The Parable and Its Lesson: A Novella (Stanford Studies in Jewish History and C)

by S. Agnon

  10

  I place the different punishments described here in different chapters so as to separate them, even though the shamash recounted them without interruption, except when he gave forth with such anguished expressions as “oy vay!” and various invocations of God and His mercies.

  Just as he went on uninterruptedly, so did his listeners never cease being amazed at what they were hearing. They knew full well that a righteous person goes to Gan Eden and a wicked person to Gehinnom and that there are certain righteous ones who enter Gan Eden while still alive. But in all their days they had never heard of anyone who went into Gehinnom alive and came out unscathed—until they heard from that old gentleman that he himself saw Gehinnom in his lifetime and walked around inside it as one walks around in his home, and even the hems of his clothing were not singed. You might think that this was because he was great in Torah and wisdom and piety and good deeds. Not at all. This was a poor shamash, one who was no different from anyone else in Buczacz, except for his temper. Perhaps the merits of his forebears who were killed in the pogroms stood in his stead. But in this matter he was no more privileged than the other townspeople, almost all of whom saw their father or mother die a terrible and cruel death. So the matter is truly puzzling.

  Many things are unfathomable. I can shed no light on them and therefore return to the main thread of this tale, continuing again with the phrase “the shamash went on.”

  11

  The shamash went on:

  Beneath that compartment of Gehinnom is another one known as Gag ‘al Gag, Roof Upon Roof. It is several times bigger than the first one and wider. It is so wide, in fact, that the walls, the ceiling, and the floor are invisible to the naked eye. It is as if the whole compartment were suspended over the void. Of course the earth too is suspended over the void, but the earth, as the Bible says, He has given to mankind, which means that the earth was given by God to mankind so it could flourish over the void. But in the nothingness over which this place hangs nothing can flourish. The people sitting here all have foreheads that are either wide or high or wrinkled. Their eyes are small, squeezed by all the intellectual activity into the space between the forehead and the nose. Some of them stroke their beards, some of them pluck out hair after hair and flick them into the air without even knowing it. This part of Gehinnom is different from the first; there the people sit as far from each other as the distance of a Sabbath boundary, whereas here they sit right next to each other, cramped together, each one sharing his ḥidush with the other, exactly as they did in the land of the living. The name of the angel appointed over them is Otem. This is not Gabriel, who covers over Israel’s sins with a veil, but an evil angel who once was good but was debased by all the silly ḥidushim he heard. All this I learned from what our Master, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing, told me.

  The people here do exactly what they did when they were alive, namely, they offer ḥidushim anywhere and anytime. The difference is that in this world a person who recognizes that he is mistaken will, if he so chooses, admit his error, or if he is so inclined will deny it completely. There every word a person uttered in this world is permanently engraved in public view with his signature attached, and the dead cannot contradict what the living say.

  When a person studies a page of Talmud and parses the plain sense of the text, the more his reading approximates what the words say, the less will he seek out colleagues to praise him for it. But when a person thinks up a ḥidush on that text, the more far-fetched it is, the more eager he is to proclaim it. He leans over to his colleague to propose it to him and his lips fly apart. His tongue goes in search of his lips and becomes impaled on the sharp edges of his teeth, whereupon it starts to swell, growing thicker and thicker. I am an old man and do not like exaggerations, but when I say that that tongue becomes as massive as a church bell I would not be too far from the truth. My comparison to a church bell is apt, for just as a church bell peals without knowing why, so the tongue wags without knowing why it was put into motion. His colleague sees all this and starts to yell, but no sound comes forth. I am an old man and have seen much trouble and travail, but misery like that I have never seen.

  I buried my face in our Master’s cloak so that I would not have to look at all that suffering. I covered my eyes but the torments were still visible. I stood there wondering: what offense brought on such a punishment?

  12

  I reviewed all the sins and punishments enumerated in the holy books and could find none that matched what I had seen—and the mercies of the Heavenly One are presumably greater than those of mortal men. Panic seized me. Maybe my mouth was contorted. Maybe my lips had flown apart. I was afraid to raise my hands to check. And then I feared that ears had grown over my whole body. When fear takes hold of a person, nature then compounds it. Because I had buried my face in the folds of our Master’s cloak, I suddenly felt as if my ears were wrapped all around me. If I told you that I heard all the bones in my body rattling, it would not be far from the truth.

  Our Master turned and looked back at me. My head cleared for a moment, and I wanted to ask him about the meaning of the forms we had just seen. But I had no voice. I vowed then that if I could ever talk again, I would make sure that not one unnecessary word would come out of my mouth.

  Our Master continued to observe me. He was trying to determine just how much I could stand to hear. He was always very careful to adjust what he said to the capacity of his listeners. Rabbi Yitzhak the Chastiser once told me about a goldsmith named Reb Moshe of Buczacz. He told it in the name of his father Reb Yedidiah Lieberman, the nephew of Rabbi Mikhl of Nemirov, may God avenge his blood, who heard it in the name of the holy Rabbi Shimshon of Ostropol, may God avenge his blood. Reb Moshe was a goldsmith, and he once received precious stones and pearls from the king’s vault to make a pair of earrings for the princess. He calibrated the earrings according to the weight her ears could bear.

  Our Master kept on looking at me and then said, “What were you asking?” He wanted to see how important my question was to me. Sometimes the mouth wants to ask more than the heart wants to know. I did not dare ask, but the desire to know gnawed at me. The question was evident in my eyes, as when someone raises his eyes quizzically. Our Master paused for a moment and then said, “The people that you saw are all illustrious men. Some of them are rabbis, some are heads of yeshivot, some are officials, leaders, and regional rabbis. It is because of their stature that they have their own compartment of Gehinnom.” He added, “The wicked in Gehinnom are punished with the very sin for which they were found guilty. The people you saw are punished with the opposite of what they committed. Because they sinned by speech, they are condemned to be mute.”

  Here our Master stopped and pointed to the lantern I was holding. I looked and saw that the candle was about to burn out. I quickly pulled out another one and lit it with the one that was reaching its end, sticking the new one on top of the old.

  Seeing this, our Master recited the verse The soul of man is a candle of the Lord. He always paused a bit when he quoted a Biblical verse so as to set it apart from his own speech. Then he said to me, “Some candles shine right to their end and even as they go out they burn brightly. And some candles go out while still burning. Happy is the one whose soul shines forth in this world and its light continues on in the world to come. Now, as for what you asked me, the people you saw sitting far apart sat right next to each other in their lifetime, and all the synagogues and study houses were filled with their talk. Now they cannot utter a word, not because they are dead but because they chattered during prayers and nattered while the Torah was being read. Though they are allowed to devise ḥidushim, they are punished thus: when they wish to present their ḥidushim to others, their lips fly apart and their tongues are impaled on their teeth. Their colleagues see this and start to scream, but the sound dies in their mouths.”

  Our Master added, “The people you saw are not new arrivals. Among them are scholars who have been sit
ting there for generations, some from before the expulsion from Spain, some even from the time of the Talmud. Happy is he whose transgression is forgiven. But there is one sin about which the Holy One, blessed be He, is very particular, and that is talking during the service and the Torah reading. God Himself is truly compassionate and gracious and forgives iniquity, but the angels created by transgressions are an unforgiving lot. Happy is he who does not talk while praying. His prayer ascends to the Gates of Mercy and becomes a crown for his Creator.”

  13

  Our Master’s words disturbed me more than anything my eyes had seen. I knew that talking during prayers and Torah reading is a serious offence, but I had no idea how serious.

  I was mortified. Who can say that he has never committed that sin? Who among us keeps his lips and tongue under control at all times? Who has not talked during the service or the Torah reading? And if those learned in Torah bear such a punishment, what about the rest of us? Even if the ḥidushim that scholars come up with do not always spring from the purest motives, there is still a scintilla of sincerity behind them. May you good people of Buczacz never know the dread I was feeling.

  Adding to my anxiety was my astonishment at the duration of the punishment. Can that be the penalty for talking during the service or Torah reading? Even if one could explain it as the consequence of the bother the angels had to go to in separating true prayers from idle talk, the matter still remains unsettled and unsettling.

  A verse in the Torah occurred to me: The sword shall not cross through your land. I interpreted the sword to refer to metaphysical speculation, and the verse to be saying that as it passes through your mind it will not only not undermine your faith, it could even strengthen it. In my heart I recited the verse I am racked with grief, sustain me in accordance with Your word. Our Master looked at me and whispered, “It is time to go back.” My heart broke within me and I followed him.

  Here the shamash suddenly stopped to survey the room. After he took in with one glance a group of scholars, his eye caught sight of some others who were not learned but who had a voice in civic affairs. While he was still looking around he continued:

  Now listen to me all you people of Buczacz. You think that Gehinnom is only for Torah scholars. Well, let me tell you otherwise. There is one area there compared to which all the rest of Gehinnom is like Gan Eden. I never noticed it at first because it was covered in dust. But the voices that could be heard through the dust suggested that there were people there. I could not tell if they were people or cattle or fowl until I went in and saw that it was one huge market fair, like the ones our great-grandparents and those who came before them used to tell about, before Khmelnitski, may his name be blotted out. There were traders, dealers, noblemen and noblewomen, goods galore—like you’ve never seen before. Silver and gold and all kinds of expensive things. Then suddenly the whole fair was thrown into a panic. The Tatars had arrived. They came on swift horses in rumbling hordes. My body trembles even now as I recall it. I will stop talking about it and go back to where I left off.

  So our Master was looking at me and said, “We have to go.” My heart broke within me, but I followed him.

  The earth was drenched in dew and the firmament moist with the perspiration generated by the stars in their efforts to illumine the world. The whole way along, our Master said not one word. Was he ruminating about Aaron’s death, or about liberating the young agunah from her bonds? Who am I to say? Once or twice our Master looked up at the heavens and I could hear him whisper, “The stars are bunched together like a brood of chicks under a hen.” Truthfully, I have no idea if he really said that or if I just thought he did. Because on the eve of Yom Kippur, at first light, when I went into the chicken coop to get the atonement chickens for my wife and me, may she rest in peace, I saw chicks roosting under the mother hen and I was reminded of a line in the Book of the Angel Razi’el, “many stars are clustered together like chicks under a hen.” And so when I saw our Master look upward and whisper, those words came to me. By the time the sun rose, we were back in the courtyard of the synagogue.

  Our Master kissed the mezuzah and then placed his walking stick in the courtyard behind the door and the mezuzah. I really should have taken it from him, but our Master never let anyone help him with his walking stick. After all, when Samson was blind he never asked anyone to get his staff for him in all his twenty-two years of judging Israel, and the Sages praised him for that. Our Master always took his stick and put it back by himself. But whenever he went to the sink to wash his hands, I would go and place it right near him so he would not have to bend down to get it.

  He washed his hands, dried them and with his customary humility recited the Torah blessings in his sweet voice. I am not among those who claim to know what goes on in Heaven, but I am reasonably sure that when our Master said those blessings, each one was answered with an “Amen” from on high.

  When he was seated in his usual place, I went over to him to ask him who should lead the morning service. In his day no one ever approached the lectern to lead unless our Master himself gave him permission to do so. He asked whether there was anyone present who had an obligation to lead, such as a man observing yahrzeit. Before I could answer he told me to go up.

  I put on my talit and tefillin and went up to the Ark. I am an old man and I do not like to exaggerate, but I can tell you that I felt as if my feet were standing on the roof of Gehinnom and that this was the very last prayer that I would be allowed to utter. Miracle of miracles, I was still alive when the service ended.

  That day I went to a scribe to have him check my tefillin to see if perhaps some letter on the parchment inside had faded. The fear and anxiety I had felt during the trip made me perspire so profusely that it was possible that the parchment had been affected. Praise be the One who crowns Israel in glory, not a single letter was spoiled.

  When the service was over I brought the talmudic tractate Yevamot to our Master. He looked at me and said, “Sukkot is approaching. In honor of this festival of our joy, let us delight ourselves with tractate Sukkah.” I went and got it for him and remained standing there. If he needed me he would see that I was at his disposal. He acknowledged this with a nod and told me to return home.

  On the way I began to have doubts about whether the things I had seen were real or a dream. If I were to go by our Master’s behavior, it may very well have been a dream, because normally he would have the talmudic tractate Yevamot on his desk, and here he was looking at tractate Sukkah. Furthermore, if that was truly Gehinnom that I saw, there were no flames. And even if you say that the judgment of wicked in Gehinnom lasts for twelve months, it is known that the fires of Gehinnom never go out. I also saw nothing of the snow in which the wicked are frozen. The pain is supposed to be worse than the heat of the sun.

  At home I found no rest. I was worried that my wife would ask me where I had been all night. But she did not, presuming I had been in bed the whole night. Her illness had gotten worse, and she had lost the power of speech. If it had not been for the power of intuition, I would not have known when to feed her and take care of her.

  14

  My doubts intensified about whether I was awake when I saw those visions. When I returned to the beit midrash, I had the distinct impression that I had seen a number of the bluebloods of the congregation the previous night in all three compartments of Gehinnom. I knew it was not them I had seen but their fathers and grandfathers. Sons usually resemble their fathers or their grandfathers, and I had known all of them. My confusion distracted me from my prayers, and I knew it was my punishment for presuming that such decent people could be in Gehinnom.

  I tried to stop thinking about those visions, but I could not. If I had not been distracted by my wife’s worsening condition, I do not know what would have been with me.

  One could not have guessed that our Master, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing, was about to do something momentous, namely, free a young agunah from the chains of her condition b
y dint of the fact that we saw her dead husband in Gehinnom. I had often thought to myself, he has to do that or all the arduous efforts he put himself through to make the journey there would have been for naught.

  The righteous do what they do and God does what He does. One day just before Ḥanukah, a man from a distant country appeared. He was strangely dressed, his round beard neatly trimmed, and his brownish hair had no sidecurls. He asked, in Hebrew, where the house of the Ḥakham could be found. At first no one realized that he was speaking Hebrew because of his strange accent. When they finally realized it was Hebrew, they did not understand that it was our Master he was looking for. In the lands from which he came a rabbi is called Ḥakham.

  The essence of the matter is that this man had with him a bill of divorce for Zlateh that Aaron had sent. I will not go into details because I want to get to the end of the story. So I pass over the fact that these details contradict what Aaron had explicitly told our Master, namely, that he was dead and had died in such and such a way. Still, the details bear repeating. The man who brought the bill of divorce was a great scholar. In addition to his mastery of Torah in all its aspects, he knew Greek and Arabic. If I remember correctly, our Master, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing, asked him the meaning of certain terms he had come across in his studies whose meanings were not clear to him. He declared at one point, “If I had the strength, I would compile those words into a lexicon as an aid to students and especially to those who write halakhic opinions.” These last words, “to those who write halakhic opinions,” I never heard directly from our Master but only from reputable people who can be relied upon never to make statements they have not heard.