Read Online The Parable and Its Lesson: A Novella by S. Y. Agnon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: S. Y. Agnon
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Jewish, History & Criticism, Criticism & Theory, Regional & Cultural, World Literature, Movements & Periods
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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 by 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
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 by 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
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