s of torture.

What mysterious influences rule such dual lives?--asks the perplexed
student of human nature.

But for these mysterious undercurrents which lead human brains and
hearts into awful error, Rabbi Isaak might have been a great man.

Let us be just. He would have been a great man but for those that
raised the weapons of fire and sword, and the still more deadly
weapons of scorn and contempt, against his brethren, and thus
confined them in the narrow, dark,--a spiritual and moral Ghetto!

The sun had set, and the earth was wrapped in the dim light of a
summer evening. The large court of the synagogue swarmed with a
crowd. The interior of Bet-ha-Midrash was already full of people.
There could be seen heads of old men and fair locks of children, long
beards, black like crow's wings and blonde like hemp. They all moved
and swayed, necks were craned, beards raised, and eyes glowed in
anticipation of some new sensation. Everything appeared in shadow.
The large room was lighted by a small lamp, suspended at the entrance
door, and a single tallow candle in a brass candlestick, which stood
on a white table; this, with a solitary chair close to the high and bare
wall, constituted the platform from which the speaker was wont to
address the people. In Israel, everybody, young or old, and of whatever
social position, had the right to speak in public, according to the
democratic principles prevailing in the ancient law. Every Israelite had
the right to enter this building, whether for the purposes of praying,
reading, or teaching.

The people who crowded outside the building looked often in at the
windows of the room where the elders and judges held their
conferences. In the entrance hall the lamp was being lit, and burning
candles were placed upon the long table. Presently people well-known
to the inhabitants ascended, the steps of the portico. Singly or in
twos arrived the judges of the community--all of them men well on in
years, fathers of large families, wealthy merchants, or house owners.
There ought to have been twelve in number, but the bystanders counted
only up to eleven. The twelfth judge was Raphael Ezofowich. People
whispered to each other that the uncle of the accused could not sit
in judgment against him; others said that he would not. After the
judges arrived, the elders, amongst whom was Morejne Calman, with his
hands in his pockets and the stereotyped, honeyed smile on his lips,
and Jankiel Kamionker