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The Books of Jacob
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Books of Jacob week 3
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There's indeed much happening in these chapters, and I remain impressed at how OT keeps all her strands under control with their diversions and time changes. It's nice to feel that some of the relationships are connecting up. Does anyone have any thoughts about the book titles? The Book of Fog, now The Book of Sand.
Is the first a witty nod to plunging us into this world without a map and making us begin to navigate on trust?
The second, sand, makes me think of shifting sands, with perhaps us starting to get a foothold on the world.
There may well be alchemical or mystical associations that I'm not making.
Chapter summaries:
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6. OF A STRANGE WEDDING GUEST IN WHITE STOCKINGS AND SANDALS
A stranger enters the room, wearing a light coloured coat, muddy white stockings and sandals, carrying a bag of leather strips. The conversation dies, and when he enters the lamplight he is greeted as Nahman. He is led to Elisha (Shorr) and the elders. Hayah prepares food and drink, and wonders about Nahman’s long journey from Salonika, Smyrna and Stamboul. She misses her dead mother. Nahman gives Elisha a letter from Reb Mordke and ISOHAR of Podhajce. Elisha asks Nahman if everyone says “he’s the one”. Nahman says yes, and Elisha says they should let him rest.
NAHMAN’S TALE: JACOB’S FIRST MENTION
Nahman starts to address the wedding guests. He breathes the air of Nikopol, a Wallachian town on the Danube, which is described. First Nahman tells of the bride HANA, only daughter of YEHUDA TOVAH HA-LEVI “the great hakham”, whose writings have reached Rohatyn. The Shorrs know nothing of the groom JACOB LEYBOWICZ of Czerniowce until someone remembers he is a grandson of Yente, son of YEHUDA LEYB, RABBI OF CZERNIOWCE. Leyb became unpopular and was exiled to Czerniowce in Wallachia, which was under Turkish rule. Nahman continues his story, saying that he and Reb Mordke were groomsmen at the wedding. He describes the wedding, saying that Jacob was tall, and looks like a pasha. Jacob studied with Isohar in Smyrna, and has been trading silk and precious stones. During the ceremony Hana’s father whispered “the secret of our faith” to Jacob. When everyone has gone, Elisha takes Nahman aside and says they need to get out of Rohatyn, and says they need someone strong, with no fear, who can support them. He asks Nahman to bring Jacob to Rohatyn.
ISOHAR’S SCHOOL, AND WHO GOD REALLY IS: THE NEXT INSTALMENT OF THE STORY OF NAHMAN BEN LEVI OF BUSK
Smyrna is introduced. There are many Polish Jews here for trade and charity, and the local Jews look down on them. Many are followers of Sabbatai Tzvi. Nahman and Reb Mordke are friendly with them. They have recently met NUSSEN, a one-eyed merchant from Podolia, who introduces them to Isohar of Podhajce, a wise man and teacher, who gives them a room to sleep in at his school. Isohar traches that there are three paths towards spiritualisation. The first, popular with Muslim ascetics, is to renounce earthly things. The second is philosophical, by acquiring knowledge. The third is through Kabbalism and numerology.
OF JACOB THE SIMPLETON AND TAXES
On their way to Smyrna, Nahman and Reb Mordke have heard tales of Jacob, a pupil of Isohar who considers himself a simpleton. At 15, in Romania, he posed as a taxman and took money for himself. On hearing this story Nahman sides with the robbed merchants. Reb Mordke asks him why some pay and others collect. Nussen says land should be free and should not be owned. The talk of taxes has disturbed Nahman’s audience in Rohatyn, who start to talk amongst themselves.
OF NAHMAN’S APPEARANCE TO NAHMAN, OR: THE PIT OF DARKNESS AND THE SEED OF LIGHT
Nahman continues his story. He says that their trade in Smyrna was not going well, as they have been distracted by religious questions. Nahman gains a reputation for winning disputations, which pays for their food and wine. He describes seeing someone emerging from Jacob’s house dressed like a Podolian, and seeing himself like a shadow. The narrator says Nahman is making this up, and had fainted. That evening Jacob came to see Nahman and Reb Mordke. Having recovered, Nahman thinks about how he might recognise a Messiah among the crowds on the streets. He talks to Mordke, who says he is a sensitive instrument, that every place has a double, and the Messiah is a more perfect version of themselves.
OF STONES AND THE RUNAWAY WITH THE HORRIBLE FACE
As Nahman is addressing the Shorrs, a stone is thrown through the window, setting fire to the sawdust. People rush out, a woman puts out the flames and the crowd gradually come back in. They hear more shouts from outside. Two of the Shorrs drag in a skinny wretch, and Hayah addresses him as HASKIEL. On his way out Haskiel sees a man at the door with a deformed face, who he calls a Golem. The man is a fugitive and frostbitten peasant who lives in the cowshed who the Shorrs have taken pity on.
OF HOW NAHMAN WINDS UP WITH YENTE AND FALLS ASLEEP ON THE FLOOR BY HER BED
Nahman is now drunk. He tries to find the courtyard, and finds a tiny room with a bed. A man emerges and Nahman assumes he is the doctor. He sees the tiny figure in the bed and wonders if this is Jacob’s grandmother, She does not move but he sees her eye gleam. He squats by the bed, lies down and falls asleep. He sees Hayah’s face and feels at home. Yente sees him, and sees that he loves a man that she does. She remembers the birth of her youngest son’s child, and the semi-wild dog they took to Czerniowce. The story of Lilith is told. Nahman wakes, and touches Yente’s cheek, realises she can read his thoughts and is afraid. Yente remembers her grandchildren, the youngest of whom was Yankiele (Jacob), running around a spinning top. Yankiele touches the top, bringing it down and angering his father who hits him and makes his nose bleed. He races out of the house and has not returned by nightfall. The family searches the village of Korolówka, which resembles a three pointed star. Jacob’s mother Rachel worries about her child. His father says he has been possessed by a dybbuk (demon). Next day a search party stands outside a cavern shaped like a womb. Eventually a boy dares to enter and emerges carrying little Jacob. Hayah walks into Yente’s room. She asks Yente if she is alive, but Yente doesn’t have the strength to answer, and returns to the past. She remembers her son Yehuda being impulsive, unpredictable and argumentative, a contrarian. His son is the same. She sees Yehuda sleeping, and wonders whether to enter his dreams.
OF YENTE’S ONWARD WANDERINGS THROUGH TIME
Yente remembers a few years later, when Yehuda came to visit her in Korolówka, with the 14 year old Jacob. Jacob is ashamed of his pimples, and wears his hair long to hide his face. There are only four families in the village that share the “true faith”. They sit behind closed shutters waiting for news of the Messiah. Jacob has been chased out of the house, and leads the children in their games. They head for the cemetery, then enter the forest. Jacob shows them a cave and says he was born there. Yente goes further back in time, remembering Jacob saying goodnight to each member of the family individually
OF THE TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE AMULET’S DISAPPEARANCE
In the morning Elisha enters Yente’s room and says she can go now. He looks at the amulets on her neck and can’t find the one he wants. He tries to ask her what happened. Hayah asks him what he wrote on it, he says she knows. Hayah says he should have put it in a box and locked it. Hayah tells him Yente swallowed it. Elisha tells her Yente won’t die, and Hayah laughs
WHAT THE ZOHAR SAYS
Yente is dying and not dying. Hayah thinks this is like the Zohar, which is full of apparently contradictory phrases. Hayah tells Israel he can take her home. In the afternoon Asher Rubin comes, and tells them she is not dead, but doesn’t really believe what he is saying. As the guests are leaving after the wedding, Elisha goes to Israel’s cart and asks Yente not to be angry with him. Israel is angry with Elisha, thinking Yente should have stayed, but his wife Sobla disagrees.
PESEL’S TALE OF THE PODHAJCE GOAT AND THE STRANGE GRASS
Elisha gives them another cart lined with hay. They build Yente a roof to protect her from the rain. At Podhajce, they stop, and Israel’s daughter Pesel remembers them stopping there three weeks earlier, and how Yente told them the story of the Podhajce goat. Pesel tells Yente’s story of a goat that lived by the castle, who is educated, lives like a hermit and is 300 years old. Grass grows in the ruins, and only the goat eats it, and gains its wisdom. At night the goat stretches his horns towards the moon, and asks the moon if it is time for the Messiah to come. The moon tells it the Messiah is in Smyrna.
FATHER CHMIELOWSKI WRITES A LETTER TO MRS DRUŻBACKA, WHOM HE HOLDS IN HIGH ESTEEM, IN JANUARY 1753, FROM FIRLEJÓW
Chmielowski’s letter, in which he explains why he has to explain things in Latin, and translates one of the stories for her.
7. YENTE’S STORY
Yente’s father. Mayer of Kalitz, was granted a glimpse of the Messiah. One night before her birth, in the mill where he delivered grain, the mill wheels came apart, and thistles arranged themselves in a letter alef. Everything turned brown, the reeds grew sharp, and there were Khmelnytsky’s massacres. This was hard to see as God’s plan. Mayer had travelled from Regensburg, where Jews were persecuted, to trade grain in Poland, in 1654, a plague was followed by extreme cold, and the Jews were blamed, so Mayer and his family moved to Lwów, where they settled. In 1665 news came that the Messiah had come, this was Sabbatai Tzvi. The Jews were summoned to Turkey, and Yente’s father eventually agreed to travel. They found the Messiah in jail in Gallipoli, where he survived on fruit alone. It was said in secret that the Messiah was a woman. They tried to tell the Messiah of their problems in Poland, but he angered. Mayer saw the Messiah’s face, and his female breasts. The delegation returned to Poland, and in 1666 heard news of Sabbatai’s forced conversion to Islam. Yente sees the day of her conception, as her mother is raped by Cossacks while working in the fields. The secret was kept from her father. She was the 11th child, named Yente “she who spreads the news”. The young Yente learns to read early, and is taught about the Zohar. When Yente was 7 her mother died in childbirth, and before she died she told Yente that the Messiah has come, and is in Sambor. Mayer brings her up, and tells her that as a woman she must hide her knowledge. Now, as she lies in the woodshed in Korolówka, she knows she has deceived them all.
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