56
PARTISAN REVIEW
The Minister of Housing: "But we could ask the Others to give us
hints. They could name the ones they wanted, and we would just write
them down."
"Aha! Aha! I've thought of something!" It was the Fur Trimmers
Rabbi again.
"It
is true, the case of the person specifically named is an
exception to the rule,
Not a single soul from Israel.
But there is an
exception to the exception. Resh Laquish has rul ed , and Ramban has
accepted this teaching: not even such a named person may be surren–
dered,
unless he is deserving of death! "
Popower: "Wonderful! Grand! It's the criminals! I said that all
along!"
"The question is," said Rabbi Kanal, the Descendant, "is the
exception to the exception truly an exception? What is meant, beyond
the obvious instance of capital cases, by
deserving of death?
Do we not
say that a student of Torah is 'deserving of dea th ' if he happens to have
a stain on his garment? Is not the man who holds his own organ when
passing water called 'death-deserving' too? To whom, then , does this
phrase not apply?"
Wolf-Kitzes: "A married man may support his organ from below."
Rabbi Kornischoner said thoughtfully, "What our Master now
teaches is valid. All men are guilty. There is no person who can say
that his death is not just. "
"True! Truel Us most of all! We are bad, guilty people! Let's put
our names down and be the first ones to 'go!" Old Philosoff was
rocking from one foot to the other. The rosy light in the room lit his
swaying beard, like the strands of a beaded curtain .
Then Mathilda Megalif began weeping, from both her eyes.
The next to join in was Schpitalnik, and after him Margolies.
"Why are we weeping?'" Verble asked, sobbing too.
In
no time, the
whole room, including the rabbis, was qui etly shedding tears. The
answer to Verbl e's question was that each man and each woman was
thinking of the reasons why he or she deserved to die. Their faces were
red, partly from this intense emotion, and partly because the sun–
round, immense, purple, like a gigantic beet-root-was setting oppo–
site the House of Lords. They all turned toward it, with bright pink
tears on their cheeks.
Then Kornischoner sighed and wiped his wet beard with his
sleeve. "Let's keep trying, " he said. " We might find a way."
"There is the case of the one-hundred blessed loaves," said Wolf–
Kitzes. They all turned toward the half-dressed rabbi. "The heathen
demands one such loaf on pain of defiling the remaining ninety-nine.
Many authorities write that all the loaves must suffer defilement; but
Rabbi Joshua ben Hananish has rul ed that whil e the single loaf may
