Reflections on Agnon from A Jerusalem Cafe

Writing to you from Jerusalem, I’ve got S.Y. Agnon on my mind. There are many reasons for this. First, the obvious – Agnon lived most of his life here, wrote the bulk of his literary output here, and is one of Jerusalem’s great modern-day figures, bringing pride to Israel and Hebrew Literature by winning the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature. Whenever I sit down to write in Jerusalem, the shadow of Agnon hovers over me. The spirit of his charming, intimidating and awe-inspiring little home on 16 Klausner Street in Talpiot follows me from my room at the Sephardic Educational Center (SEC) in the Old City to every café where I sit and write.

Speaking of cafes, one my favorite writing spots in Jerusalem is a café named Tmol Shilshom, located in the Nahalat Shiva quarter near the center of town. This literary café is named after one of Agnon’s greatest novels - Tmol Shilshom – Only Yesterday. It is an inspirational café lined with books, and it is the café where I am currently sitting to write this article.

A few nights ago, I sat in this same café -- Tmol Shilshom -- with some of my students, and we were discussing the beauties and complexities of Israeli society. “There is the Israel that we fantasize about as the ideal Jewish society, and then there is the real Israel, which indeed we love, but often falls short of the perfect Israel we fantasize about,” I told my students. As I said this, one of my students responded, “Exactly, just like that novel you taught us about, Tmol Shilshom, by your favorite Israeli author, S.Y. Agnon.”

We proceeded to discuss Agnon for the next hour, with a particular focus on Agnon’s unique religious and theological orientation.

What was S.Y. Agnon’s religious orientation?

In her personal memoir, Emunah Yaron, Agnon’s daughter, addresses the question of her father’s religiosity and faith: “There are many who did not believe that my father was an observant Jew, even though a big black kippah always covered his head. There are those who said that this kippah was simply a mask, a deceiving appearance intended to fool the public into believing that he was actually a religious Jew who observed the commandments.”

What could possibly account for this wide held perception amongst many of Agnon’s readers and critics? Yaron continues: “Perhaps the lack of belief by many in my father’s religiosity stems from the fact that in reading my father’s works, they often detected in his plots and characters subtle or even overt theological speculations into religious matters, which many of his readers interpreted as outright heresy.”

To better understand, let’s explore some of Agnon’s “theological speculations” in his stories.

In the story Afar Eretz Yisrael (The Dust of the Land of Israel), the narrator proclaims:

“The doubters and skeptics, and all who are suspicious of things -- they are the only people of truth, because they see the world as it is. They are unlike those who are happy with their lot in life and with their world, who, as a result of their continuous happiness, close their eyes from the truth.”

In his signature story Agunot, Agnon boldly plays with a Rabbinic Midrash when describing the divorce proceedings between a couple whose marriage was arranged, and who were mismatched from the very beginning: “Our sages of blessed memory said that when a man puts his first wife away from him, the very altars weep – but here the altars had dropped tears even as he took her to be his wife.”

Yom Kippur plays a central theme in Agnon’s writing, as does the harsh reality of the physical destruction of Eastern European Jewry. In his story At the Outset of the Day these two themes come together, as the narrator and his daughter (whose home has just been destroyed) come to the synagogue on the eve of Yom Kippur. As the father tells his little daughter that they will soon bring her a “little prayer book full of letters,” he asks his daughter “And now, dearest daughter, tell me, an alef and a bet that come together with a kametz beneath the alef – how do you say them?” “Av,” answered the daughter.

The word “Av” means “father,” but it is also the name of the darkest month on the Hebrew calendar. By asking the daughter to spell “Av,” Agnon is alluding to the fact that this particular Yom Kippur (a fast day) closely resembles the gloom and darkness of Tisha B’Av (also a fast day). The theological irony is that the narrator goes on to tell his daughter “And now my daughter, what father (Av) is greater than all other fathers? Our Father in heaven.” In his typically sarcastic fashion, Agnon employs a linguistic double entendre linking the Av in heaven (God) to the mood of the month of Av (the destruction of the father and daughter’s home) on this Yom Kippur.

In one of his most controversial short stories, K’neged Otam Shekov’im Yeshivot Shel Ts’chok V’Kalut Rosh (Against Those Who Establish Gatherings of Laughter and Frivolity), Agnon tells of a woman who sits at home alone knitting on the Sabbath instead of gossiping with her neighbors. Moses happens to pass by her house and notices that God’s spirit hovers over the house (something only Moses can recognize). Moses is shocked to find that the woman is actually “working” on the Sabbath, violating one of the 39 prohibited Sabbath labors. He instructs her to sit with her neighbors so that she would not violate the Sabbath, yet the following week, when he once again passed by her house, he notices that God’s spirit no longer hovered above the house. Moses understood that her original practice was better, and he instructs her to return to it. Agnon boldly challenges the notion of “violating the Sabbath,” and through the character of Moses – God’s Lawgiver – Agnon suggests that gossip is more of a legal violation of the Sabbath than are any of the 39 prohibited labors (knitting included!). This is a direct challenge to the conventional notions of religious tradition and authority, using the very figure of religious authority (Moses) to challenge the tradition from within.

Is God actively involved in the affairs of the world? Particularly, is God actively monitoring the lives of His “Chosen People”? Agnon handled this question throughout his literature, often with subtle ironic hints that smack of sarcasm and cynicism.

In the story Ha-hadlakah (The Kindling), Agnon tells the story of the great pilgrimage and kindling of bonfires on the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai on Lag Ba’Omer (the 33rd Day of the Omer Period). The Omer period is traditionally associated with collective rites of mourning (no shaving, no weddings or celebrations) due to the tragedies to have befallen the Jewish people during this time period (plagues, pogroms, massacres). Agnon frames the turning point of the story – when the situation starts to improve -- in sarcastic theological terms: “With the passage of time, the Holy One Blessed Be He returned His head into the place from where it was removed, and He saw what had happened in

His world.”

In one of his most daring pieces of modernism, Agnon wrote a meditation on the Kaddish, the prayer recited by Jews when in mourning. The Kaddish has always been a peculiar theological concept, having the mourner praise and exalt God while weeping in grief for a departed loved one. In this Peticha L’Kadish (Introduction to the Kaddish), Agnon states: Therefore all brothers in the House of Israel, who are gathered here in mourning, let us turn our hearts towards our Father and Redeemer in Heaven, and let us pray for ourselves – and for Him, as it were, Yitkadal V’Yitkadash Shemei Rabba…etc., etc.

Agnon places the narrator as one who is eulogizing the dead of Israel after yet another war. Following his introduction to the Kaddish, the eulogizer begins to recite the Kaddish, a praise of God, and then continues by saying “etc., etc.,” as if to say – “you know the rest, you’ve heard it so many times, I am tired of reciting it.”

There are many commentators and literary critics on Agnon’s works, but Israeli author Amos Oz is one of the rare few that dared to explore Agnon’s theological ruminations. In his semiautobiographical A Tale of Love and Darkness, Oz devotes an entire chapter to Agnon, where he writes, “Agnon himself was an observant Jew, who kept the Sabbath and wore a skullcap. He was, literally, a God-fearing man: in Hebrew, ‘fear’ and ‘faith’ are synonyms. There are corners in Agnon’s stories where, in an indirect, cleverly camouflaged way, the fear of God is portrayed as a terrible dread of God: Agnon believes in God and fears him, but he does not love him.”

So what type of writer was S.Y. Agnon? Was he a “secular writer masked in religious garb?” Was he a “traditional Jewish writer with modernist tendencies and styles”? Emunah Yaron writes that in response to these sorts of questions, her father would respond that he is “an author of truth, who writes things as he sees them, without any ‘make-up or rouge’ camouflaging the face of things, without any décor trying to deter the eye from the core issues.”

“For these very reasons” writes Yaron, “my father – who was a religiously observant Jew – refused to join the ‘Union of Religious Writers’ in Israel.”

In the words of Amos Oz, “it is in this paradox, the tormented tension between one tenet and its opposite,” that we truly come to understand Agnon’s theological universe, that is, a world where faith and doubt were eternal roommates.

In The Silence of Heaven: Agnon’s Fear of God, a work which Oz devoted in its entirety to investigating Agnon’s theological soul searching, Oz writes in his introduction that Agnon’s heart was “tormented by theological doubts,” and that Agnon’s characters often treat their challenges in life as “religious issues – providing that the term ‘religious’ is broad enough to encompass doubt, heresy and bitter irony about Heaven.” Oz aptly captures Agnon’s tormented religious soul, and is one of the few commentators on Agnon who refrained from looking at Agnon’s “kippah and observance of mitzvot” as a “mask.” Instead, Oz recognizes that it is possible for Agnon – or any Jew -- to observe God’s commandments while simultaneously struggling with that same God.

In fact, it is even possible to sit in prayer -- fully wrapped in Tallit and Tefillin -- with questions of faith on your mind as you address God.

In his famous story Tehilah, Agnon has the narrator standing at the Kotel – Judaism’s holiest site -- reflecting on his feelings towards prayer: “I stood at times among the worshippers, and at times among those who question.”

That’s life in an Agnon story. In fact, that’s life.

A Sephardic S.Y. Agnon

(published in the Jewish Journal/April 18, 2013)

In current discourses on modern Israeli literature, the names Oz, Yehoshua and Grossman typically dominate the discussion. But how often do we hear the name Haim Sabato? Who is Sabato, and why is his writing often compared to Nobel Prize-winning Israeli author S.Y. Agnon?

When I first met Sabato, the setting was not the typical book-lined study or corner table at the literary cafe. Instead, it was the beit midrash of Yeshivat Birkat Moshe in Ma’aleh Adumim, where he lives, studies, teaches Talmud — and writes novels.

Born in Egypt and descended from a long line of rabbis from Aleppo, Syria, Sabato is one of the most unique voices in modern Israeli literature. His writing is inspired by Agnon, whose stories he read as a child, and the similarities between the two are striking: Both are religiously observant, both employ a linguistic style that draws heavily from biblical and rabbinic Hebrew, and both tell their stories through a narrator who has a striking resemblance to the author.

But there are major differences, and Sabato pointed them out in — of all places — Beit Agnon (Agnon’s House), where he delivered the annual “Agnon Memorial Lecture” a few years ago. 

“I followed in Agnon’s footsteps in immersing my stories in the traditional sources … but I felt a few layers were completely missing from his language. I wondered, where are the wordplays of the Sephardic kabbalists, what about the homiletics of the Aleppo scholars, the halachic terminology of Moroccan rabbis, the Aramaic translations of Yemenite Jews, and the Ladino scholars of Jerusalem who mix Midrash and Bible, dip it in Rashi, and create Ladino idioms? I was zealous for them, so their language not be forsaken and lost. Who will sketch their profiles, in their language?”

Sabato’s literary journey began with “Aleppo Tales” and, most recently, “From the Four Winds.”

But his second and third books are what distinguish Sabato as a great novelist. In these novels, he writes from a uniquely Sephardic perspective. He tells Israel’s Sephardic story, of immigrants and of scholars. He seeks to demonstrate how Sephardic Jews interacted with and ultimately integrated into the predominant Ashkenazic culture of Israeli society, all the while struggling to maintain their distinct culture and heritage.

“Adjusting Sights” is a classic Yom Kippur War novel; based on Sabato’s own experiences, the narrator — Haim — tells the story of what happened to him and his childhood friend, Dov (a real childhood friend of Sabato’s), during that war. But beyond the powerful narrative of friendship, faith and the turmoil of the Yom Kippur War, Sabato’s story has a deeper message. In the beginning, Haim recounts his childhood as an immigrant from Egypt who now lives in the impoverished neighborhood of Beit Mazmil, just outside of Jerusalem (true to Sabato’s own story — which he returns to and expands in his fourth novel, “From the Four Winds”). Haim’s cousin, Shabtai, takes him out to play, and as the two sit on the side of the soccer field talking, they are suddenly surrounded by a group of boys from the neighborhood who shout, “Arabs! Arabs!” Haim bursts into tears, and it is a tough Sephardic boy — Momo and his “gang” — who rescues Haim and Shabtai. 

“These kids aren’t Arabs. They’re talking Arabic because they’re new … no one touches them.”  But as much as Momo is Haim’s protector and he felt a kinship toward him, their life journeys are different. Momo, a Moroccan “tough guy” who knows how to pray and recites Psalms by heart, is thrown out of school for misconduct and resorts to the streets, the fate of many Sephardic immigrants in Israel. Haim is a young Torah scholar who befriends Dov, an Ashkenazi immigrant from Romania. The two go on to yeshiva high school and hesder yeshiva together. Although Haim bumps into Momo (now an officer) during the Yom Kippur War, it is with Dov that Haim shares a tank and fights the war. “Adjusting Sights” is a Yom Kippur War story, but beneath its layers lies the story of a Sephardic immigrant whose blending into mainstream Israeli society came during one of Israel’s most defining moments.

“The Dawning of the Day: A Jerusalem Tale” is Sabato’s ode to Sephardic rabbis and poets (something he began in “Aleppo Tales”). Set in the heavily Sephardic Jerusalem neighborhoods of Nahalaot and Mahane Yehuda, this novel features rabbis named Pinto, Hadad and Ventura, and characters named Tawil, Antebi and Mizrahi. But the novel’s main character is a laundry presser named Ezra Siman Tov, whose initials  —  E.S.T.  —  “could also be read as Ezra Sephardi Tahor — Ezra, a pure Sephardi.” Ezra is a Sephardic storyteller who becomes Sabato’s voice to the Ashkenazi world, including to Agnon: “There was once a great writer in Jerusalem. All Jerusalem took pride in him, both during his life and after his death. His fame extended throughout the world. At times, on his walks … he noticed a man with a shining face in the alley near the entrance to the synagogue. The man stood encircled by a group of people who were listening to him and were rapt with attention. The writer too began to listen and his eyes lit up … that storyteller was Ezra Siman Tov.” The irony is that in this scene, Siman Tov tells a Chasidic tale! This is Sabato’s brilliant way of telling Agnon, “I know your stories, but do you know mine?” Siman Tov and “the great writer” ultimately develop a relationship, a reflection of Sabato’s interaction with Agnon’s writings, or of the Sephardic writer who seeks to interface with Israel’s continuously Ashkenazic narrative.

The greatest difference between Agnon and Sabato is not only their ethnic backgrounds, but also their strikingly different outlook on life. Agnon’s novels are filled with cynicism and bitterness. Sabato’s novels are — in his own words — “filled with sparks of light, and instead of the bitter drop of fate [in Agnon’s stories], a hopeful dose of faith.”

Perhaps it’s time for Israeli society to re-evaluate its narrative … and its narrator. 

A Rav Uziel Renaissance

Ever since his death in 1953, most Israelis had never heard of Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, Israel’s first Rishon Le-Zion (Sephardic Chief Rabbi). One of the 20^th century’s most prolific rabbinic scholars, and a prominent rabbinic and civic leader throughout the formative years of Zionism, Rav Uziel belonged to a different generation, and is thus an unknown figure to most modern Israelis. Every major city in Israel has a “Rechov Ha-Rav Uziel” (Rav Uziel street), but most who walk or drive that street do not know who Rav Uziel is. Thankfully, that is starting to change.

This week I met with Mr. Ezra Barnea, the Director of The Institute for the Publication of Rav Uziel’s Writings. A native and long time resident of Jerusalem, Ezra studied in the Sephardic Talmud Torah in the Old City, in the same buildings that now house our Sephardic Educational Center. An expert in Sephardic manuscripts, music and hazzanut, Ezra sits in a very small office in the Heichal Shlomo building in Jerusalem. His office may be small, but his work is larger than life. With no staff (except his adorable grandson who was in the office that day helping him out), a small advisory board, some dedicated volunteers, a few generous donors, and an old school work ethic combined with a pleasant personality that always greets you with a warm smile, Ezra Barnea has taken it upon himself to edit and publish the massive and precious treasure chest of manuscripts left behind by Rav Uziel. Sitting in Ezra’s office is a true inspiration. Surrounded by books, manuscripts, and a glass case containing Rav Uziel’s beautifully embroidered robe traditionally worn by Sephardic Chief Rabbis, Ezra has singlehandedly created a “Rav Uziel Renaissance” here in Israel.

In just under fifteen years, Ezra has edited and brought to publication 28 volumes of Rav Uziel’s writings…including two new volumes that just came out this week. These beautifully bound and well laid out books include 9 volumes of Rav Uziel’s halakhic responsa (Mishpetei Uziel) dealing with matters of Jewish ritual and civil life, his spiritual writings addressing questions of faith (Hegyonei Uziel), and his commentaries on the Talmud, Maimonides and Pirkei Avot. There are also special volumes addressing specific halakhic issues such as the function of rabbinic courts, the special laws relating to orphans and widows, and the complex laws governing the sabbatical year in Israel. A true treasure are the six volumes that collect all of Rav Uziel’s major speeches, addresses and letters, giving the reader an in depth look into the world of the formative years of the pre-state Zionist Yishuv in Eretz Yisrael, and of Rav Uziel’s active leadership during that period. The two volumes that came out this week are a beautiful collection of all of Rav Uziel’s writings on the topics of Shabbat and all of the Jewish holidays. These books are sold in Judaica bookstores throughout Israel, and now form an integral part of the libraries and Batei Midrash (Study Halls) of many Yeshivot and Jewish Institutions of Higher Learning. They are available to rabbinic judges, yeshiva students, or the educated lay person who is intrigued by the ever relevant classic Sephardic approach of a balanced and moderate approach to halakha, Jewish thought, Zionism, tradition and modernity, written by one of the 20^th century’s greatest rabbinic leaders.

As if publishing these books was not enough, Ezra has also seen to it that Rav Uziel’s story be told on film. The result is a beautifully and professionally produced documentary that chronicles the personal life, leadership career and unique rabbinic approach of Rav Uziel – all in 85 minutes. Watching this film is a journey through several worlds: the Old Sephardic Yishuv in Jerusalem, the pre-State Zionist movement in Eretz Yisrael and the brilliant mind and kind heart of Rav Uziel. Photos, audio and video clips and interviews from family members, rabbis, students and even the entertainer Yehoram Gaon, all speak glowingly of a man who was a defender of tradition in a secular Zionist world, an ardent and pro-active Zionist who believed that the emerging State of Israel was clearly the hand of God, a rabbinic leader who embraced all facets of modern life, and a rabbinic scholar who combined intellect, knowledge, passion and compassion in every halakhic decision that he made. The film was screened on television in Israel, and met with glowing reviews. (I was so moved by the film that I have obtained the rights from Mr. Barnea to screen it at the SEC’s upcoming Sephardic Film Festival in Los Angeles this coming November. The film is currently being subtitled in English, and we are planning a special evening the night it will be screened at the festival. We are proud that our screening will mark the U.S. Premiere of this important film).

Books and films are powerful ways of reaching wide audiences, but if you want an educational message to become part of a society, you have to find a way of reaching students in established schools. I was so excited to learn that after much lobbying by Mr. Barnea, this past school year marked the launching in the Israeli school system of a new “Rav Uziel Curriculum,” officially produced by The State of Israel’s Ministry of Education. The curriculum includes an educational book and DVD with texts, photos, and educational exercises, all relating to the life and teachings of Rav Uziel. The book was produced in a way that it can be used for a variety of age groups. As such, you will find activities for first graders alongside suggested activities for high school students. This efficient system made it possible to introduce this curriculum throughout the Israeli school system, now making it a fixture in Israel’s required Judaic subjects.

Conversion to Judaism is arguably Israel’s most controversial internal issue today. “Who Is A Jew?” and “Who Is A Rabbi” are core questions that stand at the center of Israeli society’s identity crisis as a “Jewish State.” Long before these became politicized matters between rival rabbinic factions in Israel, Rav Uziel dealt with these questions for the emerging Jewish state. Jews were coming to Eretz Yisrael from all over the world, and, as reflected in Rav Uziel’s halakhic responsa, intermarriage is nothing new in the Jewish world. As such, the halakhic questions of conversions and Jewish identity, the status of children from mixed marriages, and the halakhic requirements for conversions by rabbinic courts were all matters that Rav Uziel dealt with extensively during his career.

Because of this current crisis plaguing Israeli society (and Jews everywhere), Ezra has commissioned Israeli scholar Zvi Zohar to write a special book dealing with Rav Uziel’s halakhic approach to conversion. An expert in Sephardic Halakhic responsa (and a friend and lecturer at the SEC in Jerusalem and Los Angeles), Professor Zohar’s book will certainly present today’s rabbinic leaders with a challenge that – if accepted – will transform the world of conversion to something much less complicated, and virtually free of controversy. In his desire to foster a Judaism that was inclusive and welcoming, Rav Uziel legislated halakhic rulings that made converting to Judaism a positive and inspirational experience, without compromising halakhic matters. Rav Uziel’s approach was inspired by this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Ekev, where we are taught that God “Loves the Stranger (Ger),” and that we “Shall love the stranger (ger).” The Hebrew word for stranger (ger) is the same word used by halakha for converts.  I look forward to Professor Zohar’s book, and the positive impact it will hopefully make for the Jewish people.

When I was with Mr. Barnea this week, I discussed with him my possibly undertaking the translation of selections of Rav Uziel’s works into English. One of my projects with the Sephardic Educational Center is to spread the good word of Classic Sephardic Judaism to as wide an audience as possible, and I feel that Rav Uziel’s works are the best place to begin. We spoke about creating an anthology reflecting a cross section of Rav Uziel’s halakhic responsa, his Jewish thought articles, and some of his speeches and letters. This would be a “Rav Uziel Reader,” and the goal would be to introduce Rav Uziel’s writings to the general Jewish public in the U.S., and to hopefully integrate his teachings into Jewish schools. Mr. Barnea was very supportive of this idea. To date, the only book about Rav Uziel available in English is an excellent biography written by my colleague Rabbi Marc Angel. Titled “Loving Truth and Peace: The Grand Religious Worldview of Rabbi Benzion Uziel,” it is a book I strongly recommend. The creation of this anthology/reader would complement Rabbi Angel’s book, giving students the opportunity to read actual texts by Rav Uziel.

In the spirit of my suggestion to Ezra Barnea, and in the spirit of this week’s haftarah that deals with comforting the Jewish people after the destruction of Jerusalem, I will now translate a selection from the new volume on the Jewish holidays. Rav Uziel wrote these comforting and inspirational words after Tisha B’Av, 1933:

            We must remove this divisiveness that plagues us, and instead make our work as a community a reflection of peace and love. But who will stand and lead this change amongst us? This specific task belongs to the “Faithful in Israel,” our rabbinic and spiritual leaders. This belongs to them, because the Torah is not an alienating force; rather it is a force that brings people closer together. The true announcement of the redemption and the coming of the Messiah will only happen when the hearts of parents are drawn closer to their children, and the hearts of children are drawn closer to their parents. It is about time that the “Faithful in Israel” unite forces in their sacred work, and unite the entire Nation of Israel around them. Such unity, of spiritual leaders working together, unifying our people as one, will serve as our greatest source of comfort and strength, especially during these times when the waves of evil are spreading over all Jews -- (1933 – The Rise of the Nazis).

Quite a grand vision – rabbis working together, leading to the unification of the Jewish people. Indeed sounds messianic (especially the part about rabbis working together), but were he alive today, with the “waves of evil” once again threatening to spread over Jews, Rav Uziel would speak the exact same message.

This past week, I had three separate meetings in Jerusalem with potential partners who are all interested in my biggest dream for the SEC, and for the Jewish world – the creation of a new rabbinical training program that will train rabbis in the classic Sephardic mode of Rav Uziel. With the publication of his books by Ezra Barnea, the inclusion of his teachings into the Israeli educational system, Zvi Zohar’s upcoming book on conversion, the screening of the film at our festival, and the possible creation of a new English anthology/reader, this current “Rav Uziel Renaissance” will reach higher heights if and when we have a new generation of rabbis and educators who can teach and spread Rav Uziel’s teachings to a new generation of Jews all over the world.

In the spirit of comforting messages after Tisha B’Av, it’s good to see the Classic Sephardic mode of Judaism – especially through the figure of Rav Uziel -- enjoying a renaissance, slowly but surely making it’s way back into Israeli society and the Jewish world.

Lost In Translation

“Our Passover Seder is translated into Arabic,” I used to tell my friends in school. “Arabic?” they responded in bewilderment, “that’s so weird! How could you translate a Seder into Arabic? Isn’t Arabic the language of the enemy?”

Growing up in a French speaking Sephardic-Moroccan home in Los Angeles, my sisters and I were never taught that Arabic was the “language of the enemy.” That is, unless we considered our parents “the enemy,” who spoke it amongst themselves when they didn’t want us to understand what was being said. I have vivid memories of Judeo-Arabic being spoken in my home. It was a “private” language for my parents, as well as a form of cultural communication for my parents and their friends. In fact, there are several jokes for which to this day, I don’t know the punch line, as they started out in French, and just when the suspense was it its peak, the punch line rolled out in Judeo-Arabic. When my sisters and I would beg my father to translate, the answer always was “I could translate, but it won’t be the same.”

I have come to understand my father’s principle of “I could translate, but it won’t be the same” to also mean that there are times when linguistic expression is often more powerful than the actual translation itself. Throughout my upbringing, the first chant at the Passover Seder that really made it feel like Pesach for all of us around the table sounded like this:

Haq’da Qssam L’lah lb’har âla tnass l’treq ‘hin khrzeu

zdoud’na min massar, âla yed sid’na oun’bina moussa ben amram haq’da n’khrzeu min had l’galouth amen ken yehi ratson.

My father chanted this during Yahatz, as he split the middle matzah. It was not a formal part of the Haggadah. It was a text that stood by itself, and although none of us understood a word of what was being said, we all chimed in, and we all had our own images and perceptions of how this moment was speaking to us.

For me, in the truest spirit of Passover, this Judeo-Arabic chant represented a journey through my roots. In a language whose words I did not understand, but whose tone and music evoked deep emotions within me, this chant helped tell me the story of Jewish life in Morocco. On the night where we are mandated to “tell the story,” here came a chant in a language I did not speak, yet told me the story of my Moroccan Jewish heritage more vividly than any history book ever could. It evoked images in my mind of my great-grandfather Rabbi Yosef Pinto, sitting at his Seder in Marrakesch dressed in a Jalabiya with a scarf on his head, breaking the middle matzah and recounting the exodus to his family in the same Judeo-Arabic. It transposed me back to the Moroccan Mellah (Jewish Ghetto), a place I’ve only been to in my mind, but a place that I nonetheless could hear, feel and even smell, especially at that moment. Haq’da Qssam L’lah even reminded me – because it was in Arabic – that Moroccan Jewry once had positive and cordial relations with their Muslim neighbors, something we’ve painfully lost today.

As the Seder journeyed on, it was peppered with other Judeo-Arabic chants. Examples include Had taam d’eef kleu zdoud’na fi ardi massar (Ha Lahma Anya – This is the Bread of Poverty) or Fkhrouz Israel mn masar (B’Tset Yisrael Mimitzrayim – When Israel Left Egypt – Psalm 114). These were the sounds at my Seder – raw, unfiltered and deeply authentic. Hearing the Haggadah in Arabic took us away from our first generation American milieu, and transposed us back to a place where Judaism thrived in a deeply spiritual fashion, enriched by a rich cultural world that enjoyed an intimate bond with the cuisine, spices, music and language of North African Arab culture.

With my parents no longer alive, my family continues our Judeo-Arabic chanting at the Seder. These chants continue to tell the story of Pesach – my Moroccan ancestor’s Pesach – to my children, in the original language of their ancestors. Pirkei Avot teaches us to “know from whence we come.” This is as important a story on the night of Pesach as is the master story in the Haggadah.

I am proud to raise my children to understand that, despite the ugly extremism of jihadists and fundamentalists, Arabic is still not the “language of the enemy,” and that Jews have a long-standing relationship with Arabic language and culture. It reminds my children that Jewish works of outstanding spiritual and intellectual stature, such as Judah Halevi’s Kuzari or Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed, were written in Arabic, and that nobody accused these great minds of writing in the “language of the enemy.”

After my father’s passing a few years ago, I found the translation of the text we read while breaking the middle Matzah: This is how the Holy One Blessed be He split the sea into twelve separate paths, when our ancestors left Egypt, through the leadership of our master and prophet, Moses son of Amram, of blessed memory. Just like God redeemed them and saved them from harsh labors and brought them to freedom, so, too, may the Holy One Blessed be He, redeem us for the sake of His great name, and let us say, Amen.

Sounds – and feels -- so much better in the original.

(originally published in The Jewish Journal 4/4/12)

Lights, Camera, Israel

(Parashat Vayishlach – Genesis 32:4 – 36:43)

Like a good movie, Israel evokes a variety of emotions within us. In fact, the poster for the 1994 Israel Film Festival (IFF) reads: “Passion, Triumph, Danger, Tragedy, Suspense, Miracles, Conflict, Ecstasy, Israel.” When I asked Meir Fenigstein, founder and director of the IFF, why he chose these particular words, he said, “These are the ingredients that produce a good film, and these also happen to be the emotions that best capture the story of Israel.”

Fenigstein was referring to the modern State of Israel, but I would argue that these words have portrayed the story of Israel from its very inception. Actually, the very first time the word “Israel” was pronounced, the scene was one of danger, suspense and conflict; its outcome could be tragic or miraculous; and the passion that ensued produced a feeling of ecstasy and, ultimately, triumph.

It was a dark, lonely night when “Jacob remained alone, and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn” (Genesis 32:25). Jewish commentators are divided as to what exactly took place that night. Who was this mysterious “man” that suddenly appeared and wrestled with Jacob all night? Was he an angel or a real person? If he was an angel, who and what did he represent? Was this a real physical event, or did it take place in the realm of the supernatural? Was it a prophecy, a dream or a combination thereof?

No matter what answers the commentators have suggested, the outcome of this wrestling match is even more compelling than the above questions. Just before the break of dawn, when the “man” saw that he was unable to defeat Jacob, “he wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was dislocated as he wrestled with him.” He then implored Jacob “let me leave, for dawn is breaking.” Despite his injured thigh, Jacob still overwhelmed the “man,” and refused to let him go until the “man” would bless him.

“What is your name?” the man asked.

“Jacob,” he replied.

The “man’s” answer to Jacob is the turning point in Jacob’s life, and marks the dawning of a new nation destined to spend its eternity much like Jacob spent that night — alone, often in the dark, struggling with God, wrestling with enemies, injured … and triumphant. “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:29).

The medieval Bible commentator and grammarian Rabbi David Kimchi (Radak) teaches that the Hebrew word for “striven” — sari-ta — has as its root the word sarah (not to be confused with the name Sarah), which means “to contend,” or to “struggle toward victory.” This explains, according to Radak, the choice of Jacob’s new name — Israel. Built into the word “Israel” is the root sarah, which means that built into the word Israel is the character of struggling — with “beings divine and human.” Much like the patriarch Israel spent that night — and much of his life — struggling with the complexities of God, family, sibling rivalry, morals and ethics, parenthood and relations with neighbors, so, too, his descendants — the nation of Israel — were destined to spend their existence struggling with God, with each other, and with those that surround them.

The Talmud teaches: “The deeds of our forefathers are a sign for their children.” Never was this more applicable, especially to contemporary Israel, than the moment when Jacob — now named Israel — walked away from his wrestling match triumphant yet limping, permanently scarred from his battle wounds. This image conjures up the many instances in Israel’s modern history when Israel triumphed, but the wounds of battle rendered the triumph bittersweet. From its rebirth in 1948 on the rebounds of the Holocaust, to the many valiant battles fought by the IDF, to the miraculous victory at Entebbe marred by the loss of one soldier, to the elated feeling of seeing Gilad Shalit home again with the sobering reality of the price for his release, Israel — like its namesake — continues to walk off of its many battlefields with her fists raised in triumph, despite her injured legs limping away.

The words on the Israel Film Festival poster continue to ring true: Passion, Triumph, Danger, Tragedy, Suspense, Miracles, Conflict, Ecstasy, Israel. Like a good movie – and like Israel the patriarch -- Israel’s wrestling matches are passionate, filled with internal conflict, wrought with suspense and danger from enemies, and when we experience the ecstasies of Israel’s triumphs, we are compelled – like David Ben-Gurion said -- to believe in miracles.