S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

Pinhas Aryeh is not like any of them. He does not grumble like Elimelech Kaiser; nor does he repudiate the commandments like Daniel Bach; nor is he humble like Hanoch, may he rest in peace; nor does he rejoice in the precepts of the Lord like Mr. Zommer. He divides the universe in his mind, not between God and men, but between man and man — that is, between those who favor Agudat Israel and those who oppose it. True, he likes to be in the company of people who have nothing to do with Agudat Israel, sometimes out of weakness and sometimes in the hope that he will influence them. He does not regard the licentiousness and heresy that have come into the world as things to be lamented, but as things that can be used to make propaganda against the Zionists. Troubles of the many and troubles of the individual, the ills of the world and the ills of the time — all can be dispelled, in his opinion, if Israel will walk in the way of the Torah. But this Torah, which Pinhas Aryeh and his faction preach — may heaven protect us — is the Torah that is preached at their meetings and in their newspapers, and we shall not go far wrong if we say that all these factions like Pinhas Aryeh’s — even if their motives are for the sake of heaven — are not approved from heaven, for the Holy One, blessed be He, does not want to be employed as a means, even for the sake of a desirable end. I have already gone on more than enough about Pinhas Aryeh, and that surely is enough.

The Passover festival has ended, spring has come. The sun shines every day, the nights are warm and pleasant. The earth brings forth grasses and the gardens adorn themselves with flowers. The world has put off one appearance and put on another. Men, too, have put off their heavy rags, and a pleasant fragrance, like the fragrance of warm millet boiled in honey, has begun to fill the town.

Our old Beit Midrash also has put on a new appearance. Grasses covered the facing hills, and when I opened the window their pleasant fragrance entered my heart. But I did not follow the fragrance. More than ever before I devoted myself to Torah. Between one session and another I would say to myself: Now the town forest is new again and it is worth while going there — but I did not go, not even to the fields near the town. I sat alone in the Beit Midrash. Of all those who used to come to the Beit Midrash in the cold days, I alone was left. One went after his business in the town and one went out to his business in another town, while those who had no business preferred to walk about in the marketplace and chat with their friends. Ever since the day after the festival there had been no prayers in the Beit Midrash.

Reb Hayim had taken up the affairs of Hanoch’s widow. At dawn he would carry her box to the market, and at noon he would cook a warm meal for the orphans; at the Morning Service and the Afternoon and Evening Services he would take them to the synagogue to say the mourners’ Kaddish, and he did not come to the Beit Midrash except on Fridays to sweep the floor and fill the basin with water and the lamp with kerosene. I still gave him his pay every week, but at first I used to give it on Thursday, and now I gave it on Friday. Reb Hayim still slept in the woodshed of the Beit Midrash, and when he entered the house he did so in silence and left in silence, without even a brief conversation with me. I had already grown accustomed to his not talking, and he had grown accustomed to my not asking. I heard that he was busy caring for Hanoch’s orphans, but to his own children, who were as neglected as orphans, he paid no attention.

From my wife and children I used to receive letters every week. Once, when I opened a letter, spring flowers, which my daughter had plucked in the forest, fell out of it. I felt as if the spring were before me and wondered at all the good things I was losing. Nevertheless, I confined myself to the Beit Midrash. When I looked out I said to myself: Even if the spring multiplied a hundredfold, with each spring more beautiful than the other, I would not budge from my studies. Again I tasted the savor of that sweet solitude which I had loved all my life and which was now doubly and trebly beloved, and I felt already that I could spend all my days and years between the walls of the Beit Midrash. But when I say “days and years” I do not mean all my days and all my years, for this man has a wife and children.

On the first of the Three Days of Circumscription before the festival of Shavuot, two young men came to the Beit Midrash. A young man in the Beit Midrash is a novelty; all the more so two. I believe that since I returned no young man has entered the Beit Midrash. The young men came up and greeted me, and said they had come only for my sake. Why for my sake? Because in a certain village near our town there was a little group of six young men and two young women, who had abandoned the occupations of their fathers and were cultivating the soil to prepare themselves to work in the Land of Israel. They were earning a livelihood by the labor of their hands, by their work in the fields and the cowsheds with the peasants. And since they had heard that I came from the Land of Israel, they had come to ask me to stay with them for the festival.

When the young men came in, I was engrossed in study. I said to myself: Not only are they making me neglect the Torah, but they are giving me the trouble of going to them. I looked at them like a man who is sitting on top of the world, when someone comes to tell him to undertake some sordid task.

The young men lowered their eyes and said nothing. Finally one of them — Zvi was his name — took heart and said, “I thought that since you’ve come from the Land of Israel, sir, you would be glad to see young men and women working in the fields and the cowsheds for the sake of the Land.” “My friend,” said I, “why do you tell me tales about preparing yourselves for the Land of Israel? So did Yeruham prepare himself for the Land, and he went and stayed there for a few years. And what was the end of him? In the end he came back here, and now he decries the Land and its people.”

“If you are thinking of Yeruham Freeman, sir,” Zvi replied, “you have reason to be angry, but there was another Yeruham, called Yeruham Bach, who was killed in guarding the Land, and I believe you have nothing against him. And if we are fated to share his end, we shall willingly accept the Almighty’s decree.” I took Zvi’s hand in mine, and said, “When would you like me to come?” “Any time,” said both of them together, “whenever you come we shall welcome you.” Said I, “You invited me for the festival, didn’t you? Well, I shall come for the festival of Shavuot.”

On the eve of the festival, after midday, I hired a cart and set out for the village. Before I could find the comrades the whole village knew that a guest had come to the Jewish lads. Immediately some of the villagers ran on ahead to let them know, and some walked in front of the cart to show me the way.

In a farmer’s house, or rather hut, the six young men and two young women had made their home. The house was half in ruins and the furniture was in pieces. In all the villages the farmers have broken-down houses, but the youthful grace of those who lived here glorified the place and its furnishings.

In honor of the festival the young men had stopped work about two hours before nightfall and I did not see them at work in the fields, but I saw the girls in the cowshed milking the cows. For many days I had not seen a cow, nor a girl either, and suddenly it came about that I saw both at the same time.

The young men introduced me to their employer, a farmer of over fifty, with hair cut straight over his forehead and a face the color of clay. The farmer looked at me with a surly face and said to the lads, “This one is not like you.” “What makes you say that?” said I. He pointed to my clothes and said, “Do they have fine clothes like yours? A man who works hasn’t got clothes like these.” “Who told you I don’t work?” said I. “Perhaps you work and perhaps you don’t work,” said he, scratching his forehead. “Anyway, your work isn’t work.” “Everyone works in his own way,” I replied, “you in your way and I in mine.” The farmer put his two hands on his knees, looked at the ground in front of him, and said, “All right. But I say that not every way leads to some purpose.”