The wise man Tzion Mizrachi rose and said:
The analogy is to a king who descends to his garden. What will he pick, thorns and barbs? Rather, he will pick jasmine and rose. So is Hashem. He leaves us the old people, who are comparable to thorns and barbs, and takes the young and beautiful ones among us, to become beautiful through them, and [were such comparisons possible], to use them to decorate the flaps of His coat.
Only the wise man Toledano clapped his hands in anger and said:
“Until when will parents bury their children? We should not be accepting this verdict from above. It is our responsibility to do something!” We heard this, and our souls were badly frightened, because we did not know what the wise Toledano would do. What did he do? He said, and he did.
Next day in the city in the synagogue, where there were three minyanim of old people, he discussed and determined with them, under oath and penalty of cherem [excommunication], that each of them would voluntarily, and with no regret whatsoever, dedicate the rest of his life to the young men who are fighting in the battlefield. Toledano wrote a scroll, a contract of obligation, which all the old men signed, and also a number of old women who were up in the women’s section went to the mikveh, dunked, and dried, and they went to the Kotel HaMa’aravi and placed the scroll between the narrow crevices between the large stones. And here is what was written in the scroll that Toledano wrote, and which was signed by 32 old men, with great fear and trepidation, with shivering and trembling, dedicating their lives with a broken heart:
“Lord of All Worlds, who spreads out the heavens and lives on high? You rule the grand waves of the sea and count the stars. You have day, you have night. You open, and you close and, having closed, there is no one to open. What is a man who can tell you what to do? Behold, he is like a passing cloud, blown dust, smoke from a chimney. But, because of our bitter lives, we speak to you: why has death risen in our windows, to cut young men in their youth, children in their childhood? Those who have only just descended from their cradles? They who have only just stepped up to taste a little of the honey in your world, and suddenly your arrow pierces them? Like a speeding whip that passes, day and night they are cut into small pieces.
“On the shores of the waterfront, and in the halls of fortresses, will you cut down the best of our cedars? Will you become greater through their deaths? Will you walk taller if they return their souls to you? You have become to us like a false river, water that can no longer be trusted. And who will acknowledge the widow and the orphan? Who will erase the tears of mothers and fathers? The violin is in mourning, the harp chokes, the organ weeps. And now, we come on this day, oh God of Spirits, to return to you the measure of our years and the remainder of our days because we are ashamed to walk among the living when our children are deceased.
Jealous God, God of revenge! You who turn the sky to brass, land to lead, and the oceans to blood, if your eyes are too narrowed and your hands too short to grant our children days and years, send forth your scythe and cut as much of us as you want, but don’t touch the children! You, who shape tiny souls from under the Throne of Glory, take from their souls the cup of poison, and shatter, break, and grind it so that they never again have to drink from it forever, amen!”
