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

As long as we were in the town our Master would take one step and stop, one step and stop. It seemed as if it was hard for him, as if he had almost forgotten how to walk. He never went outside more than twice a year, once to draw the water for making matzot and once on Rosh Hashanah to perform the tashlikh ritual. And if the first day of Shavuot was clear, he would go out to the surrounding hills to commemorate the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. You can still see the rock on which he would sit and rest.

The moon shone and all was still. In the silence every so often we could hear the sound of hammering. People were putting up their sukkot. Once or twice our Master stopped to whisper the words “Hark! My beloved knocks.” I knew that his whole reason for stopping was to take in the sight of all those sukkot. He remembered the terrible years when people were hiding from Khmelnitski’s hordes and no one could observe the commandment of dwelling in the sukkah.

Once we got beyond town the moon disappeared and the road became rugged. I quickly lit the candle and held on to the lantern tightly. It felt as if someone were trying to grab it away from me. At times I thought I heard someone trying to blow out the candle though there was no wind. And it seemed as if someone was whispering in my ear, though I could not hear what it was. I got an earache from those murmurings. My fingers were shaking from holding on to the lantern so tightly.

We walked on in silence. When our Master was quiet, I was too. No one ever dared speak in his presence unless he gave them permission — that is how much respect we had for him. How far we walked I cannot say. Once we left the town I lost all track of time. I became numb with fear. If our Master had not motioned for me to take hold of the hem of his cloak, I would have died of fright. At first I thought he had some amulets with him, but when I heard him whispering, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for Thou art with me,” then I knew that he put his trust in the Eternal One, in Him alone, may He be blessed.

6

Were I to tell of all the difficulties our Master and I had on the way, I would never finish. Were I to recount all the places we passed, I would never get to the site of this story. Our Master extracted me from the domain of space just as he had taken me out of the flow of time. Much later, when I got back from where we had gone, all the places we passed through came back to me. They swirl before me even now, sometimes all jumbled together, sometimes hovering dimly on the ravines of hills and mountains, the sky above them lowering. The space between heaven and earth is as thin as an eggshell. Sometimes the earth rears itself up and presses against the sky, and sometimes the blue dome of the heavens takes on the dark color of the earth below. When I stand here, down below, it feels as though I am there, up above, and when I stand there, up above, it feels like I am here, down below. But enough of this.

The shamash proceeded:

Those who think that a wicked person who dies goes down to Gehinnom do not know that there is a punishment even more severe. It is known as “being hurled from the hollow of the sling.” This sling punishment is not a place, as the treatises have it, but a bloody brawl, so named because of what is done to the sinners. They are so battered by the embroilments of their sins that they try to seek refuge in Gehinnom. But no sooner do they approach its gates than they are flung back to all the places where they sinned and where they thought about sinning. But now they cannot find those places because the sins committed there have disfigured them, and the ones that are still recognizable crumble underfoot, and sharp spikes spring up and impale their soles. Snarling dogs appear and nip at their heels. Some of these sinners are encrusted with soil, and when they are flung the soil is hurled and they remain suspended in midair. Some return to the gates of Gehinnom, while others never arrive there again.

A sinner’s punishment, then, is hard, but even worse is what happens to someone who wants to sin but does so only in thought and not in deed. Someone who has actually sinned is to some extent cleansed by the remorse, suffering and heartbreak he will feel. But one who wanted to sin and never had the chance to do so will be undone by the prideful illusion that he knows how to control himself even as the fires of temptation still burn within him. Worst of all are those contemptible people who feel false pangs of conscience and fancy that they have repented, yet all the while they are consumed by sinful thoughts and their illusory pleasures. No one can accuse me of loving sinners, but when I see them flung around like that, I am quite ready to hire myself out as the doorkeeper of Gehinnom so I can personally let them in.

The shamash proceeded:

There are distinguished people who think that after they die they will go straight to Gan Eden. But when I visited Gehinnom with our Master I saw that it was filled with such people. Let me be more precise about this. Those who fill the ranks of Gehinnom are people who have already attained considerable merit. Those who have not descend to the nethermost parts of Sheol, which is to Gehinnom as Gehinnom is to Gan Eden. I mention no names here out of respect for their families. In this regard I try to emulate a practice our Master instituted after he came back from Gehinnom. Before he went, his study was focused on the Zohar and the writings of the Ari, aside from the regular classes he gave in halakhah. When he came back he devoted himself to studying Mishnah. The Mishnah study was for the purpose of raising up the souls of those who went down to Gehinnom, even though everyone thought they were righteous while they were alive. I try to do likewise. Though I am poor, whenever I get penny from the children and grandchildren of such people, I light a candle in their memory.

7

When the shamash finished these digressions, he resumed his story, first telling about the husband who abandoned his wife, then recounting all the twists and turns of the journey, then relating all the extraordinary things he had seen — everything that led up to and resulted from the fact that he had thrown a scholar from a prominent family out of the beit midrash for talking during the Torah reading.

I remove myself from the narrative and take on the character of the shamash so he can speak in his own voice. But lest you start thinking that this story is about me, I intrude periodically with the words “the shamash said.”

And so he did, as follows:

Look how modest our Master was, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing: he had taken me with him to serve as his spotter, yet it was he who recognized the wicked one first. When Aaron realized he had been seen, he ran over to our Master and said, “Rebbe, you are here! I always knew you would come to me. When a scholar goes into exile, his master is exiled with him.” Our Master nodded. “Tractate Makkot folio 10a, a little below the middle of the page!” Our Master, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing, always did that. Whenever someone quoted a passage from the Talmud he would think for a moment and then cite the tractate, the folio, the precise side of the folio — a or b — and sometimes even the exact line and whether it was on the top half of the page or the bottom half of the page. The two of them began to converse quietly.

Our Master said to Aaron, “How could you leave your wife, the woman you married according to the laws of Moses and Israel? You transgressed, but what about your wife? What was her sin that you made not the least effort to release her from the shackles of her chained state? How terrible it is that your sin has wiped out your capacity for mercy, which is the hallmark of a Jewish person.”