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

This emissary asked our friends, Whither do you go and where do you wish to establish yourselves? In Jerusalem, or in Hebron, or in Safed, or in Tiberias? He told them the advantages and qualities of each of the cities and the virtues of its particular climate, also the holy places to be found in each.

As for Safed, he who dwells in Safed and is buried in its soil, since it is loftier and has pleasanter air than all the other cities of the Land of Israel, his soul soars off at once to the Cave of Machpelah, whence it passes to the Garden of Eden. In Safed, Israel are at peace with the Gentiles, so that even a woman can go about alone in the town and the field. There are many dwellings to be found in Safed, and everything can be bought cheaply. The synagogue of the Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria is in Safed, together with the platform to which he used to summon the Fathers of the World, of blessed memory, to the reading of the Torah; summoning Aaron first as Priest, then Moses as Levite, Abraham as third reader, and so on. Most of the men of Safed are observant of the Torah, and scholarly, and God-fearing, and merciful.

Two hours distant from Safed is a place called Meron, where the cave of Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai is to be found. From all the cities of the Land of Israel men come to Meron three times a year to prostrate themselves on his grave, where they spend a night and a day and study the holy book Zohar; these three times being in Elul, before the New Year, at the end of the month of Adar between Purim and Passover, and on the thirty-third day of the Counting of the Omer after Passover. Furthermore, on the thirty-third day of the Omer people come to Meron even from as far away as Damascus and Aram Zoba, which is Aleppo, as well as from Egypt; and in Meron they set beautiful silken kerchiefs on fire in barrels of olive oil and they make great feasts and banquets and dance to the drum and the pipe and utter all manner of song and praise. That is the day of the Rejoicing of Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai, when the Divine Presence comes to frolic with the saintly in the Holy Assembly.

Even greater is Hebron, whose dust the Patriarchs esteemed. They lie in the Cave of Machpelah, above which is a great building builded by King David, peace be upon him; although by reason of our sins Israel are not permitted to enter the Cave. But there is a small hole outside the gate which opens on the graves of the Fathers and the Mothers, and there candles are lit and prayers are said. Outside the Cave of Machpelah is the nearby grave of Rabbi Moshe ben Nahman of blessed memory; as he wrote at the end of his book, ‘The Law of Men,’ where he said that he was going to hew himself a grave there near the Fathers. Facing it is the grave of Jesse, the father of David, as well as the grave of the judge Othniel, the son of Kenaz. Below are caves where other pious men are buried.

The householders of Hebron are men of might with many fine qualities, above all hospitality, a virtue for which our Father Abraham, peace be upon him, was renowned. And the whole town is surrounded by vineyards and groves, and you can see the oaks of Mamre, and the bathing pool of our Mother Sarah, peace be upon her, and the tent of our Father Abraham, peace be upon him; the tent which is fenced about with blocks of hewn stone. There is a cistern of hewn stone within the tent, and fresh living water sweet as honey and very pleasant to drink flows within the cistern.

But how good it is to dwell in Tiberias, which is Rakkath— where even the most worthless are as full of fulfilled commandments as a pomegranate is of seeds, and where they are more nimble about their affairs than in any of the other cities of the Land of Israel. As our rabbis of blessed memory said: ‘May it be my lot to be among those who welcome the Sabbath in Tiberias.’

The four species of plants for the Sukkot lulav are plenteous in Tiberias, particularly the date palms, whose fronds are used to cover the booths for the Feast of Booths. And the Sea of Kinnereth, which the Holy One, blessed be he, loves more than every other sea surrounds Tiberias; and concealed in that sea is the well of Miriam, which is destined to be revealed in due course by the holy Rabbi Isaac Luria of blessed memory; for it heals the soul. Corresponding to the well of Miriam, the baths of Tiberias make the body hale and hearty and cure all manner of sickness. And in the future the revival of the dead will commence at Tiberias, where the redemption will likewise begin, as is written in the tractate Rosh ha-Shanah.

Yet in spite of all this, who would exchange the sanctity of Jerusalem, the place of our Temple, for any of these? For Jerusalem faces towards the Gate of Heaven.

In due course the time came for the ship to set sail on the sea. The comrades went aboard together with a vast congregation of Sephardic Jews from Stambul, Smyrna, and all the other cities belonging to the Turk, both men and women; not to mention uncircumcised Christians and circumcised Moslems of all nationalities; more than a thousand folk in all, apart from the servants of the ships and the servants of the servants.

They put down their goods and prayed that they might arrive in peace in the Land of Israel, and that they might not be injured on the way by earthquakes or convulsions or by any of the creatures that are in the sea. When they had ended their prayer, they split into two parties. One party went to see where the sweet water was drawn from and where wood was got for cooking, while the other went off to look at the ship and watch the sailors at work, standing high upon the masts or rolling up the ropes or spreading the sails. Meanwhile, our Sephardic brethren settled in their places, and calmly opened their sacks, and arranged their belongings, and took out fine volumes bound in red and green leather, covered with papers of many colors, like the picture tapestries hanging in the king’s palace. They sat down crossing their legs beneath them, and prayed that they might be worthy to walk before the Lord in the Land of Life and be buried in Jerusalem.

How pleasant it was to see them sitting in fine garments, with their measured movements and princely appearance, their beards resting on their books as they read in awe and fear and humility, their lips moving and their attention fixed, rejoicing in the study of those things that are befitting persons proceeding to the Land of Israel. Their wives sat facing them, holding in their mouths pipes which were fixed in round glass bottles through which they inhaled tobacco. Whenever they heard the name of Jerusalem uttered by their husbands, they would raise their hands to their eyes and joyously repeat the word aloud, kissing their fingertips as though the name of Jerusalem were there engraved.

Meanwhile, the sky threw the sun over its shoulder, and the water began to grow darker and darker. The ship’s officers examined the ropes and spars, lit lamps, sat down to eat and drink, and began to sing songs about wine and about the women of the sea who turn their eyes on human beings and steal their souls away with their singing. The Jews (mark the distinction) said the Evening Prayer and restored their souls with refreshments, reading the Song of Songs and the section in ‘The Book of Zohar’ concerning the Complete Unity which the Holy One, blessed be he, will achieve with the Congregation of Israel in days to come. Feiga and Tzirel, the housewives and stewardesses of the group, arranged pleasant sleeping places for themselves and their companions. They lay down to sleep and rested their bodies until they arose for the Midnight Mourning.

The stars gave light and then were hidden, but others came and took up their posts. Our men of good heart rose for the Midnight Mourning, while their Sephardic brethren ground beans and boiled kahava , a kind of drink which rouses the heart and causes sleep to depart, and which is not known in the Land of Poland, although it is mentioned in the Shulhan Arukh codes of law. They also behaved generously towards their Ashkenazic brethren, giving them likewise to drink; and they did the same with their wine and books. And when it became necessary, the Sephardic brethren spoke well of them to the ship’s officers and men, the sages of the Sephardim being well versed in the languages of the peoples, some among them even knowing the seventy tongues, like the members of the Sanhedrin in days of old.