Dr. Ezriel Knox

Forward Literature Section

Oct. 12th, 1969 

Bashevis’ Path in Yiddish Literature

The author of the recently released book (Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Eternal Past), Irwin Buchen, did a thorough ‘close reading’ of Bashevis’ works, with deep thought, immersion, and intellectual acumen. He developed the notion that if Bashevis’ path is like an island unto itself amidst classical Yiddish literature, it’s an island in the middle of the sea, and the sea is our everlasting Jewish history. Irwin Buchen is a professor of English literature, and I’m not familiar to what extent he is versed in Yiddish literature. 

It would be, however, an unforgivable exaggeration to be mistaken here and there and not acknowledge the author’s Christian perspective which still doesn’t exist in Yiddish; in Bashevis’ work, his orientation thoroughly penetrates it. In particular, as it relates to his ability to grasp the internal logic of Bashevis’ work: which is pretty much always concerned with his anti-messianism, regardless of whether it’s the messianism of Shabtai Zevi, or from the ‘emancipatory’ and ‘utopian’ revolutionary movements. In every case, there exists the all-encompassing impurity and decay of an individual and society, it goes beyond themselves to an end, returning ultimately to the root: the individual unto themselves, in the eternally shared past. 

The backdrop of ‘Satan in Goray’ is the 17th century, just after the days of the Khmelnytsky massacres: the 1648-49 pogroms that later took place in Goray. Both characters “Itche Mates” and “Gedalia” greatly desire to impose their beliefs in the false messiah: firstly by overcoming the evil inclination, resigning from the world and worldly pleasures, and secondly by engaging in impurity, through the evil inclination: by means of indulgence and promiscuity. Goray joins the ring of impurity and dances with the devil. Through false messianism and corruption, redemption will come sooner. Ultimately, Goray sobers up and returns to its previous state, its previous Jewish practice, as it was before the pogroms. 

The staging of “The Family Moskat” is from the 1900s until the Holocaust. In the period of three generations a crisis surmounts – through enlightenment and emancipation, the false messiah’s new garb, Communism and ultra-nationalism — from the individual and person to person, which seeks to estrange the Jew from oneself and their merit will be emptiness: existence without sin. Also here redemption should come sooner, though without healing. 

The Magician Of Lublin is a hedonist, and he performs spells in the circus and in life. When he finds himself run half a muck, he too hears the solicitation: return. He entraps himself in a small stone chamber, with no door and only a single small window. Such penitence is hardly Jewish. Nevertheless, Bashevis has a purpose in this portrayal: the magician is unable to exorcise his own evil inclinations, nor can he abstain from his lustings in the world – he encloses himself in voluntary imprisonment, where his magic has no power. This is ironic as it’s his victory over the evil inclination and his return to self. 

“The Slave” is realistic and symbolic. It takes place, once again, after the Khmelnytsky massacres and Jacob is sold as a slave to a far-out Polish farmer where Christianity is superstitious and servile and the people exist in a state of primitivity. Jacob is redeemed precisely on Passover, like the Jews in Egypt, and he steals away, taking Wanda, now living as ‘Sarah,’ with him, precisely on Pentecost: the holiday of accepting the Torah. The wanderings and plights of Jew and non-Jew alike are painted with the craft of a great poet. Jacob is also tempted by the false messianism of Shabtai Zevi and migrates to the land of Israel. Here too is the return — the return with his grown son, a learned Torah scholar, without any workers to bury Wanda – ‘Sarah’ as it should be, and to be only God’s servant. 

‘The Manor,’ which should be a work in many volumes, is once again a story of rupture and return. ‘The Manor’ –  taking place after the Polish revolution of 1863 – is realistic and symbolic. It is the manor of the spoiled, half-crazy, Count, and the Jew Kalman Jacoby with his energy and honesty, who gets richer and richer and establishes himself in the manor not only economically, but physically, under the pressure of his second wife, Clara, who’s been neglected through and through. Against this background is enveloped the lives of his four daughters and their husbands, acting as examples of the fragility and changing nature of Jewish existence. Kalman Jacoby, in his tragic old age, divorces Clara and searches for peace in a shtetl amongst his Jews, and this is his return: from manor to shtetl. 

Source: https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/frw/1969/10/12/01/?e=——-en-20–1–img-txIN%7ctxTI————–1