S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

The greatness of the Land of Israel does not depend on Neveh Zedek alone. There are places in the Land of Israel that even in waking are like a dream. Above them all is Jerusalem, which the Almighty sifted out from His Land, beautiful and pure and perfect. Hence we should not be surprised at that man who lies in his bed in Szibucz and sees a dream of Jerusalem.

A man has 248 organs and 365 sinews, corresponding to the 613 commandments—248 positive and 365 negative — in the Torah. Jerusalem is above them all, for it is mentioned in the Scriptures in 614 places; so we find that Jerusalem counts for one more than man. If a man has been privileged to fulfill the commandments, he is permitted to rest in peace on his couch by night, so that he may draw strength to fulfill more commandments. If he has not been privileged and has not fulfilled commandments, he is troubled in his sleep. In any case, he is one short, the one more of Jerusalem. If he is clever, he meditates about her by day and she shows herself to him at night.

Since the day I left Jerusalem, not a day has passed when I did not think of her — not that I am clever, but because my home is there, and a man is likely to think about his home.

One night, when I was asleep in my bed, I found myself walking in the streets of Jerusalem, as a man walks when he is awake. I went into a certain bookshop. As I was going out an old man whispered to me, “If it is books you seek, come with me.” “Where?” I asked him. “To my house,” said he. “Where is your house?” I asked. “Four cubits from here,” he said. “Come, and you will acquire another four cubits in the Land of Israel.” I walked with him until I was tired of walking. He pointed with his hand and said to me, “Here.” I looked in front of me but saw no sign of a house. The old man took me and brought me to a place that was like a burial vault. My limbs were numb as if they had parted from my body, and my body too seemed to have parted from me; I felt nothing but a sensation in the head, a pleasurable sensation, as if a friendly hand were stroking my head. Finally, all my being ceased, except this pleasure, which did not cease. This may seem perplexing, for surely when a man’s being ceases so do his sensations, and here was utter pleasure. Still more perplexing was the fact that this very complexity gave me further pleasure. And this was a novelty, for surely the more one questions the more one is in pain. And, wonderful to relate, even this novelty gave pleasure.

The old man stooped to the ground and took out a book. I looked at it and saw that it was stamped with the seal of our old Beit Midrash. I asked if his honor came from Szibucz. He nodded his head. And although he did not give me an explicit answer, it sounded as if the name of Szibucz issued from his lips. But there was no sweetness in that name. I began to wonder whether the name was not so beautiful as I always used to think it, and perhaps I had not always thought it was beautiful, for if I had I should not have left my town. Or perhaps the name was always beautiful, and my town was beautiful, for now I had gone back there. If so, why had I left it in the beginning and gone up to the Land of Israel?

At that moment my head again began to trouble me, though not as at first, when there was a kind of pleasure in the sensation. I overcame my pain and looked again at the book and the seal that was on it, wondering how the book had reached the old man’s hand, since there was an ancient ban on taking a book out of the Beit Midrash. The old man said, “It was not I who took it out; of its own accord it made its way to me. Since the study of the Torah has been done away with in the Beit Midrash, the books make their way to us.” I looked at the old man in wonderment. What did he mean by “to us”; surely “to us” implies the plural, and there was no one here but him and me, and I had been following him only for a short time, so that the expression “to us” did not apply to me. I hid my wonderment and asked, “How much does this book cost?” He replied, “You have not studied, my son, and all your possessions will not equal its value. But if you wish to study, the book is yours for nothing.”

I said to him, “He who hates gifts shall live.” The old man smiled and said, “There is no life but the Torah.” But as soon as he mentioned the word “life” he shrank and his face was turned to dust and his voice was like the sound of a key that has gone rusty. While as for me, dear brothers, my limbs filled out and my body began to grow until I became as tall as a mountain. The vault split and I emerged. And as soon as I emerged I ran to the Beit Midrash.

I stood before the locked door, the key of which I had lost. Of all the events of the night, nothing was left me but the pain in my head. My eyes had shrunk and seemed to be strewn with salt, and because of the saltiness my eyelashes bristled. I went outdoors and looked at the passers-by. A little girl came from the slaughterer’s house with a fowl in her basket. Next, a water-carrier passed with his two pitchers on his shoulders. Drops of the fowl’s blood and drops of water from the full pitchers were dripping on the ground.

The air was cool, but it did not cool my head, and hunger began to torment me, for I had left the hotel that day without breakfast.

The hunger spread, conquering one limb after another, until it had conquered the whole body; but I disregarded myself and felt nothing but the sensation in my head, as if it were wrapped in a scarf that bound in the pain and kept it from escaping. I shut my eyes in pain.

Suddenly the book was revealed before me, and He that gives light to the eyes of those who wait for His word gave light to my eyes: I found there a commentary on the words of the Gemara in which the sages said: “From then onward, the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks and Moses writes in tears.”

After that I went out into the street and found an old man with an old lock in his hand and an old key stuck in it, and locks and keys hanging on the belt around his waist. As soon as he had passed I knew that he was the locksmith and wanted to run after him, but in the meantime he had disappeared.

Daniel Bach found me standing perplexed. “Where are your feet bound to?” said he. “To look for the locksmith,” said I. Daniel slapped his wooden leg and said, “Now on your way, my dear, and help us go.”

This Daniel — I do not know why he is happy. As for his livelihood, his wood was lying untouched, without a purchaser, and there was no demand for the art his wife had learned. Daniel Bach’s livelihood now depended entirely on his daughter Erela, who was a teacher of Hebrew.

“Have you had a letter from your father in the Land of Israel?” I asked him. “Yes.” “What did your father write from the Land of Israel?” “What did he write? He wrote that the Kohanim bless the people in the synagogue every day, and twice on days when there is an Additional Service.” “And did he write nothing about his own affairs?” “He wrote that he has had the privilege of praying beside the Wailing Wall and prostrating himself at Rachel’s Tomb. He also wrote that the Tomb is built as a kind of synagogue, with beautiful curtains spread out there, and many candelabra hanging from the ceiling and on the walls, in which they kindle oil lamps. A great stone lies upon the Tomb; pious women measure the stone with threads, and these are well-tried specifics for finding favor with others, and so on and so forth. Father sent a thread of this kind to my daughter. Do you wish to hear any more?”

“Is he content with his way of living?” I asked. “And is he content with his comrades?” “As for the young comrades,” replied Daniel Bach, “he is always singing their praises; they are all lovers of Israel, doers of good deeds, working for the settlement of the Land, speaking the Holy Tongue, providing their parents with an honorable livelihood, and giving them shelter, food, and clothing. As for the old comrades, that is, the parents of the young ones, it’s the same the whole world over: they disagree about the text of the prayers, quarrel over every custom that one of them brings from his home town as if it had been handed down from Mount Sinai, and argue about such things as the prayer ‘And may He cause His salvation to flourish and bring His Messiah in the end.’ Good God above, send us the Messiah if only that we may be rid of all this.”