Legends of the Lamed-Vav: Volume 1, Number 3: Descent Into Darkness

By Lable Braun

This story is a prequel to "Simple Chaim". Readers of that story will know that Raizel's father, Nathan, was a very hard-hearted man. Nathan was about as far away from the path of the Lamed-Vav, the path of compassion and simple kindness, as a human-being can get. But before we can learn to walk the road that leads to Divine Compassion, we must first understand the road that leads away from it.

What traumatic events could produce a man like Nathan? It is easy to judge such a man, but do we dare to understand him? In "Descent Into Darkness" we learn the greatest threat to all our lives - that when we fight against our destiny and our innate compassionate nature, even in the name of grand intentions, then, like Jonah, we enter the very belly of the Beast. And the consequences for ourselves and the world can be truly tragic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lable Braun
• Release date: Jan 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465703309

Lable Braun

Lable Braun has a diverse background. He is a philosopher who has spent decades as a corporate executive. He is a Mystic and a Phi Beta Kappa scholar. He reads Tarot Cards and is a certified Project Management Professional. Above all, in each of these roles, his essence is that of Storyteller. Lable has spent the last four decades studying the wisdom of 3,000 years. The response to his writing and his popularity as a dynamic public speaker have finally forced him to admit that he might have something worth saying.

Book preview

Legends of the Lamed-Vav

Volume 1, Number 3

DESCENT INTO DARKNESS

By

Lable Braun

SMASHWORDS EDITION

***

PUBLISHED BY:

Lable Braun on Smashwords

Descent Into Darkness

Copyright © 2012 by Lable Braun

To stay in touch with developments regarding The Lamed-Vav Project, and with the series of stories about the Legends of the Lamed-Vav, please visit www.thelamedvavproject.org

Though influenced by historical events, this story is a myth. You may call it a work of fiction, if you must. But we must never let the facts stand in the way of a good truth.

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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

***

It’s a shame. Mrs. Pinsky declared to the other women of the village gathered at the river on wash day. A real shame! she avowed, and scrubbed her husband’s shirt harder against the washboard to emphasize how strongly she held her beliefs on the matter. All of poor Mr. Pinsky’s clothing was threadbare owing to his wife’s habit of using his laundry to make her points with such power and conviction.

It truly is a shame, Mrs. Levinsky agreed. She was gentler on her family’s clothing during the weekly laundry discussions than Mrs. Pinsky was. However, she often got so wrapped-up in the conversation that it was a long time before the wash made its way from the basin to the drying-line. Consequently, you could always tell that a Levinsky was coming, even before you saw them, by the slight smell of mildew.

Nathan Shlimovitz is the best liked boy in town, Mrs. Fidelowicz said and was gratified by Mrs. Pinsky’s nodding her head, in perfect synchronization with her beating her son’s underwear with a stone.

I even wanted Nathan for a match with my Tamar, Mrs. Fidelowicz revealed. He is so smart and so pleasant a boy. He’s much too good for Shaindele Zuchermann.

Mrs. Levinsky said nothing. Pondering as her laundry dipped into the mud, she thought to herself that Nathan was lucky that Mrs. Fidelowicz’ plan had never come to fruition. Shaindele was no prize, to be sure, but at least she didn’t come attached with Frieda Fidelowicz as a mother-in-law.

What a sickly child that Shaindele is, Mrs. Troutberg observed. What kind of marriage could they possibly have?

A good question, Mrs. Pinsky agreed, with emphasis, rubbing poor Yankele’s underwear raw. It’s all that studying she does. That’s what makes her so sick.

Whoever heard of a girl studying the Torah? Mrs. Levinsky asked, deep in thought about whether to let the bedsheets just dry a bit muddy or put them through the wash basin once more.

It’s that father of hers, Mrs. Fidelowicz thundered. He teaches her Torah at night. I took him to task for it! The other women shuddered. All of them had had occasion to be taken to task by Frieda Fidelowicz at one time or another. It was not a pleasant experience.

So what was his defense? Mrs. Troutberg wondered.

He said that when God gives you such a treasure of a mind as his daughter Shaindele has, you must not question what kind of a body it comes in.

What kind of answer is that? Mrs. Levinsky scoffed.

He was adamant, Mrs. Fidelowicz said. He would not give it up. There is even a rumor, not started by me of course, but still a very credible rumor, that he teaches her Kaballah!

Now all activity immediately stopped as the women took this in. This was serious. Teaching a girl the Torah was one thing. But … Kaballah! Even men were not permitted to study Kaballah before they met some very stringent requirements. Kaballah was the most secret, mystical knowledge of the Torah.

No good will come of this, Mrs. Pinsky moaned as she began forcefully wringing tears of soapy water out of Mr. Pinsky’s pants. No good will come of this!

***

As the washing women were bemoaning the state of a world in which girls studied Kaballah, across the village Nathan Shlimovitz was leaning his back against a tree stump, watching as his friend, Jacob, walloped his thumb with a tinker’s hammer. Nathan tried not to laugh as his friend yelped with pain, but he couldn’t help himself.

Gotenyu, Jacob, he said wryly, you truly are a terrible tinker.

I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! his friend said with tears of pain rolling down his cheek. I never wanted to be a tinker. I hate being a tinker. May God only grant that some idiot come to be a tinker for this village and relieve me of this burden.

Nonsense, Nathan said soothingly. Without this work you would starve. We are your friends. If another tinker came here, we would run him out of town. You are our tinker, and always will be.

Why do you hate me so? Jacob accused. Would I condemn you to a life you hate?

No need to condemn me, Nathan said with a sigh. Fate has already done that. Nathan saw no options for himself in life other than following the ass of his father’s plough-horse down one row of soil and up the other.

Yes, Jacob agreed. We’re both trapped.

They may trap my body here, Nathan said fervently, but they can’t trap my mind.

Nathan held up a pamphlet. See! I can still read. I can still know what is going on in the world. Have you read this atrocious garbage by Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev?

Who in the world is Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev? Jacob asked.

Nathan shook his head ruefully. Every Jew in Russia, every Jew in the world should be reading this.

Well, maybe I would, if you told me who he was, Jacob chided as he turned back to the samovar he was working on.

Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev is the High Procurator of the Holy Synod. That makes him, in effect, the administrative head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Nathan explained. A very powerful man, indeed. He was the czar’s tutor when Alexander was a boy. Now he is the closest confidante of our fool of a monarch.

Nathan! Jacob cried in alarm, looking furtively about for anyone who might have heard Nathan’s sedition. You’ll get us all arrested.

Pfah!