their physical separation and sparring elbows, shared a common thread stitching their lives together. It was good to be among Jews, but I was not a part of their world yet—the world of the Jews of Prague. I needed allies, contacts, connections. Hell, I’d welcome an old enemy just to see a familiar face.
I floundered for a moment until the holy spirit of the sh’khineh came to me and revealed the words I needed to fill the silence: Eyn mukdem u-me’ukher batoyreh. There is no before and after in the Torah. “The Lord told them to follow the Torah before they possessed the written text because the true Torah has no beginning or end.”
Rabbi Loew smiled the way other men do when a bet pays off. But there was more. “You say that the Noahide laws are so basic that even idolators should follow them.”
“Well, except for the laws against idolatry.”
“Don’t joke with me.”
“I wasn’t joking—”
“And yet there are people who break God’s most basic commandments every day of the week. So what makes you think they will follow our little man-made rules?”
A group of street boys ran past us toward the Fleyshbanksgasse, where the butchers were making a show of giving away their weight in meat to the poor.
I was getting used to the rabbi’s humorless manner and elliptical logic, so I waited for the lesson to circle around to the point where it would reveal its relevance.
After a moment, the rabbi said, “The Sages warned us many times about the dangers of official corruption, but from what I have seen here, I would take their argument further and say that anyone who takes a rabbinical post in order to profit materially from it might as well be committing adultery.”
His disillusion over petty corruption sounded awfully familiar, I’m afraid.
And I realized that I had allowed myself to nurture the hope that the magical city of Prague would somehow be different from other places.
But I recovered quickly. “That’s probably why the Sages say that if all Israel were to observe two Sabbaths properly, we would immediately be redeemed.”
“Amen to that,” said Rabbi Loew. And he proceeded to fill me in on the local politics, telling me how the wealthy burghers get elected to public office because of their high standing in the community. But their standing is largely determined by their wealth, so the evil twins of money and power feed off each other in an endless cycle, while everybody else gets left out in the cold.
“I didn’t know things had gotten that bad.”
Rabbi Loew’s eyes glowed with satisfaction, as if I had made the most remarkable statement. “I see that you are like the great Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba, who was never ashamed to admit when he had not learned something from his teachers. I think we are going to work very well together, Ben-Akiva.”
This was my first taste of meaningful praise from Rabbi Loew, and my eyes dropped to the pavement. It was still cold out, but the temperature had climbed past freezing and the frost had long since melted with the passing of so many feet. I studied the wet footprints on the paving stones.
“What is it, my shammes?” asked the rabbi, following my gaze.
A faded mental picture was forming. “There were footprints in the frost outside of Federn’s shop. When I first got there, before the crowds came.”
After a moment, I added, “They were definitely men’s boots. Much bigger than Federn’s feet.”
“Which way were they pointing?”
“They were entering the shop.”
“Are you sure?”
I tried to bring the picture out of the watery fog.
“No,” I said. “I’m not sure.” But I had a pretty strong impression. As if that would sway the magistrates.
“The frost will be long gone by now,” said Rabbi Loew. “We’ll have to reexamine that from a more intuitive perspective later. Right now we need to be strictly logical.”
The rabbi filled me in on the essentials of our strategy, while the breeze carried the tantalizing aroma of driftwood fires and the yearly ritual of matzoh preparation. The bakery’s sooty windowpanes blurred the combined motions of the meal-master measuring out guarded flour, the vasser-gisser adding cold water for the kneader, and the redler making holes with a matzoh roller three-and-a-half-feet wide—really a huge rolling pin embedded with hundreds of iron spikes. It would make a formidable weapon, if such a use were permitted.
I shook off the thought.
The rabbi sensed that I had something important to say.