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

13.

Reb Shlomo was standing and sermonizing and his voice was like that of the humble nightingale on a summer night. Suddenly a gruff voice was heard and a man was seen pushing and squeezing his way, squeezing and pushing until he arrived at the Holy Ark. And when he got to the ark, to the place where Reb Shlomo was standing, his voice began to grate and drone. Reb Shlomo stopped his sermon and cocked his head to listen. As the congregation noticed Reb Shlomo straining to listen, they all cocked their own heads and heard that this man was negating Reb Shlomo’s entire sermon by way of an explicit Talmudic statement. Their faces fell and they were embarrassed that they themselves hadn’t picked up on the discrepancy, and a few of them imagined that they had in fact discerned it but that Reb Shlomo’s sweet voice had mesmerized them. Only the simple folk remained as devoted to their rabbi as at the start, and when they saw that a man had the audacity to contradict him they were ready to rip him to shreds. But he took notice neither of them nor of their wrath; he saw but one thing: that he had been given an opening to totally destroy all of the theories of that incisive and erudite one, and to demonstrate that there was neither insight nor erudition here, but rather his analysis was utter folly. And the simple folk were already reaching towards the insolent one to cast him out.

14.

Reb Shlomo rapped on the podium and said, “Calm down and let me hear what Rabbi Moshe Pinchas has to say.” And he immediately gazed upon him with great affection and added, “Rabbi Moshe Pinchas, please repeat what you said and I shall listen; perhaps I didn’t hear you well.” Reb Moshe Pinchas recounted what he had said, throwing in some words of derision. And still, Reb Shlomo was gazing upon him warmly and it appeared that he was reveling in his own distress. After Reb Moshe Pinchas had finished, Reb Shlomo said, “Rabbi Moshe Pinchas, do you have anything else to add?” Reb Moshe Pinchas was filled with wrath and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Is it not enough for you that I’ve demonstrated that you built mounds upon mounds of nonsensical arguments in contravention of an explicit Gemara? I already have shaken out the sand particles with which you attempted to blind the people’s eyes.”

The entire congregation was distressed about the insult to Reb Shlomo and a few of the scholars wanted to respond to the words of the challenger, but did not know what to say since they saw that he was in the right, in that Reb Shlomo had erred about an explicit Gemara and that in any case his entire sermon had been built on a shaky foundation.

Reb Shlomo’s uncle now rapped on the podium and offered, “I’ll respond.” His father then rapped and said, “I’ll respond.” Without a doubt, they would have succeeded in countering Reb Moshe Pinchas’s counter-arguments, but it is doubtful that they would have satisfied the Gemara’s own contradiction. They were blinded by their love for Reb Shlomo and did not pay mind to the Gemara, but instead chose to justify him by means of Talmudic argumentation. Reb Shlomo waved his hand once towards his father and once towards his uncle and said, “With your permission, I myself will respond.” Reb Moshe Pinchas jeered and said, “Is it not enough that a man refuses to concede the truth, but now he intends to heap lies on top of it?”

Reb Shlomo fixed his two luminous eyes upon him and said, “It appears you have saddled me with an enormously difficult question from the Gemara, and it would also appear that nothing can be said in response, except that if you had scrutinized the text carefully you would have seen that this version of the text is inaccurate, and already two illustrious pillars, the Maharshal and the Bach, have amended the text of the Talmud in this spot with the version postulated by the Rav Alfasi, and everything I have put forth I based on the true version of the text relied upon by most commentators to determine the law.” And here Reb Shlomo began to weave from commentator to commentator until he arrived at the legal ruling. At the same time Reb Moshe Pinchas’s countenance darkened like the edges of a cauldron and he did not respond at all; after all what would there have been to say given that the law was on Reb Shlomo’s side? Reb Moshe Pinchas stood like a stricken man, and Reb Shlomo returned to his sermon. Reb Moshe Pinchas stomped on the floor so forcefully that the stones underneath cried out. And he also cried out, “ Panie Horowitz, how fortunate for you that all your silver and gold have enabled you to purchase proofread books. Even so, your new conclusions are nonsense and your homilies mere folly.” And immediately Reb Moshe Pinchas began to refute Reb Shlomo’s words one after the other, to the point where the great Torah scholars were astounded by the sheer power of the man’s intellect and the minds of these eminent ones were totally confounded. Reb Shlomo raised his right hand and said pleasantly, “Rabbi Moshe Pinchas, how vast is your erudition and how abundant your acuity, but tell me is it really fitting for a true scholar to use the Torah deceitfully? Surely, you and I both know full well that there is no substance to the refutations with which you are trying to undermine my position.” And here Reb Shlomo chipped away, argument after argument, and did not omit responding to any of Reb Moshe Pinchas’s refutations. Reb Moshe Pinchas turned apoplectic with rage and, leaping up and down, and bellowed, “In that case, I’ll confront you from another angle.” And right away he began attacking a different point in the lecture and to squawk about each of Reb Shlomo’s findings until there was not one conclusion that he had not shattered. Reb Shlomo’s face clouded over and he heaved a bitter sigh, like a warrior dealt a fatal blow, and stripped of his weapons.

By this point everyone was under the impression that Reb Shlomo was drained of all his strength and that he no longer had it in him to stand up to someone more forceful than himself. And once again Reb Shlomo sighed deeply and looked at Reb Moshe Pinchas with neither anger nor animosity. On the contrary, it was apparent that he pitied him, even though he was really the one in need of mercy, Reb Moshe Pinchas having humiliated him in front of the entire gathering on his very first day as rabbi. Reb Shlomo passed his hand over his forehead and said in a sad voice, “There is no limit to what a skillful man can accomplish by the force of his cunning, but what will you answer on Judgment Day?” Reb Moshe Pinchas sneered at him and said, “Can you believe how consumed this man is with his own piety, that I deliver him actual words of Torah and he responds with words about the fear of Heaven? If you are able to reply to me from Torah do so, and if not, confess in front of the whole congregation that your whole sermon is chaff and straw.” Most of the congregants began to holler at Reb Moshe Pinchas, but a certain elderly and assertive scholar rebuked them. He said to them, “If scholars battle over Jewish law, who are you to interfere?” Reb Shlomo turned back towards the Holy Ark and laid his head on the curtain. Everyone assumed he was withdrawing and about to step down. Suddenly he turned back towards the people and the whole crowd noted that he seemed to have gotten taller by a whole head. Reb Shlomo said, “With your permission, gentlemen, I will repeat the essence of my sermon and you will determine the veracity of my words.” Reb Shlomo succinctly recapped the crux of his presentation and reinforced it with new proofs, until the faces of the scholars lit up and they called out, “Hear, hear!” having been completely distracted from Reb Moshe Pinchas and all his argumentation. At the same time the simple folk glared at Reb Moshe Pinchas with daggers in their eyes and were just about ready to beat him up. Reb Moshe Pinchas dismissed them as the dust of the earth, even though he was consumed with a desire to show them that their rabbi was a poor scholar. And when he attempted to say something they started yelling and saying, “Enough already! We don’t want to hear what you have to say.” And when he raised his voice they silenced him and shouted, “Let’s get him out of here and may his face no longer be seen in this place.”