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

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S.Y. Agnon was the greatest Hebrew writer of the twentieth century, and the only Hebrew writer to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. He devoted the last years of his life to writing a massive cycle of stories about Buczacz, the Galician town (now in Ukraine) in which he grew up. Yet when these stories were collected and published three years after Agnon's death, few took notice. Years passed before the brilliance and audacity of Agnon's late project could be appreciated.
The Parable and Its Lesson James S. Diamond has provided an extensive set of notes to make it possible for today's reader to grasp the rich cultural world of the text. The introduction and interpretive essay by Alan Mintz illuminate Agnon's grand project for recreating the life of Polish Jewry, and steer the reader through the knots and twists of the plot.

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Do not wonder at that man’s astonishment, because in our town there was absolutely no talking during the service and certainly not during the Torah reading. From the moment the Torah scroll was opened until the reading of the weekly portion was concluded everyone strained to listen and concentrated so as to catch every word that issued from God Himself. The elders of that time, going by what they had heard from their fathers, and their fathers from their fathers, said that their forebears would never interrupt the Torah reading even to congratulate the person who had just been called up to the Torah. Three times a year, however, on Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot, after the Yizkor memorial service, the senior member of the congregation would take the Torah scroll in his arms and one by one everyone would come up and tell him his name, his father’s name, and the amount he would contribute. The elder would bless that person and his household and there would be no mention of money. Contributions were brought after the festival. In later times, when expenses increased, they started doing this on every Sabbath, but again, money was never mentioned in the presence of the Torah scroll. Then later, when the number of donors who wanted their charitable intentions made public increased, every penny that had been pledged or contributed would be announced. And then even later, when expenses for nonessential items increased, like the fees for cantors who showed off their vocal talents and turned the prayers into ridiculous performances, all prior restraints were removed, and they would stop between sections of the Torah reading to bless both the one who was called up and the person he instructed the gabbai to bless. Soon they began to exceed the regular number of seven people called up to the Torah, until the Torah readings were sliced up like olives. Eventually things reached the point where there was not only jealousy and enmity among the honorees but insult and invective.

So there sits our young scholar during the Torah reading when he gets this new insight into the Torah portion. He leans over to the man sitting next to him and regales him with his discovery. The shamash sees this and throws him a look of rebuke. When this is ignored the shamash gives him a wrathful look. When the talking does not stop he thumps his middle finger with a “Nu! Nu!” When this has no effect the shamash thumps his finger again in order to silence him. When this has no effect he steps down from the bimah, walks over to the eastern wall, grabs the young man by the arm and ushers him out of the synagogue.

The town was in an uproar. Never in the whole history of Buczacz had anyone embarrassed another person in such a holy place, much less ejected him from it. Certainly no lowly shamash had ever done that to a Torah scholar, especially one from a prestigious family and the son-in-law of a local grandee to boot. And even though everyone knew that the shamash had acted for the sake of Heaven, the consensus was to fine him and even to dismiss him from his position.

On Monday they arraigned him before the beit din of the chief rabbi. The chief rabbi recused himself on account of his admitted partiality to Torah scholars. Thereupon they went and constituted an alternate beit din.

The dayan asked the shamash how he proposed to argue his case. The latter replied, “Is anything more meritorious than not kowtowing to a Torah scholar from a prominent family who commingles the Sacred Word with his own prattle?”

The dayan then asked, “But was he not talking words of Torah?”

“Yes, but it was during the reading of the Torah.”

“It was sufficient that you stopped him. What impelled you to embarrass him in public?”

“It was out of compassion for him that I did what I did, for I have seen the punishment that awaits one for talking during prayers and Torah reading. A thousand humiliations in this world are nothing compared to the punishment for this transgression in the world to come.”

“How is it that you knew and others did not? We have many treatises that deal with that particular sin, and it is widely condemned by our rabbis. Indeed, there are those who attribute the pogroms of 1648 to the sin of talking during the service.”

“The books may offer their condemnations, but it is the eyes that see what it is to suffer God’s wrath.”

“What do you mean ‘it is the eyes that see’? Does the whole world see with a different organ and you alone see with eyes? What do you mean by these alarming insinuations?”

The shamash lowered his eyes and fell silent.

The dayan continued, “What do you answer?” The shamash raised his eyes and then shut them, like one who sees something and is mortified by it. What was it that made him so afraid? It was visions that he had once seen, visions that were now reawakened within him and began to reappear before him. It is those visions I shall presently relate.

The dayan looked at him and saw all manner of horror etched in his face. Something is going on, he thought to himself. “Perhaps you can explain to us what you have said?” The shamash again lowered his eyes and said, “One thing I ask of the Lord, one thing I desire: that my mouth not get the better of me and make me utter something that I should not. Would that this whole incident had not happened and I were not forced to relate something of which I am not worthy to speak. Silence would be the better course.” He fell silent. The dayan said, “I think there is something you wish to say?” Consternation took hold of the shamash. He raised his eyes to those who sat in judgment of him and began to speak: “It is not because I seek acquittal from this earthly court or because I want to curry favor with the esteemed members of the congregation that I permit my tongue to reveal a profound mystery. I speak so that you may all come to know the true punishment for something that everyone takes much too lightly.”

2

The shamash looked out at those who sat in judgment of him and at those who had come to hear his case, and this is what he related:

The venerable elders here are already aware that I served as personal assistant to our Master, the esteemed Av Beit Din Rabbi Moshe, may the Lord illumine him in Eden until the coming of the Redeemer and may he plead well for us and all Israel. I am not worthy to tell of his greatness and his brilliance in Torah and piety. What I can relate is what is widely known, namely, that our Master Rabbi Moshe was, as you know, one of the students of the holy Rabbi Mikhl of Nemirov. On account of our many sins Rabbi Mikhel Mikhl was martyred in the massacres of 1648. Through the merits of one secret word in the Torah that that holy Tsadik communicated to our Master Rabbi Moshe, he was saved from the sword of that barbarian Khmelnitski, may his name be blotted out. Some say the word is in the weekly Torah portion Mishpatim . Some say it is in the portion of Ha’azinu . Others hold that it was not a word that he communicated but the meaning of one of the dots found above the Hebrew words in the passage haniglot vehanistarot . Who can say what that dot means? It is enough for a man like me to get through the weekly portion with Targum and Rashi’s commentary.

Our Master had a relative named Zlateh. She was the sole survivor when her family was slaughtered in the pogroms of the abominable Khmelnitski, may the names of the wicked rot. This Zlateh was a granddaughter of Reb Naftali the wine merchant. He was a wonderful advocate for the Jews in his time and did much for communities and individuals alike. He met a tragic end. A government official who owed him four hundred barrels of wine set his hunting dogs on him and they devoured him. May God avenge his blood.

The murder of Reb Naftali occurred not long before the pogroms of 1648. When the evil decree fell, the whole family perished, “some by water, some by fire, some by strangling, some by stoning,” as the poet wrote in the piyyut Unetanneh tokef . Those who were spared such gruesome deaths died of hunger or thirst. Through the mercy of God the little girl saved herself from death by hiding in the forest. Like an innocent lamb she lived on grass and very nearly forgot how to talk like a human being. She was found by some survivors who had come out of hiding when the pogroms began to abate. They took her with them as they wandered from town to town and from community to community. Some of them tried to return to their hometowns but could not find them. Most of the communities had been razed in the cataclysm and were unrecognizable. Some of these survivors got used to being on the road and never found a place to stop and settle down. During their wanderings they came to Buczacz and arrived at the house of our Master.

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