errors; vowels were only for children
and fools, and he was an adept in Talmud, cunning in dispute and the
dovetailing of texts--quite a little Rabbi, they said in the Ghetto!
And when the great moment actually came, after a few timid twists and
turns of melody he found his voice soaring aloft triumphantly, and
then it became to him a subtle pleasure to hold and dominate all the
listening crowd. Afterwards his father and mother received many
congratulations on the way he had "said his Portion."

And now that he was a man other parts of Judaism came into prominence
in his life. He became a member of the "Holy Society," which washed
and watched the bodies of the dead ere they were put to rest in the
little island cemetery, which was called "The House of Life" because
there is no death in the universe, for, as he sang triumphantly on
Friday evenings, "God will make the dead alive in the abundance of His
kindness." And now, too, he could take a man's part in the death
services of the mourners, who sat for seven days upon the ground and
said prayers for the souls of the deceased. The boy wondered what
became of these souls; some, he feared, went to perdition, for he knew
their owners had done and eaten forbidden things. It was a comfort to
think that even in hell there is no fire on the Sabbath, and no
Fire-woman. When the Messiah came, perhaps they would all be forgiven.
Did not the Talmud say that all Israel--with the good men of all
nations--would have a part in the world to come?

III

There were many fasts in the Ghetto calendar, most of them twelve
hours long, but some twenty-four. Not a morsel of food nor a drop of
water must pass the lips from the sunset of one day to nightfall on
the next. The child had only been allowed to keep a few fasts, and
these only partially, but now it was for his own soul to settle how
long and how often it would afflict itself, and it determined to do so
at every opportunity. And the great opportunity came soon. Not the
Black Fast when the congregation sat shoeless on the floor of the
synagogue, weeping and wailing for the destruction of Jerusalem, but
the great White Fast, the terrible Day of Atonement commanded in the
Bible. It was preceded by a long month of solemn prayer, ushering in
the New Year. The New Year itself was the most sacred of the
Festivals, provided with prayers half a day long, and made terrible by
peals on the ram's horn. There were three kinds of calls on this
p