S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

Since I was sitting idle, I became a breeding place for strange reflections, for idle men beget idle thoughts. My study lost its savor, and I felt my work was of little worth. I began to ask myself: What is the point of this work when the land is being regenerated, when a new generation is regenerating the land by its deeds?

I rebuked myself and said to myself: Go and rake over your own dunghill. And I started again to read the words of our sages, of blessed memory, but I found no contentment in their teachings.

I remembered the days when I dedicated myself to the Torah, but the memory did not bring me to the point of action.

I tried to arouse myself by idle acts. I started to arrange my books, one day according to the date when they were written and the next day according to subject, or in alphabetical order. I also prepared handsome notebooks and other accessories. Every day I invented something new. But before I managed to do it, I set it aside.

During that year and a half when I had dedicated myself to the Torah, I had received letters, books, and brochures which I had not taken the trouble to read. Now that I was idle, I looked at them.

I set aside all the books and brochures, and all the futile epistles, and turned to the letters of individuals I had left behind in exile in Poland and Germany, where they bewailed their exile and begged me to help them come to the Land of Israel.

I rested my hand on my table and spoke to myself: How shall I bring you up, how shall I bring you here, when you have no money to show the authorities?

I do not know whether it was in waking or in a dream, in vision or fancy, or perhaps it is neither dream nor fancy. Once a certain man wanted to come to the Land of Israel, and he did not have a thousand pounds to show the authorities. He took his wife and his sons and daughters, and wandered with them for several years until he reached the boundary of the Land of Israel, but the officers of the law would not let them in, so they threw themselves down before the gates of the land and wept. Sleep overtook them and they slumbered. Trees grew up around and concealed them, and they slept a long time. When they awoke, the father said to his son, “Take a coin and bring some bread.”

He went out and saw people plowing and sowing in gladness, with never a policeman or an officer. He came back and told his father, who took his wife and his sons and daughters, and they entered into the land. The whole city was astonished at them, for they thought all the exiles had already arrived, and there was no Jew left who had not come. They gave them a dwelling and food and a field to plow and sow. The father took out money to pay. “What are these scraps of metal?” the people said to him. “You call these scraps?” he replied. “If I had had a thousand like them, I would have been with you long ago.” Immediately it became a great joke throughout the city: for the sake of such things Jews had been prevented from entering the land, and the sons of the land had not been allowed to return. How foolish the world had been to torment the Jews for scraps of metal and paper notes.

The letters lay before me, and I had to answer them. I stretched out my hand and took the pen. I set a clean sheet before me and started to write, but apart from greetings and apologies I could not write a thing. I could not study the Torah, because of my confused mind: I could not stay at home for boredom. What could I do? I got up and went out to wander for a while in the streets of Jerusalem.

5

I walked about the streets of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, which had been still, gave voice. Buses and automobiles raced about as if pursued by demons; the noise of them rose into the heart of the heavens, and people dodged out of the way to avoid being run over. Every street and corner was full of soldiers, policemen and detectives, tarbushes red as blood and eyes angry and black with hatred. And the precious sons of Zion — some of them were dressed in velvet and satin, but others lay in the dunghills.

Even as the streets of Jerusalem have changed, so have its houses. Not all the prophecies have yet been fulfilled in the city, but some of its ruins have been rebuilt. The Lord buildeth Jerusalem, at any rate, even through gentiles, even through speculators. And there are houses that rise up to the sky. In the past, when the sons of Israel were lowly in their own eyes, He would, as it were, lower all the seven firmaments to be close to them; today, when they are proud and He is getting further away from them, they build their towers up to the sky.

There are other buildings in Jerusalem where you can find anything, whether you want it or not: shops where no one knows the use of the utensils they sell, or banks and coffeehouses and places of amusement and entertainment. If you find the night hangs heavy on your hands, and you do not know what to do with it, borrow money in a bank and go to a cinema or a coffeehouse or some other place of entertainment. And if you find it hard to wait until evening, stand at the side of the street and you will hear choruses on the gramophone. When Elijah, of blessed memory comes to bring tidings of redemption, we can only hope his voice will be heard above the noise of the automobiles and the screeching of the gramophones.

I stand in front of a large building full of shops selling clothing and foodstuffs, jewelry and ornaments for males and females. Signs hanging over the shops proclaim their wares in every possible tongue, and the building emits a vapor like the vapor of foreign lands.

“And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.” And the sages say: “One day the Holy One, blessed be He, will make Jerusalem of precious stones and diamonds.” And even now we can see in Jerusalem something like a pattern of the days to come, for its mountains are covered with all kinds of pleasant colors, were it not for the tall buildings that conceal the face of Jerusalem.

I wandered in the streets and squares of Jerusalem without seeking anything, and when I recalled that House of Study and those old men I had seen there, I knew that I would never find it and never see it.

But I saw new faces. These were the immigrants from Germany who had lately arrived. Where was their dignity, their property, their wisdom, their power? Those who had displaced the Divine Presence with their pride now walked along bowed with care. From time to time the Holy One, blessed be He, shows favor to one of the tribes of Israel and gives it wealth and honor, that they may help their brethren, but they ascribe all their good fortune to their own merits, to their clever behavior, to the masters of the land who have given them good laws because they are better and more honest than the rest of their brethren. When the Holy One, blessed be He, sees this, He, as it were, turns His face away from that tribe. Immediately the wicked men among the gentiles bring down ruin upon them and they go down into the dust.

As I was walking, I met one of the German immigrants whom I knew. I stopped and asked how he was.

He began to tell me the same things he had told me recently, all that the wicked men had done to him there in Germany, what he had suffered, how much money they had taken from him, and how at last he and his wife and his children had escaped without a penny.

I comforted him as I had comforted him before. “You are fortunate to have come here,” I said, “for from now onwards, no wicked hand has power over you.”

Now that I had mentioned the Land of Israel in his presence, he began to abuse the nation and the population, their behavior and demeanor; his room was minute, and the rent, to boot, would not be too small for a baronial hall; the maid downstairs put on ladylike airs; the workers were all Left, and the merchants bent on theft. The phones had gone crazy, the children were lazy; immigrants from many lands talked with their hands; the trains were always late, the beer was second rate. People didn’t know how to pray, and they spat on the floor; the politicians made you pay, always asking for more; the men at the top talked and talked without a stop; mosquitoes were a pest, and gave you no rest; at funeral rites there were barbarous sights. In short, life was vile at home and outside, above and below, whatever you tried.