Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/195

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

YOM KIPPUE 191

infrequently Eeb Groinom allows himself to apply his right hand to the beadle's cheek, and the latter has to take it all in a spirit of love this same Eeb Groinom now humbly approaches the same poor beadle, lies quietly down with his face to the ground, stretches him- self out, and the beadle deliberately counts the strokes up to "thirty-nine Malkes." Covered with hay, Eeb Groinom rises slowly, a piteous expression on his face, just as if he had been well thrashed, and he pushes a coin into the Shamash's hand. This is evidently the beadle's day! To-day he can take his revenge on his house- holders for the insults and injuries of a whole year !

But if you want to be in the thick of it all, you must stand in the anteroom by the door, where people are crowding round the plates for collections. The treasurer sits beside a little table with the directors of the congregation; the largest plate lies before them. To one side of them sits the cantor with his plate, and beside the cantor, several house-of-study youths with theirs. On every plate lies a paper with a written notice: "Visiting the Sick," "Supporting the Fallen," "Clothing the Naked," "Talmud Torah," "Eefuge for the Poor," and so forth. Over one plate, marked "The Eeturn to the Land of Israel," presides a modern young man, a Zionist. Everyone wishing to enter the house- of-study must first go to the plates marked "Call to the Torah" and "Seat in the Shool," put in what is his due, and then throw a few kopeks into the other plates.

Berel Tzop bustled up to the plate "Seat .in the Shool," gave what was expected of him, popped a few