I. J. Singer, who died in 1944 in New York, is regarded by many critics and general readers as among the two or three most important figures in modern Yiddish literature. Translations of his novels and short stories have appeared in English, Hebrew, and numerous European languages. Americans may be most familiar with his popular play Yoshe Kalb (1932) and his novel The Brothers Ashkenazi, a chronicle of Jewish life in the industrial city of Lodz, which received high critical praise and was very widely read when it was published in this country in 1936. Among Singer’s other works that have been translated into English are The River Breaks Up, a volume of short stories (1938), and East of Eden (1939). Singer was born in Bilgoray, Poland, in 1893, and lived most of his adult life in Warsaw until his coming to the United States in 1939.
The selection below, translated from the Yiddish by Lucy S. Dawidowícz, is taken from Singer’s autobiographical work, Fun a Velt Vos Is Nishto Mer, published last year by Matones Farlag in New York. It appears here by permission of Mrs. Genie Singer, the copyright owner.—Ed.
_____________
“The Messiah will come in the year 5666 [1906]”—that was the idea afloat among the Jews in the small town of Leczyna in Russian Poland. It took hold of men and women alike, child and adult. First of all, the sufferings that must precede the advent of the Messiah were clearly evident in the pogroms, in the revolution, and in the war. Second, people had seen omens: red spots in the evening skies, which could signify only the coming of the Messiah. Third, it was figured out, as simple as two and two are four, that the war between Russia and Japan was in reality the war between Gog and Magog, who must do battle before the Messiah comes. Fourth, every chapter and verse of the Bible, every passage in the Gemara and other holy writings, indicated that 5666 would be the year of redemption.
My father, the rabbi of Leczyna, was most proficient in finding these proofs. No matter what holy book he opened, the Bible, the Gemara, the Zohar and other Cabalistic writings, he always discovered some text which would demonstrate, by computation of the numerical value of the letters, that the Messiah would come in 5666. My father, the perennial enthusiast and believer, would glow with joy telling my mother about his new proofs. My mother, a daughter of mitnagdim [rabbinic opponents of the Hasidim], did not try to refute him, but her piercing large gray eyes cooled my father’s ardor. He would then escape to the bet hamidrash, the house of study, and tell about his new findings.
“Jews, it’s clear as day. The deliverance is at hand,” he said, citing his chapters and verses which, no matter how computed, always added up to 5666.
_____________
One day Big Mendel from Ger came and said the Gerer Rebbe himself had let it slip that the Messiah was coming. It had happened this way: one of the Rebbe’s best Hasidim and scholars was drafted into the Russian Army and sent to the Japanese front. All the time, this Hasid never tasted cooked food, living only on dry bread and water to avoid treife. But that wasn’t all. When he was killed on the battlefield, it was found that he had all the time worn under his uniform a shroud and prayer shawl so that if he fell, he could be buried in the holy garments. Jewish soldiers informed the Gerer Rebbe, who wept and said the millennium had come. What the Hasid’s shroud had to do with the Messiah was not very clear. But it was quite enough that the Gerer Rebbe had said so, and his words were carried far and wide where Jews lived.
Other holy men also let fall some mention of the day of deliverance. The Russian defeats at the front were brought as proof of the coming of the Messiah. The Jews in our bet hamidrash ceased their religious study and their business, just talking endlessly about the redemption. In the morning, in the middle of the day, and especially between the afternoon and evening services, the Jews clustered in a circle under the dim light of the bet hamidrash kerosene lamp and talked about one thing—the coming of the Messiah. He was expected any day, any moment. People listened all the time, pricking their ears to catch the first blast of the Messiah’s great shofar. Some Jews became so absorbed in the redemption that they neglected their affairs, their stores, and their homes. I even remember one day between afternoon and evening services when Yehoshua Glusker said he would not repair the roof of his house for winter, because it was a waste of time and money. “We will soon go to Eretz Yisrael anyway, so why should I bother?”
Only Old Berel, who was said to be over ninety, laughed at Yehoshua Glusker. “You’ll have to fix your roof more than once before the Messiah will come,” he contended. “When I was a boy, they said the same thing about the coming of the Messiah, and still I served twenty-five years in the army and nothing happened.”
The crowd in the bet hamidrash didn’t even want to listen to the old man. “What do you know about such things?” they said resentfully. Besides, all the holy books and rabbis and Hasidim said otherwise, and surely they were more reliable than Old Berel.
That the Messiah would come in 5666 was plain. Simple Jews just wanted to know how the Messiah would arrange this coming, and how this business of going to Eretz Yisrael would be managed when all the dead would rise from their graves, and what life would be like in Eretz Yisrael. So they asked my father. Glowing and excited, my father would describe the whole business in passionate words for the crowd in the bet hamidrash. He was not quite clear about just how the Messiah would arrive because there were several opinions in the holy writings and he could not determine which was correct. Some holy books said that the Messiah would drop from a large cloud and seat all the Jews upon it and fly to Eretz Yisrael. Others held that everyone would be transported to the Holy Land by a magic carpet or some such miraculous device. But no matter how, it would be done in the twinkling of an eye. The destroyed Temple, which stands intact in Heaven, would immediately drop down in Jerusalem. The divine service with Kohanim and Levites and sacrifices would be restored. All the holy men would come down from Heaven and sit with their crowns on their heads, taking pleasure in the aura emanating from the Divine Presence. And all the Torah would become clear as day to everyone and there would be no more questions and doubts and differences of opinion, because God, Blessed be He, would study the Torah with the Jews.
As he spoke, my father’s face shone and his blue eyes gleamed with enthusiasm in the dusky feet hamidrash.
_____________
I was not very satisfied listening to my father. Nor were the simple Jews so overjoyed. Toilwom, despondent, and persecuted, they sought another kind of redemption. They wanted the meat of the Messianic Wild Ox, the wine reserved for the righteous at the Messiah’s coming, the gold and silver and precious stones and loaves of finest white bread that would grow on the trees. They wanted Gentile kings, princes, and princesses for their slaves and servants, carriages and horses and music and banquets and long warm days, each day to last thousands of years. The vision of holy men studying Torah with God, a Torah without questions and doubts—that was small reward for their unending suffering and degradation.
“Rabbi, won’t there be any wild ox or messianic wine or other good things?” they asked in disappointment.
My father smiled a superior scholarly smile at these simple people who were concerned primarily with physical things, eating and drinking. And he comforted them:
“Of course, of course, there will be everything good,” he assured them. “But all that is nothing in comparison to the great spiritual feast of seeing the light of the Divine Presence. It is not even possible to comprehend with our senses how great that enjoyment will be.”
The simple Jews, and I among them, relaxed a little. I was willing to exchange with the holy men all their pleasures of studying the Torah and enjoying the aura of the Divine Presence for the pleasure of having a few Gentile slaves who would be afraid of me. After years of insults from the non-Jewish boys, after hearing their taunts and “dirty Jew,” after years of fear before watchmen and petty officials, I had a great desire to make them my slaves and show them the glory of Israel. I burned with the desire to revenge myself on the oppressors who tortured old men and women and children in the Jewish cities and towns of Russia.
I was so absorbed in the Messiah’s advent that I thought about it night and day. Rocking my little brother to sleep, I would imagine that the cradle was a wagon in which sat my father and mother, my sister and brothers, together with my two dead little sisters who had risen from their graves. I was the driver taking them all to Eretz Yisrael. I would drive the wagon so fast that a few times I overturned the cradle and my baby brother fell out. My mother would look at me with her large gray eyes and declare, with a precautionary epithet, that I must have gone mad. My sister, a dreamer and enthusiast like my father, teased my imagination even more with her stories and suppositions about the sweet life to come any day, when the Messiah’s shofar would blow continuously for three days and bring the news that the Jews could return to their own land.
During this period some peasants murdered a Jewish couple in the woods. At night they went into the hut of Reb Moishe Kruk, foreman of a lumber camp, and with axes killed him and his wife, quiet, peaceful people who lived like doves. The murderers left footprints and were caught, but the horrible deed terrified all the Jews in our town and the villages around. The fear was so great that one day when a few dozen Russian workers appeared in town, dressed in red shirts, the Jews locked themselves behind their doors, sure that a massacre was to start. Storekeepers who went to Warsaw for merchandise brought back fantastic tales about demonstrations and barricades; about young men and women marching with red flags and singing songs against the Czar; about soldiers bayoneting people in the street; about a girl in a red dress, the leader of the revolutionaries; about queer socialists who buried their dead not in shrouds but in red flags; about unbelievers who said that a man had no soul but only electricity, and when the electricity ran out, the man died; and about other unbelievers who said that the Messiah was not a descendant of David, son of Jesse, but Dr. Theodor Herzl whose followers would lead the Jews to Eretz Yisrael.
Then the Jews in our town would huddle even closer together in the bet hamidrash between afternoon and evening services, listening to these weird things, groans and sighs filling the darknesses of God’s house.
My father no longer had the least doubt about the Messiah’s coming in 5666.
“Jews, these are the sufferings before the coming of the Messiah,” he said optimistically. “Just this year to go, and then, God willing, everything will be for the best.”
Jews peered at every cloud in the sky, as if it were just about to break open and a voice would call out that the deliverance was at hand.
_____________
The last month of 5666 arrived. The shofar blew, but it was not the Messiah’s. It was the shofar of the bet hamidrash on which Reb Boruch Wolf, the official blower, had learned his art.
With every passing day, the tension grew. The year 5666 was coming closer to its end, but the Messiah had not yet appeared. My father, the believer, had not lost hope: there was still time. Any day, any hour, any moment, the Messiah might appear. Each day passed like an eternity. The day before Rosh Hashana, the Jews kept scanning the skies, kept listening to every sound. They believed it might happen, as with dear anticipated guests who have a habit of arriving at the last minute just when one has already given them up, that this, the dearest of guests, the Messiah, would come at the last minute of 5666. Even when they went to the prayer-house for the afternoon service, the Jews waited for the first three stars to rise, for it would still be 5666 and the great event could still happen.
But the stars rose in the same, everyday sky, and the evening did not look any different from ordinary evenings. In the field near the bet hamidrash, Grusky’s swineherd drove home his hogs. Everything looked more commonplace and ordinary and humdrum than on other days of Exile. My father gave a last glance at the sky and in a broken voice said to begin the evening service. The baal-tefilla, the reader, quaveringly sang “Yea, we will rejoice in the words of thy Law and in thy commandments for ever; for they are our life and the length of our days.” And the boys in the congregation spiritedly replied “Ai, ai, ai.” But there was no heart in the singing. Nor was there heart in the New Year wishes after the service. Even at home, the apple dipped in honey after the blessing did not have the Rosh Hashana sweetness. The Jews were disappointed, dejected. More than disappointed was my father. He was ashamed: ashamed for his congregation, ashamed for me, for my mother, and for himself.
I was angry and embittered. Gone was Eretz Yisrael, gone Leviathan and the Wild Ox, gone the slaves and servants. Back were the sandy wastes of Leczyna, the littered field near the bet hamidrash where the hogs rooted under the care of Grusky’s swineherd. Back were the Gentiles and the Gentile boys and their dogs, the enemies of Jewish children.
The cantor in the bet hamidrash poured his heart into the “Now, therefore, O Lord our God, impose thine awe upon all thy works,” but I no longer believed that God would impose his dread on all the nations and give glory to his people through the son of Jesse, His Messiah, in our days. I thought all kinds of sinful thoughts during the Rosh Hashana benedictions. When it was time for the sounding of the shofar and the prayer “May it be thy will, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, that these shofar sounds may reach the throne of thy Glory and intercede for us, that all our sins be atoned,” I was moved by an evil spirit to do a terrible deed.
_____________
This is the story. In the COMMENTARY of my prayer book there was printed a warning at this point to be on guard against pronouncing the name of the Angel of Fire, for if his name be mentioned, the whole world can be destroyed. I had long yearned to speak out the name of this fiery angel. The world was in my hands. I could let it stand as it had stood for five thousand, six hundred, and sixty-six years and a day, or I could destroy it in a second merely by pronouncing the difficult name of the Angel of Fire. In the past I had controlled myself with an iron will. For despite my desire to see how the world would look destroyed, I knew that I too would be among all who would be burned in the conflagration, and I watched my step. But on Rosh Hashana of 5667, my belief in what the holy books said was rather badly shaken. All the holy books had given indications that the Messiah would come and he did not come. Life was no longer as it had been. I took a chance.
Not believing the warning as once I had, I was, nevertheless, still a little afraid. Very softly, so that no one could hear, with fear and curiosity intermixed, I pronounced the name of the Angel of Fire, closing my eyes so as not to see the destruction that might come like a terrible thunderbolt from heaven. I waited, seeing within my closed eyes a flaming redness. When I opened my eyes and saw everything as before, I relaxed, as if I had avoided a fearful catastrophe. I was whole, the Jews in the prayer house were whole.
What had once been only scratches of doubt, now became deep fissures. For the first time I looked at the Kohanim while they performed the priestly benediction, though I had been warned against doing so lest I become blind.
After the High Holy Days, bad times came on the town. The autumn rains poured from the leaden skies which lay low and tangled in the clouded trees. Yehoshua Glusker, who, believing in the Messiah’s advent, had not cared to repair his roof, now went gloomily to work covering the gaping holes with shingles. Downcast, Jews went to and from the bet hamidrash. A profound melancholy hung over Leczyna.
_____________
