S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

There was a bookcase in the room. The rabbi saw that I was looking at it and said, “These are my books, which God has given me. Some of them came to me by inheritance and some I have bought with my own money. Thank God that there is not a single book here that came to me as payment or pledge for loans. I also have books here of the modern authors, which my son has brought me, for the authors send him their books so that he should mention them favorably in the papers. I have heard that you, sir, too, have written books. I have never looked into them. For me the books of our holy rabbis are enough. But since we have mentioned the matter of books, I will show you a book that I have written. Perhaps you will take some time and look at it. I am certain that you will find pleasant things in it, based on the truth of the Torah.” He bent down and, opening a drawer in the table, took out a kind of account book; then he gave it to me and looked at me with affection, waiting for me to say, “Pure gold! Pure gold!”

While I was examining it, the door opened and in came three men. I got up to go, but the rabbi put his right hand on mine and said, “On the contrary, sir. Sit down and listen to what these Jews have to say.” Then he turned to the newcomers and said, “Sit down, gentlemen, sit down. What have you to say? On the contrary, speak. This Jew here is also a Jew; on the contrary, let him hear.”

All of them began speaking in confusion. “If you all speak at the same time,” said the rabbi, “I cannot hear.” Then they began shouting in confusion, crying, “Let Michael speak”—“Let Gabriel speak”—“Let Raphael speak.” The rabbi took his beard in his hand and said, “On the contrary, Reb Raphael, you tell me for what reason you have come.” Said Raphael, “You ask us why we have come? The rabbi should ask us why we did not come before.” Said the rabbi, “If you did not come to me, then there was no one to ask. Well, then, gentlemen, what have you come for?” “We have come to you on an evil day,” said Raphael. “Hanoch’s wife won’t let us be. ‘ Gevald ,’ she cries, ‘even the Gentiles have tried to find him, and here I live among Jews and they are doing nothing.’ We believe that something must be done.” “And have I not done something?” said the rabbi. “Have I not arranged for a quorum of ten men and assigned them what they should say? I did not, praise God, pick out the verses from the concordance; I myself, with my own hand, copied them out, with the vowels and the notes.” Said Gabriel, “And the rabbi has accomplished nothing.” “Be quiet, Gabriel, be quiet,” said Raphael. “Heaven forbid that we should put words into the devil’s mouth!” “And what did I say?” said Gabriel. “What you said should not have been said,” said Raphael, and went on: “Prayer does a half. In any case, we believe that the rabbi should declare a fast. Perhaps the Holy One, blessed be He, will see our trouble and reveal to us where Hanoch is.” The rabbi sighed and said, “A fast calls for repentance.” Said Michael, “Those that are able to repent, let them repent.” The rabbi sighed and said, “There is a man among us who is not able to repent. I have heard that that Hayim constantly visits the hotel, and it seems likely to me that he has stayed under one roof with his divorced wife without others being by.”

Said I to the rabbi, “Perhaps you have confused the divorcee’s hotel with mine.” “The rabbi’s jealousy is gone, but not his hatred,” I heard Gabriel mutter. The rabbi stroked his beard and said, “So that you should not say that your rabbi is negligent, I hereby set you a date: if Hanoch does not return between now and the eve of the New Moon, I am prepared to declare a public fast.” So he gave them until the eve of the New Moon. They took their leave and went, and I too went on my way.

As I was leaving, he said to me, “Now that you know where I live, sir, come and visit me again.” I wanted to go back to him at once, like the man who came to visit a certain famous rabbi, stayed with him a few hours, and as soon as he had left went back. People said to him, “What reason do you have to go back, after you have sat with our famous rabbi several hours?” Said he to them, “It is said that if you have been in a place once, it is well known that you will go back to it a second time, and so that I should not need to return later, I am returning immediately.”

The appointed day was approaching, but no trace of Hanoch had been found. Snow covered the land and closed the mouth of the earth. Hanoch’s wife and children wandered about the town and the sound of their weeping rose to the heart of the heavens, but the heavens had forgotten mercy for men.

Again people went out to look for Hanoch; there was not a single village where they did not look. A number of Gentiles who liked Hanoch helped them, but the snow kept its secrets.

The rabbi still hesitated to declare a fast in a generation when people ate and drank on the Day of Atonement, but he agreed to ask some individuals to fast for one day, and, needless to say, he would fast with them. In the end, the men of action won their way, and the rabbi agreed against his will to declare a fast in the town. Those who were present on the occasion said that when the rabbi agreed to the fast his face was white as plaster.

On the Sabbath before the New Moon the beadle went round to all the houses of prayer in the town and declared on the rabbi’s orders that if Hanoch did not return before the eve of the New Moon the entire congregation must fast on that day from morning to evening, and anyone who could not fast should redeem himself with money. This, too, the beadle announced: that all the congregation should assemble that day in the Great Synagogue an hour before the Afternoon Service, when the rabbi would preach to them.

The town scoffed, saying, “What news is this fellow telling us? Do we eat and drink on other days? And what will the youth club do? Will they arrange a special feast as on the Day of Atonement, or just because this fast is not prescribed in the Torah will they fast too?”

When the eve of the New Moon came, the jesting ceased, and the people refrained from eating and drinking. Even visitors who happened to be in the town did not touch a mouthful.

After midday half the town assembled in the Great Synagogue. I heard that since the beginning of the war the walls of the synagogue had not seen such a large congregation; even people who do not come on the Day of Atonement came. The rabbi mounted the steps that led to the Ark, wrapped himself in his prayer shawl, and preached in trenchant terms to arouse the people and subdue their hearts to repentance, that they might be worthy to have the Almighty accept their prayers. And at the Afternoon Service the cantor took his place before the lectern and started with the prescribed prayer from Psalms and went through the entire service of the Minor Day of Atonement. Then they took out the Scroll and read from it the prescribed portion, and after the repetition by the cantor the rabbi ordered them to say “Our Father, our King” verse by verse.

Among the congregation I found a number of people I had not seen since the day I arrived in Szibucz. Those who were close to me asked how I was, and those who stood far off nodded their heads. And you need not be surprised at this, for all those who are bitter of heart have left the town. I do not know where that man is who spoke to me with such insolence and effrontery on the Day of Atonement in the old Beit Midrash, and said that I was like one of those who would like every day to be the Day of Atonement. According to the letters his mother showed me, he has strayed to places where every day is a day of fasting and mourning, and even there they do not let him stay.