S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

Blessed be He that distinguishes Israel from the Gentiles. Let us return to the Jewish customs. They do not perform the ceremony of casting away sins either at rivers or at wells, because the Gentiles used to say that the Jews dropped poison into the water and polluted it; but anyone who has a well in his yard recites the prayer beside the well. And although the suspicion has disappeared, the custom has not been changed. And it was an ancient custom among them to recite the blessing “Who hast not made me a Gentile” twice. They have evening hymns and morning hymns and hymns of redemption and penitential hymns that are not in our festival prayer book. The melodies of their prayers resemble ours, but ours are according to the taste of this generation, while theirs are as they have inherited them from their fathers, may they rest in peace. Sometimes their voices are terrifying, and sometimes a cry, as of a man whose soul struggles to escape, is wrenched from them. But when they stand up to pray, they recite in a sweet voice: “O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock…” and so forth; “My dove, my undefiled is but one…” and so forth; “She is the choice one of her that bore her.” Never in my life have I heard a melody so sweet. And I saw an excellent custom that they observed on the Day of Atonement: they do not leave the house of prayer, or speak, from the approach of night until the end of the Day of Atonement, either in the secular or in the sacred tongue, and even the women are very careful in this. And they do not interrupt the reading of the Torah to pronounce a blessing on those who are called up for the reading, but after it is over the reader blesses them all together. On festivals when they read the passage “Every firstborn,” the leader of the congregation rises after the last reader has finished the final blessing, goes up to each one, carrying a scroll of the Torah, and blesses him, saying, “He that blessed our forefathers, etc., may He bless thee for giving a donation in honor of the Almighty, etc.,” and the people contribute voluntarily to the cost of wine for the sanctification and lamps for the lighting and other needs of the congregation. Their scrolls of the law are tall; when they elevate the scroll they spread it out as far as their arms can reach. You have never seen a finer sight than a broad scroll held by tall Jews, for all of them are stalwart and powerful men. The one who elevates the scroll holds it firmly, while everyone looks at the Torah and puts together, from it, the letters of his name. Their ram’s horns are kept in their cases. On some of the cases, beautiful shapes are engraved, and on others verses of the services connected with the sounding of the horn are written. They have no particular melody for reading the Scroll of Esther, but the reader reads it like an ordinary story. And when Master Moses Molin, the son-in-law of Reb Jacob Slitzstat, was good enough to read me a few verses, I felt as if I were hearing the story of Esther for the first time.

It is their way to mingle words of the holy tongue in their conversation. When it is warm they say hamima and when it is cold they say karira . They do not say Soehne , but banim , and not Toechter , but banot . But in the singular, they say Sohn and Tochter . When I asked them the reason, they could not answer, and I quoted to them in jest, “Ye are sons ( banim ) to the Lord your God.” As for the daughters, I quoted, “Many daughters ( banot ) have done worthily.” Most of the names of their articles of food and drink are in the holy tongue, such as lehem —bread, basar — meat, dagim —fish, yayin —wine, and mayim —water. A dish that is neither meat nor of milk, they call lavlah , from the initials of lo vasar lo halav . I found several beautiful words in use among them, which I have not found in our dictionaries, and no doubt they come from the festival prayer book, for they often recite the hymns. And most of the names of animals are in the holy tongue, except the calf, which they call Kalb , so as not to recall the sin of the Golden Calf. And if a man calls someone a calf, he makes his life a misery.

Their favorite entertainment at festival meals is to ask riddles about the laws, such as, “How can we prove so-and-so?” Another hallowed custom they have is to assemble in the synagogue on the Seventh of Adar and spend the day in fasting and prayer and the reading of the Torah, and I do not remember if they told me that they read the Supplication of Moses or “And Moses went up…” from the end of Deuteronomy. They recite the Memorial for the Departed, and every one kindles lights in memory of his relatives who have died, as on a yahrzeit, because no one can go to the synagogue all winter because of the tempests and snowfalls, so they decided to assemble on the Seventh of Adar, the day of the passing of Moses, our teacher, blessed be his memory. At night, after midnight, they hold a meal, and all eat together, and they have special penitential hymns for that day and special songs for that meal, which they sing to special melodies, and afterward they go home in peace. They also have several other customs. Happy is the man that follows them.

In the morning of the day after the Day of Atonement I went on my way. When I left, the entire community came out to see me on my road, standing on the hilltops. Five or six times I turned my head to look back at them, until they were swallowed in the blue mists. I kept to the road and walked on until I reached the railroad, which had been repaired in the meantime by craftsmen brought for the purpose. I traveled by rail to the port, and from there I traveled by ship to the haven of my desire, the Land of Israel. Blessed be the Almighty who has restored me to my place.

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The town of Katzenau is situated among the mountains of lower Franconia. Its small houses are scattered among gardens, fields, hills, and valleys. Some of its inhabitants are craftsmen; others serve as clerics, teachers, and functionaries, foresters, hunters, and cattle breeders. In the center of this town, between the courthouse and the revenue offices, there is a street lined with two rows of buildings, across from each other, which house the stores that belong to Jews. Like their fathers and the generations that preceded them, they struggle for a meager profit and provide the local people with all sorts of goods, some necessary and some unnecessary. The Holy One, blessed be He, arranged the world as He saw fit. To some He granted fields and gardens, and, being generous and true to His people, Israel, He granted them a resting place among the nations from which to serve Him and to earn a livelihood, be it meager or ample. He is blessed and His Name is blessed, for every Jew is sustained according to his needs. In the past there were countless edicts, attacks, murders, expulsions. But in time this changed so that Israel is no longer despised because of matters of faith. Nor are we victimized for our positive qualities. So the few families who live in the town support themselves, each family according to its needs, struggling to please God and humanity, seeking nothing for themselves beyond what they earn with their labor and beyond what they need to survive. They provide for their households with integrity, perform the commandments received from their forebears unquestioningly, grasping their essence while fulfilling them. About folks such as these was it said that “man was born to toil”—both for a livelihood and to perform the commandments.

The Sabbath comes, bringing peace. From noon on Friday very little business is done. The women prepare for the Sabbath; men tend their beards, pulling out hair after hair with a special implement. The Sabbath doesn’t begin until everyone is in the synagogue, wearing Sabbath clothes and a Sabbath face, occupying an inherited seat. The old teacher, who is also the ritual slaughterer and cantor, stands before the holy ark chanting melodies received from generations back, which are, no doubt, pleasing to God. After these prayers the wine is blessed and a feast is served: white bread, meat, other dishes that grace the table only on the Sabbath and holidays. In winter there are songs. In summer, when the nights are short, it is the custom to delight one’s table with a special psalm before saying Grace. Those familiar with the Five Books of Moses read the weekly portion; others read Der Israelit or Das Familienblatt until they fall asleep.