S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

This Sabbath eve passed without a snag. The sons and daughters did not come, and there were no guests in the hotel. So the three of us sat together, ate and drank, and said the grace after meals. After grace, I went out for a walk and reached the Beit Midrash. I saw it was still lit up, and felt the urge to go in. I took out the key, opened the door, and entered. Not long had passed before a number of our group had come. And you need not wonder, for in our Beit Midrash there is light and warmth, while in their homes it is cold and dark. True, they too have lit the Sabbath candle, but their candle is small, and gives light only close by, leaving the rest of the house in darkness.

When they entered, they started to praise the Sabbath, to praise the Beit Midrash and that man who came here and stocked the stove and lit many candles. That man was afraid he might grow proud, for he might think he deserved all the praise. So he lowered his head, that he might remember he is dust of the earth, and raised his eyes, that he might ponder in his heart that only by the will of the Almighty did he live and only by His will were all things made, and He would one day remove him from the earth, like a painter who removes the soot from the ceiling and covers it with plaster. At that moment fear and trembling entered into that man’s heart, and he began to be proud of his fear of the Almighty, like the child upon whom his father has hung his jewels. He saw that there was no escape from immodest thoughts. What did he do? He opened a book of the Pentateuch and read. As soon as he had read two or three words of the Torah, his heart was quieted and restored to wholeness.

When the people in the Beit Midrash saw that I was in a good mood, they said to me, “Perhaps you will tell us a word of the Torah, sir.” “The Torah is given to all Israel,” I replied, “and even if a man does not know how to speak, it is enough for him to begin with a word of Torah, and the Torah will tell him how to go on.” “If so,” said they, “perhaps you will begin.” I opened the Pentateuch and started to expound a verse from the portion of the week: “And Jacob awakened out of his sleep. And he was afraid, and said, How awesome is this place! this is none other than the house of God.” Not like Abraham, who said, “the Lord shall appear on a hill ,” nor like Isaac, of whom it is said, “And Isaac went out to meditate in the field ,” but like Jacob who spoke of a house . And I expounded on these three conceptions of worship. One conception sees worship as a mountain, for man seeks high things and walks about all the time with high thoughts. The second conception sees worship as a field, for in a field you sow and reap, and there is a pleasant fragrance, as it is said, “See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field.” The third conception of worship, which is most dear to the Holy One, blessed be He — for Jacob our Father is described as the choicest of the Patriarchs — likens worship to a house. And He too, blessed be His Name, praises Himself by saying, “For my house shall be called a house of prayer.” It is said in the Book of the Zohar, “A house for Israel: a house that is to be with them, as a woman liveth with her husband in one house in joy.” For the mountain and the field are places of freedom, but a house is a guarded and respected place.

These matters may also be interpreted as referring to three eras in the annals of Israel.

In the first era, some of the sages believed that we had no need of houses and fields, for a field enslaves its owner, as it is written, “The king is in bondage to the field.” And in the matter of houses they said, “And who will summon up strength to build himself a house?” And if it is built, its end is to fall. For we find it written, “And the house fell upon the lords,” and in many scriptural passages we are told of the destruction of houses, as, “Thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein,” or “And he shall break down the house.” And there is no support for a man in a house, as it is said, “And he went into the house, and supported his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.” But it is better that Israel should lift up their eyes to the hills, as David said, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,” for a hill is a high and free place, and there is no quality better than freedom, as in the case of Saul, for the main recompense he promised to the man who would kill Goliath was freedom, as it is said, “And I will make his father’s house free in Israel.”

In the second era, some of the sages spoke out against their predecessors and said: The benefits of freedom are outweighed by its disadvantages, for it leads to extinction and destruction, as it is said, “Free among the dead, like the slain.” And similarly, we are told that when Uzziah became a leper, he “dwelt in the house of a free one.” Rabbi Jonah the son of Jannah explains that it was called “free” because the lepers isolated themselves there from all men. On the other hand, it is written, “Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field,” to till it and guard it and eat its produce, as in “She moved him to ask of her father a field.”

The third era, and it is the last of the eras and the end of all the eras, is the era in which we are now living. And we are tired of the eras that came before, when we wandered wearily on the mountains, “scattered on the mountains as sheep,” and we have suffered the fulfillment of the verses, “And I shall lay thy flesh upon the mountains…. I shall water the land with blood, the blood that flows from you, even as high as the mountains.” Similarly with the field: “And the hail smote every herb of the field and shattered every plant of the field.” And it is also said, “And what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat,” and it is said, “And all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field,” and “as dung upon the open field.” But what we have to seek is “according to the beauty of a man, to dwell in the house.” And when every house should close its doors, let us build a house of our own, so that we may dwell with Him “as a woman liveth with her husband in one house in joy.” And it is of this that David said, “He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord.”

It is stated in the books that the virtues of the three Patriarchs sustained Israel in the three exiles. The virtues of Abraham sustained us in the Egyptian exile, as it is said, “For He remembered His holy promise and Abraham His servant. And He brought forth His people with joy, and His chosen with gladness.” The virtues of Isaac sustained us in the Babylonian exile, and the virtues of Jacob in this last exile of ours. Therefore we should cling most closely to the conception of Jacob, the conception of “O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.” And it was of this that Jacob said, “So that I come again to my father’s house in peace,” and of this that the rest of the verse is written, “then shall the Lord be my God.”

From that Sabbath on, we used to come to the Beit Midrash after the meal, and I would discourse on the portion of the week, reading the Midrash and expounding it.

I made another great improvement in our old Beit Midrash. Since the beginning of the war the eternal light had been out, so I lit it in front of the tablet on the wall on which the names of the sacred communities killed in the pogroms of 1648 are engraved. Now, do the sacred martyrs need light from this world below? Surely the soul of every single righteous man who is killed by the Gentiles shines before the throne of glory, and even the seraphim cannot look upon them. But we do this in order that men should see and remember how far-reaching is the love of Israel for their Father in heaven: even when their lives are taken, they do not part from Him. And also because I have heard that it is stated in the Midrash that every single righteous man outside the Land who is killed by the Gentiles enters into the Land of Israel and does not wait until the end of days, when all those who die abroad will have to roll their way under the ground to the Land. But he who was killed for love of God enters the Land of Israel whole in body, while he who was killed through fear enters only with the limb or organ through which he died, and the rest of his limbs look out and gaze at the one that has been privileged to be interred in the Holy Land. When we light a candle for them, we help them to see the happiness of that limb and the happiness that is in store for them in the future.