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

Fine accounts you keep, I said to him. But then I also know how to balance the loss resulting from not keeping a commandment against the profit that comes from keeping it.

Then Rabbi Shmuel Yosef, the son of Rabbi Shalom Mordekhai ha-Levi took up the tale. When I was about to go to the Land of Israel, said he, Satan came to me and said, Where do you propose to go?

To the Land of Israel, I answered.

Why, said he to me, have you such a desire to go to the Land of Israel? Because so many of the commandments enjoined on Israel can only be fulfilled in the Land of Israel? By your life, there are still any number of commandments waiting for you to fulfill them outside the Land.

Wasn’t it you, said I to him, who came to one of the zaddikim and advised him to fulfill all the commandments if only he did not fulfill one particular one? Surely you remember the answer you got from that zaddik. He told you, I am prepared to transgress against all the commandments, provided I fulfill this particular commandment in its entirety. And at that he let me be.

As for me, said Rabbi Yehudah Mendel the pious, Satan did not have to expend much effort on me, for he and I dwell together like two neighbors. When the idea occurred to me of going up to the Land of Israel, I said to myself, Why are people so afraid of going up to the Land of Israel? Because there is no food and drink? Because there are no human beings there like ourselves? Well, anybody who lives here can live there as well. After all, the Land of Israel was not given to the ministering angels; so why should I not go as well? Once Satan heard this argument he stopped trying to delay me.

That, said Rabbi Pesach the warden, is exactly what I said to my wife Tzirel. What do you suppose, Tzirel, said I to her, that the Land of Israel is made of bits of paper on which holy names are inscribed? There as well as here you will find houses to live in, and there as well as here fat soups are not made from the juice of Hosannah willows.

In that case, said Leibush the butcher, why do they make the Land of Israel such a great affair?

Why, answered Rabbi Alter the slaughterer, in order that nothing wrong should be done in those same houses.

But Rabbi Yosef Meir sighed and said, It would be shameful indeed if all those houses were nothing more than what they seem to the eyes to be.

On still another occasion our men of good heart sat discussing the Evil Inclination which busies itself with Israel to prevent them from going up to the Land of Israel, since everyone who goes up to the Land of Israel there receives a new soul. Happy is he who goes up to the Land and has the merit of dwelling there, and alas for him who goes up to the Land and has not that merit; for angels surround the Land of Israel and permit none who are unfit to enter the Land, according to the tale told by Rabbi Shmuel Yosef, the son of Rabbi Shalom Mordekhai ha-Levi.

His tale concerns two old men who journeyed until they reached the frontier of the Land. At night they heard the sound of joy on the one side and of howling on the other. They raised their eyes and saw a troop of ministering angels, carrying harps and violins and all manner of musical instruments in their hands, leading one old man with great honor and singing before him; while in the other direction another troop of angels of wrath was dragging an old man and abusing him most shamefully.

By your charity, said the two old men to the angels, why did you make music before one and treat the other so shamefully?

He who is worthy to go up to the Land, said the ministering angels, him we accompany joyfully and precede with music.

But he, said the angels of wrath, who is not sufficiently worthy to go up to the Land but still goes up, him we drive away.

Perhaps, Rabbi Moshe asked Rabbi Shmuel Yosef, the son of Rabbi Shalom Mordekhai ha-Levi, you have heard why Rabbi Abraham the circumciser was never worthy to go up with us to the Land of Israel, seeing that he is a fit and proper man, God-fearing and greatly occupied with the fulfillments of the commandments and above all with the commandment of circumcision, in virtue of which we were given the Covenant of the Land?

Why, said Rabbi Shmuel Yosef, the son of Rabbi Shalom Mordekhai ha-Levi, the reason is that he put our Father Abraham to the trouble of leaving the Land of Israel and going forth outside the Land. For once there was a students’ riot in town and all Israel hid themselves in their houses. Now on that very day Rabbi Abraham went to circumcise a baby whose father had just been slain on that same evil occasion. When he came in, he found nobody there to hold the baby, not even a chair on which to sit.

Can I, said he, be both godfather and circumciser?

Well, he looked out of the window and saw an old man walking along the street with a little stool in his hand. Rabbi Abraham knocked on the window to attract the old man’s attention. In he came, sat down on the stool and took the baby on his knees. Then Rabbi Abraham circumcised the baby and said the blessing with the phrase, ‘Who has hallowed the friend from the belly.’ After Rabbi Abraham had completed the blessings, the unknown godfather vanished. Everyone thought that Elijah, the Angel of the Covenant, had been revealed to him, but in truth it was our Father Abraham who came to show his affection for his son on the day of his introduction into the covenant of Abraham.

All the countless heavens on high grew dark and the stars and moon were covered. The air was damp and had a salty tang. The whole world was still. Nothing was to be heard but the sound of the sea waves kissing. The company broke up and went to their sleeping places. The moon sank, the stars went in, and the planets went on their way.

The ship sailed on and on, while the Holy One, blessed be he, rolled the light away before the darkness and the darkness before the light, and sent a wind which moved the ship. Every day the sun grew stronger, so that no one could gaze at it, while at night each separate star gave as much light as the moon. And the sea waves swayed and moved and sparkled with light, and a kerchief floated upon the waves like a ship in the heart of the sea; and a man sat on the kerchief, his face turned to the east. Not a great wave of the sea rose to drown him, no sea beast approached to swallow him, but the seagulls soared and flew around him in the air. How long the comrades had been on board ship you can judge for yourselves; for before they went aboard they had shaved their heads, and now the head tefillin sank into the hair. Yet whenever they looked out to sea, facing them they could see the light sparkling on the waters, the kerchief floating like a ship in the heart of the sea, and a man sitting upon the kerchief with his face turned to the east.

In due course the ship reached Kushta the Great, which is Constantinople, which is Stambul. There the comrades took a small boat and entered the town to wait for the ship which is hired by the congregation of Stambul every year; for every God-fearing Sephardic Jew who has the means goes up to the Land of Israel to prostrate himself upon the graves of the Fathers or to settle there.

Now Stambul is a great city whose like is not to be found anywhere in all the world, having many quarters in which representatives of all the peoples dwell and the king of Ishmael, the Great Turk, rules over them. Himself he lies on a bed of ivory which lulls him to sleep. Sometimes he sleeps half a year and sometimes a whole year. There is a box full of snuff beside him, with a gold bird resting upon it. When the time comes for the king to awaken, the bird opens the box and goes to the king and places the snuff in his nostrils; then the king sneezes and the bird says, Your good health!

Thereupon all the princes and pashas come along with all the dukes and ask the king how he is. And he has three hundred and sixty-five princes, one for each day of the year; and as soon as each of the princes has done his day’s duty, the king gives him a golden thread, whereupon he knows that his time is come to depart from the world; he goes home and strangles himself, while the king, watching from his window, claps his hands and rejoices.