This article was originally published in Romanian five years ago, as Rabinul si oaia.

Nehorai the rabbi was a wonder. When he spoke up on the barrel in front of the villagers you could plainly see the mist of truth coming off things like you see summer heat coming off the scorched dust of the roads, and when he'd strile the Torah against the table without moving it a hair you could hear twinkling the crystals in Heaven's own candelabra. The very angels above would come down to seek his advice, for fear of stepping out of the Almighty's words, for nobody in four corners of the world like no one in the ethers knew the word enough to as much as correctly express the inferiority of his understandingin front of the beardy, kinda wry old man.

Ahh, he was a wonder, Nehorai the rabbi, and the villagers couldn't figure how was it that he made his house in their tiny settlement lost in the emptiness and muds of the plain, and took wife, Rahela, a good girl and hardworking, from the village, with who had smart boys and pretty girls, all gone to their places, some to school in Universities, some by the needs of trade on water or land to the distant dusts of Dalmatia or the mists of the Islands of Pepper and Amber, some married to respected husbandmen of the place or afield, withe beautiful houses and healthy children, joyful like they were. It's also true that the villagers didn't spend much time