In the words of Elie Wiesel: The man who left his mark on so many survivors of so many massacres in Central and Eastern Europe, the leader who not only made survival imperative but possible, the Master who gave to despairing communities, managed-we shall never know how-to disappear without leaving the professional seekers even a fragment of valid autobiographical material. Obsessed by eternity, he neglected history and let himself be carried by legend". Wiesel is talking about the Baal Shem Tov, The Master of the Good Name. Readers acquainted with Jewish history will have an idea who the Baal Shem Tov was. But the width of the spectrum of such ideas can be immeasurably wide. Equally wide is the range of emotions these ideas arouse. Readers unacquainted with such a history may be able to read this book more easily as a novel, which it is. What surrounds the stage of our action is, of course, the great world of history and a time of disruptions and new thinking. Of great consequence is the transmission from China of the musical theory of equal temperament which forms the basis of almost all musical composition from the mid-18th century to the music saturated present. This musical theory was received and then published in France by Mersenne in 1636; in 1722 it was being championed by Bach in his instructions to young musicians collected under the title, The Well Tempered Clavier. That year the Baal Shem Tov was probably earning his living digging clay and accompanying his labors with Carpathian shepherd's tunes. The story is told through the eyes of an invented student of his who becomes a physician in Prague".

The Master of the Good Name

A Novel of the 18th CenturyBy Reina Menken John Menken

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2012 Reina and John Menken
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-5634-6

Chapter One

The Werewolf

On that day we are a class of ten boys. Israel takes us through the woods to teach us about God. The 104th psalm, the first of the praises in the Book of Psalms, is our text along with all of nature. The light is stretched out like a curtain and all of life joins the song. It is autumn and the fields leading to the forest are brimming with bees gathering their nectar with cattle, mosquitoes, songs of finches and crows, and sharp spicy smells. Then we leave the fields and enter the woods. We fall silent and after a while even the birds can no longer be heard and the rustling of the drying autumn leaves in the wind has stopped. Israel seems alarmed and this frightens me. It feels like an icy chill has invaded me. We all stop. Everything stops. Absolutely everything stops. It's as though a slice is taken out of time and place and is left alone with no bearings. Then in front of us, the werewolf is there. It has dark face, white teeth, hair and scales everywhere, and the head too big for the body. It roars with a face of dread, eyes filled with hopelessness and doom, and we are all screaming and running. Israel ran as fast and faster because he was bigger than any of us.

None of us knew how we got home. The next period of time, I only remember sweats and fevers and unimaginable dreams.

Later, I was told by my parents that all of us in his class fell sick. I heard Israel spent almost the whole time talking to our families or walking in the fields thinking. Although he was just a few years older than we were and lived in the study house because his parents were dead, he was able to convince our parents, the senior teacher, and the town's rabbi to allow him to take us out into the woods again. He was trusted by everyone. He argued that it wasn't good for children to have a remembrance of such fear conquering them and giving them a sense of failure, and that it must be dispelled by going back to the woods again. He said the presence of God would help to vanquish the fear. They were able to see the rightness of this return journey.

So he got us together and willing to go out with him again, as terrified as we were to even leave our beds. Much later, I was able to see that it was a gift he had to get people to do what was good for them, even if they trembled to do it.

We set off from town very quietly, not horsing around and shouting as we usually did. Today, he carried with him a strange-looking stick and said he decided to teach us Psalm 76. And he invented a melody on the spot.

We leave the fields and all the boys fall quiet, and I know that I start to shake and probably the others do too. But I hear Israel's voice very thin, very faint, singing the melody. At times his voice seems so high and like a reed, and at other times so deep it is like a rumble that vibrates the ground although I could hardly hear it. It happens again.

All is stopped. The light coming through the branches has turned to darkness. I'm about to run but I hear the melody as he sings "In Salem also is set His tabernacle."

Before he can start the next line, IT is there roaring so loudly I cannot tell whether it is anguish or rage. Before anything else can happen—before we can run or even scream, Israel races forward three steps and strikes with his stick. I feel the blood moving again in my veins and hear the forest sounds and the trees' dry leaves rustling in the breeze. On the ground in front of us is this dead thing.

We gather around IT. It seems enormous—twice as long as any of us. It is completely covered in long hair, black and red from the chest downward, and from the chest to the face covered in plates of flesh and scales like an old lizard with its dead face staring up hairy and snouted and fanged like a wolf. A single trickle of blood from a crack in the skull tracks a jagged line across the face. After a few seconds, Israel bends down and closes the eyelids over eyes that are frozen in astonishment. Israel recites a couple of words we don't hear or don't understand. He doesn't let us stare but gathers us together and teaches us a song to sing as we march back.

It seemed the whole forest joined us in this song. He told us he learned it from his teacher. None of us thought to ask who the teacher was because we assumed that was a pretty ordinary thing and that the whole event was somehow part of school, and everyone had such experiences—it was just part of the education of a Jew. We all resumed eating and sleeping without fuss.

But something about the way he said he learned "it" from his teacher haunted me. Did he mean the song? Did he mean how to use the strange-looking stick? Or even more than that? What occurred in those two trips in the woods stand forth as a singular event, something that was not part of a process but a breaking through process. My world was changed and though I did not yet realize it, my feet were set on a fresh path.

He brings boys to meet an evil thing that floods us with fear. He gets us to trust him enough to go out to meet that evil again and to walk through the forest of fear without running. And then, he unbinds the spell of fear by plainly and simply killing the thing.

This event remains alive to me always as a source of hope. I hold my relationship with Israel to be a major thread in the continuity of my life—sometimes appearing, sometimes vanishing within the weaving only to reappear somewhere else, a gentle touch of lightning.

A few months after the werewolf's death, Israel was removed as teacher's assistant and was given the job as watchman for the house of study. We boys missed him and probably never learned with such exuberance again. We wondered why this happened but forgot about it soon enough. Many people said that a gentile sorcerer was found dead the day after the incident. The elders thought it would be best for Israel to be occupied with more fitting tasks.

I used to see him sweeping up in the house of study. Usually as I passed, we would pause for a moment, then greet each other, and continue on our way. This became the pattern of our friendship for the rest of our lives. Sometimes there would be words between us and sometimes not. Sometimes I would ask for and receive advice. Often, he would tell me stories. And often he would tell me about himself.

Once as I was on my way to the study table, he said, "Ber, what is going to become of you?" My name is Dov Ber Teller. I just stared at him. That question had never entered my mind. He paused a moment to look into my eyes, then turned away and continued sweeping.

The next several days are like a dream. I found myself walking alone through the fields or sitting in the woods and thoughts were racing. The conclusion was that I did not want to spend the rest of my life in Okopy. When I realized that, I knew I had to tell Israel before talking to anyone. So after supper, I told my family I was going to the study house to learn for a few hours; and I instead went to find him.

It was a night that was very cold and since there were still a few men learning, Israel was keeping the fire glowing in the stove. I was so happy to see him. After these several terrible and tense days, just setting my eyes on him put my heart at ease. A light seemed to come from him, but it could simply have been the stove.

"Ber, it is not enough to simply want to leave Okopy. Who are you? What are you?...