it.

Chayyim Chaikin cannot see why. The day is long, is it? Then the night
is all the shorter. It's hot out of doors, is it? Who asks you to go
loitering about in the sun? Sit in the Shool and recite the prayers, of
which, thank God, there are plenty.

"I tell you," persists Chayyim Chaikin, "that the Ninth of Ab is the
easiest of the fasts, because it is the best, the very best!

"For instance, take the Day of Atonement fast! It is written, 'And you
shall mortify your bodies.' What for? To get a clean bill and a good
year.

"It doesn't say that you are to fast on the Ninth of Ab, but you fast of
your own accord, because how could you eat on the day when the Temple
was wrecked, and Jews were killed, women ripped up, and children dashed
to pieces?

"It doesn't say that you are to weep on the Ninth of Ab, but you _do_
weep. How could anyone restrain his tears when he thinks of what we lost
that day?"

"The pity is, there should be only one Ninth of Ab!" says Chayyim
Chaikin.

"Well, and the Seventeenth of Tammuz!" suggests some one.

"And there is only one Seventeenth of Tammuz!" answers Chayyim Chaikin,
with a sigh.

"Well, and the Fast of Gedaliah? and the Fast of Esther?" continues the
same person.

"Only one of each!" and Chayyim Chaikin sighs again.

"E, Reb Chayyim, you are greedy for fasts, are you?"

"More fasts, more fasts!" says Chayyim Chaikin, and he takes upon
himself to fast on the eve of the Ninth of Ab as well, two days at a
stretch.

What do you think of fasting two days in succession? Isn't that a treat?
It is hard enough to have to break one's fast after the Ninth of Ab,
without eating on the eve thereof as well.

One forgets that one _has_ insides, that such a thing exists as the
necessity to eat, and one is free of the habit that drags one down to
the level of the beast.

The difficulty lies in the drinking! I mean, in the _not_ drinking. "If
I" (thinks Chayyim Chaikin) "allowed myself one glass of water a day, I
could fast a whole week till Sabbath."

You think I say that for fun? Not at all! Chayyim Chaikin is a man of
his word. When he says a thing, it's said and done! The whole week
preceding the Ninth of Ab he ate nothing, he lived on water.

Who should notice? His wife, poor thing, is sick, the elder children are
out all day in the factory, and the younger ones do not understand.
Fradke and Beilke only know when they are hungry (and they are always
hungry), the heart yea