Part II Trap Sprung and the Escape
Now let us return to the young bridegroom in the tower. When he entered this last little room with the books he had no more than crossed the threshold when the man abandoned him; and as the door closed behind him, he heard a voice, sighing: “Alack and alas, you have also been tricked like me, you unhappy one. Now that you have come here you will never depart alive.” The boy was struck dumb with horror, wondering whose voice that could be. He raised his eyes and saw a very old head, just a head unattached to any body. It was this head that spoke to him.
The head went on: “Whom do you have here? A bride, a mother-in-law or a father-in-law? Where are they? This is the abode of Lilith of the other side, a place of impurity. All those your eyes have seen are merely snares of the soul who wish to make an end of the world, and here there is nothing but images and witchcraft.”
The head went on: “I also was a child prodigy, and in the best years of my youth they lured me into this trap and caught me in their net to serve them as a mouthpiece before God. They have unholy names from the idols that belong to Jeroboam ben Nebat, who caused Israel to sin. Once in eighty years they cut off the head of a child prodigy who is the first-born son of a first-born. They do this when he is thirteen years and a day old, then they place the unholy names under his tongue, and he declares the things that are to come hereafter (Isaiah 41:23) and forecasts the future for them. Now the years of my slavery are over, and they have taken you instead. Look around and see how they have prepared wine for a libation; and the many lights that are burning in the room are only for me.”
Terrified and trembling, the lad heard all this, then he girded up his strength and asked the head: “If you have told me all this, then please tell me now what I should do? Is there any remedy for me?” “There is nothing better for you,” answered the head, “than to flee for your soul through this window. If you do not flee for your life tonight, you will be slain tomorrow and placed at my post instead of me. I advise you, and may the Lord be your aid, that when you jump through the window you take me in your arms so that I can tell you what road to take. For otherwise you will not be safe. Understand that if I am not with you, then if one of those men comes and asks me where you are, I must tell him at once where he can find you. So if you will listen to me, you will do wisely.
“And now swear to me that when you return home to your father you will do me a last kindness and bury my head in a Jewish grave and say the Kaddish prayer as a memorial to my soul and that you will do all that is proper and fitting for my soul.”
The boy swore this to him. Then he opened the window and jumped out, carrying the severed head. They flew high above the castle and escaped away. The boy was frightened; from time to time the head declared, “Now we are here, at such and such a place, start running fast, for those who would trap your soul have just come to look for you.”
Let us return now to share in the grief of the townsfolk with their master and rabbi, whose soul was weeping in secret before the all-saving Lord. The day came when the rabbi proclaimed a fast for the congrega¬tion. All the townsfolk, men, women and children, came to the syna¬gogue, which is called the Altneuschul. There the rabbi ordered that they should all recite the First Book of Psalms, and they all repeated the songs of David with full devotion. After they completed the book, the rabbi said, “The boy has not yet returned, and therefore, my masters and rabbis, I shall preach a moralizing sermon and words of reproof to you.” The rabbi said everything with such spiritual force, all the people were moved and their prayers uplifted. Then he ordered the congre¬gation to recite the Second Book of Psalms. When they had ended it, he looked this way and that but the lad was not there, so he preached once again as before. Then he recited the Third Book of Psalms himself before the Holy Ark, verse by verse, as is done by the leader of the community in prayer; and he blew the shofar (ram’s horn). As the blast came to an end, the window of the synagogue opened by itself, and the boy flew in and stood before his teacher, and all the people saw this and trembled at the sight.
Then the boy told the entire congregation all that had befallen him and showed the head that was with him to the rabbi. Then the rabbi cried in a loud voice, “Yet heaven brought this about in order to take the pure out of the clutches of the impure and to save more souls of Israel for whom they have been lying in wait forever. Now I have taken all those unholy names from them.” With that, he removed the names from under the tongue of the head, and tore them into little pieces. He promised the head in the presence of the entire congregation to pray for hi holy soul, bury him and say the Kaddish prayer for his soul. And he did so.
There are some who say that on the night when the rabbi prayed for the return of the captive soul of this boy, his deceased grandfather came and bore him on his shoulders past villages and forests the great distance of a whole month’s journey, in a single night, until he came home in peace. All this came about due to the prayers of the holy rabbi.
Noraos Anshe Ma’asseh #1
May all your tales end with Shalom (peace)
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Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. (Joel 1:3)