The Books of Jacob

Nahman, Shorr, and Nussen are beaten in the riots following the death of Bishop Dembowski but they survive. After, the Shabbitarians’ schism: Krysa and the Shorr family go to visit the disciples of Baruchiah in Salonika while Nahman, Hayim, Moshe ben Israel, and Yeruhim Lipmanowicz go to search for Jacob. Nahman’s wife Leah grows sick of his devotion to Jacob over her and asks for a divorce. Nahman feels “relief” (548) as he has never been particularly interested in matters concerning women, though he feels guilty that he neglected Leah.

The group finds Jacob in Giurgiu, where he has a house with a vineyard. Jacob suggests that he and his followers “apply for Turkish protection” (544). They visit a local ruler and, as a group, convert to Islam. The group of 13 is now permitted to live in the Ottoman Empire and they continue to follow Jacob and his teachings. Nahman is “happy” (543).

The group farms and sells their produce over the following year, including wine from the vineyard. Old followers and new recruits move into the house. Moliwda is still in Poland. He speaks with nobles and even the king, eventually arranging for Jacob and his followers to receive a promise of “safe conduct” (540) back into Poland. Jacob sends representatives to go ahead of him, encouraging those exiled from Poland to return with him. Nahman warns Jacob that they should return as quickly as possible, as many of his followers who remained in Poland (such as the Shorrs) may be tempted to look elsewhere “for leadership” (538).

Elisha Shorr retrieves his books from Father Chmielowski’s safekeeping. He gifts the priest a copy of Kabbala Denudata by von Rosenroth as a way to say thank you. The mysticism of the “strange book” (535) confuses him. One day, a stranger is left outside the priest’s house by the Jewish locals and he asks for shelter. He introduces himself as Jan of Okno and Chmielowski is shocked to see that the “lower half of the man’s face is completely distorted by scars, as though the skin had been ripped off him” (533-532). Jan explains that he comes from a family of poor serfs, who worked the land for an abusive local lord. Jan tried to escape several times but was caught and punished. The lord’s men beat him so severely that they assumed he was dead, so they left him in a ditch. There, he was found by “some Jews passing by on a couple of carts” (530). When he woke up, Jan found himself in the Shorrs’ cowshed—he initially believed it to be some kind of purgatory.

Moliwda visits Katarzyna Kossakowska, who is married to his distant cousin. He explains the plight of Jacob and his followers and requests help in securing safe passage for their return. She reveals that Bishop Soltyk will be easiest to convince in this matter as his gambling debts make him pliable. By paying “enough to buy back the bishop’s pawned insignia” (524), Jacob and his followers can receive their safe passage. Moliwda travels through Poland and encounters the “freemen and vagabonds” (521) that Nahman spoke about; these wanderers are poor itinerant people who sell trinkets and beg for alms. Moliwda goes to Warsaw, where he stays with his brother. He has not seen his brother in many years and they have little to discuss. In taverns, he drinks heavily and tells invented stories about his life.

Eventually, he secures an audience with Bishop Soltyk, who expects to soon be appointed as the Bishop of Krakow even though he has a “massive debt” (514). Soltyk hopes that converting Jacob and his followers to Christianity will burnish his reputation. Father Pikulski writes to Bishop Lubienski, warning that Moliwda’s checkered past might make him untrustworthy, while Moliwda also writes to Lubienski about “the matter of Jacob Leybowicz Frank and his disciples” (508) and their unfair persecution. Meanwhile, Hana prepares to leave Turkey and return to Poland. She has recently given birth to Jacob’s second child, a boy named Immanuel. 

The outcasts return to Poland, only to discover that “they no longer [have] homes” (504). Their houses are now occupied, and their jobs have been given to others. They set up a village in Ivanie and establish farms, organized by Osman of Czernowitz. In the village, “all work is communal” (502). Everyone is excited when Jacob eventually arrives. He chooses to live in a simple, small hut and is attended to by a young woman named Wittel. Jacob works during the day and, later, he delivers sermons to the men and women of the village. His sermons are peppered with “dirty jokes” (500). He preaches about the communal ownership of property, and people believe that his touch can “melt away all maladies” (498). Jacob also preaches that he is not bound by traditional requirements for monogamy, so his followers willingly send their wives to have sex with him. Wittel willingly sleeps with Jacob at her husband’s encouragement but, when Hana arrives in the village, she is sidelined. She becomes jealous until Jacob selects seven women from the village and separates them from their husbands. Wittel is among them, though other “chosen women [stand] there overwhelmed, in silence” (495) or they cry.

From Hana’s perspective, the town is filthy and chaotic. Jacob’s miracles cure do not work for everyone; babies die, the elderly are not cared for, and even Jacob himself has lice. To her, Jacob seems “completely changed” (494). He has lost interest in her, and she wants to return to Turkey. Moliwda arrives in Ivanie and is delighted by how much the community resembles his own hometown, “just colder and so not quite as cozy” (493). Moliwda is greeted warmly, and he reads aloud his letters to the rulers of Poland, written in his “ornate style” (490). The men sit and drink. They argue about whether they should accept the demand that they be baptized. Moliwda warns that “here in Poland no one is going to give full rights to the Jews” (489), so baptism may be essential. When alone with Jacob, Moliwda criticizes Jacob’s teachings on infidelity, marriage, and sex. As Jacob sleeps, Moliwda “thinks of kissing Jacob’s lips” (486) but he does not.

The following day, Jacob comments on how Moliwda seems unknowable to him. They write another letter to Archbishop Lubienski and debate the best way to win the man’s sympathies. The central pillars of the group’s beliefs are put to a vote. Krysa angrily protests the group’s acceptance of baptism; the motion passes with some conditions. That night Jacob sends a girl named Tanna to have sex with Moliwda and he gratefully accepts. When riding to Kamieniec with Nahman, Moliwda provocatively calls Jacob a “con man” (477). When Nahman talks at length about Jacob’s religious credentials, Moliwda is surprised by how little Nahman knows about “political systems, governments” (476), or anything other than his own religion. In Kamieniec, Moliwda meets with Archbishop Lubienski. The archbishop has a cold from traveling and Asher Rubin helps him select a new pair of spectacles. After Father Pikulski cautions him not to trust Jacob and his followers, Lubienski appoints Moliwda to oversee the matter “under [the archbishop’s] wing” (472). He insists that Jacob and his family be baptized first.