The Penitent

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  I had taught myself precisely how to talk to a Celia, a Liza, or a Priscilla, but how did one speak to a Sarah? This, I had already forgotten. I took one look at her and I didn’t see her again that evening, although the apartment was small. After supper, she left. She mumbled a good night to me and to her father, but she averted her face.

  Reb Haim wanted me to sleep over, but I turned down his invitation. I could see that there was no room for me there. Also, I had grown unaccustomed to the old featherbeds and I was afraid there might be fleas or bedbugs in such a household. I said goodbye to Reb Haim and to his wife, Beile Brocha, and went out to find a hotel. I promised to come back the next morning to the Sandzer study house.

  Reb Haim looked at me doubtfully and said, “For the sake of God, don’t forget to do so.”

  “No, Reb Haim,” I replied, “I won’t part from you anymore.”

  I found a hotel. This was the first day that I lived like a Jew. The Evil Spirit had been silenced, but I knew that he would presently regain his tongue. Sure enough, I soon heard him say, “All this would be fine if you were a true believer, but actually, you are nothing more than a heretic afflicted with nostalgia. You will soon turn back to your heretic ways, and what’s more, you’ll bring nothing but grief to a pious Jewish daughter. You won’t be able to stand her for long. You’ll get tired of her in one month, or, at the most, three.”

  “I’ll marry her and I’ll stay with her,” I said in reply to the Glib One. “I’ll be a Jew whether you approve of it or not. He who despises evil must believe in holiness.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of such penitents as you,” Satan countered. “It’s no more than a passing fancy. They always go back to what they were.”

  “If I can’t be a Jew, I’ll put an end to my life!” I shouted within me.

  “These are the words of a modern man,” an imp whispered in my ear.

  I went to bed, but I lay there for hours unable to sleep. I had fallen in love with Sarah, my present wife and the mother of my children.

  14

  That night I resolved not to say a word to Sarah or to her father until I had divorced Celia. But would Celia agree to a divorce? I was afraid to write her. If she learned where I was, she was liable to make trouble for me. It’s a principle among today’s men that the unjust are always in the right. Chutzpah is the very essence of modern man, and of the modern Jew as well. He has learned so assiduously from the Gentile that he now surpasses him. The truth is that the element of chutzpah was present even among the pious Jews. They have always been a stiff-necked and rebellious people. Well, there is a kind of chutzpah that is necessary, but I won’t go into that now.

  After I had decided to write a letter to Celia, I was overcome by a feeling of gloom and despair. I had wanted to break with my past, to try to forget, but now I would have to involve myself in it all over again. I slept badly and my dreams tormented me. I got up with the feeling that the game wasn’t worth the candle, as the saying goes. No matter which way I turned, there were obstacles. Maybe it would really be better to put an end to my life, I mused. I don’t know about others, but the notion of suicide had been with me since early in life. It seems that I even thought about it in cheder. I had always had the feeling that all my efforts were futile. I had heard from my parents that suicide was a terrible sin. But I didn’t agree with them. Why shouldn’t a person have the right to divest himself of his body and all its torments? When I studied the story of Hannah, who after losing her seven children committed suicide and still attained the world to come, this was a source of relief to me. If a suicide could attain paradise, then suicide could no longer be such a grievous offense. I know now that suicide is a sin. The suicide throws back God’s greatest gift: free will. But there are circumstances when the person no longer has free will. There is a limit to suffering, too.

  Yes, I got up in a melancholy mood. But despite this, I bathed and went off to the Sandzer study house. On the way, I stopped at a store displaying religious articles and bought a prayer shawl and phylacteries. The storekeeper looked at me in astonishment and asked, “Have you become a penitent?”

  And I replied, “I want to be one.”

  I went to the Sandzer study house and met Reb Haim there. Seeing my prayer shawl and phylacteries, he remarked, “Well, you’ve come home!”

  I started to pray and was assailed by painful thoughts. Even as I wound the thongs around my arm and kissed the fringes, the Evil Spirit harangued me: “You’re acting out a farce. You know damn well that the phylacteries are hunks of leather torn from the skin of a cow. And that what you’re reciting—the firstborn of an ass must be redeemed with a sheep, otherwise the ass’s head must be chopped off—is a product of Phoenician idolatry. The cow did not deserve to have its hide stripped, nor did the sheep deserve to be sacrificed, nor did the firstborn ass deserve to lose its head. And this passage is like the whole Scripture and Talmud—stale, overgrown with the mold of centuries. Even what is written inside the phylacteries—you must love God with all your heart, soul, and being—has no justification. What did God do for us Jews that we should love Him so? Where is His love for us? Where was His love when the Nazis tortured Jewish children?”

  I had already heard these arguments many times before, but I had never known how to answer them and—why bother to deny it?—I still don’t know to this day. To get rid of the Glib One, I said, “You’re absolutely right, but since I don’t have the courage to die, I must be a Jew. Why does it make less sense to put on a phylactery than to put on a tie, or stick a feather in one’s hat? Even if Jewishness is nothing more than a game, I like this game better than football or baseball or the game of politics. Even if the Almighty is wicked, I’d rather speak to the unjust creator of the universe than to a scoundrel of the KGB. If God is no good, He is at least wise. But what are the wicked men? They are fools besides …”

  I’m giving you my thoughts here to show you how hard it is for a modern person to turn back to God; how deeply the doubt and despair are rooted within us. I put on the prayer shawl and phylacteries and turned to pray, but Satan wouldn’t let up on me for even a moment. When I recited: “The Lord is good to all and His tender mercies are over all His works,” Satan shouted: “A damn lie! He is only good to a band of rich and powerful outcasts.” When I recited: “The Lord is nigh unto all them who call upon Him,” Satan remarked: “Didn’t the pious Jews in the ghettos offer enough prayers to Him? And what did He have against the Jews during Chmielnitzky’s times? According to your own theory, the Jewish people had attained their highest spiritual value then …”

  That’s how the saboteur within me wouldn’t let up on me for even a moment. He wrangled with me while I was asleep and when I was awake. I had decided not to answer him altogether, to let him howl like a dog, as they say. He blasphemed, he laid waste everything and everybody, and I went on reciting my prayers. He sat within my brain like the gnat in Titus, but he still couldn’t seal my lips. I said the Eighteen Benedictions—even if without fervor.

  That day I wrote Celia the whole truth; naturally, in brief. I wrote her more or less the following: “I want to become a Jew like my father and grandfather. Help me to get a divorce.”

  I was sure that Celia wouldn’t answer, or that she’d have me called in by some lawyer or the police. Since modern Jews want to be like Gentiles, who knows what the Jewish police are capable of?

  In the days to come, I lived mechanically and like a condemned man. I prayed, I studied the Gemara, I ate in a kosher restaurant. When I told the restaurant proprietor that I was a vegetarian, he gave me a strange look and wanted to debate with me, but I was in no mood for it and I said, “I’ll concede that you may be right, but do me a favor and give me what I want.”

  The man shrugged. “A man’s wishes must be honored.” And he gave me what I ordered.

  I had more trouble with Reb Haim, who, when he heard that I was against the slaughter of animals, said, “That’s not the way.”

  “Reb Haim,
whoever has seen people being eaten can never again eat an animal,” I said.

  “One need not be more compassionate than the Almighty.”

  I realized that day that my vegetarianism would form a barrier between me and the Jews to whom I sought to get closer. They considered vegetarianism a worldly fad practiced by Gentiles and Jewish Gentiles. To them it indicated that I sought to be excessively saintly. One of the Sandzer Hasidim compared me good-naturedly to Esau, who according to the Talmud played the role of a overly pious man and asked his father how one gave a tithe of straw. The first night I ate at Reb Haim’s house, it just so happened that his wife served a dairy meal. But Reb Haim wanted to invite me for the Sabbath, too, and I couldn’t keep the secret from him any longer. When I told him that I did not eat fish or meat even on the Sabbath, he seemed shocked.

  But I was determined to live the way I wanted and the way I understood. If this meant that I had to alienate myself from all people, it would be no tragedy either. If one was strong, one could endure this as well.

  In the midst of all this, a letter arrived from Celia. It was a long letter, a kind of confession stretching over thirty pages. It’s probably still lying somewhere among my papers, and believe me, this is a document. The gist of the letter was, first, that it was I who had led her to her evil ways. I had set a bad example for her. In this, she was entirely correct. Secondly, she wrote that she envied me my courage to break away from everything and everybody. There were times, she said, when she wanted to do the same, but unfortunately, she lacked the conviction, the faith, the courage. She told me that she was seeing the old professor and that he was anxious to divorce his wife and to marry her, Celia. She was ready to grant me the divorce and only sought a “small settlement.” Several of the pages had to do with business. I had abandoned everything without a care, but my partners had no wish to strip me of all I had. Also, Celia had hired a lawyer to see to our property.

  I read the letter many times. It echoed the sentiments of a woman deeply depraved but not completely so. The essence of the letter was: “Yes, we have lost our heritage, lost it forever. Nothing can be salvaged of it.”

  15

  Where was I? Oh, yes, I got the divorce from Celia; that is to say, she got the divorce in court and I sent her a Jewish divorce. The “small settlement” became a “big settlement.” Celia and her lawyer grabbed as much as they could. When modern man marries a woman of his own kind, he falls into a viper’s nest. Marriage for the modern person is a form of suicide. For a false smile and for a wife that other men have already had for free, a husband pays not only with his freedom but often with his life and health as well. She, the wanton female, demands that she be loved; she keeps on complaining that her husband doesn’t love her enough. And she repays with betrayal. The nation that shed blood to free the slaves has transformed married men into slaves. The loose female has become the deity of America, and of modern man in a great portion of the world. The ancient idols were made of stone or gold, but today’s idols are shrewd courtesans.

  When I finally obtained the divorce, I felt like a slave who had been granted his freedom. My “good friend,” the Evil Spirit, argued with me: “Now that you are free, don’t get yourself involved in a new bondage. All roads are open to you now. You are still comparatively young, you are financially independent. The women in Tel Aviv will greet you with open arms, as would women in Paris, London, and the whole world. You can get many of them for a ticket to the theater, an outing in the country, or even for nothing. Now the time has come for you to live, not to rot away in the Sandzer study house browsing over a Gemara written by fanatics some two thousand years ago and praying to a God that doesn’t exist.”

  That’s how the Great Dialectician spoke; Satan, whose way it is to attach himself to every person in every era, in every situation. But I no longer had the slightest urge toward those fancy women in Tel Aviv or Paris. I literally felt a revulsion against them and their embraces. I had reached a stage wherein the modern woman with all her antics seemed like a cheap comedienne to me. Even her passion appeared false. Passion comes from the soul, and cold souls cannot love. The countless works published these days about sex, all the sexy plays and films, demonstrate one thing: that modern man is growing more and more impotent; that he needs more and more artificial incentives to stimulate him. Often I recall Celia and Liza complaining about their inability to achieve orgasm. Those who are preoccupied with sex twenty-four hours of the day, who read about sex, talk about sex, study sex, and breathe sex, can no longer enjoy sex when it comes to the actual deed. Those who talk smut all day cannot become aroused by a bold word or expression.

  When the Evil Spirit changed his method and tried to prove to me that the whole female gender is wanton and vicious, I thought of my mother and grandmother. Everything that the Devil, who played the role of an anti-feminist now, said about women had no connection whatsoever to these old-fashioned women. They didn’t enslave our grandfathers but helped them to earn a living. They were everything at once: wives, breadwinners, mothers. My father could have gone away for years without worrying that another man would take his place. Women in those days were often left without husbands at an early age, yet they never sinned with other men. There were instances when people strayed off the narrow path, but these were rare exceptions. Our mother and grandmothers bore the yoke of the Torah, of earning a livelihood, of raising children. They were saints, and they didn’t have to brood about orgasms.

  That’s how my wife, Sarah, Reb Haim’s daughter, was, and still is to this day. Many such decent Jewish daughters still live in the streets of Jerusalem and even of New York. They are like their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers before them. They bear on their narrow shoulders the remnants of our heritage. If they should ever be corrupted, God forbid, we would be finished as a people despite the strongest army, the greatest universities, the richest economy.

  When I had supposedly decided that I wanted Sarah for my wife, my first thought was to try to have a flirtation with her, as such things go in novels. How could I, Joseph Shapiro, marry without being loved? I began to seek out opportunities to meet with Sarah and talk to her. When I happened to be in Reb Haim’s house and she came in, I cast glances at her and even paid her compliments. Like all modern men, young or old, I considered myself an expert at evoking a woman’s love. But I soon realized that the usual technique wasn’t working here. When I looked at Sarah, she didn’t look back. I paid her compliments, but she simply didn’t respond. It seemed that this woman was instinctively aware of all the worldly tricks and was immune to them. I wanted to do her favors, to give her advice, but she needed neither favors nor advice. I heard her speaking to her mother and all the talk was about a pot, a spoon, a Sabbath meal.

  The Evil One said to me: “That’s how they are, these pious women—dried-up souls, frigid, without blood in their veins. To marry such a one would be like marrying a chunk of ice.”

  But I replied, “The whores are surely ice.”

  I had acquired that good chutzpah that I mentioned before.

  The Good Spirit said to me: “Joseph, you don’t snare such women with compliments. Talk to her father or send a matchmaker. That’s how generations of Jews have gotten married.”

  “Well, and what about Jacob and Rachel? And the Song of Songs? And King David and King Solomon?” countered the Evil Spirit. “What about the boys and girls who used to dance in the vineyards in the Land of Israel and the girls would say, ‘Lad, raise up your eyes’? … Weren’t they good Jews, too? Must all Jews remain yeshiva boys or bashful wenches? And would Israel exist if all Jews remained like them? It would be torn to shreds in one day. One Jewish soldier is worth more to the welfare of the nation than are thousands of Hasid bigots. Israel needs soldiers, engineers, technicians, fliers. It is they who keep the country going. It is they who rescued the survivors of the Holocaust. All that the fanatics do is bleat their prayers. The girls that go into the army are a thousand times better than this
Sarah whom you’ve picked out and her kind. Her going to the ritual bath and shaving her skull can’t help anybody. While Jewish men and women were shedding their blood for the country, the Reb Haims and their daughters cowered like mice in the cellars and waited for miracles, ready to perish without the least resistance, like sheep led to the slaughter. Is this so exemplary? Is this so necessary? Are you one hundred percent sure that this is what the Almighty wants?”

  Yes, when it suits the Evil Spirit, he can become a fervent Zionist, a burning patriot.

  I listened as he argued further: “Thanks to the fact that worldly Jews build the land, fight, study, and work, those parasites from the Sandzer study house and their wives and children can practice piety and sponge off others. You are still a young and healthy man, Joseph Shapiro. You have experience in construction. You have capital, too. It’s better that you help build up the country. There are enough Psalm reciters and breast-beaters in the land without you. If you must be an idealist, become a settler at a kibbutz. The girls there aren’t like Celia and Liza. They marry for love, and most of them take their marriages seriously. They don’t marry for money or for a career. If the love ends and you must part, it’s no tragedy either. Nothing is forever. The institution of divorce existed among observant Jews, too. The idea that what God has joined together no man dare tear asunder stems from the New Testament and is the very opposite of Jewishness and of free will. The truth is that there is divorce in Meah Shearim, too.”