THE WANDERING OF A SOUL*
MENDELE MOYKHER-SFORIM
It was the time (and I don't mean our time, God
forbid!) when boy-husbands were boarding with their in-laws, fathering,
and sitting with folded arms in the synagogue. I say (he says) that I don't
mean our time because the words "it came to pass," as our sages say, always
herald a lot of trouble. Our trouble is that young husbands in those days
were not as smart, except in their own matters, as young husbands in our
time. Nowadays, young husbands do not know their own goals as they did
in the past, and they are useless; quite simply because they need the kind
of things that impractical idlers, much to our distress, and whether earlier
or later, are lacking; and no one is prepared to speak out and berate them
for it. It would be like making fun of a pauper for not closing some great
business deal, or making fun of a mute for not talking, or a lame man for
not dancing, or a cripple for not standing straight. But useless to themselves
(maintain the moderns), those of the past couldn't even pin a tail on a
donkey, that is to say, lie down for the nation of Israel. They couldn't
pursue their own goals, and, woe to them and to their lives, they never
gave a second thought to, never moved heaven and earth for, the goals of
the Jewish people! . . . They were lazy and moldy, they never formed groups
or unions, they never tried to hold assemblies, not at their own expense,
coming or going. They had feet, but not for walking; mouths, so to speak,
but not for talking or sermonizing. May such sluggishness befall our worst
enemies! What did they understand, what did they know? . . . Stocks and
bonds?- No!? Funds?- No.- "Culture"?- Forget it!- Well, then what? Nothing!
They yawned, went to synagogue, rose for midnight
prayers, lamented the destruction of Jerusalem, peered into holy books,
studied the Scriptures, and learned how to be broken Diaspora-Jews with
their fine, high-falutin' Friday-night prayers: "How beautiful . . . !"
"Because of our sins we were driven out."
It was for all these things that the wrath was
poured out on those poor creatures. The beginning of all wisdom is: Get
wisdom. But today, the beginning and end of all wisdom is to hell with
the fathers, the past. "Ugh!" they say. "Ugh!" for old, bygone days! That
is the entire wisdom, really quite Jewish, in the manner of a wise and
intelligent people, the "People of the Book,"- and that, I'm afraid,
is the trouble! . . .
But that, says the author, is neither here nor
there.
And we can believe him, for, as it turns out
in the end, his intentions really do lie elsewhere.
What I'm after, he says, is to tell what happened
to me once in those days, when, as is the custom of sons-in-law, I was
rooming and boarding with my mother- and father-in-law. My father-in-law,
a simple man, fine and well-to-do, took me in, like a rare and precious
thing; an earnest student, took me from the yeshivah for his one and only
beloved daughter, the apple of his eye. It's hard to say how old I was
because there was so much confusion about my age, and there was no way
of untangling it. My mother counted my years after a great conflagration
at the time of my birth. My grandmother, however, calculated after some
great panic, and my aunts had different reckonings altogether. But whatever
it was, and be that as it may, all I know is that when I got married, my
face was pale, smooth, and beardless, like a boy's.
During the first few years of our marriage, nothing
much happened . . . . All I knew how to do was pray, eat my mother-in-law's
meals, and study. It never even occurred to me to do the tomfooleries that
people sometimes do- and my wife didn't get any children .... In the beginning,
I would simply come home to eat and drink - and that was all. Not to hear
a nasty word, not to notice a nasty grimace. But then a slight change took
place. I noticed peculiarities about my mother-in-law, a wry face, a pouting,
and I was supposed to know what it was all about. But what I didn't know
didn't hurt me- I merely went about my business and ate heartily. Little
by little, the reason for her pouting was explained to me. First, by way
of hints, allusions, insinuations, that is to say, she meant- children!
How could a Jew not have children! . . . And next, my mother-in-law
told me in so many words, with a simple straightforward explanation:
"Listen!" she argued, highly excited, as though I had stomped on her toes.
"Listen! You've been married for two whole years already and- nothing!
... Husbands who got married at the same time as you have been fathers
for ages already, some with one child, some with two. They're mature and
responsible, they know what their goals are . . . . How happy they are,
and how happy their parents are! And you? A fine husband you are!"
And next, they worked around this matter in
secret. I would often find my mother-in-law sitting with other women-neighbors,
wives of rabbinical managers, women who administered the ablutions to women
at the bathhouse, and my own wife in the middle, with downcast eyes red
from weeping, and all the women whispering, winking at one another. An
old Gentile woman (if you'll excuse my mentioning her in the same breath)
also joined them a couple of times. It turned out that they were sitting
there, wondering why my mother-in-law hadn't gotten any grandchildren from
her daughter, that is to say, my wife. And they were using household remedies
on her. Naturally, the old Gentile woman and the local healer had their
fingers in the pie, along with the women who had been mothers many times
over.
But I never thought about any tomfooleries. I
ate heartily and studied heartily.
Now since allusions didn't help, and explanations
didn't help, and secrets didn't help, my mother-in-law finally resorted
to homiletical discourse, i.e., sermons. She was a marvel at sermonizing.
The minute she opened her mouth, out came pouring, as from a sack full
of holes, a preacher, a torrent of speech, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy,
hugger-mugger, Gentile sayings all mixed up with (please excuse my mentioning
them in the same breath) Talmudic quotations (it sounded moronic) spiced
with the bittersweet language of Yiddish prayers for women, so that it
would have the proper Jewish flavor.
Her sermons about me were based on the verse:
"My son-in-law is indecent". And she demonstrated at length that it was
indecent of me to do this, and do that . . . . Indecent, like the peasant's
proverb "Neither fish nor foul," which in Yiddish goes: "No bah, no moo,
no cock-a-doodle-doo!" So what was I then? A dummy! That's what! And a
further indecency: Any other father-in-law would take his son-in-law to
the rebbe of Khandrikev- long may he live!- and if not personally, then
through one of his followers, to turn the son-in-law into a decent human
being . . . . And he would prosper, with "children and money,"- as it says
in the Sabbath prayer. But as for me, she would exclaim- glaring at her
poor husband, who had to put up with everything from her: As for me, oh
God in heaven! It should happen to her worst enemies! I simply wasn't decent,
amen, amen! . . .
When I hear the sermons of preachers nowadays,
they fit me like a six-fingered glove. I merely look at them in pity, these
poor people affecting wisdom, no doubt knowing very well, as well as I
do, that their wise sayings are bogus, a swindle, a put-on. But my mother-in-law's
sermons hooked into, my heart like leeches, they sucked out my blood. I
still ate her food as heartily, I still studied heartily, but it just didn't
taste quite right anymore. Something was itching, nibbling in my head,
and I would sometimes daydream for minutes at a stretch, with bulging eyes,
at random. But still, I was all right, there was no danger. I couldn't
botch up my youth, until the time came for me to decide on one of the Jewish
professions: teaching Hebrew school, running a store, keeping a tavern,
for instance, and thereby become my own boss. But then a dybbuk got hold
of me, the Evil Spirit himself, in the guise of a Hassid, and tried to
talk me into the devil knows what, lead me off to the devil knows where
. . . .
My Evil Spirit, the Hassid, was an ugly little
mannikin with all the gestures, all the charm befitting such a person.
His way of speaking was exquisite, he could talk holes into your head.
For telling stories, there was never a creature like him, there isn't now,
and there never will be, in all the world. The skies were open to him,
he could do what he wanted to there, the gates of hell and of paradise
stood open for him. Angels and demons were his servants, fire and water
his playthings . . . . His stories could capture a person's soul. If he
wanted, his stories could cast a sweet sleep on a person; a warmth flowed
through all parts of your body, and you felt a delicious scratching. If
he licked his fingers and smacked his lips- you would get. an urge to drink,
simply to have a sip of spirits . . .
That was my Evil Spirit, the one that caught
hold of me (may all Jews be spared the like).
"Listen, shlemiel!" the Evil Spirit would start
reproving me. "Just how long are you going to stay a shlemiel anyway? What
can come of all this studying, day and night? Talmud-Shmalmud! You can
brood over the Talmud all you wish, like a mother hen, but you won't hatch
any children- and what's the sense of it anyway? You're a grown man, you
shlemiel! . . . What a pity, I swear, such a young man . . . . I wouldn't
care if you were a rationalist, an old recluse separated from your wife,
a bookworm with a beard- to hell with him, the heretic! Keep sitting, keep
swaying, get hemorrhoids, go through the Forty-nine Steps of Uncleanliness,
and so much for you, you'll never get out! But you shlemiel, you're still
a boy, you've still got time to exorcise the rationalist in you and become
a decent man, a gifted person. Get on the right path while you still have
time, and follow me, don't lag behind other young husbands, children of
good families, don't lag behind, I tell you, and come . . . come . . .
. Others may say to you: Come to Kandrivek, or come to Yehupets, to the
rebbe of Yehupets, but I say to you: Boiberik! There are lots of rebbes
around, you know, all of them alike, none of them, thank God, in any way
sluggish about Jewishness- may they be healthy and strong! But all of them
together are nothing but a garlic peel compared with the rebbe of Boiberik,
long may he live. - Come, I tell you, come to Boiberik, he'll be able to
help you. He's really an expert in barren women, the rebbe of Boiberik.
Besides, your eyes will open when you look at his radiant face. 'You will
warm yourself in his light,' you frozen yeshivah-student, you cold rationalist
you. Like the noble children of Israel, you will see the Shekhinah, the
Divine. Radiance, upon his face, and you'll be so enthusiastic that, like
them, you will eat at his court and drink . . . . You've got the possibility
now, you're boarding with your in-laws, you haven't touched your wife's
dowery yet. Later on, I hope, you'll pawn something, you'll steal your
wife's last bit of jewelry- and you'll take a wagon, or you'll walk, to
Boiberik! . . ."
That was how the Evil Spirit talked, and how
he talked me into things. And when he saw he hadn't gotten very far, that
moralizing didn't help, he tried getting to me with alcohol. He would smack
his lips wordlessly, and so tantalizingly that I got a yen for a shot of
brandy. It began with drinks on anniversaries of people's deaths, and then
one drink led to another, brandy to conclude a section of the Talmud in
synagogue, a celebration here, an anniversary there, to sanctify the new
moon, to usher in the new month, a holiday here, a Sabbath there, a social
drink, and then finally, a brandy-for-its-own-sake drink. As a result,
I went so far once that I was literally out if my skin, that is to say,
my mind left my body, it leaped out of my flesh, I was intoxicated, in
seventh heaven!
The things that I, or, more precisely, my soul;
heard and saw if it were humanly possible, in heaven, can scarcely be described
in human speech. I'll try anyway, as far as I can, only for the sake of
my readers really, because my readers are very curious, they're dying to
know about what goes on in heaven, in the world to come.
First of all, I was welcomed by an extremely
long nose, as thick and swollen as a mountain, fiery red, slightly dazed,
like a flame of burning alcohol, and studded over with warts, and moistened
by wellsprings of sweat. After the nose came its owner, reeling, barely
keeping himself on his feet, just barely . . . . Lot- the chief cup-bearer
of the wine reserved for the righteous at the coming of the Messiah- Lot,
in all his glory, more in the spirit than in the flesh, and then an oracular
voice boomed out as from a huge, empty barrel: "Make way, make room, for
our guest, Ployne the son of Sosye! . . ." Upon hearing this voice, I was
overcome with trembling, like a woman in childbirth. The chief cup-bearer
smeared my lips, and poured a hundred- proof bitter drop into my mouth,
and I felt like a new man!
"I know," he said to me, "what you want, and
why you've come. The voice of your mother-in-law, praying for her daughter,
your barren wife, is rending the heavens. The healer's incantations are
moving heaven and earth. I was ordered to welcome you, fortify you with
a bit of liquor, and lead you to, the first division of our judicial apparatus,
or as you call it down there, the first tavern, and since you're a bookworm
and thereby under the supervision of the Angel of Study, we'll have to
appeal to him, and he'll make sure your request goes to where it has to
go .... Well, have another drink, and come along!"
And then he actually took me and carried me,
the way a demon carries a scholar, so fast that my head swam. All at once,
he threw me, pow! I landed on my feet all alone and suddenly there
was light throughout my body. And I looked up and saw a palace before me,
five hundred leagues high, all of marble and fine gold. And the palace
had five hundred enormous gates, and each enormous gate five hundred tiny
gates. Between them stood the Angels of Wisdom, the Angels of Intelligence,
the Angels of the Talmud, the Guardian Angels of Hassidism, the Guardian
Angels of Enthusiasm, the Guardian Angels of Religious Ecstasy. And I saw
something like two fearfully long flashes of lightning crackle out of the
palace, and a shape of a hand clutched a heap of black fire and made crowns
for the letters in the Torah. My ankles buckled in terror and I collapsed
on my face. I felt a hand touching me, and I heard a voice calling me:
"Please stand up, you mortal. The Guardian Angel of Study has heard your
mother-in-law's prayer!" And I could feel a frost run over my whole body,
my teeth were chattering with cold, and, getting to my feet, I saw a cold
angel before me, a hunk of ice!
"It is I," he said, "your angel, the Angel of
Rationalist Scholars and Yeshivah Students, the Overseer of the Guardian
Angels of the Talmud. Come, I shall take you, as I have been ordered, to
the Guardian Angel of Conception, that is to say, of Pregnancy."
And the cold angel took me and carried me so
fast, the way a demon carries a scholar, the cold devoured me, and I fainted
dead away. Suddenly- pow! I was standing on my feet, and a delicious
warmth was pouring through all my parts. I raised my eyes and saw a palace
of five hundred stories, constructed of all kinds of gems and jewels, in
a beautiful garden with all sorts of plants: roses, flowers, and trees-
a delight for the eyes. And above them, a dark blue curtain was spread
with a golden moon in the center and diamond stars, all looking like a
lovely summer night. The garden was full of thousands of paths running
every which way, both open and concealed, and there were angels strolling
about in couples, kissing one another, pouring out a sweet, tender song.
Amuriel, the Guardian Angel of Love, armed with a bow and arrow, was shooting,
and playing with cherubs, like children, lying hidden among dense branches.
And his arrows hit their marks. At – each shot, a cherub would spring from
his hiding-place . . . . It was delightful to stand there watching. Something
lured me on, as when you recite the Song of Songs. And then I heard Amuriel's
voice calling my name: -"Ployne the son of Sosye!"
"Here I am," I said, "I'm ready!"
"If you're ready, then fine! I've been expecting
you and I'm about to fulfill your request."
Having spoken these words, he turned to another
angel and said: "Go and open the treasury of souls and bring me a lively
little soul for this man." The angel hurried off on his errand, but soon
he came back empty-handed.
What was wrong? They couldn't open the treasury,
the key was gone!
There was an uproar, the angels scurried about
in alarm, seeking high and low, until they found out, alas, that the rebbe
of Boiberik had the key! Opening the hole in heaven through which the prayers
from Boiberik came, they pleaded with the rebbe: "Damn it, give us the
key for a barren woman!" But they were wasting their breath, he stuck to
his guns: "No- let the woman come to me! . . ."
Amuriel became furious at the rabbi of Boiberik
and poured out his anger on me and on all Jews: "You Jews are simply impossible!
You grab the keys to all treasures, and you want to make us guardian angels
your servants. You push in everywhere, and no rage in heaven is complete
without you . . . .
"Where are you crawling?" he yelled at me. "Your
place is down there in the Jewish district with the other Jews! What's
a Jew doing up here? Kick him out!"
I got punched and kicked so much that I lost
my senses. And when I opened my eyes, I found myself lying in bed in my
own little cubicle, with the family standing around me, all talking at
once: "He's come back from the dead! He's alive again!"
What was wrong? Can you imagine, I had been lying
in a coma for three days!
A person lying in a coma looks dead, as everyone
knows. His body is here in this world, but his soul is gone, it's hovering
in heaven, as they say. There, they decide his fate: Should he come, should
he go? Is he a goner, a newcomer. Should he come back to earth, where he
came from, should he go on to the world to come? While they cast lots for
his coming and going, the man's soul wanders freely around heaven, seeing
wondrous sights. Very marvelous tales from olden days are told or else
can be found in ancient tomes. These tales were told by people who had
gone to heaven in a coma and then come back. Rabbi Joseph, the son of Joshua
ben Levi. (says the Talmud) was very ill and fell into a deathlike coma.
When he regained consciousness, his father asked
him: What did you see there? And the son told him that he saw something
topsy-turvy- the lowered were raised, and the raised were lowered . . .
. His father asked him: What about sages and scholars, how do things look
for us up there? And the son replied, short and sharp: The same (so to
speak) as here! .. . And he told him other, similar things.
Thus, if the whole matter of a coma is so important,
no one will be surprised that people, big and little, young and old, fell
upon me like locusts when I regained my strength, they were dying to have
me tell about what was happening in heaven, and what was new up there.
They were so eager that they drooled as they gazed at me in deep respect.
If I had been smart, I would have known which side my bread was buttered
on, in fact, I could have earned my bread and butter like many other heavenly
people among us, who made an income from their comas. Like them, I could
have told tales, vast exaggerations, and if the fools had heard them they
would have loved them, and I would be swimming in gold. But I was a raw
youth, boarding with my in-laws, I knew only the Talmud and little of the
bitter taste of earning one's living at hard work. So, fool that I was,
I stuck to the truth, and only told people what I knew. I told the same
thing to our rabbi, Lord preserve him.
He asked me, as a scholar: "How are things for
us Jews up there?" I replied: "They don't want us."
It was dreadful to see his face, the poor man,
as he heaved a deep, heartfelt sigh.
And now, after all these things, my Evil Spirit,
the Hassid, urged me all the more strongly with his dishonest gestures:
"So you see, simpleton, how revered and venerated
he is up there, may God preserve him! C'mon, say something . . . ."
"It should only happen to our worst enemies,"
I muttered under my breath, remembering the abuse I had heard.
"So what!" he said, "what's the difference if
they talk among themselves? But he is powerful, he does hold the world
in his hands, and he does have the key to the treasures, and he can make
decisions .... Just go to Boiberik! I simply don't understand what's eating
you."
And something was really eating me! Boiberik
was eating me! To me and to everyone around me, it seemed absolutely weird!
And Jewish stubbornness was eating me, and having to put aside the Talmud,
to which I had been accustomed ever since childhood. But on the other hand,
I have to admit that, except for the reason that forced me to go there,
I got to like Boiberik, it grew on me. Weird as the people of Boiberik
may appear, if you look hard, you'll find few virtues in them. They're
very devout. Gloom and worry are sins, ugh! The rabbi of Boiberik said
people should be merry. All of them, young or old, rich or poor, maintain
a comradely tone with one another. They're not so dry, not so cold, with
somber troubles, like the Jews in my town. They can sometimes have a drink
and dance a jig, not necessarily at Purim or the Feast of the Torah, but
on an ordinary weekday. I was all prepared to follow my Evil Spirit, when
suddenly something happened . . . .
My wife- can you imagine!- got pregnant without
the Boiberik rebbe and she up and gave birth to twin boys!
This weakened my Evil Spirit a bit. Boiberik
became less important to me, and I stood there like a Jew on the Sabbath,
with one foot inside the prescribed Sabbath area and one foot outside it-
I didn't know whether I was coming or going!.. I was neither here nor there!
  
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