A Book that Was Lost

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Agnon wrote a series of extraordinary autobiographical childhood stories. In addition to the two stories contained in this section, examples include “The Story of My Prayer Book,” “My Grandfather’s Talmud,” and “My Bird.” These are not children’s stories, but rather stories about childhood written for adults. The strength of these fictions derives precisely from this double axis. On the one hand, the stories are told through the child’s perception of the world, with all its disarming simplicity and disposition to wonder and delight. On the other, the symbols and allusions invoked in the stories point in the direction of weightier matters of the sort that trouble adult minds.

These are tales of initiation, and the two included here, “The Kerchief” and “Two Pairs,” deal with the moment that epitomizes the passage from childhood to adulthood in the Jewish life cycle: the bar mitzvah. Yet readers will find in Agnon’s stories little that reminds us of the lavish celebrations common to America. In the pious society of Eastern Europe, the bar mitzvah was less an occasion for festivity than a solemn marking of the boy’s arrival at the adult responsibilities and prerogatives entailed in full observance of the commandments.

Agnon does something special in his fiction with the bar mitzvah that is a sign of his modernity. While the spiritual seriousness of the moment is taken for granted, the emphasis is shifted from the initiation into ritual obligation to the psychological and existential experience of leaving childhood behind and encountering the unredeemed reality of the world.

Tales of Childhood

“The Kerchief” is Agnon’s bar-mitzvah story par excellence. It was originally written on the occasion of the thirteenth birthday of Gershom Schocken, the son of Agnon’s patron Salman Schocken. The story contains thirteen sections, and the first presentation edition was printed in thirteen copies with thirteen lines to the page.

“The Kerchief” indeed celebrates the successful transition from childhood to adulthood, yet at the same time the story makes it clear that the safe negotiation of the passage can by no means be taken for granted. The story operates along two thematic tracks that come together in the climactic scene. One track reflects the idealization of the Jewish family as symbolized by the gifts brought back by the father from the trade fair. The kerchief given to the mother, which she wears only on Sabbaths and holidays, represents the sanctity of the family felt in a heightened way on these special days. It is this structure of wholeness and integrity anchored in the tradition that gives the narrator a sense of being that cannot be effaced in later life.

The other track is linked to loss and the unredeemed state of the world. The time the father is away at the fair is likened to the days of semi-mourning preceding the Ninth of Av, the fast day that commemorates the destruction of the Jerusalem Temples (and which also happens to be the date Agnon took as his birthday). The Messiah, who will restore this loss, is the subject of the boy’s nighttime fantasies as he lies in his father’s bed during his absence. In the boy’s imagination, the messianic era is grasped as a time when his father will no longer travel away from home and children like him will be freed from school to play in the Temple courtyards. The Messiah himself is imagined, according to talmudic legend, as disguised among the company of repulsive beggars. Though they be reviled and abused by most, the narrator imagines himself honoring and revering the beggars, “since among them were those who had dwelt together with the Messiah.”

When the narrator encounters a real beggar on the day of his bar mitzvah, there is nothing redemptive about the sad and disgusting creature who stands before him. The man has been spurned by the townsfolk in violation of the high Jewish precepts of charity and hospitality. It is a marker of the boy’s innocence that — until this point — he cannot recognize this hypocrisy; he resists admitting the existence of a reality that does not comport with his conviction of the holiness of the community in which he lives. Yet alone, face to face with the beggar, the boy meets the challenge presented to him: he loosens the precious silk kerchief that his mother had tied around his neck that day and hands it to the beggar, who winds it around his running sores.

The handing over of the kerchief does not mean the narrator rejects the family sanctity it symbolizes. The loving gaze of the mother upon his return home bare-necked only redoubles the sense that he has acted upon rather than betrayed the values of his family. What the boy has managed to do on this day of his coming of age is to acknowledge the existence of suffering and evil in the world and to accept some responsibility toward it. His gesture brings with it no dramatic transformation, but the act is real in a way entirely at odds with his childlike reveries of messianic deliverance.

The themes of family and unredemption are fused in the Hebrew text by the word bayit. Bayit means “home,” “house,” as well as the family that dwells in it; bayit also refers to the Jerusalem Temples, which served, while they stood, as the earthly seat of God’s dwelling among the people of Israel. With the loss of the national home for the spirit, the family becomes the custodian of the spirit and the workshop within which individuals are prepared for engaging in the unfinished work of redemption.

The acceptance of loss achieved by the narrator of “The Kerchief” on the day of his bar mitzvah is not attained by the narrator of the next story, “Two Pairs,” until much later in life. Both are bar mitzvah stories, and both feature an autobiographical narrator, but in “Two Pairs” it is the weight of retrospective wisdom that is most acutely felt. The adult narrator recalls the pair of tefillin written by a famous scribe that was given to him on his bar mitzvah and which was destroyed much later in the fire that consumed the narrator’s home. He reconciles himself to the newly written pair he has to purchase as he tells the story of the beloved first pair and its meaning to him.

Tales of Childhood

Tefillin, or phylacteries, are a pair of small black boxes with leather straps; one box is wound around the arm and the other placed on the forehead. They contain pieces of parchment on which verses from the Bible are written in calligraphy by a scribe. The origin of this practice lies in the interpretation of Deuteronomy 11, which is quoted in the story: “Bind them [the words of the Torah] as a sign on your arm and let them be a band between your eyes.” In its original meaning, the verse was probably a figurative exhortation to be ever mindful of the words of the Torah. The rabbis gave a hyper-literal interpretation to the verse and took the signs to be bound on the arm and head as actual inscriptions to be contained in boxes and held in place with black straps. (Tefillin also play a crucial role in the story “Pisces” in this volume.) Tefillin and the tallit — the fringed prayer shawl — are worn in prayer only by adult males, and together they represent the most visible signs of the commandments acceded to by a boy at the time of his bar mitzvah.

In “Two Pairs,” the tefillin as a symbol function on two very different dimensions. On one level, they serve as a naive religious fetish. The narrator is deeply attached to his tefillin and proud to own them; he loves to touch them and feels comforted by wearing them in times of trouble. On a deeper level, however, the tefillin are associated with the rabbi Elimelech, the scribe who had written them in an earlier age of spiritual plenitude. Like the kerchief, Elimelech’s tefillin are associated with the wholeness of the family because of the scribe’s power. Like the kerchief, which is never soiled, so the script inside the tefillin remains unfaded after many decades of use.

If the Hebrew word bayit gives unity to “The Kerchief,” so the word sofer, which means at once a ritual scribe and a writer of modern literature, suggests the importance of the figure of Elimelech. As can be seen from a number of stories in this volume, especially “The Tale of the Scribe,” Agnon was preoccupied with scribes and their work, and even compiled an anthology of information and legends about them. His identification with scribes is unmistakable, as is his desire to see his literary enterprise as a continuation of theirs. So when the special tefillin written by Elimelech are lost in the fire, the calamity is painful but not devastating, because the spirit of sacred inscription lives in the figure of the writer who is telling the story of his growing up.

The Kerchief

1

Every year my father, of blessed memory, used to visit the Lashkowitz fair to do business with the merchants. Lashkowitz is a small town of no more consequence than any of the other small towns in the district, except that once a year merchants gather together there from everywhere and offer their wares for sale in the town’s marketplace; and whoever needs goods comes and buys them. In earlier times, two or three generations ago, more than a hundred thousand people used to gather together there; and even now, when Lashkowitz is in its decline, they come to it from all over the country. You will not find a single merchant in the whole of Galicia who does not keep a stall in Lashkowitz during the fair.

2

For us the week in which my father went to the market was just like the week of the Ninth of Av. During those days there was not a smile to be seen on Mother’s lips, and the children also refrained from laughing. Mother, peace be with her, used to cook light meals with milk and vegetables and all sorts of things that children do not dislike. If we caused her trouble she would quiet us, and did not rebuke us even for things that deserved a beating. I often used to find her sitting at the window with moist eyelids. And why should my mother sit at the window; did she wish to watch the passersby? Why, she, peace be with her, never concerned herself with other people’s affairs, and would only half hear the stories her neighbors might tell her; but it was her custom, ever since the first year in which my father went to Lashkowitz, to stand at the window and look out.

When my father, of blessed memory, went to the fair at Lashkowitz for the first time, my mother was once standing at the window when she suddenly cried out, “Oh, they’re strangling him!” Folk asked her, “What are you saying?” She answered, “I see a robber taking him by the throat”; and before she had finished her words she had fainted. They sent to the fair and found my father injured, for at the very time that my mother had fainted, somebody had attacked my father for his money and had taken him by the throat; and he had been saved by a miracle. In later years, when I found in the Book of Lamentations the words “She is become like a widow,” and I read Rashi’s explanation, “Like a woman whose husband has gone to a distant land and who intends to return to her,” it brought to mind my mother, peace be with her, as she used to sit at the window with her tears upon her cheeks.

3

All the time that Father was in Lashkowitz I used to sleep in his bed. As soon as I had said the night prayer I used to undress and stretch my limbs in his long bed, cover myself up to my ears and keep them pricked up and ready so that in case I heard the trumpet of the Messiah I might rise at once. It was a particular pleasure for me to meditate on Messiah the King. Sometimes I used to laugh to myself when I thought of the consternation that would come about in the whole world when our just Messiah would reveal himself. Only yesterday he was binding his wounds and his bruises, and today he’s a king! Yesterday he sat among the beggars and they did not recognize him, but sometimes even abused him and treated him with disrespect; and now suddenly the Holy One, blessed be He, has remembered the oath He swore to redeem Israel, and given him permission to reveal himself to the world. Another in my place might have been angered at the beggars who treated Messiah the King with disrespect; but I honored and revered them, since Messiah the King had desired to dwell in their quarters. In my place another might have treated the beggars without respect, as they eat black bread even on the Sabbaths and wear dirty clothes. But I honored and revered them, since among them were those who had dwelt together with the Messiah.

4

Those were fine nights in which I used to lie on my bed and think of Messiah the King, who would reveal himself suddenly in the world. He would lead us to the Land of Israel where we would dwell, every man under his own vine and his own fig tree. Father would not go to fairs, and I would not go to school but would walk about all day long in the courts of the House of our God. And while lying and meditating thus, my eyes would close of their own accord; and before they closed entirely I would take my fringed garment and count the knots I had made in the fringes, indicating the number of days my father stayed in Lashkowitz. Then all sorts of lights, green, white, black, red, and blue, used to come toward me, like the lights seen by wayfarers in fields and woods and valleys and streams, and all kinds of precious things would be gleaming and glittering in them; and my heart danced for joy at all the good stored away for us in the days to come, when our just Messiah would reveal himself, may it be speedily and in our days, Amen.

While I rejoiced so, a great bird would come and peck at the light. Once I took my fringed garment and tied myself to his wings and said, “Bird, bird, take me to Father.” The bird spread its wings and flew with me to a city called Rome. I looked down and saw a group of poor men sitting at the gates of the city, and one beggar among them binding his wounds. I turned my eyes away from him in order not to see his sufferings. When I turned my eyes away, there grew a great mountain with all kinds of thorns and thistles upon it and evil beasts grazing there, and impure birds and ugly creeping things crawling about it, and a great wind blew all of a sudden and flung me onto the mountain, and the mountain began quaking under me and my limbs felt as though they would fall asunder; but I feared to cry out lest the creeping things should enter my mouth and the impure birds should peck at my tongue. Then Father came and wrapped me in his tallit and brought me back to my bed. I opened my eyes to gaze at his face and found that it was day. At once I knew that the Holy One, blessed be He, had rolled away another night of the nights of the fair. I took my fringes and made a fresh knot.

5

Whenever father returned from the fair he brought us many gifts. He was very clever, knowing what each of us would want most and bringing it to us. Or maybe the Master of Dreams used to tell Father what he showed us in dream, and he would bring it for us.

There were not many gifts that survived long. As is the way of the valuables of this world, they were not lasting. Yesterday we were playing with them, and today they were already thrown away. Even my fine prayer book was torn, for whatever I might have had to do, I used to open it and ask its counsel; and finally nothing was left of it but a few dog-eared scraps.

But one present that Father brought Mother remained whole for many years. And even after it was lost it was not lost from my heart, and I still think of it as though it were yet there.

6

That day, when Father returned from the fair, it was Friday, after the noon hour, when the children are freed from school. This fact should not be mentioned to children. Those Friday afternoon hours were the best time of the week, because all the week around a child is bent over his book and his eyes and heart are not his own; as soon as he raises his head he is beaten. On Friday afternoon he is freed from study, and even if he does whatever he wants to, nobody objects. Were it not for the noon meal the world would be like paradise. But Mother had already summoned me to eat, and I had no heart to refuse.

Almost before we had begun eating my little sister put her right hand to her ear and set her ear to the table. “What are you doing?” Mother asked her. “I’m trying to listen,” she answered. Mother asked, “Daughter, what are you trying to listen to?” Then she began clapping her hands with joy and crying, “Father’s coming, Father’s coming.” And in a little while we heard the wheels of a wagon. Very faint at first, then louder and louder. At once we threw our spoons down while they were still half full, left our plates on the table, and ran out to meet Father coming back from the fair. Mother, peace be with her, also let her apron fall and stood erect, her arms folded on her bosom, until Father entered the house.

How big Father was then! I knew my father was bigger than all of the other fathers. All the same I used to think there must be someone taller than he — but now even the chandelier hanging from the ceiling in our house seemed to be lower.

Suddenly Father bent down, caught me to him, kissed me, and asked me what I had learned. Is it likely that Father did not know which portion of the week was being read? But he only asked to try me out. Before I could answer, he had caught my brother and sisters, raised them on high, and kissed them.

I look about me now to try and find something to which to compare my father when he stood together with his tender children on his return from afar, and I can think of many comparisons, each one finer than the next; yet I can find nothing pleasant enough. But I hope that the love haloing my father, of blessed memory, may wrap us around whenever we come to embrace our little children, and that joy which possessed us then will be possessed by our children all their lives.

7

The wagoner entered, carrying two trunks, one large, and the other neither large nor small but medium. Father looked with one eye at us and with the other at the medium trunk; and that second trunk too seemed to have eyes and smile with them.

Father took his bunch of keys from his pocket and said, “We’ll open the trunk and take out my tallit and tefillin.” Father was just speaking for fun, since who needs phylacteries on Friday afternoon, and even if you think of the prayer shawl, my father had a special one for Sabbath, but he only said it in order that we should not be too expectant and not be too anxious for presents.

But we went and undid the straps of the trunk and watched his every movement while he took one of the keys and examined it, smiling affectionately. The key also smiled at us; that is, gleams of light sparkled on the key and it seemed to be smiling.

Finally he pressed the key into the lock, opened the trunk, put his hand inside, and felt among his possessions. Suddenly he looked at us and became silent. Had Father forgotten to place the presents there? Or had he been lodging at an inn where the inn people rose and took out the presents? As happened with the sage by whose hands they sent a gift to the emperor, a chest full of jewels and pearls, and when he lodged one night at the inn, the inn folk opened the chest and took out everything that was in it and filled it with dust. Then I prayed that just as a miracle was done to that sage so that that dust should be the dust of Abraham our father, which turned into swords when it was thrown into the air, so should the Holy One, blessed be He, perform a miracle with us in order that the things with which the innkeepers had filled Father’s trunk should be better than all presents. Before my prayer was at an end Father brought out all kinds of fine things. There was not a single one among his gifts that we had not longed for all the year around. And that is why I said that the Master of Dreams must have revealed to Father what he had shown us in dream.

The gifts of my father deserve to be praised at length, but who is going to praise things that will vanish, and be lost? All the same, one fine gift that my father brought my mother on the day he returned from the fair deserves to be mentioned in particular.

8

It was a silk brocaded kerchief adorned with flowers and blossoms. On the one side it was brown and they were white, while on the other they were brown and it was white. That was the gift Father, of blessed memory, brought to Mother, peace be with her.

Mother opened up the kerchief, stroked it with her fingers, and gazed at Father; he gazed back at her and they were silent. Finally she folded it again, rose, put it in the cupboard, and said to Father, “Wash your hands and have a meal.” As soon as Father sat down to his meal I went out to my friends in the street and showed them the presents I had received, and was busy outside with them until the Sabbath began and I went to pray with Father.

How pleasant that Sabbath eve was when we returned from the house of prayer! The skies were full of stars, the houses full of lamps and candles, people were wearing their Sabbath clothes and walking quietly beside Father in order not to disturb the Sabbath angels who accompany one home from the house of prayer on Sabbath eves: candles were alight in the house and the table prepared and the fine smell of white bread, and a white tablecloth spread and two Sabbath loaves on it, covered by a small cloth out of respect so that they should not feel ashamed when the blessing is said first over the wine.

Father bowed and entered and said, “A peaceful and blessed Sabbath,” and Mother answered, “Peaceful and blessed.” Father looked at the table and began singing, “Peace be unto you, angels of peace,” while Mother sat at the table, her prayer book in hand, and the big chandelier with the ten candles — one for each of the Ten Commandments — hanging from the ceiling, gave light. They were answered back by the rest of the candles, one for Father, one for Mother, one for each of the little ones; and although we were smaller than Father and Mother, all the same our candles were as big as theirs.

Then I looked at Mother and saw that her face had changed and her forehead had grown smaller because of the kerchief wound around her head and covering her hair, while her eyes seemed much larger and were shining toward Father, who went on singing, “A woman of valor who shall find?”; and the ends of her kerchief which hung down below her chin were quivering very gently, because the Sabbath angels were moving their wings and making a wind. It must have been so, for the windows were closed and where could the wind have come from if not from the wings of the angels? As it says in the Psalms, “He maketh the winds His messengers.” I held back my breath in order not to confuse the angels and looked at my mother, peace be with her, who stood at such a lofty rung, and wondered at the Sabbath day, which is given us for an honor and a glory. Suddenly I felt how my cheeks were being patted. I do not know whether the wings of the angels or the corners of the kerchief were caressing me. Happy is he who merits to have good angels hovering over his head, and happy is he whose mother has stroked his head on the Sabbath eve.

9

When I awakened from sleep it was already day. The whole world was full of the Sabbath morning. Father and Mother were about to go out, he to his little prayer room and she to the house of study of my grandfather, peace be with him. Father was wearing a black satin robe and a round shtreimel of sable on his head, and Mother wore a black dress and a hat with feathers. In the house of study of my grandfather, where Mother used to pray, they did not spend too much time singing, and so she could return early. When I came back with Father from the small prayer room she was already seated at the table wearing her kerchief, and the table was prepared with wine and cakes, large and small, round and doubled over. Father entered, said, “A Sabbath of peace and blessing,” put his tallit on the bed, sat down at the head of the table, said, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” blessed the wine, tasted the cake, and began, “A Psalm of David: The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”

When the ark is opened on the eve of the New Year and this psalm is said, the soul’s awakening can be felt in the air. There was a similar stirring in my heart then. Had my mother not taught me that you do not stand on chairs and do not clamber onto the table and do not shout, I would have climbed onto the table and shouted out, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof”; like that child in the Talmud who used to be seated in the middle of a gold table which was a load for sixteen men, with sixteen silver chains attached, and dishes and glasses and bowls and platters fitted, and with all kinds of food and sweetmeats and spices of all that was created in the six days of Creation; and he used to proclaim, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”

Mother cut the cake, giving each his or her portion; and the ends of her kerchief accompanied her hands. While doing so a cherry fell out of the cake and stained her apron; but it did not touch her kerchief, which remained as clean as it had been when Father took it out of his trunk.

10

A woman does not put on a silken kerchief every day or every Sabbath. When a woman stands at the oven, what room is there for ornament? Every day is not Sabbath, but on the other hand there are festivals. The Holy One, blessed be He, took pity on His creatures and gave them times of gladness, holidays and appointed seasons. On festivals Mother used to put on a feather hat and go to the house of prayer, and at home she would don her kerchief. But on the New Year and the Day of Atonement she kept the kerchief on all day long; similarly on the morning of Hoshana Rabbah, the seventh day of Tabernacles. I used to look at Mother on the Day of Atonement, when she wore her kerchief and her eyes were bright with prayer and fasting. She seemed to me like a prayer book bound in silk and presented to a bride.

The rest of the time the kerchief lay folded in the cupboard, and on the eves of the Sabbaths and festivals Mother would take it out. I never saw her washing it, although she was very particular about cleanliness. When Sabbaths and festivals are properly kept, they themselves preserve the clothes. But for me she would have kept the kerchief all her life long and would have left it as an heirloom.

What happened was as follows. On the day I became thirteen years old and a member of the congregation, my mother, peace be with her, bound her kerchief around my neck. Blessed be God, who has given His world to guardians. There was not a spot of dirt to be found on the kerchief. But sentence had already been passed on the kerchief, that it was to be lost through me. This kerchief, which I had observed so much and so long, would vanish because of me.

11

Now I shall pass from one theme to another until I return to my original theme. At that time there came a beggar to our town who was sick with running sores; his hands were swollen, his clothes were rent and tattered, his shoes were cracked, and when he showed himself in the street the children threw earth and stones at him. And not only the children but even the grownups and householders turned angry faces on him. Once when he went to the market to buy bread or onions the shopwomen drove him away in anger. Not that the shopwomen in our town were cruel; indeed, they were tender-hearted. Some would give the food from their mouths to orphans; others went to the forest, gathered twigs, made charcoal of them, and shared them free among the beggars and poor folk. But every beggar has his own luck. When he fled from them and entered the house of study, the beadle shouted at him and pushed him out. And when on the Sabbath eve he crept into the house of study, nobody invited him to come home with them and share the Sabbath meal. God forbid that the sons of our father Abraham do not perform works of charity; but the ministers of Satan used to accompany that beggar and pull a veil over Jewish eyes so that they should not perceive his dire needs. As to where he heard the blessing over wine, and where he ate his three Sabbath meals — if he was not sustained by humankind he must have been sustained by the grace of God.

Hospitality is a great thing, since buildings are erected and administrators appointed for the sake of it and to support the poor. But I say it in praise of our townsfolk, that although they did not establish any poorhouse or elect any administrators, every man who could do so used to find a place for a poor man in his own house, thus seeing the troubles of his brother and aiding him and supporting him at the hour of his need; and his sons and daughters who saw this would learn from his deeds. When trouble befell a man he would groan; the walls of his house would groan with him because of the mighty groaning of the poor; and he would know that there are blows even greater than that which had befallen him. And as he comforted the poor, so would the Holy One, blessed be He, in the future comfort him.

12

Now I leave the beggar and shall tell only of my mother’s kerchief, which she tied around my neck when I entered the age of commandments and was to be counted a member of the congregation. On that day, when I returned from the house of study to eat the midday meal, I was dressed like a bridegroom and was very happy and pleased with myself because I was now putting on tefillin. On the way I found that beggar sitting on a heap of stones, changing the bandages of his sores, his clothes rent and tattered, nothing but a bundle of rags which did not even hide his sores. He looked at me as well. The sores on his face seemed like eyes of fire. My heart stopped, my knees began shaking, my eyes grew dim, and everything seemed to be in a whirl. But I took my heart in my hand, nodded to the beggar, and greeted him, and he returned the greeting.

Suddenly my heart began thumping, my ears grew hot, and a sweetness such as I had never experienced in all my days took possession of all my limbs; my lips and my tongue were sweet with it, my mouth fell agape, my two eyes were opened, and I stared before me as a man who sees in waking what has been shown him in dream. And so I stood staring in front of me. The sun stopped still in the sky, not a creature was to be seen in the street; but He in His mercy sat in heaven and looked down upon the earth and let His light shine bright on the sores of the beggar. I began loosening my kerchief to breathe more freely, for tears stood in my throat. Before I could loosen it, my heart began racing in strong emotion, and the sweetness, which I had already felt, doubled and redoubled. I took off the kerchief and gave it to the beggar. He took it and wound it around his sores. The sun came and stroked my neck.

I looked around. There was not a creature in the market, but a pile of stones lay there and reflected the sun’s light. For a little while I stood there without thinking. Then I moved my feet and returned home.

13

When I reached the house I walked around it on all four sides. Suddenly I stopped at Mother’s window, the one from which she used to look out. The place was strange; the sun’s light upon it did not dazzle but warmed, and there was perfect rest there. Two or three people passing slowed their paces and lowered their voices; one of them wiped his brow and sighed deeply. It seems to me that that sigh must still be hanging there.

I stood there awhile, a minute or two minutes or more. Finally I moved from thence and entered the house. When I entered I found Mother sitting in the window as was her way. I greeted her and she returned my greeting. Suddenly I felt that I had not treated her properly; she had had a fine kerchief which she used to bind around her head on Sabbaths and festivals, and I had taken it and given it to a beggar to bind up his feet with. Ere I had ended asking her to forgive me she was gazing at me with love and affection. I gazed back at her, and my heart was filled with the same gladness as I had felt on that Sabbath when my mother had set the kerchief about her head for the first time.

The end of the story of the kerchief of my mother, peace be with her.

Two Pairs

1

You can buy a pair of tefillin for eight crowns; if you prefer that the tefillin be made out of a single strip of leather, it will cost you ten crowns. Scribes who produce holy books, tefillin, and mezuzot are not looking to get rich from their righteous labor. And even if they would choose to get rich, the Men of the Great Assembly stipulated twenty-four restrictions that prevent scribes from getting wealthy from their work. In that case, why did my father, may he rest in peace, spend such an exorbitant amount for my tefillin? Was it their age that made them so valuable? No, these particular tefillin were written by Rabbi Elimelech the Scribe, and because my father, of blessed memory, admired him he spent a fortune on these tefillin. But wasn’t Rabbi Elimelech bound by the restrictions of the High Court? Moreover, what did Rabbi Elimelech do with all that money? After all, he was poor and he lived in a primitive house that didn’t even have a chair to sit on. Rabbi Elimelech, of blessed memory, used to say that since our blessed sages thought of this world as a passageway and the world hereafter as a magnificent ballroom, does a man rushing to a ballroom even need a chair to sit on in the hallway? But all cavils aside, when people had an opportunity to acquire a set of Rabbi Elimelech’s tefillin they would happily come up with extraordinary sums of money.

2

On the day of my bar mitzvah I went to the mikvah and I was adorned like a bridegroom. They dressed me in a new jacket, a silk cummerbund whose two fringes extended down to my knees, a black hat, black shoes, and around my neck a silk kerchief with a pearl fastened to it. Any time I raised my head to say Amen to a blessing, it would radiate a flash of light. In my hand when I came to school were my tefillin in a carrying bag of black silk with filaments of pale silver spelling out a Star of David as well as my name and my father’s name. The bag was tied with a reddish yellow drawstring and inside were my two tefillin. I took out my tefillin, and my schoolmates could see that they were antique. They gasped and asked: How much money did some father waste on this boy instead of buying plain new tefillin? They immediately started to tease me by saying that these tefillin must have belonged to the dead who were raised by the prophet Ezekiel; King Saul’s daughter Michal used to wear them! I thought to myself that it was inappropriate to talk while praying so I didn’t bother to answer them. After finishing my prayers I told my friends that my father had gone to the scribe with the intention of buying a plain new pair of tefillin. Oh, well, they said, when your father discovered that the scribe would charge him eight or ten crowns for them he took the old ones instead and brought them home. I asked them: How could they think that my father would balk at paying eight or ten crowns for a new pair when the old pair cost him many times that amount? So they asked me to explain. I told them that on his way to buy tefillin he happened on the opportunity to buy a pair written by Rabbi Elimelech. He said to himself that these were the most beautiful tefillin he had ever seen and he insisted on buying them for me. When they heard that, my friends bit their tongues and kissed my tefillin. On that day, my coming of age, my father set out a spread of cakes and wine, and everyone there praised my tefillin and offered me blessings. My friends were particularly proud of their own tefillin because they sparkled and smelled of new leather, but they expressed their admiration for my tefillin because even though they were old, they had been written by Rabbi Elimelech.

3

And just who was Rabbi Elimelech the Scribe? He was a transcriber of holy books and objects who lived during the time of the Tzaddik of Buczacz. But if I were going to tell you of the greatness of this holy man I wouldn’t know where to begin. For someone who was eager to learn the laws of the Halacha, this righteous man of blessed memory would review eighteen laws every single day. And for one who wanted to hear about miracle workers, this Tzaddik of blessed memory would dwell on tales of miracles. And if it chanced that he heard it said about himself that he received revelations from the prophet Elijah, he would say that any man, after all, could receive such revelations from Elijah. How? By studying a chapter from Tana Devei Eliyahu. How wonderful for the righteous that they know whom to cling to and how equally wonderful for the righteous that they know whom to clasp to themselves. How fortunate for Rabbi Elimelech that he followed the Tzaddik of Buczacz and how fortunate for the Tzaddik that he embraced Rabbi Elimelech. The entire alphabet is insufficient to encompass his wonders. And I haven’t gathered here more than can be contained in one small drop of ink.

4

Writers of holy books and tefillin also transcribe a get, a bill of divorce. And a scribe earns more from the latter than from the former. After all, someone who wants to be rid of his wife and asks a scribe to write a get doesn’t bargain over pennies. One penny more, one penny less…just as long as he gets his divorce. We’ve heard of cases where a wedding was called off because the two sides could not agree on a dowry, but we’ve never heard of a case of a man who called off a divorce because he couldn’t come to terms with a scribe on the cost of writing the get. So when a man in such a circumstance comes to a scribe, the scribe gathers his writing equipment and writes a get. But in the case of Rabbi Elimelech, before he would write a get he would fast all day, and that night he would approach in tears the involved couple and plead: I am a frail man. I can’t prolong this fast.

Have pity on me and make peace between the two of you. If they agreed, he would make a party that very night; if they refused, he would continue his fast. It was said of Rabbi Elimelech that he would not budge until the couple reconciled and passed from gloom and confusion to peace and celebration. If they had had no children before, they subsequently had children; if they only had girls, then boys were born to them. And that’s why, when someone is about to arrive at the age of commandments, the bar mitzvah, one seeks out Rabbi Elimelech to inscribe a pair of tefillin. It has been said that one who is fortunate enough to wear tefillin inscribed by a peacemaker will himself be a peacemaker and will live happily with his wife. Thus the tefillin of Rabbi Elimelech.

5

Mornings I would run to the synagogue. Sometimes I would arrive before the appointed hour for prayer and I would stare out the window at the sky to spot the sunlight when it would first appear so that I could then put on my tefillin. When prayer time arrived I would take out my tefillin, and a fragrance of prayer would emanate from them. As I lay the tefillah on my arm I could feel my heart pounding alongside them and I would then wind the warm straps around my arm until they pressed into my skin. And then I would circle my head with the other tefillah. When the cantor recites the prayer that thanks God for “girding Israel with strength and crowning Israel with splendor,” I stand astonished that I myself am “girding” and “crowning” like a man of Israel and I am overjoyed. I ask my tallit not to be cross with me for being less enthusiastic about it. After all, when a holiday falls on the Sabbath, isn’t it true that the standard Sabbath prayer of the Shemoneh Esreh is set aside in favor of a special prayer for the holiday?

That’s how I used to stand in the old synagogue praying, one tefillah on my arm and the other on my head. Sometimes my praying would be soulful and plaintive, sometimes melodious and joyful. In either event, I would continually touch my tefillin — something like a shepherd making music out in the field who periodically remembers his charges and looks around to see if any of them have wandered off — until I completed my praying, removed my tefillin, and saw pressed in my arm’s flesh the remaining evidence of the straps. I wouldn’t eat or drink until the indentations on my arm had completely disappeared. Often I would spend time studying before I removed my tefillin. My eyes would focus on a book, accompanied by my tefillin, or would pause between the letters on a line, and the tefillin would pause with them. I was filled with sadness for having been born into this generation. If only I had been born during the time of the Talmud I would have worn my tefillin for the entire day. How I loved them. Maimonides, of blessed memory, had surely done the right thing when he included the regulations pertaining to tefillin in his Book of Love.

6

Now I know that some of you will claim that the story about the tefillin is nothing less than an allegory about God and the people of Israel. Rabbi Elimelech the Scribe represents the Lord, King of Kings, and the tefillin stand for Israel, which we learn from the fact that the blessings over the tefillin include the phrase “and who is like your nation Israel.” And God is living in a simple dwelling because He had a desire to live among the earthlings. The absence of even a chair in His house signifies the absence of the Shekhinah. And He rushes to the parlor room because He anticipates the return of God’s glory to Zion in our very own time. On the contrary, however, I tell you that far from being allegorical, everything is just as it appears. The tefillin are simply tefillin, as is stated in the Torah: “Bind them as a sign upon your arm and let them be a band between your eyes.” I’ve got much to tell, but living at a time when the taste for performing the commandments has been lost, it’s best that I simply do my part and let those who are enlightened remain silent.

7

My grandfather, of blessed memory, used to say that there are two things that a man never stints on: bread and tefillin. I am a descendant of good people and I was spoiled as a child. I used to think to myself: Grandpa, how do you compare bread and tefillin? After all, when my mother used to give me bread I would risk offending her by asking if I could have cake or pastries or wafers or pretzels (Heaven forbid!) rather than bread. But tefillin, on the contrary, have been dear to me every single day from the very first time that I wore them. When I was despondent I would put on tefillin in preference to a piece of bread which I was too distracted to look for. On my wall I hung my tefillin bag with the two tefillin tied securely inside; the aroma of my tefillin was contained within, and the Holy One did not smell it. My friends, you undoubtedly know the story of the son who left his father’s table and ceased practicing good deeds and performing the commandments. Better that I should conceal my appearance within my tefillin bag and not parade my sins in public.

8

Did I really expect that my tefillin would remain mine for all time? After all, before they came to me they belonged to someone else and before that to yet another person, and in the same way, after one hundred and twenty years, they will pass from me to someone new. Someone once found in an old notebook a story of a Jew who, on his deathbed, wrote to the local rabbi a description of his specific place in the synagogue so that in the distant future, when all the synagogues and houses of study in the Diaspora are destined to be reassembled in the Land of Israel, his proper seat will be assigned to him. In that same future, who will inherit my tefillin? Maybe I myself, or the man who owned them before me, or the man before that. But I’ve always said: Don’t be a dark cloud. It might very well be that in an earlier incarnation I was the man who owned these tefillin, and in a still earlier incarnation I was that other man who wore these tefillin. Since there is no proof to the contrary, it must be so, for, after all, the headband of the tefillin is fitted to a specific head. So in the distant future I will lift my head out of my coffin and flex my arm, and the two tefillin will fly to me like doves returning to their nest.

9

Much time has passed since my bar mitzvah, and I’ve traveled far since I first wore my tefillin. Many times, exhausted by the ravages of life, I was too rushed for deep prayer so I would put on my tefillin for a brief prayer. On my head the tefillah was like a tired bird wanting to perch quietly but who is forced to move by arrows that are aimed at it.

Once, during the Ten Days of Repentance — before the conflagration — I asked a scribe to inspect my tefillin. I never knew if Rabbi Elimelech, of blessed memory, had written them in his youth or in his old age, and in any event, since they were more than a hundred years old and had rested in plenty of tefillin bags and had been used by many hands, perhaps the writing had been effaced and the letters had become indistinct. When the scribe returned them to me, he said: I am astonished by the gentleman’s tefillin. I asked why. He said: Even though the writing is old, it looks as though it were written today. Does the gentleman know who inscribed them? I said to him: And if I tell you his name, are you familiar with my locale? He said to me: Nonetheless, tell me. I said to him: Rabbi Elimelech the Scribe. He said to me: Do you mean Rabbi Elimelech of Buczacz who lived in the days of the great Tzaddik of Buczacz, may their honor protect the people of Israel? I nodded yes. He said: Since I mentioned their names, let me tell you what I have heard about them. I said: After all, they’re from my own city and it would please me greatly, since I love to hear even simple things about simple men from my home, all the more so about two righteous men like them. So the scribe told me a story about a righteous man on whose tombstone were inscribed the words ABRAHAM OUR FATHER THE Tzaddik and DAVID OUR KING as an allusion to the dead man, Abraham David, may his worthiness protect us. There was in town a wanton troublemaker who went to the authorities and told them that the Jews had rebelled against them and had crowned a king for themselves. The authorities dispatched an agent to investigate. When the agent came to inspect the tombstone, instead of DAVID OUR KING he found written DAVID OUR FING, and the Jews were saved because to be imprisoned in Buczacz could be a catastrophe. And the Jews were well aware that a great miracle had occurred when the agent found “fing” instead of “king,” since “king” was what had originally been written. Now, the residents of Buczacz are deep thinkers and they quite naturally love to do research and search for explanations for everything, so they started an inquiry to discover who had switched the K to an F. One man finally rose and said: Do you remember the handwriting of Rabbi Elimelech the Scribe, of blessed memory? The rest responded: Of course we recognize his handwriting. This very day we read in the synagogue from a Torah that was written by Rabbi Elimelech, and the F on the tombstone is identical to the F ’s in his Torah. And so everyone then knew that even in the world hereafter Rabbi Elimelech had not forgotten his children. And the scribe also said to me: Does the gentleman know that it is a tradition among us that no man who wears tefillin written by Rabbi Elimelech ever suffers a divorce? I told him that I knew that. He asked me: Is the gentleman married? I answered: Thank God. He took a deep breath and sighed. I never knew why he sighed, whether it was because he did not have the pleasure of a peaceful house or because at that particular time his business of writing tefillin was dwarfed by the writing of divorces. In any event, not every scribe manages to be like Rabbi Elimelech and not every man is worthy of wearing the tefillin of Rabbi Elimelech.

10

One night I dreamed that I put on the tefillah for the arm but not for the head, and the dream upset me a bit. During the course of the day additional anxieties entered my life and I forgot my dream until the Master of Dreams caused it to recur. I went to a wise man and told him my worry. He said: Do you know what I would suggest? That you’re getting signs that your tefillin have to be inspected for flaws. I said to him: I’ve had them inspected and there are no flaws. So he had no response. When the dream occurred a third time, I said to myself that there must be something to this. I convened a panel of three judges and told them my dream. I saw a look of concern on one of their faces but I paid it no heed. Some people are melancholy and some are cheerful. But in fact I couldn’t get my mind off the tefillin even when I wasn’t saying my prayers, like when I would see them hanging in their bag on the wall and I would go over and anxiously touch them to make sure that I had not placed them in their bag improperly. But they were always in their rightful place and in their proper order. One time I discovered that the bands of the head tefillah were not properly tied, so I stood there and tied them, as I always did, in the shape of a dove’s wings. The next day I discovered that the wings were spread like the wings of a dove who wants to fly from its nest. A short time later my house burned down, and the tefillin burned with it. I don’t know if I was a victim of the evil eye or one of those judgment decrees that comes upon a man suddenly. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

11

The day of perfection has not yet arrived in this world, so I went and bought new tefillin. Once again I did not buy a pair made out of a single piece of leather. In fact, I bought the first pair that I saw. My wife took some cloth that had not been consumed by the fire and made from it a kind of tefillin bag, not of silk this time, and with no silver lettering. No cakes and wine were offered in honor of the day; a piece of bread was sufficient. True, I did wear new clothes, but that was because all of my old clothes had burned in the fire.

When I came to the synagogue and put on my tefillin, my friends did not look on with disapproval, nor did they bombard me with words. On the contrary, they sympathized with one whose house had burned and who did not have a roof over his head. Pay no mind to his new clothes, his old ones all burned; even his tefillin burned and that’s why he’s wearing new ones. I folded my tallit over my head so as not to hear their comments. When I got to the prayer that tells of God opening His hand and satisfying all living beings, I raised my hands to feel my tefillin. I was reminded of how I used to touch my old tefillin, and I thought to myself that those old ones were like a charm that let me live peacefully, and the new ones were to make sure that no one would envy me. I took a breath and sighed. This too is for the best.