The Glatstein Chronicles

by Jacob Glatstein

  “That is one possibility, but I have another idea, namely, that a rabbi must never be modest. A modest rabbi diminishes the majesty of God. It’s his duty to give the people some notion of God’s greatness. Since his task is to relate God’s great miracles, he must also play the role of a great man in his own life. There is a vast difference between greatness and pride. The Bratzlaver was a great man, but he associated with the great and the small alike, with both the rich and the poor. Now, just think: if such a great man was willing to make friends with the humblest people, how could a plain ordinary Hasid strut about like a peacock?

  “Some day I’ll read you some of my new ideas, and you’ll see for yourself that they are simply extraordinary. But don’t think I get them from my own little brain. After I fast on a Monday, a Thursday, and then the following Monday, I begin to shed all my unworthy husk of materiality. I walk in the woods, all by myself. When night falls, and my hunger expects to be stilled, I keep on walking and thumb my nose at the flesh. So you think, I say to my hunger, it’s all right to break the fast now? Not at all. I won’t be rushed.

  “Then something happens to me, I become faint, a sweet weakness spreads over all my body. My limbs want to shout, but all they do is to peep like little birds, the poor things haven’t got the strength. They sing softly. At such moments I hear a voice.

  “Here I must stop for a bit. I must tell you that I could describe this voice to you, but I am forbidden to do so because the voice speaks to me in a sacred solitude. It would be uncouth of me to reveal something so intimate. But he who has never heard such a voice gropes like a blind man when he speaks of God.

  “Usually I feel weak and drowsy just before I hear the voice. Everything around me fills me with awe. I fall on my face and I call out: Speak to me, Father in Heaven! I am ready!

  “When I get up again from the ground, I am never without having gained something—a thought, an idea, a metaphor—and I feel that these are not my own but have dropped on me like ripe pears from a tree. Sometimes I get up with a whole poem. Listen to this, for instance:

  Brigand, brigand, against whom do you lift your ax?

  Against whom do you lift your ax?

  I lift my ax against my own desires,

  My own evil desires.

  God of Abraham, hear my song:

  Ai, chiri-biri-biri, glory to God;

  Ai, ai, glory to Thee.

  “I have a tune for that one, sweet as sugar.

  Cossack, little Cossack,

  Against whom, tell me, do you raise your sword?

  I raise my sword against my lust for evil,

  My lust for evil,

  My wicked desires.

  God of Abraham, hear my song!

  “And here it goes with greater brio, more passionately:

  Ai, chiri-biri-biri, glory to God,

  Ai, ai, glory to Thee.

  “Sometimes I trick Satan and stick out my tongue at him. For instance:

  I lust

  For the breast

  Of righteousness.

  I fondle, I kiss

  The Divine Presence.

  “See how I trick Satan? Just when he thinks he has me in his net, he gets a punch in the jaw.

  “It’s time for me to go. But I must warn you: you haven’t gotten rid of me yet. When I begin to talk there is something to hear. There are so many things to say. So I want to make an appointment with you, and next time I see you I’ll give you a hint how faith and heresy can be reconciled, how heresy can be made to burn with such fire that it will soar and weep before the Throne of Glory. It will weep there with all its figures and formulas and questions and doubts. Never fear—God, blessed be He, can bear up with it. I’ll also tell you a secret—how the modern Hasid can find his way to Jewish life.”

  He began to go back down the hill. Little pebbles rolled after him. I remained sitting where I was, completely baffled. His last words had been “Jewish life,” and these words were suddenly so vivid to me that I saw meaning in them as never before. They even seemed to express something corporeal.

  I felt a will to life stirring around me. The hungry mouth that had just been clamoring to me in various voices also had a head, a fiery head. That hunger had a will to live and to think.

  It was now getting cool up on the hill, and I got up and started back. Halfway down the hill I found the sixteen-year-old thinker waiting for me.

  “I couldn’t stop myself,” he said, “I thought I must tell you about a curious encounter I had recently.” He smiled, as if reexperiencing the event.

  “I had just recited evening prayers,” he went on. “I enjoyed every breath of air I took in. Usually I walk with my head down to facilitate meditation. Suddenly I felt that instead of air I was breathing an inconceivable fragrance. It made me think of the sweet smell of a baby’s hands or feet, it was both earthy and not earthy, it was as though earth had not yet had time to become completely earthy.

  “This filled me with wonder. I raised my head and looked about me. I saw at once that I had lost my way. The trees looked like trees in a dream, the sky was like a very thick crust, it was as if a last film had been removed from it, I could see the most marvelous things. I heard birds fluttering and twittering, but I could not see them. Dusk had fallen, but it was not very dark yet—the light was pink, not a bit frightening.

  “On a bench two men sat talking. I could see very well that they were talking, I could see their lips moving, I could even hear what they were saying, but each word just flickered and faded out at once, like a falling star.

  “One of the men had a royal appearance. In the twilight it was hard to say what clothes he had on, but there was an air of royal dignity about him. The other man too looked like one of the great, though of a lower rank. It is hard to say how I distinguished between the two—the light above the second man was almost the same as that above the first, but with something a little more common, less rich, about it.

  “I was devoured by curiosity. I began to weep aloud, but the two men did not even look over at me. I came up closer and closer to them, until I was right in front of them, and then I passed through them as if they were nothing but thin air.

  “Suddenly a veil dropped from before my eyes, and things took on firmer outlines. The dusk had lost its pink glow, it was darker now, but this didn’t bother me. In fact I could see much more clearly than before.

  “There was still another change. Instead of one bench I now saw two benches. Each of the men sat on a separate bench, silent, as if waiting for me. I bowed deeply before the royal figure of higher rank. I clearly saw his sad face and I knew everything.

  “‘Sabbatai Zvi,’ I said to him, ‘what are you trying to tell me? What is the vision you have granted me?’

  “‘It is not I who granted you the vision,’ he said. ‘It is you who came upon it when you lost your way. Well, so be it, it’s your choice. May it be to your benefit.’

  “‘Sabbatai Zvi,’ I cried, ‘you false Messiah! Is this the world of deception in which you are living?’

  “He looked at me with so much genuine sorrow that I realized at once there could be no question of deception. I became confused.

  “‘And are not the true Messiahs also false?’ he asked, smiling sadly. ‘For what have all of us accomplished? Just because we dreamed, do we deserve to be branded as false and stoned? And it is you of all people who say such things, you who know so well how we hoped, how stubbornly we hoped, desperately bent upon bringing about at least one hour of happiness. Even the truest Messiah would have become false if he really sought redemption. Indeed, the true Messiahs are those who do nothing but wait patiently. Or should they be called the wise and practical Messiahs, whereas we should be called foolish Messiahs, failures? But false Messiahs? How can you of all people say that?’

  “In my sorrow I turned to the other man. ‘Jacob Frank,’ I said. His eyes were so sad that it was painful to look at him.

  “‘I have spent a long time in sorrowful silence,’
he said, sighing. ‘What’s the use of talking? Occasionally I talk to Sabbatai because we understand each other easily, but … ’

  “I interrupted him. ‘All I want to know,’ I said, ‘is why you changed gods. I wanted to ask Sabbatai the same question, but the other had at least a kind of excuse—Ishmael, our kin, the Crescent. But what possible excuse is there for the Cross?’

  “At this moment a little Jew came running up to me as though brought by a wind. The two benches were now wrapped in complete darkness, but the silvery beard of the little Jew gleamed and glistened. ‘What’s the idea of hassling these two men?’ he said to me. ‘What business is it of yours to make them give account of themselves? For God’s sake, don’t you see that these two Jews, for all their falseness, served the cause of truth? They wanted to make the truth so irrefutable that they turned it inside out. They went into the very abyss of Sheol, just to show whither untruth can lead—and you call them to account?’

  “He smiled then and gave me a friendly pat on the back. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘let’s recite late-evening prayers and forget all this!’

  “I was about to pray with fervor when I realized that the little man was reciting a weird set of prayers: ‘Greetings, dear Father, I have come in to your vestibule to bid you good evening. This is an ordinary Wednesday, Jews are toiling and trading, not for themselves, God forbid, but for their wives and children, for their families. They are up to their necks in all kinds of worries and troubles, yet all the same they take time off to say their evening prayers, to turn their faces to the east, to raise their eyes to You, God our Father. So I ask You, dear God, is it fair that You should always be throwing it up to us that You have chosen us as Your people? Whom else could You have chosen? Whom? Do You know of a better people?’

  “He vanished as suddenly as he had come. I realized that I was in a dark alley, and I set out looking for the main road. I ran into my older brother and I was about to tell him what I had just seen, but then I decided I wouldn’t—I know him well, he likes to argue, a real Litvak. But I told it to you since we’ve been talking anyway. You’re a stranger here, you’ll go away soon, across the ocean. You will think that a confused young boy has been talking to you. But don’t be too sure. You might take another look at the whole thing. For even if I had a thousand heads on my shoulders, I couldn’t invent such a thing. And anyhow inventions aren’t as difficult as all that. Why should I make up stories when real life is so full of wonders?”

  5

  “Know what? Come and pay us a visit. For once, obey your virtuous impulse. No one will harm you at our house.” He added, “I will show you some essays I have written, which no other living soul has seen. I have a fiery pen, and I teem with ideas. You’re sure to be rewarded for your trouble. Only it’s a pity my father is away. It’s too bad because he is a remarkable man. It would be a shame to miss meeting him, for there won’t be many more like him.”

  I walked with him across the narrow board over the little stream. The board bent under our feet, as if it were made of rubber. No one was anywhere around. From down there the hill looked as though it had been stored away, but just for the night. My companion led the way, turning around frequently to make sure that I was following.

  We passed through a garden, and he led me quietly to his room, as if he were sneaking me in. He closed the door and lit a small lamp in addition to the large chandelier. The small lamp was like a searchlight—I felt that it must be used to discover things undiscoverable with the help of the large lamp alone.

  “What do you prefer—to have things read to you or to read them yourself? Naturally it depends on whether your eyes or your ears are the sharper. But it also depends on the things I will show you. Some of them are for the eye, others for the ear.”

  He handed me some long, thin strips of paper. I realized that the manuscripts, written in a tiny hand and full of blots and erasures, were not something I’d care to puzzle out myself. The ink was watery and the strips of paper looked like unrolled mezuzahs with letters missing.

  “I hope you’ll forgive me, but I must say a few words to introduce each piece I’ll read to you. First I’ll treat you to a letter. Letters are important. You take a sheet of paper and you write to someone because you can’t see him and speak to him face to face. A letter must be short and to the point. I composed a dozen letters as models for a modern book on how to write good letters.

  Dear Mr. Nightingale,

  Enclosed you will find two worlds, the world of here and now and the world of beyond. You may choose between them, it’s up to you. The world of here and now is limited—one hand suffices to take its breadth, and one foot to pace off its length. The world beyond is of a purity that cannot be described. The world of here and now knows only pleasure that shrinks and shrivels, gets old, and turns to dust. The world of beyond consists of eternal joy, which brings you ever closer to a great decision. I am very truly yours, who wishes you a happy choice.

  “And now I’ll show you a sample of a prayer. You must realize, prayers have to be recreated in each generation. But a prayer must also have an old-fashioned quality, if it is to be agreeable to recite.

  Thy house stands firm on the mountain

  Thy house stands high on the mountain

  I climb toward Thee a wanderer exhausted with wandering

  I have sinned by taking wrong paths

  I have played the fool by asking questions

  I have grown solitary, possessed of all kinds of doubts

  Extend Thy shining hand to me

  Light my way to Thee

  Let me not stray from the path that leads to Thee.

  “I have written countless poems, but I am not satisfied with them. My poems seem empty vessels. They sit there like carafes, with long embarrassed necks, waiting to be filled. But I’ll read you a short one, for a sample:

  The golden peacock from the golden land

  Speaks to the son of man, who does not understand.

  My sealed up muteness has dulled your hearing

  As my eyes think their way to the mind’s hushed clearing …

  “If you care for that sort of thing. But the fact is I am strongest in discursive thought. At that I am hard to beat. I’ll let you hear an excerpt from one of my essays.

  Inventions are concretized miracles. In former times, when people had faith in miracles, they needed no inventions. And when people had faith in miracles, they also had a strong will. That’s why, in former times they could dispense with magic, whereas today magic has to be rationalized and made to produce inventions. Inventions seem to mediate between a degenerate people and the grandeur of miracle. When you press a button on the wall, you imagine you have accomplished something, but if you study the science of electricity, you realize that the button is no less incomprehensible than the miracles of old, and that you have invented the button to make it easier for benighted minds to believe. But the truth is, standing right next to the light switch you can still say, Let there be light, and there will actually be light—though we don’t see this, we don’t understand or believe this, and so, fools that we are we have invented the light switch to make it more comprehensible. The invention does for us what our own will and our own faith should be able to accomplish. We come back to the miracle by the roundabout way of doubting, our doubts finally giving birth to magic buttons.

  “Well, what do you think of it? Did you grasp my point? I develop the argument further, and I prove that our inventions rebel against us and make their own way back to the miracle, to the primeval mystery. The human hand must learn to regain wonder directly, without taking the long way around so-called invention. I don’t expect you to grasp that at once. It is an idea that requires a lot of reflection.

  “It is my opinion,” he went on, eyes flashing, “that we do indeed have to learn the seven sciences and the seventy languages, but that they must all be raised to a higher power. The sciences, too, are bodies, are concrete things. When someone speaks French to a Frenchman, he merely use
s a means to make himself understood by the Frenchman. He is applying knowledge which he has acquired, but between him and the Frenchman the French language is no longer a language, it is a spiritual affinity. They are no longer speaking a language, they speak. The same is true of mathematics. If a man were to walk around constantly keeping in mind the full content of the art of calculation, he’d be a fool. Calculation must vanish and be transformed into pure wisdom. From this it follows that there must be a point where all the sciences meet, where they dissolve and become like one another. There, in some no man’s land of human sublimity, all the sciences flow together to become a unified wisdom, which is no more than one infinitely tiny flicker of light from the Great Source. A man must not flaunt his knowledge. When we know what knowledge is, we see that it is no more than imitation. It is only when the various sciences meet and become spiritual, that knowledge becomes a reality. Until that occurs, it is a deadweight that drags you down and drowns you.

  “What I’ve just been saying has come to me all of a sudden.” He picked up a pencil and began to write. “I must note it down, for this is a golden thought. Such a thing mustn’t get lost.”

  When we went into the other room, there were people sitting, almost as though waiting for us. There were things to eat on the table, and I was touched by the warm glow that shone in everyone’s eyes.

  The American son-in-law, who was wearing a skullcap, smiled at us, as though putting a question mark after everything I had just heard. He asked me, “Well, how do you like my little brother-in-law? He’s got a lively head on his shoulders, hasn’t he? Don’t worry about him, he’ll get somewhere.”