RABBI JUDAH By NAHUM SOKOLOW
Rabbi Judah is dead!
The entire family is in mourning. The whole city and its environs bewail him.
It was many, many years ago that Rabbi Judah died but the mourning has not ceased.
Many, very many dead have since then been forgotten, no one remembers now even their names. Rabbi Judah is still remembered by all.
For he was a great man, a man of widsom and beauty.
From generation to generation they tell of his former greatness.
Each one in the city points out; here stood the house of Rabbi Judah; there was his garden, and there was his House of Prayer, the place where he studied the Law.
It is long now that he is dead, but the traces of his former existence and of his deeds can everywhere be recognized.
There is not a congregation where he did not leave some stir, some rememberance. One man repeats some saying of his, another a thought, and a third some witticism. His spirit still lives in all these congregations.
In the large synagogue his seat still remains, the first one, right near the Holy Ark on the East Bench.
No one has occupied that seat to this day.
On the lists of charity contributions, which have remained from those days, his contribution was always first and largest.
Strong as an oak, like steel, Rabbi Judah was a veritable giant, but various maladies, accidents and calamities broke him down ina few days.
The giant fell as if struck by thunder, and they buried his bones.
This happened a very long time ago. A haze of legends is being woven about that time.
Rabbi Judah's body, surely, has long,long since been buried, but strange torelate, his ghost, his spirit, his shade hov-
er since then in all the streets. Now they appear and now they vanish.
Men can not forget him, they cannot erase from memory the image of his soul.
And even should they wish to forget Rabbi Judah they would find it impossible, for his children's children still live there; they cherish their high pedigree and remind people that they are descended from Rabbi Judah himself.
True, the house in which Rabbi Judah dwelt has long since tottered down, it became ruined and the site was sold and plundered. By force or will they stole it one from another.
But old and young to this day still point with the finger: here stood the magnificent house of Rabbi Judah, here was his garden. They still call the site where his house stood, where his garden was planted by his name; "Rabbi Judah's House," "Rabbi Judah's Garden," although they have long been the property of others.
But above all, his children's children do not allow his name to be forgotten, and his great great grandchildren are to be met wherevers one turns.
And his grandchildren are many and various. Some there are who resemble him greatly: Rabbi Judah's form, his mien, his glance!
There are those among them who have inherited Rabbi Judah's widsom, his understanding, his big and broad heart, his gentle manners and his self-sacrifice.
Rabbi Judah's wisdom! True, it is hard to characterize Rabbi Judah's wisdom with all its traits, that particular wisdom which his grandchildren have received by inheritance. But there can be no doubt that there exists a separate wisdom that is bequeated in the great family of the old noble aristocrat.
In the family of Rabbi Judah there runs by inheritance a separate manner of speaking, a characteristic enunciation, an individual manner of accentuating the