S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

These storybooks — are they chronicles of deeds or chronicles of the imagination? Whether the one or the other, why are there so few stories these days? Have the men of deeds disappeared or has the power of imagination diminished? Surely, wherever Jews live, they create new good deeds, which are blessed by the power of man’s imagination, and receive glorification and strength from it; but where there are good deeds there is not always one who knows how to tell them. It is easier to do good deeds than to tell good stories.

What is the difference between the stories of the Hasidim and the tales of the other great men of Israel? If you like, I may say that there is no difference: what you find in these you find in the others. But the other great men of Israel are masters of law, and are remembered for their teaching; while the Hasidim are men of deeds, and are remembered because of their deeds. And sometimes stories are ascribed to them which are already told of our early rabbis. Sometimes the name is the reason, as when an event that happened to the great Rabbi Meir of Tiktin is told of the righteous Rabbi Meir of Przemysl, and the like. But if you wish, I may say that there is a difference between them, for most tales of the great men of Israel are meant to teach the law and the commandments, morality and upright behavior, which every man can acquire; while the stories of the Hasidim are meant to enhance the glory of the zaddikim, who have been graced by heaven with the power to perform wonderful deeds, which not every man can do. The author of Leket Yosher wrote his book so that everyone should know how his great teacher behaved, and learn his ways in order to practice them; but when you read the stories of the Hasidim, though your soul admires them and your heart is inspired, you cannot do likewise.

Why have the Hasidim stopped coming to the old Beit Midrash? Is it because they have made peace among themselves and returned to the Tchortkovite klois , or have they stopped coming for the same reason as most of the other frequenters of the Beit Midrash?

I raised my eyes and looked at the great hill opposite the Beit Midrash. It was still naked, without any grass, and covered with a cold, damp darkness; tomorrow the grasses would grow on it and the sun would shine upon them. Let us close our eyes for a brief moment and stroll in another place, where the sun shines every day, and the trees blossom, and the whole land is covered with blossoms and flowers, and sheep walk between the houses, and their fleece warms your heart. Beside the sheep walks the shepherd, his satchel on his back and his flute in his mouth. Silent walk the flock, raising the dust, when suddenly a sheep stops and begins to dig in the earth, throwing himself down on the grass and bleating to his mate. And she comes to him, while the shepherd stands over them playing on his flute. Perhaps the ancestors of the shepherd were among the singers in the Temple and the songs of the Levites have survived in his flute, or perhaps his ancestors were among the destroyers of the Temple and it is the sound of the legionaries’ trumpets in his mouth. What is it that oppresses my heart so much?

In the course of these musings, midday came. I put on my coat to go to my hotel.

When I came outside I heard a great noise and saw people standing around excited. I asked a child, “What has happened here?” He looked at me startled, and did not answer. I got hold of someone and asked him, “What has happened?” He stammered, “Hanoch.” I found Ignatz and said to him, “What is this excitement about?” He replied, “Snow, sir, snow.” “You have gone crazy,” I said to him angrily. “What’s this about snow here?” He stretched out his hand and said, “There, there, there.” “What are you screaming about—‘There, there, there’?” said I. “Open up your mouth and say what is there.” “They’ve found Hanoch, there in the snow,” said Ignatz. “Found Hanoch? Dead?” “Then what? — Alive?” “How did they find him?” “How?…” But while Ignatz was trying to speak through his nose, another man came up and told me. That morning a Jew had gone out to the countryside and found Hanoch standing by his cart, embracing his horse. It seems that during the heavy snows Hanoch had frozen to death and been covered with snow, he and his horse and his cart. Now that the snow had melted, the three of them had been revealed together. It was almost certain that his horse had frozen first and, because Hanoch had tried to warm it, he had also been frozen.

Hanoch was dead and was brought to burial. The entire town walked behind his coffin. There was not a man in the town who did not come out to pay his respects to Hanoch.

With bowed heads we walked as mourners behind his coffin. After Hanoch had been forgotten by everyone, they began to tell of him again: how he had gone out on a snowy day to seek his livelihood, and how they had found him standing in the snow embracing his horse, as if he were alive. The man who found him had wanted to scold him for not letting his wife know that he was alive, but when he looked at him he saw that he was dead.

I remembered how I had told Hanoch about the martyrs from outside the Land of Israel who enter the Land immediately and do not have to wait until the dead from outside should make their way there under the ground, and how Hanoch had listened and envied them. I said to myself: Hanoch did not have the privilege of dying for the sanctification of the Divine Name, but he died for a crust of bread, so he will have to wait with all the dead from outside the Land. But I feel sure that the good angels who were created through his honest labor will ease his wanderings in this world and the next. And when our sacred Messiah comes — and may it be speedily in our days — all Israel will go out to meet him, and they will make way for the great ones, so that they should be the first to welcome the King Messiah. Then the King Messiah will say to them, “Come, let us go to those of our brethren whom no one heeded because of their poverty.” And when the King Messiah sees Hanoch and his comrades, he will say to them, “You needed me most; therefore I come to you first.”

Passover was near at hand and I began to be concerned about the celebration of the festival. Really, I lacked for nothing in the hotel. My table was always properly set and my food plentiful, and no doubt I would lack nothing at the Passover as well, for the innkeeper’s wife told me, “Even though you do not eat meat, you need have no fear that you will go hungry, for I will make you tasty milk dishes such as you have never eaten in your life.” Yet a man’s soul longs to sit down for the Passover with relatives and friends, especially since this is the first Passover he has spent far from his family.

But in the town where I was born I had no relatives and friends. Whoever had not died in the way of nature had died in the war; whoever had not died in the war had died from the effects of the war; and whoever had been left alive by the war had gone away to some other country. Again I stood alone, as on the first day I returned to my town. Even worse — on the day I. returned I found a hotel, and now the hotel had become strange to me, for since I wished to celebrate the Passover eves in another place I forgot that I had a fixed place of my own. So far had I forgotten I had a place that I even thought of visiting the town rabbi, in the hope that he would invite me to celebrate the Seder with him. Finally it occurred to me to celebrate the Passover with Reb Hayim.

All that day this verse never left my lips: “How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to sit together.” I would hire a woman to clear the woodshed and wash the floor; I would bring in a table and two chairs, and spread a white cloth on the table, and light many candles, and bring cushions for the festive seats, and go out to the market and buy unleavened bread and wine, and bring tasty dishes from the hotel, and Reb Hayim and I would celebrate together. “How good and how pleasant for brothers to sit together.”