S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

The rest of the time the kerchief lay folded in the cupboard, and on the eves of the Sabbaths and festivals Mother would take it out. I never saw her washing it, although she was very particular about cleanliness. When Sabbaths and festivals are properly kept, they themselves preserve the clothes. But for me she would have kept the kerchief all her life long and would have left it as an heirloom.

What happened was as follows. On the day I became thirteen years old and a member of the congregation, my mother, peace be with her, bound her kerchief around my neck. Blessed be God, who has given His world to guardians. There was not a spot of dirt to be found on the kerchief. But sentence had already been passed on the kerchief, that it was to be lost through me. This kerchief, which I had observed so much and so long, would vanish because of me.

11

Now I shall pass from one theme to another until I return to my original theme. At that time there came a beggar to our town who was sick with running sores; his hands were swollen, his clothes were rent and tattered, his shoes were cracked, and when he showed himself in the street the children threw earth and stones at him. And not only the children but even the grownups and householders turned angry faces on him. Once when he went to the market to buy bread or onions the shopwomen drove him away in anger. Not that the shopwomen in our town were cruel; indeed, they were tender-hearted. Some would give the food from their mouths to orphans; others went to the forest, gathered twigs, made charcoal of them, and shared them free among the beggars and poor folk. But every beggar has his own luck. When he fled from them and entered the house of study, the beadle shouted at him and pushed him out. And when on the Sabbath eve he crept into the house of study, nobody invited him to come home with them and share the Sabbath meal. God forbid that the sons of our father Abraham do not perform works of charity; but the ministers of Satan used to accompany that beggar and pull a veil over Jewish eyes so that they should not perceive his dire needs. As to where he heard the blessing over wine, and where he ate his three Sabbath meals — if he was not sustained by humankind he must have been sustained by the grace of God.

Hospitality is a great thing, since buildings are erected and administrators appointed for the sake of it and to support the poor. But I say it in praise of our townsfolk, that although they did not establish any poorhouse or elect any administrators, every man who could do so used to find a place for a poor man in his own house, thus seeing the troubles of his brother and aiding him and supporting him at the hour of his need; and his sons and daughters who saw this would learn from his deeds. When trouble befell a man he would groan; the walls of his house would groan with him because of the mighty groaning of the poor; and he would know that there are blows even greater than that which had befallen him. And as he comforted the poor, so would the Holy One, blessed be He, in the future comfort him.

12

Now I leave the beggar and shall tell only of my mother’s kerchief, which she tied around my neck when I entered the age of commandments and was to be counted a member of the congregation. On that day, when I returned from the house of study to eat the midday meal, I was dressed like a bridegroom and was very happy and pleased with myself because I was now putting on tefillin. On the way I found that beggar sitting on a heap of stones, changing the bandages of his sores, his clothes rent and tattered, nothing but a bundle of rags which did not even hide his sores. He looked at me as well. The sores on his face seemed like eyes of fire. My heart stopped, my knees began shaking, my eyes grew dim, and everything seemed to be in a whirl. But I took my heart in my hand, nodded to the beggar, and greeted him, and he returned the greeting.

Suddenly my heart began thumping, my ears grew hot, and a sweetness such as I had never experienced in all my days took possession of all my limbs; my lips and my tongue were sweet with it, my mouth fell agape, my two eyes were opened, and I stared before me as a man who sees in waking what has been shown him in dream. And so I stood staring in front of me. The sun stopped still in the sky, not a creature was to be seen in the street; but He in His mercy sat in heaven and looked down upon the earth and let His light shine bright on the sores of the beggar. I began loosening my kerchief to breathe more freely, for tears stood in my throat. Before I could loosen it, my heart began racing in strong emotion, and the sweetness, which I had already felt, doubled and redoubled. I took off the kerchief and gave it to the beggar. He took it and wound it around his sores. The sun came and stroked my neck.

I looked around. There was not a creature in the market, but a pile of stones lay there and reflected the sun’s light. For a little while I stood there without thinking. Then I moved my feet and returned home.

13

When I reached the house I walked around it on all four sides. Suddenly I stopped at Mother’s window, the one from which she used to look out. The place was strange; the sun’s light upon it did not dazzle but warmed, and there was perfect rest there. Two or three people passing slowed their paces and lowered their voices; one of them wiped his brow and sighed deeply. It seems to me that that sigh must still be hanging there.

I stood there awhile, a minute or two minutes or more. Finally I moved from thence and entered the house. When I entered I found Mother sitting in the window as was her way. I greeted her and she returned my greeting. Suddenly I felt that I had not treated her properly; she had had a fine kerchief which she used to bind around her head on Sabbaths and festivals, and I had taken it and given it to a beggar to bind up his feet with. Ere I had ended asking her to forgive me she was gazing at me with love and affection. I gazed back at her, and my heart was filled with the same gladness as I had felt on that Sabbath when my mother had set the kerchief about her head for the first time.

The end of the story of the kerchief of my mother, peace be with her.

1

You can buy a pair of tefillin for eight crowns; if you prefer that the tefillin be made out of a single strip of leather, it will cost you ten crowns. Scribes who produce holy books, tefillin, and mezuzot are not looking to get rich from their righteous labor. And even if they would choose to get rich, the Men of the Great Assembly stipulated twenty-four restrictions that prevent scribes from getting wealthy from their work. In that case, why did my father, may he rest in peace, spend such an exorbitant amount for my tefillin? Was it their age that made them so valuable? No, these particular tefillin were written by Rabbi Elimelech the Scribe, and because my father, of blessed memory, admired him he spent a fortune on these tefillin. But wasn’t Rabbi Elimelech bound by the restrictions of the High Court? Moreover, what did Rabbi Elimelech do with all that money? After all, he was poor and he lived in a primitive house that didn’t even have a chair to sit on. Rabbi Elimelech, of blessed memory, used to say that since our blessed sages thought of this world as a passageway and the world hereafter as a magnificent ballroom, does a man rushing to a ballroom even need a chair to sit on in the hallway? But all cavils aside, when people had an opportunity to acquire a set of Rabbi Elimelech’s tefillin they would happily come up with extraordinary sums of money.

2

On the day of my bar mitzvah I went to the mikvah and I was adorned like a bridegroom. They dressed me in a new jacket, a silk cummerbund whose two fringes extended down to my knees, a black hat, black shoes, and around my neck a silk kerchief with a pearl fastened to it. Any time I raised my head to say Amen to a blessing, it would radiate a flash of light. In my hand when I came to school were my tefillin in a carrying bag of black silk with filaments of pale silver spelling out a Star of David as well as my name and my father’s name. The bag was tied with a reddish yellow drawstring and inside were my two tefillin. I took out my tefillin, and my schoolmates could see that they were antique. They gasped and asked: How much money did some father waste on this boy instead of buying plain new tefillin? They immediately started to tease me by saying that these tefillin must have belonged to the dead who were raised by the prophet Ezekiel; King Saul’s daughter Michal used to wear them! I thought to myself that it was inappropriate to talk while praying so I didn’t bother to answer them. After finishing my prayers I told my friends that my father had gone to the scribe with the intention of buying a plain new pair of tefillin. Oh, well, they said, when your father discovered that the scribe would charge him eight or ten crowns for them he took the old ones instead and brought them home. I asked them: How could they think that my father would balk at paying eight or ten crowns for a new pair when the old pair cost him many times that amount? So they asked me to explain. I told them that on his way to buy tefillin he happened on the opportunity to buy a pair written by Rabbi Elimelech. He said to himself that these were the most beautiful tefillin he had ever seen and he insisted on buying them for me. When they heard that, my friends bit their tongues and kissed my tefillin. On that day, my coming of age, my father set out a spread of cakes and wine, and everyone there praised my tefillin and offered me blessings. My friends were particularly proud of their own tefillin because they sparkled and smelled of new leather, but they expressed their admiration for my tefillin because even though they were old, they had been written by Rabbi Elimelech.