FullReads

‘Oh come, Mr. Gabriel, that quibble is not worthy of you. But far be it from me to judge a fellow-man.’

‘Far be it indeed!’ The attempted turning of his sabre-point gave him vigour for the lunge. ‘You–you whose shop stands brazenly open every Saturday!’

‘My dear Mr. Gabriel, I couldn’t break the Fourth Commandment.’

‘What!’

‘Would you have me break the Fourth Commandment?’

‘I do not understand.’

‘And yet you hold a Rabbinic diploma, I am told. Does not the Fourth Commandment run: “Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work”? If I were to close on Saturday I should only be working five days a week, since in this heathen country Sunday closing is compulsory.’

‘But you don’t keep the other half of the Commandment,’ said the bewildered minister. ‘”And on the seventh is the Sabbath.”‘

‘Yes, I do–after my six days the seventh is my Sabbath. I only sinned once, if you will have it so, the first time I shifted the Sabbath to Sunday, since when my Sabbath has arrived regularly on Sundays.’

‘But you did sin once!’ said the minister, catching at that straw.

‘Granted, but as to get right again would now make a second sin, it seems more pious to let things be. Not that I really admit the first sin, for let me ask you, sir, which is nearer to the spirit of the Commandment–to work six days and keep a day of rest–merely changing the day once in one’s whole lifetime–or to work five days and keep two days of rest?’

The minister, taken aback, knew not how to meet this novel defence. He had come heavily armed against all the usual arguments as to the necessity of earning one’s bread. He was prepared to prove that even from a material point of view you really gained more in the long run, as it is written in the Conclusion-of-Sabbath Service: ‘Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.’

Simeon Samuels pursued his advantage.

‘My co-religionists in Sudminster seem to have put all the stress upon the resting half of the Commandment, forgetting the working half of it. I do my best to meet their views–as you say, one should not dig down a wall–by attending their Sabbath service on a day most inconvenient to me. But no sacrifice is too great to achieve prayerful communion with one’s brethren.’

‘But if your views were to prevail there would be an end of Judaism!’ the minister burst forth.

‘Then Heaven forbid they should prevail!’ said Simeon Samuels fervently. ‘It is your duty to put the opposition doctrine as strongly as possible from the pulpit.’ Then, as the minister rose in angry obfuscation, ‘You are sure you won’t have some whisky?’ he added.

‘No, I will take nothing from a house of sin. And if you show yourself next Sabbath I will preach at you again.’

‘So that is your idea of religion–to drive me from the synagogue. You are more likely to drive away the rest of the congregation, sick of always hearing the same sermon. As for me, you forget how I enjoy your eloquence, devoted though it is to the destruction of Judaism.’

‘Me!’ The minister became ungrammatical in his indignation.

‘Yes, you. To mix up religion with the almanac. People who find that your Sabbath wall shuts them out of all public life and all professions, just go outside it altogether, and think themselves outside the gates of Judaism. If my father–peace be upon him–hadn’t had your narrow notions, I should have gone to the Bar instead of being condemned to shop-keeping.’

‘You are a very good devil’s advocate now,’ retorted the minister.

Simeon Samuels stroked his beard. ‘Thank you. And I congratulate your client.’

‘You are an Epikouros (Epicurean), and I am wasting my time.’

‘And mine too.’

The minister strode into the shop. At the street-door he turned.

‘Then you persist in setting a bad example?’

‘A bad example! To whom? To your godly congregation? Considering every other shop in the town is open on Shabbos, one more or less can’t upset them.’