Beautiful as the Moon, Radiant as the Stars by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC003000
ISBN: 9780446510363
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2007-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

3

Reb Leyzer Walden lit his pipe, puffed away, blew smoke straight into the faces of his listeners, and said:

“How far is Laptsev from Partsev? Partsev had already heard about the whole thing. Reb Mottele paid little attention to the goings-on in town. First of all, there was nobody to tell him. Secondly, he didn’t care about anything. He was concerned only with settling accounts with the Master of the Universe and with no one else. The few Chasidim who still followed him came only on the High Holy Days. Of those who lived with him, some were deaf, some were blind, and the rest were senile. Reb Alter was always drunk. There could’ve been a conflagration in Partsev, but as long as the flames didn’t reach the court, the rebbe wouldn’t have known anything about it. Twice a year, during Passover and after Succos, the river overflowed, but since the water never washed up to the rebbe’s study house, he went on with his own affairs. To this day, I don’t know who told him about Shevach. But someone did tell him, and for the first time in years the rebbe listened attentively and didn’t say, ‘What difference does it make?’ Instead he replied, ‘If she comes here, I want to come to an understanding with her.’ She did arrive, and they immediately confronted her with the message. That Reb Mottele should receive a woman was staggeringly incomprehensible. They brought her in, and despite the fact that this might constitute the forbidden situation of a man remaining alone with a single woman, Reb Mottele locked himself up in his study with her. Reb Mottele Partsever had never kept anyone with him for longer than fifteen minutes; Shevach, however, remained closeted with him for three hours. Everyone thought that immediately after that she would travel back to where she’d come from, but Reb Mottele gave instructions that she should be given a room in the court, and he told the beadle, who was also the cook and the housekeeper—he had a lame old woman who helped him—to provide Shevach with everything she needed. Not long afterward, the beadle, Reb Alter, died, and Shevach took over his duties. For a woman to be a rebbe’s beadle had never been heard of before, but in what way is an androgyne more a woman than a man? In the same way as the body possesses both genders, so does the soul. There are such things as twin souls.

“I once looked up the whole matter in the holy books, and it would seem that an androgyne can choose for himself what he wants to be, male or female. If he wants to be female, then he is relieved of performing the daily ritual duties demanded of men. If he takes manhood upon himself, then he takes on the obligation of fulfilling all six hundred and thirteen commandments. I can’t remember now whether I found this in the codes of Joseph Caro, of Maimonides, or simply in a responsum.

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