"Not for myself," explained the Byàle Rebbe in a quiet tone, "it was for my soul." "Why so, Nòach?" "Your Torah, Rabbi, is all justice! It is without mercy! There is not a spark of grace in your Torah! And therefore it is joyless, and cannot breathe freely--it is all chains and fetters, iron regulations, copper laws!--and all higher Torah for the learned, for the select few!" The Brisk Rabbi is silent, and the other continues: "And tell me, Rabbi, what have you for All-Israel? What have you, Rabbi, for the wood-cutter, for the butcher, for the artisan, for the common Jew?--specially for the simple Jew? Rabbi, what have you for the _un_learned?" The Brisk Rabbi is silent, as though he did not understand what was being said to him. And still the Byàle Rebbe stands before him, and goes on in his sweet voice: "Forgive me, Rabbi, but I must tell the truth--your Torah was _hard_, hard and dry, for it is only the body and not the soul of the Law!" "The soul?" asks the Brisk Rabbi, and rubs his high forehead. "Certainly, as I told you, Rabbi, your Torah is for the select, for the learned, not for All-Israel. And the Torah _must_ be for All-Israel! The Divine Presence must rest on All-Israel! because the Torah is the soul of All-Israel!" "And _your_ Torah, Nòach?" "You wish to see it, Rabbi?" "Torah--_see_ it?" wonders the Brisk Rabbi. "Come, Rabbi, I will show it you!--I will show you its splendor, the joy which beams forth from it upon all, upon All-Israel!" The Brisk Rabbi does not move. "I beg of you, Rabbi, come! It is not far." He led him out on to the balcony, and I went quietly after. "You may come too, Shemaiah," he said to me, "to-day you will see it also--and the Brisk Rabbi will see--you will see the Simchas Torah--you will see _real_ Rejoicing of the Law!" And I saw what I had always seen, only I saw it differently--as if a curtain had fallen from my eyes. A great wide sky--without a limit! The sky was so blue! so blue! it was a delight to the eye. Little white clouds, silvery clouds, floated across it, and when you looked at them intently, you saw how they quivered for joy, how they danced for Rejoicing in the Law! Away behind, the town was encircled by a broad green girdle, a dark green one, only the green lived, as though something alive were flying along through the grass; every now and then it seemed as if a living being, a sweet smell, a little life, darted up shining in a different place; one could see plainly how the little flames sprang up and danced and embraced each other.