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

That is the story of Aaron. But I must add here something that I really should have stated earlier. That year, on the Sabbath of Repentance before we went on the journey to Gehinnom, our Master began his discourse with these words: “Preachers who chastise their congregations customarily begin with a verse from the weekly Torah portion and conclude with the verse And a redeemer shall come to Zion and to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, says the Lord . I, however, shall begin with that verse. And a redeemer shall come to Zion summarizes the foundation of our faith and the basis of repentance, for when we see year after year the same tribulations, and we continue to wait for the End of Days, and we are not destroyed by the Gentiles — all that gives us the strength and the courage to turn in complete repentance.” That is what I mean when I say that our Master possessed the power of prophesy. Because even before he spoke with Aaron in Gehinnom, he already knew that his sin consisted in his having questioned the very idea of an End of Days.

That is the story of Aaron, husband of Zlateh, and it is through his fate that I came to see how severe is the punishment for all who talk during the service and the Torah reading.

If this introduction is longer than the story, more severe still is the story itself. I wish I were not telling it, and now that I am telling it, I hope it will not be taken as just a story but rather that you will learn from it how very careful we must be not to talk in the synagogue during the prayers and especially during the reading of the Torah.

8

Aaron’s story diverted everyone’s attention from the shamash’s case, and it was the shamash himself who brought them back to it. “If you wish to hear it,” he said, “I will now tell it. But I must add a word or two before I begin.”

The shamash sat upright and a great sadness emanated from him. It created a wall between him and the assembled. If he had not begun speaking, no one would have reminded him that they wanted to hear the story he was about to relate.

This is what he said:

I know that I have violated the teachings of our Sages according to which one who embarrasses another person in public forfeits his share in the world to come. Not only have I violated that teaching, I have impugned the honor of a scholar of good family and the son-in-law of a benefactor of the community, whose generosity underwrites half the expenses of our synagogue; moreover, I have shamed him not for mindless chatter but for talking Torah, and doing that not in a Gentile marketplace but in a holy place in front of the Torah scroll, and on the holy Sabbath, when the Holy One spreads the tent of peace over Israel. I have therefore every right to regret what I did. But not only do I have no regret, I am certain that when I die, a band of beneficent angels will come out to welcome me saying, Come, let us keep company with someone who selflessly relinquished his share in the world to come in order to save another person from a harsh sentence and severe punishment. I could cite sources for my position in our holy books, but there are present here learned men who have the whole Torah at their fingertips. So I will simply tell you what my eyes saw. Solomon the wise wrote that What the eyes see is better than the flights of desire . He means to say that what a person sees with his own eyes is better than where his fancy takes him. His fancy roams over mountain tops, descends into valleys, creeps into caves, and insists that the earth is flat.

From what you have heard about Aaron so far, you know that our Master, may the memory of the righteous ever be for a blessing, took me to that place. I cannot tell you all that I saw there. Nor do I want to tell you all that I saw there. But I can speak of some of the things these ancient eyes saw when they were younger.

I pass over all the old man’s moanings and groanings and “oy vays” and get to the main events. At some points I will cite him word for word, at others I will paraphrase, and at some points I will summarize. But I must note that even though the shamash was rather long-winded about the events surrounding Aaron, which was after all only a prologue, when it came to the events themselves he was concise. I have found that it is easier to relate what you have heard from others than to relate what your own eyes have seen. It was easier for the old man to tell what he heard from Aaron than to recount what he himself had seen. In any case, being succinct will not diminish the story.

I will mark off his words from mine by prefacing them with the phrase “the shamash said,” except now, where it will be obvious that he is speaking.

9

In Gehinnom there is a compartment they call Tsalmavet, Shadow of Death. It is larger than Earth in size, and its dimensions are perfectly symmetrical. Nothing in the world is as paradoxical as that compartment. It is circular in shape but appears square, square in shape but appears circular. The eyes perceive it one way, the mind another. These differences in perspective induce a certain melancholy.

In that compartment it is neither hot nor cold nor in-between. No wind blows there, only an occasional vapid gust encased in a cool dry silent breeze. A nameless long-legged angel oversees the compartment, but this angel does absolutely nothing. It stands there with its mouth agape, like a person utterly bored and about to yawn.

The compartment is populated by twice the number of people who went out of Egypt, all of them wrapped in silver-crowned talitot. The tefillin on their heads are as big as those worn by chief rabbis and heads of yeshivot. The space between one person and another is equivalent to the distance of a Sabbath boundary. All of them are brilliant intellects with a profound knowledge of Talmud and its earlier and later authorities. Each one sits by himself, in talit and tefillin, steeped in Torah. When he seeks to disseminate his wisdom, he looks this way and that but sees no one. The years of poring over tomes of text have dimmed his eyes and he is unable to notice that there are thousands upon thousands of Torah scholars just like him there. Boastfully he thinks, “I’m all alone in the world; all wisdom dies with me.” He gets up from his place, looks around and sees a multitude of people as tiny as sesame seeds. He says to himself, “The tefillin on their heads tell me that they are human beings, so I will go over to them and say a pilpul.” But then he becomes drowsy and falls asleep, like a hermaphrodite who sleeps without pleasure or desire or satisfaction or sweet dreams, until he awakens and doesn’t know if he is really awake or has simply turned over on his side. He notices a humanlike form striding by and gets up and walks toward it. When the two draw near, one of them says, “I have developed a brand new pilpul no one has ever thought of before.” The other replies, “You are taking the words right out of my mouth. The pilpul that I have devised every bone in your body would strain to hear. But since you desire to speak, I defer to you. And now, since I have deferred to you, it would be right for you too to defer your desire to speak to mine. Moreover, since I deferred to you before you deferred to me, it follows that I should rightfully have primacy. Therefore, I should speak first.” As soon as he begins to speak his mouth grows as wide as a church courtyard. His colleague says, “A pilpul like that just goes right past me.” At which point his ears grow bigger and bigger until they cover his whole body. The two of them stand there gaping at each other, confounded, frightened, ready to scream. But no scream is heard from either one. The first one’s scream dies in his throat, and the other’s is muffled by his ears. At that moment the angel sways from side to side, the only time it ever moves. It sits and gazes at the two of them as if they were one, looking not with its eyes but with its mouth. If the angel had not then wanted to yawn, that look would have killed them.