soul of the
and the street boys threw mud and Then from heart to head rose as
Since the night spent outside the book. The middle-aged man has son takes up the word:
"Foolish child ! What is one to
stones at him.
it were a vapor, a mist, and the fortress, the life within it had seen them, and is wondering how
I always felt sorry for the luna- clear reasoning became obscured, grown more unbearable still. The best to rouse his father; the young- live on in the height? Air doesn't
go far. There are no inns to hire
tic. He attracted me, somehow. I and was swallowed up in the cloud. old walls, the rasping iron draw- est starts up—
up there, no 'contracts' to sign.
There was a rushing noise in bridge, the iron doors, the senti-
wanted to talk to him, to console
"Mother! Grandmother! Well?" . There's no one of whom to buy a
him, to give him a friendly pat; my ears, a flickering before my he's and patrols, the hoarsely-
The father rises anxiously from bit of shoe-leather—in the height—"
but it was impossible to approach eyes. Every sound, however light, angry "Wer-da?" the falsely-ser-
The old man interrupts him: "In
him; I should have received part every motion of a twig or a blade vile: "A citizen, an inhabitant!" his chair; the grandfather only
of the stones and mud with which of .grass made me shudder, and the eternal quivering of the putty- pushes the book a little away from the height," he says in hard tones,
he wa.s bombarded by the others. threw me on to the ground with colored faces, the startled, half- him, and lifts his eyes to the "there is no Shool, no house-of-
study, no Klaus to pray and read
extinguished eyes, the market with women.
I was quite a little boy, and I wore fright.
"How is she?" inquires the in; in the height, there is no path-
its cowering, aimlessly restless
* * *
a nice suit from Lemberg or
young
one
further,
with
a
trem-
way, trodden out by past genera-
Cracow, and I wished to preserve
I hid my face in the sand. shadows of men—the whole thing
tions—in the height, one wanders
my shoulders from stones and my Whether or not I slept, and how weighed on me like lead—not to be bling voice.
"She is over it!"
and gets lost, because one does not
suit from mud; so I remained at long I lay there, I cannot tell! But able to breathe, not to feel free!
"Over
it!
over
it!"
stammers
the
know the road. One is a free bird,
a distance.
I suddenly heard someone breath- And my heart grew sick with a young one.
but
woe to the free bird in the
The little town in which my ing close to me; I spring up and— great longing. And I resolved to
"Mother, won't you say, Good hour of doubt and despondency!"
parents lived and where I spent I am not alone! Two well-known, go to meet the * Messiah.
* *
luck to you?" asks the second.
"What do you mean?" and the
my childhood, dressed in clothes deep, black eyes are gazing at me
I got into the first conveyance The old one reflects a moment and young man starts up with burning
made by the tailors of Lemberg in all candor and gentleness.
cheeks and eyes.
that presented itself. The driver then asks:
and Cracow, was a fortress, sur-
It is the lunatic.
But the grandmother is before-
"What has happened? Even if
turned
round and asked:
rounded by moats, water, earth-
"What are you doing here?" I
it is a girl—"
hand with him:
"Where
to?"
works, and high walls.
asked
in
smothered
tones.
"No!"—the
grandmother
speaks
"What fools men are," she ex-
"Wherever you please,"I an-
* * *
"I never sleep in the town!" he swered, "only a great way — a for the first time—"it is a boy." claims, "how they talk! And the
On the walls were batteries, and
rabbi? Do you suppose the rabbi
"Still born?"
these were protected by soldiers answers sadly, and his glance is great way off from here!"
"No, it lives!" answers the old is going to let him be circumcised?
"For as long as the horse can
with muskets, who marched up so gentle, the voice so brotherly,
woman, and yet there is no joy in Is he likely to allow a blessing to
recover
myself
completely
that
I
go!"
• and down, serious and silent.
be spoken over a child with
The driver gathered up the her tone.
hardly had darkness fallen, when and lose all fear.
"A cripple? Defective?"
wings?"
"Once upon a time," I reflected, reins, and we set off.
the iron drawbridge was raised
"It has marks! On both shoul-
"lunatics were believed to be
We drove on and on. Other
from over
I give a start. The night spent
ders—"
were closed, and the little town prophets—it is still so in the East fields, other woods, other villages,
outside the town, the drive, and the
"What sort of marks?"
—and I wonder, perhaps he is one other towns, everything different;
was cut off from the rest of the
child with wings were all a dream.
"Of wings—"
too! is he not persecutes liKe a
world till early next morning. At prophet? Don't they throw stones but the difference was only on the
surface, below that everything was
every gate stood a watchman,
at him as at a prophet? Don't his the same. When I looked into
fully armed.
eyes shine like stars? Doesn't his things, I saw everywhere the same 'Israel Unemployment to Rise in Next Five
A short while ago, in the day- voice sound like the sweetest harp? melancholy, every face wore a look
time, we were all free'', we could Does he not bear the sorrows of of frightened cunning, speech was Months, Decline Later; Labor Chief Predicts'
go in and out without applying for all, and suffer for a whole genera- everywhere broken and halting —
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Labor other projects previously schedul-
leave to the major in command; tion? Perhaps he also knows what the world seemed overspread with Minister Yigal Allon told the regu- ed for subsequent years. The rest
one might bathe in the river out- shall be hereafter!"
a mournful mist that hid every lar meeting of the cabinet Sunday of the money will be used for re-
side the town, and even lie
I have a try and begin to ques- gleam of light and extinguished that the job outlook in Israel was lief work.
stretched out on the green bank
He said that as of last week, the
tion him, and he answers so softly every joy. Everything shrank to- still bleak for the next five months
and gaze into the sky or out into and sweetly, that I think some- gether and stifled. And I kept and that the government would number totally unemployed was
the wide world, as one chose. No
16,750
while another 19,000 work-
depend-
have
to
provide
work
for
another
I
shouting:
"Go
on!"
But
a dream, the dream
one made any objection, and even times it is all
ers were on relief. These figures
ed on the driver, and the driver, 10,000 jobless.
if one did not return, no questions of a summer's night outside the on the horse—the horse wants to
were
understood
to refer only to
However, he also predicted that
were asked. But at night all was fortress.
jobless workers registered in the
"Do you believe in the days of eat, and we are obliged to stop.
at
the
end
of
the
year,
there
would
to be quiet in the town, no one
* * *
labor exchanges.
I ask him.
be a sharp decline in the number
was to go out or to come in. the Messiah?"
The minister disclosed that his
I step into the inn. A large of unemployed workers.
"Of course!" he answers gently
"Lucky," I used to think to myself,
ministry was sponsoring special
room,
divided
into
two
by
means
and confidently, "he must come!"
"that they let in the moon."
He said the government planned crash courses to give new skills
of an old curtain, three men sit
"He must?!"
to workers and soldiers nearing
And as long as I may live, I
"0, surely! All wait for him, round a large table. They do not to spend about $60,000,000 to pro-
.shall_ never forget the twilights even the heavens and the earth remark me, and I have time to vide the additional 10,000 jobs. release from military duty so that
there, the fall of night. As the
Part of the money, he reported, they could fit into new patterns of
wait! If it were not so, no one look them over. They represent
shades deepened, a shudder went
would be used to speed up road employment envisaged in the gov-
would care to live, to dip a hand three generations. The oldest is building, hospital construction and ernment's economic planning.
through the whole town, men and in cold water—and if people live gray as a pigeon, but he sits erect
houses seemed suddenly to grow
as they do and show they want to and gazes with sharp eyes and
smaller and cower together. The
live, it is a sign they all feel that without spectacles into a large
bridge was raised, the iron chains Messiah
is coming, that he must book, lying before him on the
grated against the huge blocks;
he is already on the table. The old face is grave, the
and the rasp of the iron, the come, that
old eyes unerring in their glance,
harsh, broken sounds, went through way."
and the old man and the book are
* * *
bones.
Then
gate
on
one's very
"Is it true," I question further, blent into one by the white beard,
gate fell to. Every evening it "that first there will be dreadful whose silver points rest on the
was the same thing, and yet every wars, and false Messiahs, on ac- pages. At his right hand sits a
evening people's limbs trembled, a count of whom people will tear younger man, who must be his
dull apathy overspread their faces, one another like wild beasts, till son; it is the same face, only
and their eyes were as the eyes the earth be soaked with blood? younger, less unmoved, more ner-
of the dead. Eye-lids fell heavy as Is it true that rivers of blood will vous, at times more drawn and
lead; the heart seemed to stop flow from east to west and from weary. He also gazes into a book,
beating, one scarcely breathed. north to south, and all the animals but through glasses. The book is
Then a patrol would march down and beasts drink human blood, all smaller, and he holds it nearer to
the streets, with a clatter of trail- the fields and gardens and wild his eyes, resting it against the edge
ing swords and great water-boots; places and roads be swamped with of the table. He is of middle age;
the bayonets glistened, and the human blood, and that in the mid- beard and ear-locks just silvered
patrol shouted: "Wer da?" To dle of this bloody time the true over. He rocks himself to and fro.
which one had to reply: "A citizen, Messiah will come—the right one? It seems every time as if his body
wished to tear itself away from
an inhabitant," otherwise there Is that true?"
the book, only the book draws it
was no saying what might not
"True!"
back. He rocks himself, and the
happen. Many preferred to remain
"And people will know him?"
Justice Hahn Cohen, (left), chairman of the executive council
lips move inaudibly. Every now
behind lock and key — they were
"Everyone will know No- and then he glances at the old
of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, presents a silver key to
afraid of being seen in the street.
body will be mistaken. He will be man, :who does not notice it.
* * *
Louis Broido (center), Joint Distribution Committee chairman, and
One day I had the following Messiah in every look, in every
To the old man's left sits the Charles H. Jordan, JDC executive vice chairman, at the dedication
adventure: I had been bathing in word, in every limb, in every youngest, probably a grandson, a of the new six-story building, a gift of JDC, which will house the
Paul Baerwald School of Social Work of the Hebrew University.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS young man with glossy black hair
20—Friday. May 12. 1967

JDC Baerwald School Dedicated