S. Agnon - Two Scholars Who Were in our Town and other Novellas

Meanwhile Rabbi Alter the slaughterer saw Rabbi Leibush the butcher sitting in amazement. What are you amazed at? he asked.

Those Gentiles, answered Rabbi Leibush, have neither share nor inheritance in the Land of Israel and still they hold the Land of Israel so dear!

The reason, answered Rabbi Alter, is because of the head of Esau which lies buried in the Cave of Machpelah.

Then the one whose name we have forgotten asked Rabbi Yehudah Mendel, who is always known as the pious Rabbi Yehudah Mendel, Why did Esau merit having his head buried in the Cave of Machpelah?

The reason, replied the pious Rabbi Yehudah Mendel, is because Hushim, the son of Dan, took a stick and hit Esau over the head so that his head fell off and fell on the feet of Jacob; and they buried it with him.

That of course, said Rabbi Alter the teacher, is the plain meaning; but there is a great and mystic secret behind it as well. For during all the years that Jacob was outside the Land of Israel, Esau was in the Land of Israel, and its merits stood him in good stead. Indeed, Jacob had already begun to fear that Esau and his sons might gain the right to the Land of Israel; but then the Holy Writ came and informed him that Israel are ‘a nation one in the Land,’ and not Esau and his sons. Then of course, you might argue that Ishmael had a claim; but Writ has provided even for that in the verse saying, ‘The son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. Said the Holy One, blessed be he: The Land is dear to me and so is Israel, therefore I am going to bring Israel who is dear to me into the Land which is dear to me.

Rabbi Shelomo brought out his long pipe and filled the bowl with tobacco, and twisted himself a spool of paper, and lit it, and began smoking, and looked in friendly fashion at the company sitting and discussing the Torah. How they had toiled before they left their town; and how thoroughly weary and tired they are yet to be. He raised his eyes aloft and meditated in his heart: We cannot know what to beseech of Thee; but as Thou hast done with us until now, so mayest Thou continue to do unto us forever.

The innkeeper’s wife sat quietly gazing in front of her. There was a lighted candle on the table and the voice of Torah was heard continually in the whole house. Here in this inn which had been parched for words of Torah, those same words could now be heard rising on high.

While she was sitting there, a moth came and fell into the flame. How long had it lived? A moment. Just a few moments earlier it had been flying through the house, then for a little while it had gone circling round the flame, and at the last the flame had just licked it and turned it into so much cinder.

So it was with her. For a little while the Omnipresent had given her ample room; for a little while He had lit a great light for her; for a little while she had sat in this contentment, listening to the words of the living God; the next morning the guests would go their way and she would be left again without Torah, without prayer, and without life.

But while she was communing with herself, a number of countrywomen came in and curtsied to the pilgrims; they took a pile of pine cones from their aprons to place under the pillows of the wayfarers to the Holy Land, that they might sleep sweetly.

But the men of good heart were in no haste to sleep. Instead they sat studying and meditating on the Torah, while the women sat knitting socks and stockings for the journey. Sarah turned her head towards her husband Rabbi Moshe, as he sat with his head resting on his arm, holding a book in his hand. Her mind turned back to her two daughters whom she had left behind in Buczacz; now, she thought to herself, their husbands are just coming to eat their suppers, and maybe they too have boiled buckwheat in milk and are shaking fine sugar over the porridge to sweeten the food; but the men do not even notice the women’s labor, but sit down at table and look into a book; sons-in-law like father-in-law.

While she was communing with herself, the woman next to her jogged her and said, Just take a look at Tzirel gazing at her husband Pesach as if they were all alone in the world. And Sarah, sighing, said, She who leaves nothing behind can be happy even when she leaves her town forever.

Well, the folk of good heart sat as long as they wished, until the wagoner came and advised them, You had better rest your limbs before the combs of the cocks turn white and you have to get up.

Sleep is fine for wayfarers, especially on Iyar nights in a village, when the whole world is still and the grass and the trees are silent and the beasts graze in the meadow and have no complaints against human beings. A gentle breeze is blowing outside and winding around the roof and rolling in the flower-cups of the straw which rustle, whispering with the breeze, making a man’s sleep pleasant and sweetening his limbs.

But the men of good heart remembered that sleep was created only in order to strengthen the body that a man may rise fit and well for His blessed service. Before the third watch was over, they had all risen. At the same time the Holy One, blessed be he, brought up the morning star; and the other stars and the planets began to fade.

The clouds grew red and sailed away hither and thither. The grasses and greenery began to drip and the trees glistened with dew. The sun was about to appear, and the birds clapped their wings and opened their eyes to utter song. The horses whinnied and stamped their hoofs and lifted their tails. The men of good heart rose, and prayed, and ate the morning meal, and climbed up on their wagons, the men on one wagon and the women on the other. And they took their leave of the inn and set out on their way.

The wagons went on and on, the horses vanishing and then reappearing in all manner of grasses, tall and short. Pleasant breezes blew, rousing the spirit. The grasses began to move to and fro in the fields and made their utterances before the Holy One, blessed be he. Many a village peeped out from the midst of the fields, and vineyards and forests and lakes stood silent. The sun shone on the rivers and on the riverbanks; and white clouds bore the folk of good heart company from the heavens.

And so they journeyed across the land of Poland until they crossed the border and reached a spot called Okup, where they safely crossed the river Dniester and spent a night. From Okup they made their way to Hutin, which lies on the right bank of the Dniester, and where there are several Jewish householders dwelling in the shadow of the powers that be and managing to bear up under the Exile. These were engaged in commerce and handicrafts with great honor. When there were riots, the nobles would conceal them in their own homes and no harm would befall them.

It was their tradition that they and their forefathers had been dwelling in that place since the days of the Second Temple; except of course for those Jews who had come from Poland. For when the Tartars made forays into the Kingdom of Poland, they would take away captives whom they transported to the Land of Ishmael, which is Turkey, to sell them; and the kings of Poland used to send Jews to redeem them. Those Jews saw that it was a good land and thinly inhabited and that commodities were far cheaper than in other lands, and that the Jews who dwelt there lived on good terms with their neighbors and had no reason to fear them and merely paid a small amount to the king; so they came and settled there. At the old fort of Hutin a coin had been found dating from the time of the Royal House of the Hasmoneans, on which were engraved the name of Jerusalem and the figures of a bunch of grapes, a myrtle bough, and a citron.

Furthermore, living there were many women who did not know what had befallen their husbands, but there was no authority to deliver them from their fate, and they could not remarry as they remained ‘chained’ to their missing husbands, some of whom had gone to do business in Europe or Turkey and had not come back, while others had been slain on the way and their burial place was unknown.