And the Lithuanian Rabbi, who was said to be a charismatic teacher, you can bet would have given Twain a Mussar dissertation of prodigious intensity. The Rabbi, enchanted by ethics and the ex- steamboat captain, in love with the river. I can see them sitting across the table from each other. But sometimes, Twain remarks, when the river, due to heavy rains, is at high tide, miraculous things happen. New chutes or shortcuts between bends develop.
Fresh channels open up, rivenuays previously blocked by spiky stumps are suddenly navigable.
The Rabbi would have loved the metaphor. Just as the rising river offers new directions, the elevated moral life produced by the Mussar philosophy opens up channels to the Almighty that were previously shallow bogs, unnavigable.