A Book that Was Lost

Notes

Agunot

39/ “It is said ” This first passage is an example of what Gershon Shaked calls a pseudoquotation, that is, a passage presented as a citation from classical sources but which is in fact made up by Agnon. This allegorical midrash about the relations between God and Israel evokes the midrash on the Song of Songs (Shir Hashirim Rabbah) but is not found there.

39/ “Behold thou art fair…” Song of Songs 1:15; “Strike me, wound me…” Song of Songs 5:7; “If ye find my beloved…” Song of Songs 5:8.

42/ Ben Uri In the Book of Exodus, Bezalel Ben Uri is the master craftsman called by God to build the tabernacle and fashion its implements.

44/ Her breasts — the Tables of the Covenant In the rabbinic interpretation of the Song of Songs, the female beloved represents the people Israel and the parts of her body different aspects of the Torah. The Tables of the Covenant are the tablets of the Ten Commandments.

Notes

49/ “Lo, thou are sanctified unto me ” The binding formula pronounced by the groom to the bride during the marriage ceremony. “Lo, I cast thee forth ” The formula pronounced by the husband to the wife at the divorce ceremony.

50/ He put the best possible interpretation on his dream…made good his dream A reference to a set of ritual practices suggested by the rabbis for neutralizing the predictive power of bad dreams.

51/ The “world of confusion” According to Jewish mysticism, the realm in which lost souls wander.

The Kerchief

61/ Lashkowitz fair A large annual trade fair in Galicia where merchants went to buy merchandise for the year.

62/ “She is become like a widow ” The figurative description of Jerusalem destroyed in Lamentations 1:1. In his gloss on this verse, Rashi, the great medieval commentator, softens the image by making the woman’s loss temporary; she is not a widow but only like a widow.

63/ Only yesterday he was binding his wounds In talmudic legend (Sanhedrin 98a), the Messiah is described as disguised among the beggars at the gates of Rome (the seat of impurity) awaiting God’s call to redeem the world.

63/ “Every man under his…fig tree ” Micah 4:4.

63/ Fringed garment A ritual undergarment with knotted fringes on each of its four corners.

66/ The dust of Abraham our father, which turned into swords Sanhedrin 108b.

67/ “Peace be unto you, angels of peace” According to legend, good angels and bad angels accompany the Jew home from the synagogue on Friday evening; if Sabbath preparations have been adequately performed, the good angels are vindicated, and vice versa.

68/ “A woman of valor who shall find?” Proverbs 21, which is read at the Sabbath table before the sanctification of the wine.

68/ “He maketh the winds His messengers” Psalm 104:4.

68/ A black satin robe and a round shtreimel of sable This was the special garb of pious householders in Eastern Europe for the Sabbath. The shtreimel is a hat with fur trim.

69/ “The Lord is my shepherd…” Psalm 23; “The earth is the Lord’s…” Psalm 24, both recited at the beginning of the noontime Saturday meal.

69/ Like that child in the Talmud Shabbat 119a.

72/ When I reached the house I walked around it on all four sides An allusion to the pious custom of walking around the walls of Jerusalem, based on the fact that the house as a domestic dwelling and the Temple in Jerusalem are represented by the same Hebrew word bayit.

Two Pairs

76/ Dead…raised by the prophet Ezekiel The rabbinic comment on Ezekiel 37 is found in Sanhedrin 92b.

76/ King Saul’s daughter Michal Eruvin 96a; Yerushalmi Berakhot 1 (p. 4c); Mekhilta Bo 17.

77/ Tana Devei Eliyahu A midrashic work of uncertain date.

Notes

79/ Maimonides…Book of Love The second of the fourteen divisions in the Mishneh Torah, the great twelfth-century law code written by Moses Maimonides. Its contents cover the laws of blessings and prayers.

80/ Bind them as a sign upon your arm Deuteronomy 11:18.

81/ When all the synagogues…reassembled in the Land of Israel Megillah 29a.

81/ The conflagration In 1924 fire destroyed Agnon’s home in Homburg, Germany, destroying his collection of rare books as well as manuscripts of unpublished writings. This traumatic event echoes within Agnon’s work; see “A Whole Loaf” in this volume.

82/ King/fing The Hebrew letter khaf in malkenu (king) has been changed to peh.

Hill of Sand

97/ Nevei Tsedek At the time of the Second Aliyah, Nevei Tsedek was one of the Jewish quarters of Jaffa. It later became part of Tel Aviv.

97/ It’s a Rembrandt The picture is most likely a reproduction of Rembrandt’s The Bride and Groom (1665).

98/ Poem by Heine Heinrich Heine (1779–1856), German poet and essayist, born a Jew, converted to Christianity, but returned to a positive view of Judaism toward the end of his life. The poet Hayim Nahman Bialik translated some of Heine’s work into Hebrew.

100/ “Your words uphold the stumbler” See Job 4:4.

100/ Bialik Hayim Nahman Bialik (1873–1934), a major Hebrew writer of the modern period who became known as the Hebrew national poet; he was born in Russia and lived in Odessa, Berlin, and Tel Aviv.

101/ Sanin The main character in the Russian novel of the same name, written by Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev (1878–1927). The novel, first published in 1907, created a sensation and was considered by many to be pornographic.

102/ Forel Auguste-Henri Forel (1848–1931), Swiss psychiatrist, known for his investigations of brain structure.

104/ Ninth Zionist Congress Held in Hamburg, December 26–30, 1909. The decision to begin cooperative settlement in the Land of Israel was taken at this congress, the first to be held in Germany.

105/ Mrs. Ilonit Ilonit is a term applied to a woman who is unable to bear children.

106/ Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (1772–1811) A hasidic Tzaddik who became known for mystical teachings that took the form of enigmatic tales. These were collected and recorded by his disciple Nathan ben Naphtali Hertz Sternhartz. Rabbi Nahman’s tales constitute a major influence on modern writers, including Agnon.

111/ Dr. Pikchin His name is fashioned from the adjective pikhi, meaning someone who keeps his eyes open.

116/ Jacobsen’s Niels Lyhne Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847–1885), Danish botanist and writer. Niels Lyhne (1880) is a novella about a young man who wants to be a poet. Full of longing for a full life, he remains a dreamer who fails to grasp the reality around him. Niels Lyhne was translated into Hebrew by P. Ginsburg in 1921.

118/ “A land wherein you will eat bread without scarcity” Deuteronomy 8:9.

Notes

122/ The complete Brockhaus The lexicon, a model for later encyclopedias, that was developed in the course of the nineteenth century through the efforts of the German publisher Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus (1772–1823). By 1890, the lexicon, known as Der Grosse Brockhaus, had gone through many editions and was available in a Russian translation.

124/ Yaakov Malkov’s inn This is a reference to an actual person who owned a hotel in Jaffa in the early years of this century. Malkov appears as well in Agnon’s novel Temol Shilshom (Only Yesterday).

126/ The founding of Tel Aviv The growth of Jaffa’s Jewish population during the Second Aliyah necessitated expansion beyond the city’s limits and its existing Jewish communities. On April 11, 1909, the Ahuzzat Bayit (Housing Property) Society assigned lots for a new development, intended originally as a suburb of Jaffa. On May 21, 1910, the suburb was named Tel Aviv.

Knots Upon Knots

131/ Joseph Eibeschütz Agnon gives to this figure one of his own given names and the family name of the famous rabbi Jonathan Eibeschütz (1690/95–1764), a kabbalist and talmudist. Eibeschütz was suspected of leanings toward Sabbateanism, the cult that developed around the false messiah Sabbatai Zvi. His opponent in a rift that divided Ashkenazic Jewry was Jacob Emden (see note below).

132/ Gates of Mercy Shaarei Hesed, one of the Jewish quarters of Jerusalem (outside the Old City) that existed prior to World War 1.

132/ Heshvan The eighth month of the Jewish calendar (shortened from the original name Marheshvan), falling within the range of October to November. On the seventh of Heshvan, the prayer for rain is inserted into the Amidah portion of the service in the Land of Israel. The rains that fall at the end of the story are thus seasonal, as well as indicative of the narrator’s isolation.

132/ Samuel Emden Here too Agnon gives the character one of his own given names and the family name of a great rabbi, Jacob Emden (1697–1776), an authority on Jewish law, a kabbalist, and an anti-Sabbatean polemicist. In a drawn-out feud Emden argued that Jonathan Eibeschütz had circulated Sabbatean amulets.

A Book That Was Lost

137/ Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim The Shulhan Arukh is a code of laws compiled by Joseph Caro. It was first printed in Venice in 1565 and became accepted over time as the standard code of Jewish law. The section of it known as Orah Hayyim concerns the daily commandments, the Sabbath, and festivals.

137/ Magen Avraham A commentary on the Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim, written by Abraham A. Gombiner (ca. 1637–83).

138/ Rabbi Samuel Kolin…Mahazit Hashekel Samuel Kolin (1720–1806) wrote Mahazit Hashekel as a commentary on the Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim. The section of Kolin’s book on Orah Hayyim is actually a commentary on the Magen Avraham that simplifies its difficult language. The Mahazit Hashekel was widely used as a source for decisions in Jewish law.

139/ Tartars who came to wage war on the town A reference to invasions that occurred between 1655 and 1667.

139/ Hamizpeh “The Watchtower,” a Hebrew weekly newspaper with a religious Zionist orientation, published in Cracow by Simon Menahem Laser. Laser was one of the first to publish Agnon (still known at that time as Czaczkes).

Notes

139/ Ginzei Yosef Library and the Jewish National and University Library The Ginzei Yosef Library is the collection established by Dr. Joseph Chasanowitsch (see note below) that formed the basis for the Jewish National and University Library at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

140/ Those little books that God does not deign to look upon Books that belong to secular culture rather than Jewish learning.

143/ Dr. Joseph Chasanowitsch (1844–1919) Russian Zionist who studied medicine in Konigsberg and settled in Bialystok. He collected ancient and rare books for a national Jewish library in Jerusalem. His collection, Ginzei Yosef, consisted of 63,000 books, of which 20,000 were in Hebrew, and formed the basis of the Jewish National and University Library, first at Mount Scopus and then at the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University.

On One Stone

145/ Rabbi Adam Baal Shem A legendary kabbalist whose miraculous deeds gave rise to many tales during the seventeenth century. The nineteenth-century compiler of the Shivehi Habesht, the collection of stories about the founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, took these stories of Rabbi Adam Baal Shem and transformed them to show him as an esoteric kabbalist who was close in time and place to the Baal Shem Tov.

147/ The permitted domain According to Jewish law, this is the permitted distance (2,000 cubits) that one may walk beyond an established community on the Sabbath.

The Sense of Smell

149/ “Behold thou art beautiful ” Song of Songs 1:15.

149/ “Let me hear your voice” Song of Songs 2:14.

149/ “The Lord builds Jerusalem” Psalm 147:2–3.

150/ Balaam the Wicked Chapters 22–25 of Numbers describe how Balak, the king of Moab, commissioned the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites, who were about to travel through his territory. Balaam praised them instead; a section of his poetic prophecy (“How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob!” [Numbers 24:5])is included at the beginning of daily morning liturgy.

151/ Edom An epithet for Christendom.

151/ Like one exiled from his father’s palace Based on a midrashic theme.

152/ The book called Perfect Treatise Ketav Tamim, by the thirteenth-century German sage Moses Taku.

153/ Rabbi Jacob of Lissa R. Jacob Lorbeerbaum (ca. 1760–1832), rabbi of Leszno (Lissa) from 1809, commentator on the Shulhan Arukh and author of Derekh Ha-hayyim, a frequently reprinted digest of ritual law often printed with the prayer book.

154/ Javetz Jacob Emden (1697–1776), rabbi of Hamburg and well-known author in many fields of Jewish learning. Javetz was his pen name. (See “Knots upon Knots” in this volume.)

155/ Psalm for the Chief Musician upon Lilies Psalm 45.

From Lodging to Lodging

161/ “A man should never change his quarters” Arakhin 10b.

164/ Followers of Korah Numbers 16.

Notes

The Tale of the Scribe

178/ Fashioning crowns for his Creator In addition to the figurative sense, the reference is also to ornamental calligraphic crowns that the scribe places at the top of certain Hebrew letters.

179/ Path of Life The Orah Hayyim, one of the four orders of the Shulhan Arukh, the great sixteenth-century code of Jewish law.

179/ Book of Splendor The Zohar, the classic text of Jewish mysticism, written in the thirteenth century in Spain by Moses de Leon.

181/ Reb Gadiel, the infant A tiny scholar, a creation of Agnon’s who also appears in another story; the character is based on medieval Jewish mystical legend.

181/ “The earth is the Lord’s ” Psalm 24:1.

181/ “I have set the Lord always before me” Psalm 16:8.

182/ A bundle of twigs On Hoshana Rabbah, which is the last day of Sukkot and the eve of Shemini Atzeret, seven circuits are made in the synagogue and willow branches are beaten against the reader’s lectern.

182/ The Seer of Lublin Jacob Isaac Ha-Hozeh Mi-Lublin (1748–1815), a founder of the hasidic movement in Poland and Galicia.

183/ The Torah portion Ki tavo Chapters 26–29:8 of the Book of Deuteronomy, read in the synagogue as part of the yearly cycle around the month of September.

184/ When Miriam visits the bathhouse Immersion in a ritual bath (mikvah) is required after a woman’s menstrual flow so that she may resume relations with her husband.

188/ “And Aaron did so” Numbers 8:3.

189/ “And now ye shall write down” Deuteronomy 31:24.

191/ The seventh round of the procession On the eve of Simhat Torah, the Torah scrolls are carried around the pulpit seven times.

191/ Rabbi Akiba of whom it is told Berakhot 31a.

That Tzaddik’s Etrog

195/ Reb Mikheleh the Holy Preacher of Zloczow The founder of Hasidism in eastern Galicia and a contemporary of the Baal Shem Tov.

196/ A beautiful etrog and…kosher In addition to the numerous laws about the ritual fitness of the citron, there is great store set on its physical beauty.

Fable of the Goat

200/ “Until the day breathe and the shadows flee away” Song of Songs 2:17.

200/ Men like angels, wrapped in white shawls The kabbalists in sixteenth-century Safed, who created the Kabbalat Shabbat service, would welcome the Sabbath by going out into the fields dressed in white.

201/ Not be able to return Travel is forbidden after sunset on Friday.

201/ “An evil beast has devoured him.”…“I will go down to the grave in mourning for my son” The words of Jacob in Genesis 37:33–35 when informed of Joseph’s fate.

Notes

Paths of Righteousness,

or the Vinegar Maker

204/ Mondays and Thursdays he would fast These are the two weekdays on which part of the weekly portion is read from the Torah in synagogue; it is the custom of the especially pious to fast on these days.

204/ That man The euphemistic locution used in rabbinic literature to refer to Jesus of Nazareth.

206/ An unworthy son born of a worthy father Translation of hometz ben yayin, literally, vinegar made from wine.

206/ Like the early mystics In late antiquity, mystics would induce trances by putting their heads between their legs while meditating on the mysteries of the divine chariot.

208/ Kolel A communal organization in Jerusalem that distributed charitable funds collected in the Diaspora.

208/ Not to hold over the dead It is the custom in Jerusalem to bury the dead on the day of death rather than the next day.

The Lady and the Peddler

213/ She broiled the meat in butter Mixing meat and milk is forbidden according to Jewish dietary laws.

Tears

223/ Baal Shem Israel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism (ca. 1700–1760).

Buczacz

235/ Sound of a dog The previous paragraph specified “horses”; the inconsistency is Agnon’s.

237/ Without the reading of the Torah and without communal prayer Reading the Torah from a scroll requires a quorum of ten, as does the recitation of certain prayers.

238/ Barekhu and Kedushah These two prayers must be omitted when praying in private.

238–239/ Disaster had overtaken the people of God In 1096, these three communities in the Rhine Valley were the scene of massacres against Jews by bands of Crusader zealots. See the story “On the Road” in this volume.

239/ Chmielnicki’s thugs In 1648 hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed in the Ukraine in an insurrection against Polish landowners led by Cossack bands under Bogdan Chmielnicki.

The Tale of the Menorah

241/ The Tale of the Menorah In the Hebrew title, “Ma’aseh Hamenorah,” ma’aseh denotes a historical occurrence, not a fictional story; menorah refers not to the Hanukkah lamp but to the candelabrum that originally stood before the tabernacle in the Temple courtyard.

242/ “Blessed be the Lord who has shared His wonderful counsel ” Isaiah 28:29.

242/ Words that Jacob our forefather spoke to Esau Genesis 32:11.

242/ Chmielnicki See note to “Buczacz,” above.

Notes

245/ The Twentieth of Sivan The date commemorating the Chmielnicki massacres.

247/ Blood libel The false allegation that Jews murder non-Jews, especially Christians, in order to use their blood for Passover and other rituals. From the early Middle Ages through modern times, accusations of blood libels led to trials and massacres of Jews.

248/ Related in my tale “My Sabbath.” The story is found in Eilu Ve’eilu pp. 341–42. In the story, Yisrael is imprisoned for counterfeiting seven copper pennies so that he can buy food for the Sabbath and not desecrate the holy day; during the time of his imprisonment, a mysterious stranger, who is later revealed to be the spirit of the Sabbath (and whose name is Shabbati, “My Sabbath”), surreptitiously brings his wife seven copper pennies every Friday for her to buy food for herself.

254/ “O Lord! Have pity on Your people” Joel 2:17.

254/ “How long shall they direct us” Proverb 21:1.

Pisces

256/ Eglon, the king of Moab Judges 3:17: “Eglon was a very fat man.”

257/ Leviathan and Wild Ox The term leviathan occurs in the Bible and Talmud and refers to a serpentine sea-creature. According to Jewish folklore, the flesh of the Leviathan and of the Wild Ox, a huge, mythical beast, are a delicacy to be consumed by the righteous in the afterlife.

261/ Delayed by saying prayers for divine mercy A petitionary prayer called Tahanun is omitted in the synagogue service when there is a celebration at hand.

261/ Purim and the Fast of Esther Purim falls on the 14th of Adar (the carnival month whose sign is Pisces); the celebration is preceded by the Fast of Esther, commemorating the fast Esther undertook before going to see the king. Those who prepare the delicacies for the celebration often have to do so while fasting.

261/ Sabbath during the nine days of mourning Although meat is not eaten during the nine days preceding the summer fast of the Ninth of Av, it is permitted on the Sabbath that falls during that period.

262/ A rooster…slaughtered for Yom Kippur In place of the penitential sacrifices once offered in the Jerusalem Temple, it was customary on the eve of Yom Kippur to wave a rooster over the head, which would later be slaughtered, and to declare that one’s sins were transferred to the animal.

263/ The place is too narrow for me Isaiah 49:20.

263–4/ Kedushah and Barekhu Parts of the service that cannot be said without a quorum of ten.

266/ Karpl Shleyen…Fishl Fisher…Fishl Hecht…Fishl Fishman These are names for fish in Yiddish.

267/ “And he prayed ” Jonah 2:2.

267/ “And Thou didst cast me into the deep” Jonah 2:4.

268/ “Who teaches us by the beasts of the earth” Job 35:11.

270/ 5423 or 5424 Corresponds to the years 1663 or 1664.

274/ Ascent That Is Descent Refers to the hasidic concept of the Tzaddik’s descent into impurity in order to raise himself up to a higher spiritual level.

277/ Someone who puts on two pair of tefillin There are two kinds of tefillin, resulting from a difference of opinion between two medieval sages; some pious Jews wear two pair of tefillin at the same time in order to practice both approaches.

Notes

277/ Hok Leyisrael, Hovot Halevavot, Reshit Hokhmah Popular moralistic manuals and commentaries.

278/ “I have deprived my soul of good ” Ecclesiastes 4:8.

279/ “And even the fish of the sea” Hoshea 4:3.

280/ “For the earth was full of knowledge” Isaiah 11:9.

283/ Just as Yitzhak Kummer drew on Balak’s skin A reference to characters in Agnon’s novel Temol Shilshom about the early years of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

290/ “As the birds fly” Isaiah 31:5.

296/ The Twelve Tribes are compared to animals The quotations are taken from Jacob’s blessing of his sons in Genesis 49.

297/ “And they drew water” 1 Samuel 7:6; the reference is to Pseudo-Jonathan, an Aramaic translation of the Bible with many midrashic additions.

297/ “Let them curse it” Job 3:7.

298/ “And they shall abound ” See Genesis 48:16. Agnon draws out a pun by finding the Hebrew word for fish — dag — in the verb vayidgu (“to abound”).

On the Road

338/ The day of the great slaughter…the blood of the martyrs who slaughtered themselves At the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth centuries, Jews in the Rhineland communities of Worms, Speyer, and Mainz were attacked by zealots assembling for the Crusades. Many Jews killed themselves and their families rather than convert to Christianity or be killed by the Crusaders.

339/ “The dead praise not the Lord ” Psalm 115:17.

339/ Until after the Day The Day is rabbinic parlance for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; see the story “At the Outset of the Day” in this volume.

341/ The descendants of the priestly family Descendants of the Levite tribe, the family of Aaron, constitute the priestly class in Israel and are forbidden to have any contact with the dead.

341/ Song of Songs 8:13; “Flee my beloved ” Song of Songs 8:14.

343/ Casting away sins A custom ordinarily performed on the first day of the New Year in which sins are symbolically cast into water.

343/ “O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock” Song of Songs 2:14.

343/ “Every firstborn” Deuteronomy 15:19.

344/ “Ye are sons to the Lord” Deuteronomy 14:1.

344/ “Many daughters” Proverb 31:29.

344/ Seventh of Adar The traditional date of Moses’ death, which was observed in some communities as a fast followed by a feast for the members of the Hevra Kadisha, the burial society.

Notes

344/ “And Moses went up…” Deuteronomy 34.

Between Two Towns

348/ Der Israelit The leading Orthodox weekly in Germany, widely read in western Europe.

348/ Das Familienblatt Das Israelitisches Familienblatt, a Jewish newspaper published in Hamburg.

353/ Two thousand cubits…the distance one is permitted to walk on the Sabbath According to Jewish law, this is the distance one is permitted to walk beyond an established community on the Sabbath.

To the Doctor

370/ Mr. Andermann This character’s name is German for the “other one,” suggestive of the Sitra Ahra, the evil side of human nature.

371/ “And because of our sins” This line opens the collective confession that all members of the community recite together on the Day of Atonement.

A Whole Loaf

373/ I had nothing to eat on the Sabbath See Shabbat 117b: “He who observes [the practice of] three meals on the Sabbath is saved from three evils: the travails of the Messiah, the retribution of Gehinnom, and the wars of Gog and Magog.” (See also Avodah Zarah 3a.)

373/ The floor was as hot as glowing fire, the roof fevered like piercing fire The rather stylized form of this paragraph, including the repetition of “fire,” suggests the form of a medieval piyyut.

374/ The Mahaneh Yehudah Quarter…Street of the Prophets The narrator traces a map of Jerusalem’s neighborhoods in this passage.

375/ The Lord (….) In an earlier edition of the story, the ellipsis consisted of three dots. The change to four prompts the association of this unseen Lord with the tetragrammaton, the four-letter unpronounceable name of God.

376/ The mourning of Moses According to traditional belief, the 7th of Adar is considered the yahrzeit or anniversary of the death of Moses.

379/ Mr. Gressler The name suggests a German or Yiddish term for crassness or crudeness.

379/ My house was burned down Agnon lost his home in Homburg, Germany, in 1924 to a fire that destroyed all his possessions (see the reference to this fire in “Two Pairs”).

379/ Mr. Gressler sat playing cards with my neighbor Avraham Holtz points out that this recalls the talmudic warning “The house in which the words of Torah are not heard at night shall be consumed by fire” (Sanhedrin 92a).

382/ Dusting himself with the dust of the horses’ feet This phrase suggests an ironic reversal of the talmudic injunction to dust yourself with the dust of the feet of the sages, i.e., to sit at their feet and absorb their wisdom (from Pirke Avot, Ethics of the Fathers).

383/ But I want a whole loaf At the Sabbath table, the blessing of the bread can only be recited over a loaf that is whole, rather than cut into slices. Critics have attempted to connect the “whole loaf” here to a variety of talmudic injunctions concerning Sabbath requirements.

385/ The post office doors were already closed The three-letter verb for “closed,” n-’a-l, also forms the root for the noun Neilah, the title of the closing prayer on the Day of Atonement that signals the closing of the gates of heaven.

Notes

At the Outset of the Day

389/ My little daughter The standard epithet for the soul in medieval Jewish philosophical writing.

389/ The Great Synagogue In the town of Buczacz where Agnon was born and spent his boyhood.

390/ The memorial candle Memorial candles are lit on the eve of the Day of Atonement in memory of those who have died. In eastern Europe, because of the fear of fire at home, it was the custom to bring the candles to the synagogue and leave them in the lobby.

391/ The storeroom…where torn sacred books are hidden away The geniza, a room usually attached to a synagogue, where books and ritual objects containing the name of God would be preserved.

391/ When books were read, they were rent The translation here reproduces the wordplay in the Hebrew (nikra’im, meaning “read,” and nikrai’m, meaning “torn”).

392/ Reb Alter had circumcised me, and a covenant of love bound us together Circumcision is considered the sign of the covenant through which the male child enters the Jewish community. Reb Alter appears elsewhere in Agnon’s writing — in the novel Temol Shilshom (Only Yesterday), for example — as the mohel (ritual circumciser) and the keeper of the pinkas, the communal record of all those he has circumcised.

394/ Ritual gowns This is a reference to the “kittel,” the white garment that is worn by worshippers in the Ashkenazi tradition during the prayer service of the High Holidays.

394/ “At times she takes the form of an old woman” The identity of “she” here is not specified. We may read it as a further reference to the soul as a feminine image.

394/ The fool substitutes the form for the need; the wise man substitutes will for need The Hebrew plays on the guttural assonance of the nouns tsurah (form), tsorekh (need), and ratson (will).

396/ Scroll…in memory The narrator here identifies himself as a scribe who has written a scroll in memory of the souls of days that had departed. This may be interpreted as a rather solipsistic reference on Agnon’s part to his own body of work written in memory of the past. (See “The Tale of the Scribe” for an account of the inscription of a Torah scroll in memory of someone who has died.)

396/ My soul fainted within me The verb nit’atfah, translated here as “fainted,” also means “covered itself.” The sentence thus also reads: “My soul covered itself,” with nefesh as the feminine noun

for soul.

The Sign

397/ The disturbances of 1929 In 1929, widespread Arab uprisings against Jewish settlement occurred, during which Agnon’s home in Talpiyot was destroyed.

397/ My wife and I remained alive in Jerusalem…and there built a house and made a garden The phrasing here recalls Isaiah 4:3: “And those who…are left in Jerusalem” and Ecclesiastes 2:5: “I laid out gardens and groves, in which I planted every kind of fruit and tree.”

400/ liturgical poems These are piyyutim, poems intended to embellish prayer and religious ceremony. Certain piyyutim are associated with particular parts of the liturgy and with particular holidays.

Notes

401/ “I shall bear you on the wings of eagles and bring you unto Me” Exodus 19:4.

401/ “There shall be seven full weeks” Lev. 23:15.

401/ “And Moses declared the festivals of the Lord” This formula is part of the festival kiddush (blessing over wine).

402/ “Because of you, the soul liveth” Genesis 12:13.

402/ “Who has given us life” The Sheheheyanu blessing, recited on the first day of the festival.

402/ She “brings her bread from afar” Proverbs 31:14.

403/ They gave off a good aroma The phrase recalls Agnon’s reference to the sukkah that actively gives off its fragrance, a wording that brought Agnon the reprimand of a member of the National Committee on Language. (See “The Sense of Smell” for the literary version of this controversy.)

404/ “The heavens are the heavens of God, but the earth hath He given to the children of men” Psalm 115:16.

405/ The moment when the sky splits open According to Jewish mysticism, the heavens open up at midnight on the eve of Shavuot.

407/ Rabbi Solomon Ibn Gabirol (ca. 1020–ca. 1057) Spanish poet and philosopher, generally acknowledged as the greatest of the medieval Spanish religious poets. With great virtuosity, he drew on a knowledge of biblical Hebrew and Arabic poetry.

407/ The book of hymns…on the six hundred and thirteen commandments A reference to the category of liturgical poems for Shavuot, known as Azharot, in which the 613 commandments are enumerated. Ibn Gabirol composed a book of Azharot. (The numerical value of the letters of the word azharot is 613.)

408/ “At the dawn I seek Thee, my rock and tower”; “Before Thy greatness I stand and am confounded” From the liturgical poem recited at the beginning of the Shaharit (morning) service in the German Ashkenazic rite.

408/ “O poor captive in a foreign land” From the opening line of “A Song of Redemption” by Ibn Gabirol, a Sabbath morning hymn, recited between Passover and Sukkot.

411/ The Dead Sea on one side and the Temple Mount on the other This was the view from Agnon’s house in Talpiyot.

412/ A kind of heralding voice The Balfour Declaration, November 2, 1917, announcing British support for a Jewish national homeland.

413/ The neighborhood was finally built The suburb of Talpiyot was first established in 1922.

413/ The horrors that began in 1936 and lasted until World War ii began Arab strikes intended to pressure the British government to stop Jewish emigration and eruptions of violence against Jews occurred frequently during these years.

415/ The tremors of 1927 An earthquake in 1927 caused damage in Jerusalem, particularly to the Augusta Victoria Hospital and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

416/ “We cannot go up and be seen there because of the hand which has cast itself into our Temple” Recited in the Additional Service for festivals.

420/ Conversations of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (1772–1811) The hasidic Tzaddik who became known for mystical teachings that took the form of enigmatic tales. His teachings and his tales were collected and recorded by his disciple Nathan ben Naphtali Hertz Sternhartz.

Notes

422/ For it was the eve of the New Moon, and he was rolling the scroll to the reading for that day A reference to the additional readings in the Torah for the New Moon.

423/ “Small Yom Kippur ” An observance begun by the kabbalists of Safed in the late sixteenth century. The eves of eight new months are observed by the very pious as a day of fast and repentance.

423/ The first destruction World War i.

424/ “May God give strength to His people; may God bless His people with peace” Psalm 29:11.

425/ Trees of life The wooden dowels around which the Torah scrolls are wound.

425/ The Order of Shavuot night The tikkun leyl Shavuot, the vigil held on the eve of Shavuot at which selections from classical Jewish texts are studied.

Notes on Additional Stories

To Father’s House

Unable to do his work, the narrator decides to go to his home town, to his father’s house, i.e., to renew contact with his childhood. There are distracting elements in the way: the narrator’s hesitance to interrupt his father’s celebration of the feast; a twice-beheld enigmatic candle suspended in the air; meeting the eighteenth-century enlightener Isaac Euchel; the inn that tries to replace the home. Finally, a child — innocence — points the way.

The Document

Here the helpless individual, conscious of himself and his memories, aware of his surroundings, and there a mindless bureaucratic machine, moving automatically, blindly disregarding the petitioner. And between the two: hordes of people, pushing, squeezing, shoving; seemingly composed of individuals, they are in effect part of the machine.

Notes on Additional Stories

Friendship

The narrator leaves his home in order not to be bothered by clinging neighbors; but having left it, he cannot find his way back and has even forgotten the address. Who will help? Not Mrs. Klingel (Jingle), whose jokes are insulting; not Dr. Rischel, whose linguistic discourse the narrator seems to interrupt; the narrator’s wife, who had come “home” when the story started, has walked off. The unfriendly, uncommunicative situation (of which the narrator is a part!) is suddenly changed when a former friend appears after an absence of many years. His kind though half-hearted readiness to help leads the narrator to find his home (he was standing right beside it) — and himself.

Metamorphosis

Divorce ended the meaningless marriage between Toni and Hartmann — and initiated a new phase of communication, concern, awareness of the other person, and tenderness. Will the couple be reunited? The story does not reveal this, only that Hartmann’s “spirit began to hover in the world of dreams, where no partition separated them.”

The Face and the Image

The Hebrew title of the story is taken from Proverbs 27: 19, which the standard translations render as, “As in the water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.” The narrator is quietly planning a study on mirrors (in which face is “answered” by face). This plan is strangely counteracted (or challenged?) by a call to visit his sick mother. A series of absurd interferences prevents this homecoming. The story ends with the narrator’s surprised look into a mirror that reflected his face “without partiality.”

The Orchestra

The narrator, a writer, tries to prepare himself for the awesome New Year’s Day. The attempt fails. In A.J. Band’s view, the two figures Charni (Black) and Ora (Light) represent traditional faith and artistic involvement, respectively, while the orchestra is “nothing but a projection of [the writer’s] guilt-stricken imagination, his remorse at having allowed his artistic preoccupations to distract him from repentance” (Nostalgia and Nightmare, pp. 338f.).

Fernheim

The name signifies “distant home” or “home is distant.” Such is the experience of the hero, a soldier and prisoner of war, who, returning “home,” finds his wife and family estranged. His quest for human contact fails. Home is not merely distant; it is non-existent.

The Night

The time: the period shortly after World War ii. The place: Jerusalem, to which many refugees from the death camps of Europe flocked. The central episode: the arrival of Moshele, the narrator’s relative, believed to have perished in Auschwitz. In awe of some nobility that have taken up quarters at the hotel where the narrator rented a room (he has no home), he refuses hospitality to Moshele. Soon, however, remorse sets in, and the narrator sets out to find his relative, to involve himself in his fate rather than relishing childhood memories (the bookseller Halbfried), the luxury of going to a concert, and the enticing graciousness of a young governess.

Notes on Additional Stories

First Kiss

The Sabbath transforms secular, natural time into sacred time; on that day time reaches fulfillment, presaging life eternal. (Note the references to “time” in the first part of the story.) Here, the Jew is in his very own sphere; an intrusion from the outside cannot but create a disturbance in the innermost sense. But the outside world does intrude, consciously; the three monks (note the number) are no innocent visitors; they suggest there should be three Sabbath candles, only to be informed that the two candles are “actually one.” The three monks are followed by two novices, one of whom confesses to be a woman (conversion — perversion). In fact, she is “the daughter of old age” of a hasidic master whose mighty New Year’s prayer for the unity of mankind in the service of the one God led his listeners to imagine this union to be a reality. The narrator, representing this tradition of Israel, and the “novice,” representing the return of the wayward, become one in a holy kiss. The transforming power of the Sabbath is restored.