A month later, completely recovered, he solemnly sets out for the Dobrushkas’ home in Prossnitz, where there is a gathering once a year—as is known only to the initiated—of true believers from all over Europe. At the Dobrushkas’, they pretend it is a family occasion, who knows whose or what kind. As with the wedding of Isaac Shorr (now Henryczek Wołowski) twenty-seven years ago, everyone is here. Jacob Frank comes in a sumptuous carriage surrounded by his own Hussars. One of them is lightly wounded. They were attacked by Jews just outside Brünn, but the Jews were not well armed. Szymanowski, who always has a loaded gun, shot at them a few times, and they all scattered.
Yente watches all of this—the similarity of the events draws her attention. Over time, moments occur that are very similar to one another. The threads of time have their knots and tangles, and every so often there is a symmetry, every once in a while something repeats, as if refrains and motifs were controlling them, a troubling thing to notice. Such order tends to overburden the mind, which cannot know how to respond. Chaos has always seemed more familiar and safe, like the disarray in your own drawer. And so it is now, here in Prossnitz, that they remember the day in Rohatyn, twenty-seven years ago, that Yente didn’t exactly die.
There the wagons rode in the mud, carrying people in damp kapotas. Oil lamps flickered in the low-ceilinged rooms, the men’s thick beards and the women’s rich skirts gave off the smell of the omnipresent smoke, the wet wood and the fried onions. Now, down the Moravian highways glide carriages on leaf springs, soft and comfortable inside. They drive up to the Dobrushkas’ large home, people who are washed and well-fed, nicely dressed, poised and polite. They greet each other in the courtyard, and it is clear just from looking at them that they treat the world as if it were their own cozy apartment. They are nice and friendly toward each other, which just goes to show that this is one big family that has gathered here. And that is exactly how it is. The two local taverns rent them guest rooms. The town’s residents examine the newcomers, who speak German with a lilt, but their interest does not last long. Maybe it’s a golden anniversary at the Dobrushkas’. That he is a Jew everyone knows, there are plenty of Jews here. They live honestly and work hard. They are different in some way from those other Jews, but no one seems to care exactly how.
For the duration of the proceedings, the women are completely separated from the men and will spend the whole three days in their own company, covering in great detail all questions of who, when, with whom, how, why, and where. These conversations will yield more advantages later on than the setting down of doctrines. They provide ideas for marriages, offer fashionable names for children not yet born, discuss appealing places for the treatment of rheumatism, and connect those seeking good posts with those who need good help. In the morning they read sacred texts and also debate them. In the afternoon they turn their attention to musicmaking—Sheyndel and her daughters are very gifted and have a lot of sheet music in their possession. As the girls play, the older women, including Sheyndel, pour themselves glasses of cherry liqueur, and that’s when a discussion no less interesting than the one taking place on the other side of the wall, among the men, really gets under way.
One of the Dobrushka daughters, Blumele, who is particularly talented, accompanies herself on the piano and sings an old song of the true believers, translated into German now:
In a hiding place of iron, in an air balloon,
My soul sets sail on open seas.
No man‑made walls can hold it in,
Nor can the heart’s own Babylon.
It pays no heed to reputation,
To pompous guests at lavish feasts,
To smoothness, courtesy, great nations.
My soul breaks free through any border,
Ignores the keepers of your order,
Flies over words ranged end to end
And what words cannot comprehend.
It knows not pleasure or night’s terror—
Your beauty, like a poor relation,
My soul drives out, dumps in the sand.
O God in heaven up above,
Give me Your word, that I may stand
Beside You, catch up with Your truth.
Her clear voice carries so distinctly that some of the men, standing close to the door, listen in, discreetly move away, tiptoe over to the women.
Thomas has come from Vienna for this great gathering. On arrival he goes automatically to the women—before he is absorbed by serious conversations, he wants to converse frivolously. He has brought from Vienna a new party game—you have to convey in sign language some sentence that the rest must guess. Gestures and faces are the most democratic language; the outlandish accent they speak with here will not bother anyone now. He promises them they’ll play in the evening, when there will be time for pleasures. He leaves them The Works of Ossian, translated by his friend. The women spend the afternoon reading it aloud. Eva does not understand the elation that accompanies this reading, nor the emotion that produces the younger women’s tears.
Among the men, Thomas speaks about Masonic ideas. This topic has long aroused the curiosity of the elder brothers from the provinces, and as Sheyndel’s son belongs to the lodge, he gives them an impromptu lecture, which in turn engenders a great discussion. One fragment in particular sticks in the brothers’ minds. Thomas tells of how in this divided world, made up of factions that set themselves in opposition to each other, and that are called religions, freemasonry is the one place where people of pure hearts may meet and act, stripped of preconceived notions, open.
“Show me another place where a Jew can talk, debate, and act together with a Christian out from under the watchful gaze of the church and the synagogue, the structures of power, the hierarchies that separate people into better or worse!” he shouts over their heads; his white silk jabot has loosened, and his long, wavy hair, neatly coifed at first, has now rebelled. Thomas speaks as if in a fit of inspiration: “The two opposing systems are locked in an eternal struggle, eternally mistrustful of each other, accusing each other of evil deeds and wrong ideas. We actively participate from birth, locking in our own antlers, some of us born this way, others born that way, and it could not matter less how we would like to live—”
Protests rise from the back. There is a heated discussion now, and they won’t let Thomas finish. Were it not for the fact that he is one of their hosts, and the fact that this talk is taking place in the evening and is therefore less official, they would have shouted him down earlier. But it is clear to all that Zalman’s son has far too hot a head.
That day Jacob speaks at the very end, bravely and with panache. There is nothing in him of those boring old speakers (with the exception of Thomas) who uttered every possible variation of Eibeschütz, Eibeschütz’s, Eibeschützian. There is nothing in Jacob’s speech about himself or about the Virgin—his young cousin specifically warned him about this, and he has heeded it. The speech is instead about how converting to “the religion of Edom” has now become an absolute necessity. There is no alternative. And about how you have to figure out a place for yourself, as independent as possible, where you can live according to your own laws, but peacefully.
When in the corner there is a whispered outburst, Jacob turns to face in that direction and says:
“You know who I am and how I became who I am. My grandfather, Moses Meir Kamenker, was caught one year before my birth smuggling books of the true faith from Poland to Hamburg. For that, they sent him to prison. I know what I am talking about, and I am not mistaken. I cannot be mistaken.”
“Why is it you can’t be mistaken, Jacob?” asks someone from the room.
“For within me is God,” answers Jacob Frank, with a beautiful smile that reveals his still-white, healthy teeth.
There is some commotion, someone whistles, and they all have to be hushed.
The women and the young play Dobrushka’s new game until late. Laughter tumbles forth into the night through all the open windows. The uncontested champion is the
young wife of the man who protested the most strenuously against Thomas, the rabbi of Altona, a woman named Fanny.
A hernia, and the Lord’s words
The house in Brünn is no longer as crowded as it once was, but true believers still come in from Rus’, Podolia, and Warsaw. These are the poorer guests, who must also be received, of course. Dirty from their long journeys, some of them look like savages, for instance that woman with the Polish plait she refused to have cut, fearing that with it she would lose her life. The Lord commanded that the Polish plait be sheared while she was asleep, and then, saying a prayer over it, he had it ceremoniously burned. The new arrivals are spread out around the whole house and over the kitchen in the yard, where the pilgrims’ rooms have been prepared for them, but even this is not enough. So they rent out quarters throughout the surrounding area. During the day, they come to the Lord regardless. He has only to cast a glance at them to evaluate what sort of people they are, and depending on how he judges them, to some he tells fables and anecdotes, to others he explicates difficult and complicated sentences from learned books.
For Hanukkah the Lord himself lights the candles, but he forbids them from praying in Yiddish. For Yom Kippur, meanwhile, he has them sing and organize dances, like they used to do in Ivanie, and even before.
Now the Lord requests Wittel Matuszewska spend the night with him—she has just arrived from Warsaw, where she was spending time with the children. He is happy she is here; he gets a shave, a haircut, has his toenails clipped. Wittel runs toward him from the door and kneels before him in obeisance, but he lifts her up and hugs her, and Wittel turns as bright pink as a peony. He greets her husband, Mateusz, with equal enthusiasm.
When Eva Zwierzchowska falls ill, Wittel takes over her responsibilities, too, and now she rules with an iron fist. She exhorts the young men, drilled-out and idle, to do outdoor chores, like plucking the weeds that grow between the cobblestones in the courtyard, and cleaning up the horse droppings that draw clouds of flies. She has the water carrier bring more water, organizes pickling, taking up great barrels. Only Wittel is permitted by the Lord to speak to him in an ever so slightly reproachful tone. She is even allowed to get angry with him, as for instance when she accuses him—the sisters have already complained to her about it—of always arranging intercourse so that it is good for the men, but not necessarily for the women.
“Well, how would you do it?” asks Jacob. “I do as God instructs me.”
“You have to pay careful attention to who is drawn to whom, who likes each other, and who doesn’t. If you appoint a couple made up of two people who hate each other, it will only bring suffering and shame.”
“The point is not for them to do it to get pleasure from it,” the Lord explains to her. “The point is that they must be broken down and come around to one another. The point is for them to form a whole.”
“It certainly comes easier to the husbands to be ‘broken down,’ as you call it, while the women feel horrible afterward.”
He looks her over carefully, stunned by what she’s said.
“Give the women the right to say no,” says Wittel.
His look darkens:
“Well, don’t announce it, because then their husbands will tell them to say no.”
Wittel says after a moment:
“The women are not that stupid. The women are happy to be with other men . . . Many of them are just waiting for permission; if they don’t get the permission, some will do it anyway. It’s always been like that, and it always will be.”
Following his return from Prossnitz to Brünn, Jacob falls ill again. Wittel Matuszewska claims that these illnesses arise from his complete lack of moderation in eating the local Hermelín, the cheese they make here, which the Lord insists on eating warm and in great quantities. No stomach can digest it, she rages. And this time, his painful hernia returns. At the base of his abdomen, almost in his groin, a thickening appears, protruding from his belly. He had the same thing back in Ivanie. Zwierzchowska and those who serve the Lord day or night tell everyone excitedly that the Lord has two members. In the kitchen it is said that the second member shows itself when something important is to happen. The women giggle, their cheeks pink.
Although there seems to be no medicine for the hernia—and maybe this illness is in fact a visible blessing—the Lord heals on his own. In the forest he loves just outside Brünn there are oak groves; there the Lord selects a young oak’s branch and has it cut in half lengthwise, then lights a fire and puts both stone and singed tinder upon his ailment. He wraps the oak around himself and tells everyone to leave. He does this several times, and the hernia abates.
At the same time, he has sent Eva to Vienna and brought in an artist who specializes in miniatures. The Lord has ordered three. Eva has been posing, displeased at having been taken away from the imperial court when at any moment the emperor might summon her. The miniatures are sent to the brothers from Hamburg and Altona with a request for financial support for the court and for the Lady herself, who has been spending so much time with the emperor, a point Jacob insisted be emphasized repeatedly.
At the nightly talks, which often go on until quite late, Jacob first tells fairy tales and parables, and then the more serious discussions begin. His listeners sit on whatever they can find—the older ones in armchairs and sofas, chairs and benches brought in for this purpose from the dining room. The younger ones sit on the floor, on the Turkish pillows that are everywhere here. Those who don’t listen let their minds wander to their own affairs, and only from time to time are they dragged back from their musings by someone’s not particularly intelligent question or a sudden burst of laughter.
“We will take three steps, remember,” begins the Lord.
Three steps—the first is baptism, the second is their entrance into Daat, and the third is the Kingdom of Edom.
Lately the Lord has mostly spoken about Daat, which in Hebrew means knowledge, the greatest knowledge, the same knowledge that is held by God. But it may be made available to humans. This is also the eleventh sefira, which stands in the very center of the Sefirot Tree yet has never been discovered by any person. He who goes with Jacob goes straight into Daat, and when he gets there, all will be annulled, even death. That will be deliverance.
During the lecture, Jędrzej Dembowski gives out printed leaflets with the image of the Sefirot Tree. He came up with this idea not long ago, and he is pleased they have arrived at such modern and enlightened teaching methods. In this way, Jacob’s listeners can easily visualize where salvation lies within the larger plan of creation.
Of a proclivity for secret experiments on substances
Thomas von Schönfeld, who after his father’s death invested money in overseas trade with his brothers, is now collecting his first profits. Several times a year he travels to Amsterdam and Hamburg, and also to Leipzig, and returns with good contracts. His brothers have set up a small bank in Vienna and give out loans and collect interest on them. Thomas also conducts research on the emperor’s behalf on the subject of Turkey, though the purpose of this research isn’t altogether clear; throughout it, he is delighted to make use of the wide-ranging contacts of his uncle, Jacob Frank.
Jacob often summons him by mail and borrows money from banks in Vienna through him. Thomas carries bills of exchange. He urges Jacob to lend the money that comes in from Poland, and get interest off it, or to invest it properly, instead of keeping it in barrels in the cellar, as Czerniawska and her husband want, since they are the court treasurers now.
But the most important thing over the course of this unique unclenephew love affair are the strange visits from Thomas’s “brothers,” as he calls them, such as Efraim Joseph Hirschfeld and Nathan Arnstein, both wealthy industrialists from Vienna, or Bernard Eskeles, a banker who is not interested in money at all, or the printer who is a count and godfather to Thomas von Schönfeld. This count will soon apply for a noble title for his godson.
For now, Thomas uses the “von” wi
thout having any right to it, most often when he goes away to Germany or France. Simultaneously, and also through him, correspondence is now under way regarding the title of baron that Jacob Frank would like to have. Here, in Brünn, he uses the last name Dobrucki, which is justifiable, since he is, after all, related to the Dobrushkas of Prossnitz. Thus: Joseph, Count Dobrucki. Jacob is his name for special occasions, like a purple coat worn on holy days.
Long before Maria Theresa’s death in 1780, a request appears on her son’s desk for the Austrian ennoblement of Jacob Frank, as he already has a Polish title; the request is written in the pleasant, reliable, juridical style of Thomas von Schönfeld. The second letter, attached by his scrupulous and loyal secretary, is a denunciation, written in that characteristic way in which denunciations tend to be written—impersonally, with unshakable certainty, and yet at the same time, almost in a whisper:
. . . should be aware that there existed in the past, and that there inevitably exists today, as well, a science not universally accessible, having to do with things that would appear to be natural, but which are rather understood as supernatural, along with a tradition of looking at whatever occurs on our planet through the lens of faith in cycles. This tradition boldly engages with something that we, god-fearing Catholics, would never dare to so much as broach—an examination of the question of the Divine Essence. It is said that such studies are contained in the Chaldean book of wisdom called the Zohar. These bits of wisdom are expressed there in an unclear manner that is exceptionally allegorical, so that someone who merely happens upon the text but who is unable to apply the numerological techniques and the Hebrew symbology cannot understand it. And this applies to Jews, as well—only a few of them are capable of understanding what is written there. Among those who can, there is among others a subject of Your Highness’s, a man named Jacob Frank who lives in Brünn. The knowledge of this kind of person is sufficient for them to carry out mysterious experiments on matter, with which they astonish the uninitiated. It is pure quackery, but it creates around such people an extraordinary atmosphere and builds false presumptions regarding them. It is said, however, that after the destruction of the Second Temple, the remains of that science were scattered all across the Orient, primarily amongst the Arab countries. The Arabs, meanwhile, passed it along to the Knights Templar . . .
The Books of Jacob Page 88
