Two Scholars Who Were in Our Town and Other Novellas (11 page)

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Authors: S. Y. Agnon

Tags: #Short Stories (Single Author), #Fiction, #Jewish

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Mikveh / A bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion to obtain purification
.
Shemoneh Esreh / “The Eighteen” blessings, so called in reference to the original number of constituent blessings (there are now nineteen), is the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy, recited three times a day. It is also known as the Amidah (or, “Standing” prayer)
.
“Myriad are the needs of your people”/ Opening line of a short prayer recited during times of imminent danger or extreme stress; see Berakhot 29b
.
Reb Mordechai Yafeh / Called “Ba’al (author of) HaLevushim” after the series of halakhic (religious law) works he authored, an important scholar and posek (legal arbiter) (1530-1612, Poland)
.
Horowitz the Holy Shelah / A Hebrew acronym for Shnei Luhot HaBrit (“The Two Tablets of the Covenant”), a book written by the revered rabbi and kabbalist R. Yesha’ayahu Horowitz (1560-1630), usually referred to as the “Shelah HaKadosh (the Holy)
.”
Ba’al Mofet / A saintly man or man of wonders
.
Reb Moshe / Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), German Jewish philosopher, considered the father of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), had translated the Hebrew Bible into German
.
Rabbi Wolf / R. Binyamin Zev Wolf Hindenheim (1757-1832), a grammarian and translator of the siddur to German
.
Samuel II 6:16 / “And [as] the ark of the Lord came [into] the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul peered through the window, and she saw the king David hopping and dancing before the Lord; and she loathed him in her heart.” – for her criticism of her husband King David, it is implied that Michal died childless (compare v. 23)
Tallit / Prayer shawl traditionally worn only by married men
.
Hatan Bereishit
/ The “groom” of the Book of Bereishit (Genesis), is the term used for the person called up for the first reading from the Book of Genesis on the holiday of Simhat Torah. This high honor is reserved for a respected member of the community
.
Gabbai / Treasurer
.
Forbidden to alter the interior space… / See Deuteronomy 12:4: “You will not do likewise to the Lord Your God,” which prescribes the destruction of idolatrous spaces, but proscribes doing the same to Holy space such as the Temple, and by extension synagogues (cf. Megilla 29a). The specific case, boarding up a space in the synagogue to block a draft, which does then reduce the “volume” of “holy” synagogue space, is discussed in the rabbinic commentaries, and is left as a difference of opinions between various authorities. The sources under question are outlined in E.E. Urbach’s important Hebrew essay on this story, “
Shnei Talmidei Hakhamim Shehayu Be‘Irenu – Mekorot uFerush
” in
LeAgnon Shai
, Urbach and D. Sadan, eds. (Jerusalem: Jewish Agency Press, 1959), pp. 9-25
.
A bukher makht kidesh af a groyp
/ Yiddish: “An unmarried boy makes kiddush on barley grain
.”
Ketzot HaHoshen
/ Important commentary on Jewish financial law authored by Rabbi Aryeh Leib HaCohen (1745-1812)
.
Rabbi Meshulam Igra / A master sage who became the Chief Rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva of Pressburg, Hungary (1742-1801). R. Igra was a native of Buczacz, Agnon’s Galician hometown, which is never named explicitly as the “our town” of this story, although this seems apparent
.
Chapter 200 / Volume 1 of the Ketzot HaHoshen is a commentary on the first two hundred chapters (simanim) the Shuhan Arukh’s 427-chapter section on financial law, the Hoshen Mishpat
.
Chariot / As depicted in the vision related in Ezekiel, chapter 1
.
Yehudah ben Teimah in tractate Avot / Mishnah Avot 5:23: “Yehudah son of Teimah said, Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer, and strong as a lion to do the will of your Father in heaven
.”
Deliverance came from another place / Esther 4:14
.
Shabbat Shuva or Shabbat HaGadol / The Sabbaths before Yom Kippur and Passover, respectively, on which rabbis traditionally deliver the major sermons of the year
.
Ternopil / Major city of Eastern Galicia (today, Western Ukraine), about 70 km. north of Buczacz
.
Perl / (1773-1839), major figure of the Galician Haskalah
.
Sheheheyanu
(“Who has given us life and sustained us”) / A blessing said to celebrate special occasions, especially in thankfulness for new and unusual experiences
.
Rav Alfasi, Maimonides, Rosh / The major medieval commentaries on the Talmud and halakhah
.
Reveling in his own distress / Cf. Prov. 17:5
.
Maharshal, Bach, Rav Alfasi / R. Shlomo Luria (1510-1573); Bach – R. Joel ben Samuel Sirkis (1561-1640); Rav Alfasi - Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi (1013-1103) of Fes – all three engaged in determining the accuracy of the Talmudic text. Unable to access these rarer editions of these volumes (on which Reb Shlomo based his lecture), Reb Moshe Pinchas launched his attack on the incorrect text from the commonly available volumes
.
Panie / Polish meaning “Mister”; i.e. Reb Moshe Pinchas is calling him “Mister” instead of “Rabbi” Horowitz
.
If scholars battle / Cf. Bava Metzia 59b
.
Shema / Recitation of the Shema (“Hear O Israel”) prayer, traditionally recited twice daily, as well as upon going to sleep
.
Permissible to arrange divorces there / In Gittin (Jewish divorce documents) the name of the town has to be spelled out in Hebrew characters, a cause of dispute about the proper spelling of certain town names in Europe, and subsequently the ability of divorces to be executed in those towns
.
God’s precepts are straight / Psalms 19:8
Torah protects and the Torah rescues / Cf. Sotah 21a
.
Kav HaYashar / “The Just Measure”) authored by Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kaidanover, first published in 1705. Shevet Mussar – “The Rod of Admonition”, authored in Ladino by Rabbi Elijah HaCohen, in 1863
.
Tosefta / A compilation of the Jewish oral law from the period of the Mishnah
.
Kra / R. Zvi Hirsch Kra (1740-1814), served as rabbi in Buczacz from the departure of R. Igra in 1794 until his death
.
Maharam of Rothenburg / Meir of Rothenburg (c. 1215-1293) was a noted German rabbi, poet, and author of Tosafot commentary on the Talmud
.
When on the road / Gen. 45:24 as interpreted in Taanit 10b
.
1648 / The year of the calamitous Khmelnytsky pogroms, wherein Cossacks decimated eastern European Jewry
.
Maharshal / Rabbi Shlomo ben Yehiel Luria (1510-1573) of Lublin. The citation is to Responsa (Shut) Maharshal #101, dealing with a 1572 case of evidence in a case of marital engagement
.
Bread dipped in salt / Cf. Mishnah Avot 6:4 (“bread in salt” is a rabbinic metaphor for minimum sustenance; akin to “living on bread and water” in English)
.
As he completed the Talmud, his life also ended / The theme of the Angel of Death waiting for his victim’s completion of a portion of study, or performance of some
mitzvah
, is found in Mo’ed Katan 28a, Ketubot 77b, and elsewhere
.
Happy is he who arrives… / Moed Katan 28a
.
Can an Enlightened one… / Cf. Psalms 14:2 (translated here out of context and ironically according to the narrator’s intention, the word “maskil” in the Biblical verse means “wise one” but here is applied to a follower of the secularizing Jewish Enlightenment movement)
.
Out of Asher / Genesis 49:20
.
It is the only covering… / Exodus 22:25-26
.
The Divine table /Cf. Mishnah Avot 3:3, “Rabbi Shimon says: Three who ate at one table, without saying words of Torah while upon it, are considered to have eaten from sacrifices to the dead [i.e., idols] as it is written (Isaiah 28:8): ‘All their tables are full of vomit and excrement, without a clean place’. But three who ate at one table and said upon it words of Torah are considered to have eaten from the table of God, as it is written (Ezek. 41:22): ‘And he said to me: This is the table which is in the presence of God’.”
Maimonides’s ‘Laws of Temperaments’ / Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot De’ot 6:2
.
Teomim / (1814-1868) served as rabbi in Buczacz from 1853 until his death
.
Bach / R. Joel ben Samuel Sirkis (1561-1640); a prominent halakhist who was known for various clashes with lay leaders
.
The apportionment of charity… / Bava Batra 43a
.
Sir Moses Montefiore / (1784-1885) English Baronet, financier and banker, advocate of social reform and great philanthropist
.
Rabbi Elazar Rokeach / (1685-1741) Galician rabbi who was appointed to the Amsterdam rabbinate late in life, prior to emigrating to the Holy Land. This particular insight is found in his
Arba’ah Turei Even
commentary to Maimonides
.
Fundamentals of Torah, chapter 7 / Maimonides,
Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah
7:1
.
Kessef Mishneh / A commentary on Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah, written by R. Joseph Karo (1488-1575)
.
Lehem Mishneh / A commentary on Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah by Abraham Hiyya de Boton (c. 1560 - c. 1605)
.
Yavneh / The seat of the High Court after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE
.
Tractate Yoma, page 37 / Three of the Talmudic citations in this passage are incorrect. The correct page numbers are: Nedarim 38a, Shabbat 92a, and Yoma 35b. Urbach, op. cit., p. 22, n. 16, insists that these were intentional errors inserted by Agnon, mimicking the common phenomenon of a sage mis-citing a specific page number when referencing from memory, as would have been this case in the learned discourse presented by Reb Shlomo. Urbach further points out that the thrust of Reb Shlomo’s presentation of the sources, and resolution of the question on Maimonides’s teaching, is that even Reb Moshe Pinchas, with all of his flaws, would have been worthy of receiving prophecy
.
Tosfot Yom Tov / An important commentary on the Mishnah by Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller (1578-1654, Cracow)
.
Noda BeYehudah / Yehezkel ben Yehudah Landau (1713-1793), rabbi of Prague. His work,
Tikkun HaNefesh
(Healing of the Soul) prescribes 18 specific chapters of Psalms to be recited as merit for the healing of the sick
.
Even the tranquil women / Cf. Isaiah 32:9
.
And you shall love… / Deuteronomy 6:5
.
Half Kaddish / Used to punctuate divisions within the prayer service. The nicknames of the gravediggers are plays on the meanings of their names – Chaim means life, since he was tall he was called “Long Life”; Kaddish was a name sometimes given to a child born to a couple in old age, as he would be the one to recite the mourner’s Kaddish when they die. Agnon is being playful in assigning these names to gravediggers
.
Righteousness shall walk / Psalms 85:14
.

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