S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

It would have been good had I found myself an automobile to take me to an inn, but it was time for the evening session and all the visitors who had come to the convention had grabbed all the vehicles in the city to get to the convention building. I bent my back to the package that weighed me down more and more. And as it was with the package, so it was with its shadow. I am not saying that the shadow weighed me down, but it is terrifying when it is thick and lacks a head. And don’t be surprised, for the load reared itself up above the head of the one who carried it so that his head entered into his burden.

In the meantime I heard a dull noise and saw that my things were falling. The rope I had worked so hard to assemble had been weak from the start, and when I began to move, the package on my shoulders shook, the rope tore, and the articles scattered.

I bent down to the ground and began to collect my things. I would lift one thing and its mate would fall from my shoulders. I would lift it and it would fall again. I had nothing left but the rope with which I had tied my package. To add to this, drops of rain began to fall. The rains that had hidden by day in the clouds emerged from their hiding places. And there was no automobile around to take me to the hotel, nor was there anyone to help me. And don’t be surprised, for the craftsmen’s convention was a large convention and all who were able went to the convention and whoever didn’t go to the convention hid at home from the rain.

The rains that had pattered softly at first began to descend heavily. And in the midst of the rain, as in a vision, two men ran in great haste. I am not saying that they were Joseph Eibeschütz and Samuel Emden. But if I were to say that one of them was one or the other, it would not be far from the truth.

Rabbi Shmaria the dayan, one of the rabbinical judges of our town, was a man learned in the law and conversant with the Shulhan Arukh, particularly with the section on daily ritual, Orah Hayyim, with which not all rabbis concerned themselves too much. Of all the glosses on Orah Hayyim, he liked best the commentary of Rabbi Magen Avraham.

Of course, most of Magen Avraham’s commentary is obscure and enigmatic due to overabbreviation. For though a man of great learning, he was poor, without the means to buy paper on which to write, and used to write his novellae on the face of the table and on the wall, and when a piece of paper came into his hands, he would compose his thoughts and jot down their essence in extremely concise language.

Out of fondness for the Magen Avraham, Rabbi Shmaria took upon himself to construe, interpret, and explain it for every student to learn and understand. I don’t know for how many years Rabbi Magen Avraham was occupied with his work. As for Rabbi Shmaria, I heard that it took him twelve years to define, elucidate, and construe each and every expression. He left no difficult passage uninterpreted. At the end of twelve years he checked and found nothing further to add or to detract.

He sent for a bookbinder to bind the sheets and delighted in the thought of printing and publishing his book.

The bookbinder came with a sheaf of pages in his hand.

Rabbi Shmaria picked up his work and said to the bookbinder, “Bind these sheets for me and make me a book out of them.”

The bookbinder put aside the sheets he had brought with him and picked up those of Rabbi Shmaria. He looked at them the way bookbinders do, at their thickness and size, taking into consideration the boards he would use and what he would cover them with, whether with hide or with cloth.

While the bookbinder was attending to Rabbi Shmaria’s sheets, Rabbi Shmaria became aware of the sheets the bookbinder had placed on the table and said, “What have you put down here?” The bookbinder replied, “A new book I was given to bind.” Rabbi Shmaria said, “Let me take a look.” The bookbinder put down Rabbi Shmaria’s work and handed him the book he had brought.

That book was called Mahazit Hashekel, which the great scholar Rabbi Samuel Halevy Kolin wrote on the commentary of the Magen Avraham to the Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim.

Rabbi Shmaria fixed his gaze on the book again and again, and said, “A most satisfactory commentary, most satisfactory; apt and with the ring of truth.” He sighed and said, “I have been preceded by another; there is no need for my work.”

He apologized to the master binder for having bothered him for nothing, left his work where it was, and had it neither bound nor published.

Four or five generations later the book came into my hands. How so? I was poking about the attic of the Great Synagogue in our town where the worn-out books were put away and whence they were brought to the graveyard for burial between the graves in earthenware urns. At first they used to bury them between the graves of the righteous, but later they began burying them between the graves of the stillborn, as I have related elsewhere.

I picked up the book and shook off the dust. I collected all the pages together and put them in order. I saw before me a complete work.

I went up to an embrasure in the wall through which rifle fire was once directed at the Tartars who came to wage war on the town. I stopped to thumb through the book and read a little here and there. I saw that it was a commentary on the commentary of Magen Avraham, and I knew that it was the work of Rabbi Shmaria the Dayan. I found in it nice distinctions not to be found in the book Mahazit Hashekel nor in the other books that I knew, which Rabbi Shmaria, so sorely grieved when he saw that all his efforts over twelve years were in vain, did not perceive in his own innovations.

I went into the old house of study in order to take a look at books that discuss the Magen Avraham, and I found that none of them contained the innovations of Rabbi Shmaria.

I showed some of Rabbi Shmaria’s innovations to my father, my teacher and a righteous man of blessed memory, and to other scholars. After giving them their consideration they said, “Rabbi Shmaria’s is a fine commentary. He has made nice distinctions. What he says deserves to be heard.”

I was sorry for such a wise man who had labored so hard in the law and had not been found deserving enough for a dictum of his to be cited. I wanted to save his innovations from oblivion. It occurred to me to make up a copy of the book, but I said to myself, What good would that do? That would only mean another bundle of writings that would drift from place to place and at best would end up in a place where worn-out books were laid to rest.

About that time I read in the Hamizpeh about the Ginzei Yosef Library in Jerusalem (which heralded the Jewish National and University Library). There appeared in the paper a notice asking publishers and writers, etc., to send books to the library. It seemed to me that this notice was read all over the world and that people from all places were sending books to Jerusalem. I said to myself, People everywhere are contributing to Jerusalem and Buczacz contributes nothing, so let me send Rabbi Shmaria’s book to Jerusalem.

Messengers with whom to send the book were not available; neither did I have any extra money to pay the cost of sending it by post. The little that my father, of blessed memory, used to give me from time to time was spent on payments I felt obliged to make, such as to the Jewish National Fund, anonymous poor, membership in the Zionist Society, and occasionally to buy a new book. But my ingenuity served me to find the money to send the book to Jerusalem. How so? When I was studying the law and would rise early and remain until evening at the house of study, my mother used to give me every Monday two kreutzers, so that if I was hungry I could buy a wafer or a piece of fruit. I said to myself, What my mother has done for the sake of her son’s learning I will do for the sake of Rabbi Shmaria’s teaching. So I said to my mother, “I have come to a very difficult passage and will not be home for lunch.” My mother was sorry for me for denying myself a regular meal but was happy that learning the law had become dear to me once again. At that time my interest in the law had waned in deference to those little books that God does not deign to look upon. But to get the book to Jerusalem I used the law as a pretext. My mother took from the housekeeping money and gave to me. So she did on that day and for a number of days, so that if I was hungry I might buy a wafer or a piece of fruit. Fruit and wafers I did not buy, but put a penny to a penny until I had enough to send the book by post to Jerusalem.