S. Agnon - The Parable and Its Lesson - A Novella

Our Master then began to explain the sublimity of prayer, which enables a mortal human being, born of woman, fashioned from the dust, and food for the worms, to extol the eternal living and exalted holy God, and even to beseech Him for our needs. Then he dwelt on the sublimity of the Hebrew language, from which our prayers are formed, and on the secret of the holy tongue, which holds the mystery of the perfect unity, and which was bestowed before the sin in the Garden of Eden and certainly before human speech was confounded and diffused into seventy tongues. Our Master expressed it in these words: “Come and see how great prayer is. In prayer a person can raise himself up to the original state he was in before the generation of the tower of Babel; for at that time, as we find in the book Gates of Light, God apportioned the nations among the angels on high and reserved Israel for Himself, since Israel is an element of the supernal God.” Here our Master looked out at the entire congregation, householders and craftsmen, servants and wayfarers, surveying them all in a single glance. He pulled his talit over his forehead, causing the phylactery on his head to jut out under it and create an opening on the side through which his white curls fell out. They were illumined by all the shining lights, light from above and light from below, the light of the setting sun and the light of the memorial candles burning as on Yom Kippur. There was not a man or women who did not light a candle in memory of their departed. Even beggars and those who could only afford to light them on Sabbath eve and holidays, even those who were wards of charity — they all borrowed candles to light.

As our Master stood there between the Ark and the congregation, he added, “In the Midrash ha-ne’elam we find that the idea of creating Israel arose in the divine mind before the creation of the world and even before the creation of the angels. Because of God’s great love for them they were destined to be called Israel, which is God’s name. In the Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer it is told that when Jacob asked the angel ‘What is your name?’ the angel bestowed upon him his own name, Israel.” Our Master again looked around at all the people in the synagogue, householders and craftsmen, servants and wayfarers, and then said in his sweet-sounding voice, “Israel! An element of the supernal God! An element of the supernal God!” I do not remember if he actually repeated that phrase or if I just think he did. As the saying in the Talmud goes, “the nobleman took hold of me and his fragrance rubbed off on my hand.” Because I served our Master, his voice resounds within me. These are profound and sublime matters, and not every mind can handle them.

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Our Master picked up his talit with both hands, one on each side, laid it back on his neck, and paused for a moment. No one could tell whether he had concluded his sermon or if he had more to add, but we were all quite prepared to continue standing and listening, even those who were weak from the fast. The synagogue then did not yet have benches to sit on, other than a chair for the rabbi and one for Elijah the prophet.

The heart knows its own bitterness. We knew in our heart that this was our Master’s last sermon, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing. On Hoshana Rabba, when we got to the prayer “Answer the faithful,” his voice lost its resonance, and on the day after Simḥat Torah he passed into eternal life. I do not want to interrupt what I am relating here but I would only note that the reward of humility is grace, and our Master’s humility in life was matched only by his grace in death.

And so all of us remained standing, waiting to hear more. Even the little boys who could not stand still even for a minute stood motionless. Whether they understood what was being said or not is uncertain, but words of truth are always eagerly heard even if they are not understood.

Our Master loosened his talit from around his neck, lifted his hands in gratitude, and the light in his eyes took in the entire congregation. In his pleasant voice he said, “The three Patriarchs did us a great kindness when they instituted the prayer services, and after them, the men of the Great Assembly when they arranged the order of the prayers, and, no less importantly, the reading of the Torah, which was ordained by Moses to be read on Sabbaths, festivals, New Moons, and the intermediate days of the festivals, as it is written And Moses announced the festivals of the Lord to the children of Israel . Ezra ordained that Israel should read from the Torah on Mondays, Thursdays, and at the afternoon service on the Sabbath.” For each of these points our Master cited their sources in the Babylonian Talmud, the Jerusalem Talmud, the midrashic collections Sifre, Sifra, and Mekhilta, the Tosafot, Alfasi, Rambam, and the Tur — all these sources he cited by heart. Most of them he had not seen since the day he left Nemirov, where he studied with his holy teacher, may the Lord redeem his blood. I have heard that the faculty of memory is a male attribute and the faculty of forgetting a female one, as is implied in the verse Hearken, O daughter, take note and incline your ear, forget your people and your father’s house . We see there that forgetfulness goes with being a daughter. Today there are individuals in Buczacz who own more holy books than there were in the entire town in our Master’s day. I know of a great scholar, the rabbi of several communities, who at the time of his passing remarked that while it is certainly hard to take leave of a world in which one can acquire the merits of Torah, commandments, and good deeds, in the Academy on High he would get to see tractate ‘Eruvin, which he never laid eyes on in his lifetime. I also remember two yeshiva students who once came to our town after walking for two days, so they could view the minor tractates, having heard that there was here in Buczacz a man who owned all the volumes of the Talmud.

Let us return to our Master’s sermon. After he explained the commandment of the public reading of the Torah, he raised his talit above his shoulders, covered his head, and said, “The Holy One, blessed be He, has done us a great kindness, for when a person sits in the synagogue he hears the words of the Torah that God gave to Israel.” Again he lowered his talit onto his shoulders, placed both his arms on the podium in front of him, rested his head upon them, and told of certain elders, of whom it was said by those who know of such matters, that during the reading of the Torah they ascended to the spiritual level Israel was at when the Torah was given.

Our Master further related the following: “When I was studying in the yeshiva of my great teacher, luminary of the ages, there came to town a preacher who asked my Master’s permission to speak in the Great Synagogue on the Sabbath. The weekly Torah portion was Yitro, and when my Master asked him what he would talk about, the preacher replied that his subject would be the Ten Commandments. When my Master asked him to be more specific, the preacher replied that the Ten Commandments in this Torah portion are meant for this world and the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy for the world to come. To which my Master said, ‘I do not know this world and I do not know the next one; all l know is what is put forth in the verse Would that they had this heart of theirs to fear Me and keep My commands for all time so that it would go well with them and with their children forever ’.”

Our Master, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing, melodiously repeated the entire verse, and when he intoned the words so that it would go well with them and with their children forever , everyone knew that to fear God and to obey His commandments was what it meant for it to go well with us and our children forever.