Intertextuality in the Tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav: A Close Reading of Sippurey Ma'asiyot (Numen Book Series)

Intertextuality in the Tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav

Numen Book Series Studies in the History of Religions

Series Editors

Steven Engler (São Paulo, Brazil; Calgary, Canada) Kim Knott (Leeds, UK) P. Pratap Kumar (Durban, South Africa) Kocku von Stuckrad (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) Advisory Board r.i.j. hackett (knoxville, tn, usa) g. ter haar (the hague, the netherlands) a. tsukimoto (tokyo, japan) — t. jensen (odense, denmark) i.s. gilhus (bergen, norway) — g.i. lease (santa cruz, ca, usa) a.h. khan (toronto, canada) — b. bocking (london, uk) f. diez de velasco (tenerife, spain) — m. joy (calgary, canada) a.t. wasim (yogyakarta, indonesia)

VOLUME 116

Intertextuality in the Tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav A Close Reading of Sippurey Maxasiyot

By

Marianne Schleicher

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007

Cover illustration by Celine Ostendorf This book is printed on acid-free paper. A Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tzamalikos, P. (Panayiotis), 1951– Origen: Philosophy of History and Eschatology / by P. Tzamalikos. p. cm. — (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, ISSN 0920–623X) Includes bibliographical references and indices. ISBN-13: 978-90-04-15648-7 ISBN-10: 90-04-15648-8 (alk. paper) 1. Origen. 2. History—Religious aspects—Christianity—History of doctrines— Early Church, ca. 30–600. 3. Eschatology—History of doctrines. I. Title. II. Series. BR115.H5T93 2007 230'.13092—dc22 2006052169

ISSN 0169-8834 ISBN 978 90 04 15890 0 © Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishers, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

To the memory of my mother Dorrit Schleicher, born Knudsen

CONTENTS

Acknowledgement .......................................................................

ix

Introduction ................................................................................

1

Chapter One Theoretical Background for the Applied Method ....................................................................................

7

Chapter Two Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav .............................. 2.1 The Emergence and Consolidation of Rabbi Nahman as Religious Leader ........................................ 2.2 Nahman as Composer of Homilies .............................. 2.3 Nahman as Teller of Tales ...........................................

27 52 57

Chapter Three Earlier Scholarly Commentaries on the Tales ........................................................................................

67

Chapter Four Analyses ............................................................. 4.1 The First Tale The King Who Had Six Sons and One Daughter ................................................................ 4.2 The Second Tale The Emperor Who Had No Children ......................................................................... 4.3 The Third Tale The Wise Man Who Called upon His Children .................................................................. 4.4 The Fourth Tale The King Who Decreed Expulsion or Forced Conversion—A Tale of Miracles ................. 4.5 The Fifth Tale The King’s Son Who Was Made of Precious Stones .............................................................. 4.6 The Sixth Tale The King Who Had a Wise Man .... 4.7 The Seventh Tale The King Who Was Burdened by Many Wars .................................................................... 4.8 The Eighth Tale The Rabbi Who Had No Children ......................................................................... 4.9 The Ninth Tale The Wise One and the Simple One ................................................................................

27

95 95 138 174 215 238 260 280 303 317

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contents

4.10 The Tenth Tale The Burgher and the Pauper ........ 4.11 The Eleventh Tale The King’s Son and the Maid’s Son Who Were Switched ................................ 4.12 The Twelfth Tale The Master of Prayer ................. 4.13 The Thirteenth Tale The Seven Beggars ................

357 410 463 543

Chapter Five Conclusion ......................................................... 5.1 The Informative and Performative Function of the Tales ............................................................................. 5.1.1 God .................................................................. 5.1.2 Mythical historiography and its this-worldly consequences .................................................... 5.1.3 The present state of the world ........................ 5.1.4 Individual tikkun .............................................. 5.1.5 Universal tikkun ............................................... 5.1.6 Messianic expectations ..................................... 5.2 Concluding Remarks ...................................................

619

620 623 625 626 632 634

Bibliography ................................................................................ Index ........................................................................................... Reference to the Hebrew Bible ..................................................

637 643 661

619 619

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This book—a revised and expanded version of my Ph.D. dissertation— could not have been completed without nancial assistance from various institutions and foundations. Accordingly, I thank the Faculty of Theology, University of Aarhus, Denmark for granting me a full Ph.D. fellowship from 1999 to 2002, the Thanks to Scandinavia Foundation for nancing my rst ulpan in Jerusalem at the Hebrew University in 1999, the Bernard Tarschy’s Foundation for partly nancing my continued ulpan-studies at the Hebrew University in 2001, the University of Aarhus Research Foundation for awarding me the University of Aarhus Prize for the best Ph.D. dissertation in 2004 and for nancing the language revision of this book, and the Carlsberg Foundation for granting me a full postdoctoral fellowship from 2004 to 2006. The Ph.D. dissertation was carried out at the Department of the Study of Religion, Faculty of Theology, University of Aarhus under the supervision of Peter Steensgaard Paludan and Kirsten Nielsen. Kirsten Nielsen deserves special mentioning for her maieutic supervision, for introducing me to her lucid perception of metaphoric expression and use of gurative language,1 and for offering me her presence, whenever I needed advice or support. For all this I owe her my warmest thanks. I should like to express my appreciation to Arthur Green for inviting me to meet with him in Amsterdam in 2000 to discuss the project in its initial stage and to Rachel Elior at the Hebrew University for her willingness to meet and correspond with me on several occasions. Rachel Elior has shared her vast knowledge on Hasidism with me, been concerned and interested, for which I am grateful. At the public defense for my Ph.D. dissertation in 2003, I was honored by the comments and critiques presented by the three members of the assessment committee: Rachel Elior, Arnold J. Band, and Hans Jørgen Lundager Jensen. I owe my thanks and deep respect to all three of them. Marianne Schleicher, 29 December 2006 1 This perceptiveness is particularly evident in Kirsten Nielsen: There is Hope for a Tree —The Tree as Metaphor in Isaiah, JSOT Supplement Series 65, Shefeld Academic Press, Shefeld, 1989.

INTRODUCTION

Sippurey Maxasiyot1 consists of thirteen tales that have many traits in common with fairy tales. The thirteen tales are replete with fantastic plots in fantastic settings in indenite time and space. They are replete with heroes and heroines, villains, devils, and demons. Supernatural forces intervene to assist the good characters and punish the evil ones. Nevertheless, these tales refuse to reveal a coherent meaning by themselves, as fairy tales ought to do.2 Even if one pays attention to every single textual component, be it sentence, word, and sign, and to plot and structure—if one combines these, and if one tries to use one to understand another, one will still be left pondering without a satisfactory insight into their meaning. The content of these tales only becomes accessible if one accepts that the content derives meaning through the interaction with external sign systems taken from the cultural environment to which it refers. The fact that external sign systems bestow meaning upon the sign system of the tales encourages me to consider this transposition a matter of “intertextuality” as coined and developed by Julia Kristeva. The tales were told by Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav over a period of four years from 1806 to 1810. Until 1806, Nahman disseminated his religious thoughts through homilies. From 1806 and onward, however, Nahman consciously chose the genre of tales as an additional and most important means of communication. I shall therefore employ Hayden White’s concept of “tropology” to address Nahman’s discursive turn to telling tales. Nahman grew up in a Hasidic community in the Ukraine. Hasidism at that time was Nahman’s historical context. Yet, the tales often portray some of the characters and values known to be Hasidic in a critical way,

1 “”, [sipur], means story, tale, narrative, storytelling; while “ ”, [ma’aseh], means deed, act, story, or tale. Since both nouns in the title connote tales and because of the tales’ resemblance to fairy tales, one can choose to translate the title simply as “Tales”, though one should not ignore the connotation to the act of telling tales. I shall return to the concept of  in Chapter 2.3. 2 Cf. Gero von Wilpert: Sachwörterbuch der Literatur, Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart, 1979: “Märchen”.

2

introduction

which evokes the notion that a dialogue, even a tension, exists between the tales and Hasidism. To create this dialogue and tension, Nahman applies imagery from biblical and rabbinical literature, from various mystical trends, and particularly from the Kabbalistic text corpus Sefer haZohar. I shall therefore employ theories on “dialogic language” and the “revolutionary potential of language” as formulated by Mikhail Bakhtin and Kristeva, and furthermore include Paul Ricoeur’s interpretation theory and its extension to metaphoric and symbolic expression to benet from his explanation of what happens to the listener/reader when s/he is exposed to the informative and performative impact of split reference and tension, characteristic of gurative language. It is known from Nahman’s homilies and from biographical texts about him that Nahman, in the preponderant part of his adult life, conceived of himself as the fth and last Zaddik haDor. A Zaddik haDor is a person who supposedly draws upon his righteousness and divine insights in order to redeem the entire generation of which he is a part. The four other Zaddikey haDor were Moses, Rabbi Akiva, Shimeon bar Yohai, and Nahman’s great-grandfather the Ba’al Shem Tov. These were precursors in the process of redemption; yet, they had failed to go far enough. Revisioning their failed achievements, Nahman had to envision a theology and practice of redemption with which to supercede them and accomplish what they had failed to do. To describe Nahman’s wrestling with these past heroes, I shall draw upon Harold Bloom’s theory on the anxiety of inuence.3 As already mentioned, Nahman orchestrates a transposition of sign systems from the cultural environment into the tales. These sign systems often have their origin in Jewish scriptures whose canonical status transfers legitimizing authority onto the tales. This scripture-based transfer of authority mirrors Nahman’s attempt to position the tales as similarly privileged texts by claiming to be the sender of divinely deputized authority similar to that of biblical prophets, cf. his role as Zaddik haDor. Accordingly, he offers the tales as a mystical means to his listeners/readers to access his divinely sanctioned thoughts. To enable an address of Nahman’s composite scriptural use I shall differentiate between two scriptural aspects: the canonical and the mystical.

3 Cf. Harold Bloom: The Anxiety of Inuence, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997 (1973).

introduction

3

Chapter 1 shall be dedicated to a presentation of the above-mentioned theories that inform my methodological strategy, which again enables me to trail the primary purpose of this study; i.e., to contribute to the ongoing academic discussion about Sippurey Maxasiyot. An exegetical consequence to be drawn from my theoretical platform is to acquire knowledge about the context, in which the tales were told, and especially about Nahman’s immediate context. Chapter 2 is therefore devoted to a presentation of Nahman as a religious leader within Hasidism and as a theologian who disseminated his thoughts through homilies before he turned to telling tales as a new kind of discourse. Chapter 2 will primarily be based on the works of other scholars. Earlier scholarly commentaries on the tales shall be presented in Chapter 3. Many scholars have inuenced my understanding of Nahman and his tales. Some have convinced me of their understandings, while others have inspired me to consider or nd alternatives. A brief outline of the development in scholarly opinions about the tales begins with the opinions held by Nahman’s followers. Nathan Sternhartz, Nahman’s close follower and secretary, who recorded the tales and published them in 1815, and Rabbi Nahman of Tsherin, who published his commentary on the tales in 1912, formulated guidelines for interpretation. The guidelines from these two leading Bratslavers4 suggested a focus on allegory and a more or less automatic translation of these allegories, which would be in accordance with Nahman’s theology known from his homilies and with the expectations which these followers had to Nahman as Zaddik haDor. Many of the early academic scholars paid attention to these guidelines. However, the conception of the tales changed within academia when Joseph Weiss and later Mendel Piekarz’ argued that everything Nahman said and wrote focused on Nahman and his understanding of himself as Zaddik haDor. Inspired by Weiss and Piekarz’, Joseph Dan took their point one step further. Dan argued that the tales should be considered literary creations, dependent

4 A Bratslaver belongs to the “Bratslav community”, a designation of the congregation of those who consider R. Nahman of Bratslav their rebbe (the Yiddish word for rabbi). Nahman indicated to his followers on his deathbed that despite his death he would not leave them; cf. Kaplan 1985: 204; and said to them that those who follow his teachings will be able to continue his engagement in redeeming the world; cf. Hayyey MoHaRaN #218. For this reason the followers did not choose a new zaddik because Nahman would remain their zaddik. Accordingly, the Bratslavers are called ‘the toyte Hasidim’—i.e., the dead Hasidim—because they still ascribe leadership to their dead rebbe.

4

introduction

on the context in which they were told.5 Yet, the content of the tales, despite its references to theological concepts and texts prevailing in this context, could not be revealed to contain any didactical message—theological or ethical—unless one succumbed to conjecture. One should therefore, according to Dan, conceive of the tales as literary expressions of Nahman’s tormented soul and his attempts to come to terms with his Messianic aspirations to redeem the world according to his identity as Zaddik haDor. Scholarly publications on the tales ever since have distanced themselves from the purely autobiographical approach. Instead they have argued that the tales have an autobiographical as well as didactical content, while everybody agrees that Nahman’s perception of himself as Zaddik haDor is crucial to any attempt of understanding the tales. My overall purpose reveals that I am closer to the didactical wing, as I intend to focus on the informative and performative function of the tales. This does not mean that I ignore the autobiographical aspect of the tales. As I shall explain in Chapter 1, I do not call for “the death of the author” as Roland Barthes did. In fact, I see much adequacy in applying Bloom’s thoughts on a poet’s wrestling with great precursors and their oeuvres. I also contend that the telling of tales is a tool for Nahman as Zaddik haDor to further redemption. Yet, my close reading of the tales will reect that Nahman did not constantly believe that he was the only one upon whom redemption depended. A clear address to others to engage in the process of redemption reveals the didactical aspect. Thus, the tales cannot be perceived as purely autobiographical, as the autobiographical wing has claimed, or as involved with precursor struggles alone. The former scholarly suggestions and arguments shall be presented in detail in Chapter 3.6 If one is to take into account the literary characteristics of the tales, then one has to adopt a literary approach, as opposed to a biographical approach. The literary approach will give supremacy to the tales in cases of falsication, whereas a biographical approach will read the tales in consonance with the biographical material about Nahman,

5 Joseph Dan is the one who has most forcefully stressed the context dependence of the very components of the tales, cf. 132 :1975 ,  ,  ,  : . The title means: The Hasidic tale. 6 This book is a revised version of my Ph.D. dissertation, submitted in 2002. Scholarly publications on the tales having appeared after 2002, of which no one challenges this book’s status as the rst comprehensive work on the whole selection of tales, will not be included in Chapter 3 or in my discussion of the tales.

introduction

5

where the latter is only a matter of verication.7 Since references to external sign systems may be overt as well as covert, it is necessary to read the text as closely as possible. Furthermore, since the act of interpreting gurative language involves conjecture, as Dan complains, one must interpret as large a collection of material as possible to allow this material to counter one’s guesses if necessary. This is crucial in the academic project of turning conjectures into substantiated hypotheses.8 I shall therefore analyze all thirteen tales in Sippurey Maxasiyot. The thirteen analyses are presented in Chapter 4. Commentaries to all thirteen tales do exist. Arnold J. Band, who focuses on the relationship between texts and historical contexts in Jewish literature within the larger eld of comparative literature, has published a translation including a two-to four-page commentary on each tale.9 Aryeh Kaplan, a Bratslaver, has published a translation, as well with footnotes commenting on details in all thirteen tales.10 However, to the best of my knowledge, an academic close reading, which presents an analysis with an argumentation for the interpretations of each and all of the tales, has not yet been undertaken—which makes this book the rst comprehensive scholarly work on the whole selection of tales. In conducting a close reading of all thirteen tales, the rst priority must be to make sure that every word of the tales has been touched upon.11 I therefore decided to translate the tales. I contacted Chaim Kramer, publisher at the Breslov Research Institute, and explained to him that I was in need of a copy of Sippurey Maxasiyot that reected the original 1815 bilingual Hebrew-Yiddish version, and Chaim Kramer was so kind as to send me a copy compatible with my need.12 In cases

7

Cf. Arthur Green’s denition of a biographer’s reading of the tales; cf. Arthur Green’s Tormented Master—The Life and Spiritual Quest of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, 1992 (1979): 339. 8 Cf. Paul Ricoeur: Interpretation Theory —Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning, Texas Christian University Press, Forth Worth, 1976: 75–79 on the validation of conjectures as an inescapable process within the humanities. 9 Arnold J. Band: Nahman of Bratslav—The Tales, Paulist Press, New York, 1978. 10 Aryeh Kaplan (ed.): Rabbi Nachman of Breslov: Rabbi Nachman’s Stories, The Breslov Research Institute, Jerusalem, 1983. 11 I am here paying heed to the practical instruction given by Phyllis Trible on what she calls rhetorical criticism; cf. Phyllis Trible: Rhetorical Criticism—Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1994: 101–106. 12 The bilingual version, the one I shall refer to, is:  :     1985 ,  ,     , 

6

introduction

of doubt during the process of translating these tales, I have consulted the translations of Band and Kaplan to be able to include their translation of specic words and phrases in my considerations. My translation is inserted in the analyses, where my judgment on coherence has been the measuring stick for dividing each tale into separate passages. I did not want to attach the translations as an appendix because reading a close reading presupposes that the text is right at hand for my reader to be able to consult the text when evaluating my analyses and judging whether my understanding is rewarding. My translation should therefore not be considered the work of a philologist, but a tool for the analyst as well as the reader of this book. Based on the analyses, Chapter 5.1 systematizes the informative and performative function of all thirteen tales. Chapter 5.2 contains my concluding remarks on the plausibility of my claims on the characteristics of the tales and on my understanding of the content of Sippurey Maxasiyot.

CHAPTER ONE

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND FOR THE APPLIED METHOD

Nahman’s turn from homiletic discourse to telling tales would, according to the American intellectual historian Hayden White (1927–), be a matter of tropology.1 White denes ‘trope’ . . . as the linguistic equivalent of a psychological mechanism of defense (a defense against literal meaning in discourse . . .), it is always not only a deviation from one possible, proper meaning, but also a deviation toward another meaning, conception, or ideal of what is right and proper and true “in reality”. Thus considered, troping is both a movement from one notion of the way things are related to another notion, and a connection between things so that they can be expressed in language that takes account of the possibility of their being expressed otherwise (White 1978, 2).

In presenting his tropology of discourse, White draws upon the psychologist Jean Piaget. Piaget distinguishes between four “restructurations” of the perceptual eld in the development of a child’s cognitive powers: the sensorimotor, the representational, operational and rational. White conceives of these restructurations as tropical because they reect “the modalities between the child and its ‘reality’ which the modes of cognition identied presuppose” (White 1978, 6–7). During the child’s rst eighteen months, the child will be experiencing similitude between its own body and the world of objects and be lacking the ability to distinguish between self and other/mother. At around eighteen months, the child experiences what Piaget called a “Copernican Revolution”, which allows the child to differentiate between itself and other objects, thus enabling the symbolizing process of thinking about and addressing objects related, yet decentralised from the subject. At the age of seven, the child obtains a kind of preadolescent logic that enables classication. Based on the perception of the objects themselves, the child will be

1 Hayden White: Tropics of Discourse —Essays in Cultural Criticism, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1978.

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able to group or rearrange objects by paying attention to what common essential natures make them adhere to the same kind of totality. This ability to classify depends upon the physical manipulability of the objects, not upon reection. At the onset of adolescence, typically at the age of thirteen, the child will be capable of logic and deductive reasoning on manipulative objects as well as on theories and propositions, which then can “serve as a check on both perception and mental operations of the earlier kinds” (White, 9). Because of the self-critical potential of this ability, this second-order view on established meaning becomes a potential platform for perceptual change.2 Despite the sequence of these stages, which reect the diachronic development of the child’s cognitive powers, White argues that discourse is a “recapitulation of the process of cognitive development similar to the way that the child comes to a comprehension not only of his ‘reality’ but of the relation between reality and his consciousness” (White 1978, 12). The synchronic inuence of the perceptual stages leads White to present his thesis: [I]n those situations in which we might wish to break the hold of a given chain of logical reasoning,… we might consider reversion (or regression?) to a more “primitive” mode of cognition as represented by the earlier, prelogical stages in the process of development. Such a move would represent a metalogical “turn” against logic itself in the interest of resituating consciousness with respect to its environment or of reconceptualizing the relation between self and other in specically nonlogical, more nearly imaginative ways (White 1978: 10).

White provides the modern scholar with one explanation of why Nahman would include telling tales as an additional means of communication. Purportedly, Nahman did so, to allow for the imagination to resituate his consciousness and that of his listeners/readers to make everyone reconceptualize their religious ideals, make them imagine his conception of redemption. In fact and very much in line with White’s thesis, Nahman argued systematically for his turn to telling tales in Likkutey MoHaRaN #60, which I shall return to in Chapter 2.3. The imagistic genre of tales, prelogical as it may be, enables something that theological tractates do not. Logic is pushed aside, and a much more imaginative way of conceptualizing things is achieved. However,

2

Cf. White 1978, 6–9.

theoretical background for the applied method

9

White’s inclusion of Piaget does not provide a detailed explanation or description of the cognitive achievements available once one operates within the most imaginative kind of discourse; i.e., poetic language. To fully understand what Nahman achieved by turning to telling tales, a focus must be directed at his poetic, gurative language, characterized in Sippurey Maxasiyot by intertextuality. There are various denitions of intertextuality, including the common notion that merely denotates the presence of one or more texts within the text in focus. This does not sufce to explain the tales of Nahman even though it applies to them, replete as they are with overt and covert references to religious literature. To explain the function of such references, one could benet from and go into detail with the many existing works on intertextuality. Yet, because this is a work not on intertextuality, but rather on the tales of Nahman, I shall limit myself to what I consider the most adequate thoughts on intertextuality—namely those of and intersecting with the Bulgarian, later French linguist and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva (1941–). At a university seminar led by Roland Barthes (1915–1980) in Paris in 1966, Kristeva argued that human sciences were in need of a model of language that was isomorphic to the very logic that enabled the production of poetic meaning.3 Linguistics had assumed a leading position within the humanities on the production of meaning ever since the Saussurean distinction between “parole” and “langue”. Ferdinand Saussure had dened “parole” as the concrete use of language, while “langue” was dened as the code or system that enabled the realization of “parole”, the production of meaning. Kristeva addressed a need in the human sciences to reect these insights of linguistics—an address that paralleled Barthes’ criticism of literary studies. In two articles, “Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives” from 1966 and “The Death of the Author” from 1968, Barthes criticized literary studies for being ignorant of Saussure’s almost fty-year-old distinction and for still remaining within the sphere of “parole” by typically looking for an explanation of a written work in the author

3 Cf. Julia Kristeva: “Word, Dialogue, and Novel” (1969), Kristeva Desire in Language— A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, Columbia University Press, New York, 1980: 64. The paper held in 1966 was not published until 1969.

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who produced it.4 According to Barthes, literary criticism turned every work into an autobiographical allegory of the author; much like the autobiographical wing has done with the tales of Nahman. The author, “when believed in, is always conceived of as the past of his own book: book and author stand automatically on a single line divided into a before and an after” (Barthes 1977 (1968): 145). If only literary criticism would distance, even remove the author, the reader would be set free to approach the text without succumbing to absolute meanings about it held by either the illusory owner of it—i.e., the author—or the literary critic in his/her illusory claim of having deciphered it. Barthes writes: [A] text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author. The reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up a writing are inscribed without any of them being lost; a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination. Yet this destination cannot any longer be personal: the reader is without history, biography, psychology; he is simply that someone who holds together in a single eld all the traces by which the written text is constituted . . . [T]he birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author. (Barthes (1968) 1977: 148)

Barthes’ ideal impersonal reader is aware of all the traces of quotations constituting the fabric of a text. However, the real reader, the one who exists in history, who may know none, some, but hardly ever all of those traces, lives beyond the boundaries of structuralistic analysis and is referred to by Barthes as an associated, yet nonlinguistic factor and therefore not of primary concern to him.5 Kristeva could not be in accord with Barthes on this point. She cannot operate with ideal readers, or dead authors for that matter. In her mind, the author writes poetry to change history, and the reader reads to include an alternative view on matters of concern. This situatedness is, according to Kristeva, a linguistic factor and of primary concern to those analysts who study the production of poetic meaning—including me, as I analyze Nahman’s reasons for turning to telling tales.

4 Cf. Roland Barthes: “Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives” (1966), 79–124, esp. 110–111; “The Death of the Author” (1968): 142–148, esp. 143, both in Barthes: Image Music Text, Fontana Press, London, 1977. 5 Cf. Barthes (1966) 1977: 115–116.

theoretical background for the applied method

11

The situatedness of everyone involved in the process of reading/ writing is addressed by Kristeva in her focus on the actual language event, in which “[D]iachrony is transformed into synchrony… [It is] a dialogue among several writings: that of the writer, the addressee (or the character), and the contemporary or earlier context” (Kristeva 1980 (1969): 65). The writer, addressee, contemporary and earlier contexts constitute textual surfaces that intersect and make up a three-dimensional space, in which language alternates between three coordinates, cf. my model:

Context Area of intersection

Writer

Text

Addressee

The text mediates on the vertical axis between structures from for example the historical context and the text itself. On the horizontal axis the text mediates between the writer and the addressee. Writer and addressee both share the words of the text that structures the diachronic relations into synchronic ones. This mediating function of the text is what Kristeva refers to as “intertextuality”.6 Intertextuality emerges as ambivalence due to the polyphony stemming from the dialoguing “voices” of writer, addressee, and contexts. A text is neither just the writer nor just the addressee nor just the prehistory of its words nor just an isolated object. A text will always be at least double, being one and the other/s. Kristeva owes much of her notion on polyphony/dialogue to the Russian formalist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975). Bakhtin contrasted the dialogic language of the novel

6

Kristeva 1980 (1969), 66.

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to the monologic language of the epos.7 The epos typically heralds absolute truths and untainted heroes situated in a distant past with no real contribution to the fulllment of contemporary social needs or the reader’s decision on how to live life in the present or in the future. The absoluteness of epic language led Bakhtin to speak about monologic language. No reply, no reaction is expected from the reader. The only function of monologic language seems to be to preserve the absolute ideals that society endorses and is in need of for self-preservation.8 Bakhtin’s conception of the novel points backward to his studies on carnival. Bakhtin rooted the novel’s uniqueness in common people’s culture and their need for contemporaneity in artistic portrayals, characterized by being seriocomical. “It is precisely laughter that destroys the epic, and in general destroys any hierarchical . . . distance. As a distanced image a subject cannot be comical; to be made comical, it must be brought close . . . thus clearing the ground for an absolutely free investigation of it” (Bakhtin 1981 (1975): 23). Bakhtin thereby sees a parallel between the novel and scientic, i.e., self-critical, thinking. Dialogue is crucial to self-criticism. Dialogue is characterized by ambivalence toward everything, including oneself, by a trial-and-error talk about an opinion, which is why dialogue is a necessary means for self-criticism.9 This self-criticism may extend to exposing any perspective on the world, current in one’s contemporaneity, as inconclusive and without semantic stability. This is what the novel reminds us of—that the sense and signicance of objects “are renewed and grow as the context continues to unfold” (Bakhtin 1981 (1975): 30). The novelist is drawn toward everything that is not yet completed. He may turn up on the eld of representation in any authorial pose, he may depict real moments in his own life or make allusions to them, he may interfere in the conversations of his heroes, he may openly polemicize with his literary enemies and so forth. This is not merely a matter of the author’s image appearing within his own eld of representation—impor-

7 Cf. Mikhail M. Bakhtin: “Epic and Novel—Toward a Methodology for the Study of the Novel” (1975) in Bakhtin: The Dialogic Imagination—Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin (ed. Holmquist), University of Texas Press, Austin, 1981, 3–40. I have chosen to render the main points in Bakhtin’s article on the epic and the novel because it pinpoints the very issues that Kristeva discusses. In 1966, however, Kristeva knew of Bakhtin from Bakhtin: Rabelais and His World (1946), MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1965; and Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (1929), Ann Arbor, Ardis, 1973. 8 Cf. Bakhtin 1981 (1975): 13–15. 9 Cf. Bakhtin 1981 (1975): 24.

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tant here is the fact that the underlying, original formal author (the author of the authorial image) appears in a new relationship with the represented world. Both nd themselves now subject to the same temporally valorized measurements . . . and may enter into dialogic relations (Bakhtin 1981 (1975): 27).

Dialogic language enables the author to access an “other” perspective than the one s/he knows. Just like a carnival, dialogic language challenges the ofcial laws and structures of society. Contrary to Bakhtin, Kristeva does not want to limit herself to studies of the novel or the epos. She is interested in poetic language in general. According to her, poetic language assumes a unique position, in that it becomes the “carnivalesque” writing and reading condition that enables the subject to refuse existing hierarchies. Carnivalesque language “transgresses rules of linguistic code and social morality as well” (Kristeva 1980 (1969): 70). Kristeva does not consider monologic and dialogic language mutually exclusive. On the contrary, she considers these modes of language nonexclusive opposites. For dialogic language to argue its case it must deal with the absolute truths and articulated laws of monologic language. It must read them before rewriting them. Dialogic language does not entail liberation from law. Rather, it stipulates an alternative law in a historical continuum where the old monologic law is addressed, challenged and transgressed in dialogue.10 Without Kristeva clearly stating it, the nonexclusive relationship between these two opposites becomes an analytical opportunity to detect how literary discourse strives to effect historical change. Nahman addressed the shortcomings of contemporary Jewish theologies in his Hasidic context, but remained within the historical continuum of Judaism even when he proposed his alternative theology by means of tales. While Kristeva is concerned with the revolutionary potential in language, potentially available to all, the American literary critic Harold Bloom (1930–) has an interest in strong poets alone. By seeing the relations between poets as isomorphic to what Sigmund Freud called the family romance,11 Bloom’s motivation is to correct conventional

10 11

Cf. Kristeva 1980 (1969): 70–71. Cf. Bloom 1997 (1973): 8.

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and diachronic understandings of how poets are inuenced by one another.12 Bloom distinguishes between weak and strong poets. Weak poets idealize their precursors to such an extent that they have no access to their own thoughts and passions. Instead, weak poets borrow their precursors’ sensations. They use somebody else’s intellectual and emotional reasons for their own poetry.13 Strong poets, on the other hand, are “major gures with the persistence to wrestle with their strong precursors, even to the death” (Bloom 1997 (1973): 5). Bloom claims that the psychological diagnosis of poetic inuence would be a variety of melancholy or the anxiety principle. To avoid melancholy or anxiety, Freud claims that it is pertinent to the process of maturation that the individual discovers acceptable substitutes for his/her mother who can represent endless gratication as she once did. While Bloom agrees with Freud that melancholy reects the sadness of having to separate from the mother, Bloom disagrees with Freud on two points. First, he nds it problematic to praise deafness toward one’s own passions, pragmatic as this may be among ordinary people, but not among poets. Poets cannot accept substitution. They ght unremittingly to reach the object of their passions. Second, the melancholy of a strong poet includes not only the dream of endless gratication but is intertwined with the dream of immortality as well.14 The dream of immortality evokes the thoughts of Friedrich Nietzsche on the antithetical or revisionary process toward self-realization. Bloom explains that every poet begins (however “unconsciously”) by rebelling more strongly against the consciousness of death’s necessity than all other men and women do. The young citizen of poetry… is already the anti-natural or antithetical man, and from his start as a poet he quests for an impossible object (Bloom 1997 (1973): 10).

The antithesis of the strong poet is impossibility itself, be it the precursor supposedly impossible to supercede or immortality. The poet’s strong alertness to inner passions makes him refuse any kind of constraints, including death, which would prevent him from reaching his desired

12 13 14

Cf. Bloom 1997 (1973): 5. Cf. Bloom 1997 (1973): 6–7. Cf. Bloom 1997 (1973): 7–9, 58.

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object.15 The inner passions also make him realize whenever he is on the verge of becoming a victim of a precursor poet’s inuence—a victim “of inuenza in the realm of literature” (Bloom 1997 (1973): 38). His very autonomy is threatened, and this is why poetic anxiety occurs. However, and contrary to Nietzsche, Bloom’s strong poet cannot contend to revision the past including his precursors. The strong poet must make divination his priority. Divination is here to be understood as speech from the midst of the freedom that comes from breaking with the past; that comes from the poet disrupting the line of inuence, bestowed on him by his precursors.16 This is why Bloom writes: “Good poets are powerful striders upon the way back—hence their profound joy as elegists—but only a few have opened themselves to vision” (Bloom 1997 (1973): 36). Bloom mentions six steps in the process toward—not only revisionary but—also visionary poetry that I detect in Nahman’s attitude toward the previous four Zaddikey haDor in their process of redemption; in Nahman’s ability to specify the exact point where they failed in their redemptive pursuit; and nally in how the achievements of these precursors nevertheless are extolled, yet on Nahman’s premises alone. The rst step is referred to as “clinamen” and implies that the poet follows his precursor “to a certain point, and then deviates, insisting that a wrong direction was taken at just that point, and no other” (Bloom 1997 (1973): 29). By having detected and articulated the dividing line between them, the poet stations his precursor, which is the rst step toward freedom.17 Nahman shared the redemptive pursuit of his precursors. Yet, as I shall demonstrate in my analysis of the thirteen tales Nahman is conscious of the failures of these precursors. Bloom’s second step is designated “tessera”— i.e., completion. Bloom takes the term from Jacques Lacan and explains “tessera” in the “sense of a completing link. [T]he tessera represents any later poet’s attempt to persuade himself (and us) that the precursor’s Word would be worn out if not redeemed as a newly fullled and enlarged Word of the ephebe” (Bloom 1997 (1973): 67). As the antithesis of the precursor, the poet’s poem completes the precursor poem. The poet reads “the parent-poem

15 Cf. Kristeva’s notions of how poetic language reects revisits to the semiotic chora, where inner passions meet with biological, natural and societal constraints. 16 Cf. Bloom 1997 (1973): 8, 39. 17 Cf. Bloom 1997 (1973): 42.

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as to retain its terms but to mean them in another sense, as though the precursor had failed to go far enough” (Bloom 1997 (1973): 14). Bloom’s third step that founds the discontinuity with the precursor is referred to as “kenosis”—i.e., emptying-out. It is the literary equivalent to the psyche’s defense mechanism against repetition compulsion. “Kenosis” is achieved by the poet’s conscious ebbing out of that part in himself which reects the precursor poet. Yet, in spite of this “patricide”, the poet will never become an independent ego. Exactly because strong poetry is a variety of melancholy, the poet will never escape his dialectical relationship to his precursor, even though the act of “kenosis” is successfully accomplished and leads to the emphasis of his own priority over his precursor.18 Bloom’s fourth step is named “daemonization” and refers to the poet’s sudden ability to perceive the general character of what seemed to be the precursor’s unique and most powerful insights, as if some daemon were giving away the secret of the precursor’s tricks to the poet. Bloom’s fth step is referred to as “askesis” and signies the process in which the poet, in order to purify himself from the inuence of all others, secludes himself, choosing a kind of solitude that is even reected in the poem as a clear nucleus “of his own human and imaginative endowment” (Bloom 1997 (1973): 15). The sixth step, named “Apophrades”, refers to the return of the dead, thereby meaning that the poet’s poem will revive and host the precursor’s poem, but only allow the latter to manifest itself as if it had been written by the younger poet. A dialogue between the precursor poem and the younger poet’s poem will be accessible only on the premises of the latter.19 As a consequence of this dynamic structure in the intrapoetic relationship, Bloom presents a guideline for antithetical practical criticism: Let us give up the failed enterprise of seeking to “understand” any single poem as an entity in itself. Let us pursue instead the quest of learning to read any poem as its poet’s deliberate misinterpretation, as a poet, of a precursor poem or of poetry in general. Know each poem by its clinamen and you will “know” that poem in a way that will not purchase knowledge by the loss of the poem’s power (Bloom 1997 (1973): 43).

18 19

Cf. Bloom 1997 (1973): 87–92. Cf. Bloom 1997 (1973): 14–16.

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A strong poet is neither an ideal nor a common reader. The poet misreads on purpose to position himself. The poet is “a pseudo-exegete who makes writings into Scriptures” (Bloom 1997 (1973): 35). Nahman swerves against tradition, rewrites tradition, to position his version of it. As a critic I must, according to Bloom, apply empathy to such an extent that I can imagine myself misreading the precursors and the precursors’ tradition as Nahman did.20 Only in this way will I be able to understand Nahman’s redemptive strivings. While I do consider Bloom helpful in detecting Nahman’s relationship to his precursors, it is all too limited for a general theory on poetic language. Bloom’s dialectical relationship between poet and precursor is not a matter of dialoguing; it is a wrestle even to the death about who achieves priority over the other. Contrary to this, Kristeva’s dialogue between at least two sign systems must as its vantage point involve a Gadamerian preparedness to revaluate, to allow for a fusion of horizons, and even to transform one’s perspective on an object if convinced by the other—otherwise why should one engage in dialogue? While I agree with Bloom that one can see in Nahman’s tales a wrestle with precursors even to the death, I also see Nahman nding the only solution to his tormented soul in a dialogue with past writings where he revaluates, fuses with their horizons and transforms his early notions—accepting substitutes for his original passions as it may be; yet, he nds the tools in those partner-texts to achieve priority over his precursor.21 Kristeva’s linguistic model of intertextuality from 1966 dealt with the signifying process of the subject as a kind of dialogue. She substantiated

20 For more on Bloom’s guidelines for an “antithetical, practical criticism”; cf. Bloom 1997 (1973): 19, 25, 93–94. 21 Another reason for me not becoming a Bloomian would be that Bloom himself accomplishes a full development from clinamen to apophrades with the result that he as a critic denes strong poets and poetry based on the ideals of criticism. He asks the poet to exhibit clinamen—i.e., to point to the exact spot in the precursor poem where the precursor did not go far enough. This is a matter of criticism, not of poetry. He wants to model the poet in the image of the literary critic, which is just as discouraging in my view as Bloom probably considered Freud’s decision “to exalt the second chance above the rst” (Bloom 1997 (1973): 9). Furthermore, Bloom has inherited Freud’s male-centered perspective on the family romance and its subsequent projection on men and women alike, by which women poets will escape his grasp. Maybe this explains why no woman qualies as a strong poet in Bloom’s Anxiety of Inuence. Emily Dickinson is briey mentioned on the very last pages, but only as someone who allows a too-big inuence from Emerson; cf. Bloom 1997 (1973): 153–154.

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the intersection of writer, text, context, and addressee by pointing to Lacan. Lacan advocated for an abolition of the distinction—and thereby enabling the synchrony—between signier and signied (cf. author and subject in text). Within the synchrony, the “signier represents the subject for another signier”22—that of the other. In the following years, Lacan’s concept of “the great Other” and Freud’s notion of the unconscious paired with Kristeva’s own semiologic interest in the speaking subject, led her on a voyage from studying language acquisition of children and in dissolution and pathology of discourse to attending the seminars of Lacan to nally nding a major inspiration in Melanie Klein and her focus on the maternal body.23 In her doctoral dissertation Revolution in Poetic Language, published in 1974, Kristeva stated that the semiotic and the symbolic are two inseparable modalities, two nonexclusive opposites, within the signifying process that reects the child’s psychic development and relation to its mother’s body. The dialectics between the semiotic and the symbolic determines whether the discourse involved will articulate itself as monologic or dialogic language.24 The semiotic modality is referred to as the semiotic “chora” (Greek: receptacle) to describe the space, rst established in the preverbal subject (the pre-Oedipal child), within which the subject’s drives are regulated and ordered. The ordering takes place when the subject orients his/her body to the mother, only to face the mother mediating and imposing constraints of biological and social structures upon him/her. These constraints constitute the symbolic law organizing social reality, and the subject who inevitably feels constrained reacts with ambivalence toward the mother and with negativity (“tannatos”—i.e., death drive) toward the constraints.25 The “thetic” (i.e., positioning) phase is the precondition of denotation and evolves around the break from the purely semiotic. This break enables the “positioning” of the subject and its objects.26 In the pre-Oedipal phase, the child will consider the mother phallic, because

22

Quoted after Kristeva 1980 (1969): 76. Cf. Kristeva: “My Memory’s Hyperbole” (1984): 10, 13, 19; Kristeva: Revolution in Poetic Language (1974): 37—both in Kristeva: The Portable Kristeva (ed. Kelly Oliver), Columbia University Press, New York, 2002. For more on Kristeva’s inspiration from and work on Klein; cf. Julia Kristeva: Melanie Klein, Columbia University Press, New York, 2004. 24 Cf. Kristeva 2002 (1974): 34. 25 Cf. Kristeva 2002 (1974): 37. 26 Cf. Kristeva 2002 (1974): 40. 23

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she is sensed as the one who graties the child’s demands and thereby bestows signicance upon the child. She is the signier. However, once the child realizes that the mother has no penis, the mother is considered castrated, thus no longer considered the source of gratication and signication. The relation to the mother is transformed into a symbolic relation to an “other”, while the phallus in its detachment from the mother has become a symbol of signication. In this newly gained independence from the mother, the child turns his/her awareness to his/her own genitals to signify him-/herself, thereby becoming a signier.27 An additional effect of the thetic break, much in line with the thoughts of Lacan, is the enabling of the subject to associate with any other person a potential signifying “other” based on the memory of what the mother used to be.28 This provides one explanation of why the discourse of literary characters may be incorporated as the attractive perspective of some “other” and of why the tales of Nahman potentially have a didactical function of presenting such alternative perspectives. Once the thetic break has taken place, access has been gained to the symbolic modality. The symbolic modality, which is a post-Oedipal event, is characterized by the subject’s ability to signify itself and to impose signs upon objects through position and judgment. Yet, this diachronic account of the signifying process does not sufce to account for language skills and their sociohistorical potential. A synchronic perspective on the development of language skills must be added. If the Oedipus complex and its reactivation in puberty have been completed, the signifying subject will be enabled to experience what Kristeva describes as a second-degree thetic break.29 A second-degree thetic break is difcult to detect in everyday, monologic language, but it is observable in poetic language—e.g., the tales of Nahman, as I shall claim. Poetic language of a second-degree thetic break reveals a subject, holding on to his/her symbolizing skills while entering the semiotic chora, where s/he witnesses its drives and their constraints; and lends his/her symbolizing skills to the chora to make it an interim signier. A subject of enunciation “does not repress the semiotic chora but instead raises the chora to the status of a signier” (Kristeva 2002 (1974): 46).

27 28 29

Kristeva 2002 (1974): 42–43. Kristeva 2002 (1974): 43. Kristeva 2002 (1974): 44–45.

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By allowing such interim semiotic “signication”, the poet gains access to drives that monologic, conventional language has sublimated. These drives, however, are our only reminders of when and how to alter conventional perception by including an awareness of the drives and of the constraints that they are up against. To claim that intertextuality is merely “a relationship of copresence between two texts or among several texts: that is to say, eidetically and typically as the actual presence of one text within another” (Genette: 1–2)30—would prevent an understanding of the psychic potential of synchrony. Poetic language, as in the tales of Nahman, displays a synchrony in which drives, needs, requirements, etc. are transferred onto the literary characters. These characters are signifying others whose signication one may choose to apply as one’s own. While one may not have the courage to revisit one’s own semiotic chora, the act of transference in poetic language offers access to clashes between drives and constraints and articulates this as the perspective of an “other” who demands to be listened to. Sign systems, stemming from the two basic modalities (the semiotic and the symbolic) and from the various positionalities of poet, character, and reader, are juxtaposed, even transposed into each other. This is why Kristeva, who coined the concept of intertextuality in 1966, has to emphasize the following in 1974: The term intertextuality denotes this transposition of one (or several) sign system(s) into another; but since the term has often been understood in the banal sense of “study of sources,”31 we prefer the term transposition because it species that the passage from one signifying system to another demands a new articulation of the thetic—of enunciative and denotative positionality. If one grants that every signifying practice is a eld of transpositions of various systems (an intertextuality), one then understands that its “place” of enunciation and its denoted “object” are never single, complete, and identical to themselves, but always plural, shattered, capable of being tabulated (Kristeva 2002 (1974): 48).

30 Gerard Genette: Palimpsests—Literature in the Second Degree, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1997 (1982). Genette is aware that he employs Kristeva’s concept of “intertextuality” in a more restricted way than she intended. Yet, the quoted rendering serves as a terminological paradigm for Genette’s analysis of the various relationships a text may have with prior texts. 31 This banal understanding of intertextuality as a matter of source study seems to have caused the originators some distress; cf. also the remarks in Bloom 1997 (1973): 7, 71.

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Kristeva and Paul Ricoeur (1913–) both praise poetic language for being able to effect perceptional and historical change. A vast part of their observations overlap, yet they reach their conclusions in very different ways. She applies literary semiotics and psychology, while he argues as a philosopher. She argues for dialogic language and its ability to effect change in that it juxtaposes and thereby brings within reach the perspective of the “other” with that of oneself/a conventional worldview. He argues for the creative power of literature in that writing is based upon a distanciation between us and the appearance of such and such work of art or discourse. It is a dialectical trait, the principle of the struggle between the otherness that transforms all spatial and temporal distance into cultural estrangement and the ownness by which all understanding aims at the extension of self-understanding . . . Writing and reading take place in this cultural struggle. Reading is the pharmakon, the “remedy”, by which the meaning of the text is “rescued” from the estrangement of distanciation and put in a new proximity which suppresses and preserves the cultural distance and includes the otherness within the ownness (Ricoeur 1976: 43).32

Contrary to Kristeva, Ricoeur does not link dialogic language and writing. He says: “Hermeneutics begins where dialogue ends” (Ricoeur 1976: 32). The situatedness of dialogue prevents the arbitrariness of understanding, while the written text, once it has been distanced from its author, opens up for multiple readings thanks to its distanciation, which again results in plurivocity. In the case of Sippurey Maxasiyot, I shall be analyzing tales, originally told by Nahman in front of his followers. Nahman’s telling of tales, as I exemplify, is “a temporal and present instance of discourse that it may ee as speech or be xed as writing” (Ricoeur 1976: 26). This is what happened. The recording of Nahman’s tales does not enable us to retain access to the initial language event including Nahman’s intention,33 but most of what was told has become xed, and as such, subject to hermeneutics. In Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, a distinction is made between the objective meaning of the text and the subjective intention of the author. Adding to this, the objective meaning of the text is a requirement

32 Paul Ricoeur: Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning, Texan Christian University Press, Fort Worth, 1976. 33 Cf. Ricoeur 1976: 75–76.

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addressed to the reader. Subsequently and starting from the written text, hermeneutics becomes a matter of connecting… two discourses, the discourse of the text and the discourse of the interpretation. This connection means that what has to be interpreted in a text is what it says and what it speaks about, i.e., the kind of world which it opens up or discloses; and the nal act of ‘appropriation’ is less the projection of one’s own prejudices into the text than the ‘fusion of horizons’—to speak like Hans-Georg Gadamer—which occurs when the world of the reader and the world of the text merge into one another (Ricoeur 2003 (1971): 377–378).34

Ricoeur’s contention is that discourse cannot fail to be about something and that gurative language, especially metaphoric and, in general, symbolic expressions open up the world by means of split references.35 Split reference implies that a text’s reference to the world is not descriptive, but a key to enlarging the perspective on the surrounding world.36 Split reference results in a surplus of meaning in that it combines an explicit and implicit meaning in order to rewrite reality. By pointing toward a kinship between two contradictory terms—contradictory if taken literally—the metaphorical utterance perceives a tensive relationship between the terms that offers new information about reality.37 Ricoeur concludes: In the same way that the literal sense has to be left behind so that the metaphorical sense can emerge, so the literal reference must collapse so that the heuristic ction can work its redescription of reality. In the case of metaphor, this redescription is guided by the interplay between differences and resemblances that gives rise to the tension at the level of the utterance. It is precisely from this tensive apprehension that a new vision of reality springs forth, which ordinary vision resists because it is attached to the ordinary use of words. The eclipse of the objective, manipulative world thus makes way for the revelation of a new dimension of reality and truth (Ricoeur 1976: 68).

34 Paul Ricoeur: The Rule of Metaphor—The Creation of Meaning in Language, Routledge, London, 2003 (1975). The English translation includes an appendix “From Existentialism to the Philosophy of Language”, in which Ricoeur evaluates his own orientations as a philosopher. This evaluation was given in address form before the Divinity School, University of Chicago in 1971; cf. Ricoeur 2003 (1971): 372–381. 35 Cf. Ricoeur 1976: 36–37. 36 Cf. Ricoeur 1976: 37. 37 Cf. Ricoeur 1976: 50–53.

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Figurative language imitates the world but adds a surplus of meaning, thereby creating a new understanding of reality. That is the informative function of gurative language, but it has a performative dimension to it: “To ‘make one’s own’ what was previously ‘foreign’ remains the ultimate aim of all hermeneutics…This goal is achieved insofar as interpretation actualizes the meaning of the text for the present reader” (Ricoeur 1976, 91–92). Ricoeur understands this appropriation as a fusion of horizons.38 This is extremely close to what Kristeva considers the function of dialogic language. What Ricoeur does not engage in, however, is an explanation as to what motive the reader may have to appropriate the proposed world-view of the text, while Kristeva points to the subject’s inclination to seek signication and gratication through an ‘other’. Furthermore, Ricoeur leaves behind the historicity of the author and his/her intentions with the text, contrary to Kristeva who wishes to discuss the potential of language to effect change, not only in the history and perception of the reader, but also in the history of the author. Ricoeur’s distinction between oral and written discourse and his notions of split reference and surplus of meaning are valuable to my approach, but I need Kristeva’s arguments to be able to discuss the potential of the tales to effect change not only in the history and perception of Nahman’s followers, but also in the life of Nahman, the teller of these poetic and gurative tales. Two aspects of “scripture” must be considered prior to an analysis of Sippurey Maxasiyot.39 The canonical aspect of scripture is the rst one and pertains to Nahman’s intertextual references to biblical, rabbinical, and mystical literature. Whenever Nahman makes such references, he states, as I shall claim, a situatedness within the boundaries of Jewish tradition. According to various scholars who have participated in the socalled canon debate,40 canonical writings constitute a point of reference 38

Cf. Ricoeur 1976, 93. For other scriptural aspects; cf. Marianne Schleicher: “Three Aspects of Scripture in Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav’s Use of the Psalms”, Studies in Spirituality 15, Peeters, Leuven, 2005: 1–17. In this article I dened the hermeneutical and mystical use of scripture a “sacred” aspect, while I dened an artifactual, often ritual use a “holy” aspect, following Boaz Huss: “Sefer ha-Zohar as a canonical, sacred and holy text: Changing perspectives of the Book of Splendor between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries”, Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Vol. 7, Overseas Publishers Association, Amsterdam, 1998: 257–307. 40 Cf., e.g., the anthology The Canon Debate (eds. McDonald & Sanders), Hendrickson, Peabody, 2002. 39

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for a religious tradition to disseminate something authoritative about its doctrines and forms of practice.41 Canonical writings function as a storage place for and a symbol of a society’s religious conceptions. In interpretative acts throughout history, society has used the canon to “situate itself as being this and not that, but also as having this past, and not that past. This is a recognition of oneself in the process of history” (Ricoeur 1979: 274).42 Canonical texts offer themselves as means to include or exclude those who are or are not considered members of a particular society. Given the vast array of intertextual references to Jewish canonical writings in the tales, it is likely that Nahman wants his listeners/readers to include him as part of Jewish tradition despite the religious revolution he wants to achieve. He wants his listeners/readers to count him, his theology and practical instructions within the boundaries of what Jewish tradition considers proper religious doctrines and forms of practice. Nevertheless, despite this almost institutional quality of canonical writings, a transformation of their content obviously takes place. I shall consider this transformation a matter of intertextuality, a Kristevan transposition through which the sign system of the canonical texts is transposed into the sign system of the tales, constituting a new articulation, a tabulation of Jewish beliefs and practises.43 Every reception of a text implies a transformation of it, but because the reception involves canonical texts in the case of the tales, the institutional authority attributed to the canonical texts becomes a legitimizing factor in Nahmans attempt to transform Judaism from within.

41 Cf., e.g., Sid Z. Leiman: The Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture: The Talmudic and Midrashic Evidence, Archon Books, Hamden, 1976: 127; and Finkelberg, Margalit & Guy G. Stroumsa (eds.), Homer, the Bible and Beyond—Literary and Religious Canons in the Ancient World, vol. 2, Brill, Leiden, 2003. To Finkelberg and Strounsa, canonical texts are foundational texts. “Foundational texts, then, in that they embody the essentials of a given community’s collective self-consciousness, are the indispensable factor by means of which its ethnic, cultural, or religious identity is articulated” (Finkelberg & Strounsa: 5). 42 Cf. Paul Ricoeur: “The ‘Sacred’ Text and the Community”, The Critical Study of Sacred Texts (ed. Flaherty), Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union 1979: 271–276. On the importance of not ignoring the necessity of constant interpretation of canonical writings; cf. Jonathan Z. Smith, “Sacred Persistence: Toward a Redescription of Canon”, Approaches to Ancient Judaism 1 (ed. Green), Scholars Press, Missoula, Mont., 1978: 11–28, esp. 23; and James A. Sanders: “The Issue of Closure in the Canonical Process”, eds. McDonald & Sanders 2002: 252–263. 43 Cf. Kristeva 2002 (1974): 48.

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The other scriptural aspect that must be touched upon with respect to Sippurey Maxasiyot is what I dene as the mystical aspect.44 Scripture belongs to the category of written discourse, in which statements and judgments are made. Following Ricoeur, interpretation is a matter of appropriation. Not only subject, sender, means, and intentions become important, but also the horizon of the receiver. However, when dealing with divine discourse, as scripture often does, the sender is accentuated and given supremacy prior to any dealing with any other aspect of the text. Boaz Huss,45 a scholar of Judaism, and Nicholas Wolterstorff, who has written on the concept of divine discourse within a Christian theological context,46 both call attention to scripture’s frequent postulate to originate in the transcendent/divine sphere. Typically, the text presents its sender as a god or as a person who has been deputized by the god to embody divine authority. Accordingly, the authority of the text depends upon the belief of the individual, whether s/he really believes that the sender of the text is divine/divinely authorized.47 Once this belief has been established, a mystical dimension to scripture is revealed: The text is a potential means for the individual to communicate and interact with the divine sender.48 There is ample reason to assume that the tales aspire to reect Nahman’s acclaimed status as a Zaddik haDor and his subsequent insight into the divine transcendent realm, which makes the inherent content unquestionable, authoritative reections of divine messages and offers the listener/reader the opportunity to enter into a mystical interaction with the divine.

44

For more on the mystical aspect of scripture; cf. Marianne Schleicher: “Mystical Midrash”, ed. Trautner-Kromann: From the Bible to Midrash—Portrayals and Interpretative Practices, Arcus förlag, Lund, 2005: 149–166. This article considers the rare possibility of hermeneutics being a means for mystical union with God in Jewish tradition. 45 Cf. Huss: 261. 46 Cf. Nicholas Wolterstorff: Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reections on the Claim that God Speaks, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995. 47 Cf. Wolterstorff 1995: 48. 48 Cf. Huss: 261–262.

CHAPTER TWO

RABBI NAHMAN OF BRATSLAV

2.1

The Emergence and Consolidation of Rabbi Nahman as Religious Leader

Nahman ben Simhah, later known as Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, was born on April 4, 1772, in Medzhibozh, the Ukraine. Nahman’s greatgrandfather on the maternal side was Israel ben Eliezer Baxal Shem Tov. The Baxal Shem Tov, also known as the BeShT, was considered the founding father of Hasidism at the time of Nahman.1 Nahman’s two uncles, also on the maternal side, were Moshe Hayyim Ephraim of Sudlikov and Barukh of Medzhibozh, two leaders of Ukrainian Hasidism. On the paternal side, Nahman’s grandfather was Nahman of Horodenka, a member of the circle around the Baxal Shem Tov, who established the rst Hasidic settlement in Tiberias along with other leading Hasidic personalities. Nahman of Horodenka traced his ancestry to the MaHaRaL of Prague and even to the House of David.2 Obviously, Nahman was born into a family with an impressive genealogy, which might explain the family’s strivings at the time of Nahman’s birth to “maintain its place as the rst family of the Hasidic community” (Green 1992 (1979): 24), possibly with Nahman in mind as the heir to the Medzhibozh dynasty.3

1 Earlier, most scholars would not have hesitated to refer to the BeShT as the founder of Hasidism, but recent scholarship argues that such a position is due to traditional Hasidic evaluation of the BeShT’s leadership. Instead of following the wish of the Hasidim to glorify the BeShT as the idealized and sole founder, one ought to think about the members of the circle around the BeShT as “charismatic gures in their own right, charged with enourmous spiritual power and claiming the same freedom of access to the upper worlds as the Besht himself ”, though “it is reasonable to assume that, in his time, he was regarded as the most prominent personality in that circle”; cf. Ada Rapoport-Albert: “Hasidism after 1772”, Hasidism Reappraised, Littman Library, London 1997: 81, 89. 2 Cf. Arthur Green: Tormented Master —The Life and Spiritual Quest of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, 1992 (1979): 24–26. 3 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 29.

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Bratslav sources claim that Nahman had, by the age of nine, completed reading the Talmud, Shulkhan Arukh, Sefer haZohar, and various Musar books.4 Green adds that Tikkuney Zohar, the entire corpus of Lurianic writings, Reshit Hokhmah, and the Hebrew Bible were also part of Nahman’s childhood readings.5 These books were typically among the possessions of the Hasidic elite, and Nahman may have read these books due to expectations of him/himself as a coming heir to the Medzhibozh dynasty. However, one should be cautious about the validity of the Bratslav sources, since these are reconstructions of Nahman’s past after he had won the great admiration of his followers, whose accounts probably reect a wish to portray him as something exceptional. Green brings a similar warning when he writes that the information about Nahman’s childhood “falls within the domain of legendary account” (Green 1992 (1979): 26).6 In 1785, at the age of thirteen, Nahman moved to Usyatin to live in the parental house of his newly wedded wife. There was no organised Jewish community in Usyatin, but he found great joy in walking in the elds and forests of the area, where he could be alone with God. To a certain extent, these walks might have inuenced Nahman’s later emphasis on the practice of hitbodedut (a certain amount of loneliness with God each day).7 Nahman made friends with Simeon ben Baer, who is supposed to be Nahman’s rst disciple, according to the Bratslavers. Green, however, mentions him only as a good friend with whom he could discuss religious matters in an honest way.8 Green suggests that the friendly talks between Nahman and Simeon may have served as a model for honest conversations as a later cornerstone in the community of Bratslav Hasidim. To this I can add a possible inspiration for the practice of vidui—i.e., confession among Nahman’s followers, since the talks between Nahman and Simeon seem to have been confessional in character, dealing sometimes with sinful thoughts. I shall

4 Cf. Aryeh Kaplan: Until the Mashiach—The Life of Rabbi Nachman (Rabbi Nachman’s Biography: An Annotated Chronology), Breslov Research Institute, Jerusalem, 1985: 6. 5 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 30, 54–55n27. 6 For a Jungian approach to Nahman’s childhood and its inuence on Nahman’s self-understanding; cf. James Kirsch: “Rabbi Nachman: The Question of his Self Understanding”, Journal of Psychology and Judaism, Vol. 2.2, Human Sciences Press, New York, 1978: 30–32. 7 Cf. Kaplan 1985: 6–7; Green 1992 (1979): 33–34. 8 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 35.

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attend to the practice of hitbodedut and the practice of confession later in this chapter. From the age of thirteen through the age of eighteen Nahman was visited by local Jews because he was the great-grandson of the Baxal Shem Tov, and they treated him as their rebbe. However, it seems that he was far from being ready to emerge as a public zaddik.9 Instead he concentrated on intensied studies. Several times a year he fasted from Sabbath to Sabbath for ascetic reasons. He mortied his body during winter by rolling around naked in the snow and during summer by allowing insects to molest his body. When he visited his family in Medzhibozh, he would often spend the night in vigil at the grave of his great-grandfather, the Baxal Shem Tov. In the middle of a river, he would rock the boat vehemently to see if God would come to his rescue. He also called upon God to grant him a vision of a dead person. “These must be seen as tests of personal worthiness”, as Green writes, though breaking down the sexual lust seems to have occupied Nahman the most, as it did later.10 I should also like to bring to attention Green’s suggestion that doubts concerning his own worth and guilt caused by sexual drives by the end of this period affected a transformation within Nahman. It was: a new view of his own suffering, which may be considered the starting point…of Bratslav Hasidism…Nahman began to develop the notion…that this very pain was the mark of greatness and the proof that he was to be a true zaddiq after all. His torments were to be seen as ‘sufferings of love’; the pain felt by Nahman the individual was transformed into that of the suffering servant, the zaddiq chosen by God for some great purpose (Green 1992 (1979): 40–41, Green’s italics).

Overcoming worldly desires, going through tests in a quest for something higher, visiting graves, crying-out for God, and the suffering of characters who might be able to bring about redemption are recurring themes of great importance in the tales, according to my reading. In 1790 the eighteen-year-old Nahman moved to Medvedevka together with his wife. At rst they lived off their dowry, but when the dowry ran out, Nahman accepted a xed amount of money from

9

Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 41. Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 35–38. Nahman emphasizes later in his life that a zaddik is required to be sexually pure, since sexual purity is the primary means to succeed in the nal redemptive process of haTikkun ha Kelali; see below. 10

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a group of local Jews who considered him their rebbe.11 It is at this point that he began to function as a religious leader. In 1793 Nahman appointed Rabbi Chaikel his regular cantor; he received other Hasidic leaders as visitors; and his group of followers grew.12 Among this group should be mentioned Abraham Peterberger, who was the rst to write down Nahman’s homilies; see Chapter 2.2.13 It seems that Nahman functioned as a guide to these followers, helping them to serve God in a perfect way. One piece of advice given to these followers was to subdue the physical nature of their bodies in order to recognize the vanity of this world.14 Nahman would pray for the needs of or bless his followers; in return he would ask them to give him pidyonot (money given to the zaddik for the sake of individual redemption). Nahman continued his fasts;15 he began to stress the importance of controversy (see below), and he practiced devekut at that time16—though devekut was later to recede into the background. Nothing is recorded regarding the period 1794–1797. Green adds, concerning the period 1790–1797, that practice of confession, known as vidui, had become a hallmark for Nahman’s followers, so that they were known in the area as viduiniks. Green suggests that vidui served as a sort of initiation rite for Nahman’s followers.17 Concerning Nahman’s time in Medvedevka, Ada Rapoport-Albert, who is the one who has dealt most thoroughly with confession in the circle of Nahman, mentions the practice of confession as “semi-formal initiation ceremonies” until 1800 when the ceremony was formalized.18 When dealing with the period 1800–1802 below, I shall attend to the practice of confession.

11

Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 43; Kaplan 1985: 14. Cf. Kaplan 1985: 16–17. 13 When a passage in Likkutey MoHaRaN begins with “the language of the companions”, the passage has been written down by Abraham Peterberger, and not by Nahman himself or Nathan Sternhartz; cf. Kaplan 1985: 17. 14 Cf. Kaplan 1985: 20–21. 15 Cf. Kaplan 1985: 15. 16 Cf. Kaplan 1985: 22. 17 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 45. Green mentions that other Hasidic leaders, such as Abraham of Kalisk and Hayyim Haykl of Amdur, were known to expect vidui from their followers. Even though Green refers to Ada Rapoport-Albert’s article from 1973 (see below), he does not mention what Ada Rapoport-Albert states—that no proof has been found of the term viduinik used about Nahman’s followers until 1800; cf. Ada Rapoport-Albert: “Confession in the Circle of R. Nahman of Bratslav”, Bulletin of the Institute of Jewish Studies, London 1, 1973: (65–96) 72. 18 Cf. Rapoport-Albert 1973: 72–73. 12

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Though Nahman’s alphabetical list of moral qualities, known as Sefer haMidot, was initiated in Usyatin, or maybe as early as in Medzhibozh, it gives, according to Green, testimony rst of all to the early stage of Nahman’s role as a religious leader.19 It says, e.g., that when a man loves God, eating, drinking, and other pleasures can become ways of serving God through corporal things—i.e., Avodah baGashmiyut.20 Avodah baGashmiyut is a common Hasidic concept, though Nahman with his fasts, or eating without tasting, did not seem to trust his capability to serve God in this way. Sefer haMidot emphasizes prayer and devekut for the sake of Shekhinah;21 though later in Nahman’s writings prayer and devekut—the latter only to a certain extent—were practiced with the primary purpose of praying for the redemption of the self. Joy is presented as a mitzvah,22 though Nahman is known for his complex approach to joy. Green explains this rst attempt of systematization as “the reections of a young man who seeks to immerse himself deeply in the world of the rst Hasidic masters, particularly in the teachings of the BeSHT himself ” (Green 1992 (1979): 50). Some independent unique thoughts are, however, present in this early work. There are warnings against sexual desire; and there is a strong and unusual emphasis on the centrality of faith as the means to approach God. Finally, there are denunciations of false zaddikim and a focus on the role of the true zaddik, who can atone the sins of Israel through vicarious suffering.23 From 1798 to 1799 Nahman went on a journey to the Holy Land— Palestine at that time. This journey has been seen as the turning point in Nahman’s life that allowed him to fully develop his role as a religious leader, as a zaddik. Concerning this journey, Green writes that

19

Sefer haMidot was rst published in Mogilev in 1811. Nahman may here be inspired by Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 49. 21 Shekhinah, i.e., God’s presence, is a female and the most immanent aspect of God and therefore the last serah in the serotic system. In early Jewish mysticism serah meant number, but it gradually changed its meaning. From early Kabbalah until today the meaning of serah has become an aspect that reveals a part of God due to the process of emanation, through which the world came into being; cf. Gershom Gerhard Scholem: Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Schocken Books, New York, 1974 (1946): 206. Nahman may here be inspired by the Mezeritch school (the followers of Dov Baer); cf. Green 1992 (1979): 49–50. 22 Nahman may here be inspired by the Baxal Shem Tov; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 50. 23 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 48–52. 20

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chapter two his readiness to leave the land almost as soon as he had set foot on its soil, his strange encounter with a young Arab in Haifa, his visits with the Hasidic community of Tiberias and at the graves of the saints—all of these lend to the account a sense of some secret and divine mission, the precise nature of which remains as hidden as the mysterious nature of Nahman himself. One cannot help but feel, in reading this account, that here Nahman in life has appeared as a character out of one of his own stories (Green 1992 (1979): 63–64).

Green suggests that this journey may have served as a rite de passage for Nahman to transcend his bodily self, to reach the spiritual “Torah of Erez Israel”, and to test his faith in God while confronted with a variety of dangers on the way, which of course have served to strengthen his trust in himself as a religious leader. Alternatively, Martin Cunz suggests that the journey reects Nahman’s attempt to rectify the way to the Holy Land for the Messiah.24 In 1799, upon returning from his journey, Nahman entered the public stage of Hasidism in an attempt to mediate between the different parties in an internal conict, characterizing Hasidism at that time. To understand this conict and how it inuenced Nahman and his theology, one has to go some decades back in time. Decentralized courts emerged from the charismatic oligarchic circle around the Baxal Shem Tov upon his death in 1760.25 Among these court leaders,26 Dov Baer, known as the great Maggid of Mezhirech,

24 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 84–86. The journey is dealt with in detail in Green’s chapter “Nahman’s Journey to the Land of Israel” in Green 1992 (1979): 63–93; in Kaplan 1985: 27–46/53; Martin Cunz: Die Fahrt des Rabbi Nachman von Brazlaw ins Land Israel (1798–1799)—Geschichte, Hermeneutik, Texte, Mohr, Tübingen 1997; and in Hillel Zeitlin: “Messiah and the Light of the Messiah” in Shaul Magid (ed.): God’s Voice from the Void—Old and New Studies in Bratslav Hasidism, SUNY Press, Albany 2002: 242–243. Green presents research in Nahman’s journey to Israel in Green 1992 (1979): 86n3. Martin Cunz, who deals with this journey very thoroughly, suggests that even though there is no hint to Nahman’s journey in the tales, there is one common denominator, and that is that the journey and the tales are matters of tikkun on the practical level. Telling tales are matters of rectifying the primordial Torah by awakening the Jews through these tales, of making the Jews repent and thereby make them return to the written Torah; cf. Cunz: 227. The journey is “die Widerspiegelung des Weges des Messias im gewöhnlichen, profanen Tun and Sagen der Welt, von dem jedoch gilt, dass es ver-rückt ist und deshalb zurechtgerückt werden muss” (Cunz: 229). 25 Cf. Rapoport-Albert 1997: 89–92. 26 Jacob Joseph established his court in Polonnoye in the area between the Ukraine and Volhynia. Pinhas, who had been a member of a circle around Dov Baer, broke with Dov Baer and his followers in 1770 and established his own court in Korets, just east

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“came to be regarded as the greatest hasidic leader of his time, just as the Besht had been regarded before him”. However, “the pluralistic principle which underlay the organisational structure of the movement from the start” gave room for “tensions and ideological or territorial disputes between the various hasidic courts” (Rapoport-Albert 1997: 93). One party in the controversy about to emerge consisted of the leaders of the so-called popular Hasidism, dominant in Podolia and Eastern Volhynia, the areas of the Baxal Shem Tov’s initial activity. Popular Hasidism was at that time under the inuence of the Beshtian family headed by Nahman’s two uncles: Moshe Hayyim Ephraim and Barukh of Medzhibozh.27 Barukh of Medzhibozh practiced a kind of Hasidism directed toward the simple village Jews, which included healing by use of amulets and blessings, an emphasis on simple piety, ecstatic prayers, and the presence of a jester at his princely court. Another representative of popular Hasidism who should be mentioned is Aryeh Leib of Shpola, known as the Shpolar Zeide (the old man/grandfather from Shpola), who was old enough to have known the Baxal Shem Tov. Aryeh Leib was famous for effecting miraculous cures. He was known for the intensity of his prayers and for being concerned with the lives of the simple Jews.28 The other party in the controversy about to emerge consisted of the close followers of Dov Baer. Before his death in 1772, Dov Baer had initiated a conquest of new territories in Eastern Europe for Hasidism by sending out followers.29 The Hasidism of Dov Baer is referred to as

of Mezhirech in Volhynia; cf. Norman Lamm: The Religious Thought of Hasidism—Texts and Commentary, MSYU Press, New York, 1999: 608. Menahem Mendel settled in Peremyshlany in Galicia before he established the rst Hasidic settlement in Tiberias in 1764 together with Nahman’s grandfather, Nahman of Horodenka; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 25. 27 Moshe Hayyim Ephraim had settled in Sudlikov as a rabbi, and the charismatic Barukh had established his court in Medzhibozh, the town of the Baxal Shem Tov, which became the political center of Beshtian Hasidism; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 24–25. Podolia and Eastern Volhynia were also inuenced by the more independent gures of Pinhas of Korets and Yehiel Mikhel of Zloczow. 28 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 24–25. 29 These followers were sometimes referred to as the ‘Mezheritcher’, because of Dov Baer’s court in Mezheritch; cf. Rapoport-Albert 1997: 97. Among them were Abraham of Kalisk, Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk, and Aaron of Karlin, who established courts in Lithuania, while Dov Baer was still alive. Abraham of Kalisk even established a court as far away as in Belorussia before he emigrated to Tiberias in 1777; cf. RapoportAlbert 1997: 95–96; Lamm 1999: 605.

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intellectual and mystical because Dov Baer “introduced the systematic study of Kabbalah into the hasidic system” (Lamm 1999: 605). One of Dov Baer’s most famous followers was Shneur Zalman of Liadi, who founded the inuential HaBaD-school in Nothern Belorussia, known as well for its systematic mystical thoughts. Shneur Zalman was arrested twice due to the accusations leveled against Hasidism by the mitnaggedim—i.e., the opponents of Hasidism,30 which, along with the publication of his Hasidic tenets: Likkutey {Amarim (known as the Tanya) in 1796, added to his status within the Hasidic world. Prior to the publication, when Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk died in 1788, Shneur Zalman had also inherited the “prestigious effort to collect funds for the Hasidic community in the Holy Land” (Green 1992 (1979): 96). The Tanya and the collection of funds made the ideological split between popular Hasidism and the mystical systematic Hasidism develop into open controversy.31 According to Rachel Elior, early Habad literature shows two major concerns. The rst is: The consolidation of a systematic mystical theosophy based on Kabbalistic thought and its Hasidic interpretations, along with the denition of comprehensive mystical and dialectical axioms that form a bridge between God and man. [The other is:] The dissemination of Hasidism and the propagation of detailed guidance in the Habad path of Avodat Ha-Shem (divine worship), which relates simultaneously to contemplative and mystical elevation, on the one hand, and to a reevaluation of the respective positions of corporeality and religious worship as expressed in the Torah and the commandments, on the other hand (Elior 1993b: 20).

Many Hasidic leaders, such as Abraham of Kalisk and Nahman’s uncle Barukh of Medzhibozh,32 leveled a criticism against Shneur 30 In 1772 the rabbinic leaders of the kehillot in Vilna and Brody proclaimed a ban on Hasidism; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 24, charging Hasidism “with laxity in their study of the Torah, permissiveness in the observance of the divine commandments, excess in prayer, and preference for the Lurianic as opposed to the Ashkenazi prayerbook”; cf. Dan Cohn-Sherbok: Atlas of Jewish History, Routledge, London 1998 (1994): 129. The early attacks of the mitnaggedim also reected a fear of a new Sabbateanism. The second arrest of Shneur Zalman of Liadi in 1800 can be seen as the nal attack of the mitnaggedim; cf. Green 1997: 94. 31 Earlier, outside attacks, such as the accusations leveled against Hasidism by the mitnaggedim, would have prevented that controversy to break out. But as Hasidism became widespread and dominant in Eastern Europe, the mitnaggedim lost their authority to continue such attacks. The lack of an outside enemy provided the ground for internal conict; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 94, 97. 32 Barukh of Medzhibozh seems mostly to have defended the teachings of the Baxal

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Zalman exactly because of these two concerns. It came to a controversy between the two parties, known as Vikuah Minsk—i.e., the Minsk controversy. Abraham of Kalisk criticized Shneur Zalman for “his preference for intellectual study in divine worship as opposed to the traditional approach of awe and simple faith” (Elior 1993b: 169) as well as for his “grave error of disseminating esoteric doctrines to the general public” (Elior 1993b: 168). He feared that the language of the sages as present in the holy books would be profaned and thereby cause corporeality to be dragged down instead of elevated. To stress his point, Abraham of Kalisk claimed that Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk, who had passed over the prestigious task of collecting funds for the Hasidic community in Tiberias to Shneur Zalman, would have torn out his hair because of the Tanya.33 Now, one should remember that Abraham of Kalisk moved to the Tiberias settlement founded and headed by Menahem Mendel and that Abraham of Kalisk leveled his critique against Shneur Zalman from Tiberias, where he and his community were still in need of receiving these funds. Shneur Zalman responded to the criticism and the accusations by holding back the funds to the Tiberian community and by blaming popular Hasidism, as represented by Abraham of Kalisk, for the attacks leveled by the mitnaggedim against Hasidism and for the troubles Hasidism had encountered at large.34 In 1799 at the peak of this controversy, Nahman entered the public stage of Hasidism in an attempt to mediate between Shneur Zalman and Abraham of Kalisk. Nahman rst visited Shneur Zalman in his attempt to mediate, though no evidence is at hand as to what happened at the meeting. Then Nahman met with Mordechai of Neskhiz and with Zevi Aryeh of Olek, who were both close to Nahman’s uncle Barukh of Medzhibozh. Here it is important to remember that Barukh had been involved in the controversy with Shneur Zalman, and met with Aryeh Leib of Shpola. It applies to all three zaddikim that they welcomed Nahman warm-heartedly, because he was the great-grandson of the Baxal Shem Tov, and that they were all representatives of popular Hasidism. Green suggests:

Shem Tov and of Pinhas of Korets (where the latter, Barukh’s teacher, had left the court of Dov Baer because of differences with Dov Baer’s followers; cf. Lamm 1999: 608) because his legitimacy to power came from them; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 98. 33 Cf. Rachel Elior: The Paradoxical Ascent to God—The Kabbalistic Theosophy of Habad Hasidism, SUNY Press, Albany, 1993: 168–169. 34 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 98–99.

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“From the choice of these three zaddiqim as the objects of his visits, one gets the impression that Nahman wanted to have a rsthand look at popular Hasidism as it was practised in the Ukraine” (Green 1992 (1979): 100). Green bases his suggestion on the argument that Nahman entered into a dispute with Mordechai of Neskhiz and Zevi Aryeh of Olek about the nature of visionary experience. These two zaddikim were famous for their angelic visions, but Nahman criticized one of them by quoting the Talmud: “Many spoke of the merkavah without having seen it” (Green 1992 (1979): 100; bTalmud, Megillah 24b).35 Nahman did not succeed in his role as a mediator. On the one hand, he was concerned with the Hasidic community in Tiberias, a concern that lasted all of his life.36 On the other hand, however, it seems that there can be no doubt that Nahman to a certain extent sympathized with Shneur Zalman’s critical counterattack on popular Hasidism. With respect to the two concerns of Habad literature, as mentioned by Elior above, Nahman also bases his theology on Kabbalistic thought where part of it reveals his Hasidic context. Nahman describes the axioms that can enable a bridge between God and man. Nahman furthermore disseminates his theology through an immense number of homilies and several tales with the purpose of elevating the people by making them engage in this-worldly religious worship. I am denitely not claiming that Habad and Bratslav religiousity are one and the same (see below), but there are some parallels that may provide an ideological argument for Nahman’s interest in coinciding with Shneur Zalman in a critique against popular Hasidism. However, Nahman is at the same time deeply inspired on several fronts by popular Hasidism in that he stresses over and over again the importance of simplicity, faith, and prayer and that true wisdom has to grow out of simple faith and not out of the intellect. But something within popular Hasidism was not right in the eyes of Nahman, though Green may have a point when he suggests that Nahman had a territorial interest as well when he decided in 1800 to settle in Zlotopolye and thereby violate the territory of the seventy-ve-year old Aryeh Leib of Shpola, because Shpola was only two miles away.37 On Yom Kippur that year, Nahman had been joined

35 The rendering of Nahman’s role as a mediator in this passage is based entirely on Green 1992 (1979): 98–100. 36 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 125n15. 37 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 100–101.

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by around a hundred followers with whom he celebrated the holidays in Aryeh Leib’s old synagogue. At the service, Nahman accused the local prayer-leader for singing beautifully only in order to impress his wife. Upon this, the prayer-leader went to Aryeh Leib and told him about the accusations, after which Aryeh Leib, probably also because he was offended by the violation of his territory, publicly denounced Nahman. In 1802 Aryeh Leib sought to obtain letters from other Hasidic leaders to denunciate Nahman. However, instead of support, Aryeh Leib received letters from Levi Yithak, Barukh of Medzhibozh, Abraham of Kalisk, and many others who supported Nahman. Nahman responded to this attempt by searching for support for a ban against Aryeh Leib for shaming a scholar; however, Nahman did not receive support either. Instead, Nahman accused Aryeh Leib of being a false zaddik,38 who demanded from his followers to be worshipped like the two golden calves in Jeroboam, cf. 1. Reg. 12,28.39 Green does not believe, contrary to, e.g., Mendel Piekarz’, that the controversy with Aryeh Leib was grounded in Aryeh Leib’s supposed accusations against Nahman for being inspired by Sabbateanism or Frankism.40 Neither does Green accept the argument of Yudl Rosenberg

38 Nahman’s uncle, Moshe Hayyim Ephraim may have inspired Nahman, since he also launched several attacks on other Hasidic leaders by accusing them of being false zaddikim; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 24–25. 39 Green 1992 (1979): 100–102. 40 The disagreement between Green and Piekarz’ depends on a document, Megillat Hasidey Bratslav, published in 1895, which Green claims to be a forgery as did Joseph Weiss. The document pretends to be written by Nathan Sternhartz as an account of how Aryeh Leib accused Nahman of being a Sabbatean because of the previous presence of Sabbateans and Frankists in the town of Bratslav. Green argues that the literary style gives away this document as a forgery, since it in no way corresponds to the literary style of Nathan Sternhartz. Green’s arguments are that there is no malediction of Sabbatai Sevi. The lack of a malediction is unthinkable since Nathan was always highly cautious to avoid controversial matters. Bratslav is furthermore referred to as “our city”, which Nathan never did; and nally and most importantly, the town of Bratslav was spelled   and not  , which was Nathan’s way of rendering it, since it enabled the pun -  , which made the same sound as   —i.e., “a heart in the esh” which is a reference to Ez. 11,19; 36,26. According to Green, who is rather surprised by Piekarz’’s claims, since Piekarz’ is known to be an expert in stylistic questions, Piekarz’ interprets the prase “meginey {erez” (i.e., the defenders of Israel) from a late Bratslav source as a designation for Frankists, because “meginey {erez” had been used to designate Frankists in 1759. However, Green sees this as a predetermined conclusion, since the term by Nahman was used to designate zaddikim, and since it by Aryeh Leib in its most negative and yet literal sense could only come to designate “defenders of corporeality” or “defenders of one whose proper place was in hell”. Piekarz’ nds further support in an accusation from 1835 from an enemy of

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that Aryeh Leib should have accused Nahman of being secular in his learning.41 Instead Green suggests, as Jacob S. Minkin did in 1935,42 that Nahman was worried on an entirely different level. Green writes: Hasidism in its original heyday had been a movement characterized by a certain degree of religious rebellion, an attitude for which it had been severely persecuted. Persecution had, by the turn of the nineteenth century, taken a major role in the reshaping of the movement. By Nahman’s time Hasidism was well on the road toward becoming that conservative force which it was to prove itself to be by the latter part of the nineteenth century. Nahman was perceptive enough to see this process and to seek to arrest it. In calling for a rededication of Hasidism to the Baxal Shem’s spirit, or for a new enaming of souls grown cold, he was of necessity saying that Hasidism would need restored to it some of the brashness which had characterized it fty years earlier and had gotten it into so much trouble. In the nature of things, this brashness would now have to be turned against the complacency of the older generation of Hasidism’s own leaders. Some of the same furor which the Toledot had once unleashed upon the arrogant power of learned rabbis would now have to be turned upon grandfatherly wonder-working zaddiqim (Green 1992 (1979): 104).

Nahman lived in Zlotopolye from 1800 to 1802. Along with the controversy with Aryeh Leib, Nahman formalized the initiation ceremony of confession, as mentioned above, and made it obligatory in this period, according to Rapoport-Albert.43 Maybe to convince his followers to engage in such a private outpouring of the soul, Nahman claimed, without substantiation though, that the Baxal Shem Tov had practiced confession as well.44 When a new follower arrived at Zlotopolye and

Bratslav Hasidism, who accused Bratslav Hasidism of not believing in the Oral Law, which the Frankists did not either; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 126–128n16. In 1993 Liebes returns to Piekarz’’s assumption that Aryeh Leib accused Nahman of Sabbateanism. With respect to Piekarz’’s arguments, Liebes states that all one can do is to assume; cf. Yehuda Liebes: “Ha-Tikkun Ha-Kelali of R. Nahman of Bratslav and Its Sabbatean Links”, in Liebes (ed.): Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism, SUNY Press, Albany, 1993: 142, and that there is no mentioning of these accusations in authentic Bratslav writings; cf. Liebes 1993: 145. However, Liebes draws forth other arguments to prove that Nahman was on several occasions accused of Sabbateanism. 41 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 103. 42 Cf. Jacob S. Minkin: The Romance of Hassidism, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1935. See esp. the chapter “Nahman Bratzlav: Poet and Rebel”: 230–252. 43 Cf. Rapoport-Albert 1973: 72–73. 44 Cf. Rapoport-Albert 1973: 71.

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confessed all of his sins, Nahman would in return “instruct him as to the appropriate steps he should take to amend them [ his sins] and would grant him pardon and atonement”. The instructions were given according to the root of the soul of each individual follower (RapoportAlbert 1973: 69). The purpose of these confessions was to grant the follower forgiveness, to let the follower attain “a state like that of the ‘Olam Ha-Ba’”, to abolish the impacts of the committed sins on the serotic system, and to liberate Shekhinah from her present exile among the kelippot and restore her to her position in the serotic system.45 The confessions had to be given in front of the zaddik, because the humility and self-annihilation of the zaddik enabled the zaddik to reach the otherwise unreachable God and to be lled with En Sof and then pass it on to the Hasid.46 Rapoport-Albert writes: When he [the zaddik] has achieved this state he becomes part of the divine {eyn sof (innity) where there ceases to be any incompatibility between hesed (mercy) and din ( judgment), i.e., between those aspects of the Deity which represent respectively its mercy and its stern measure of judgment with which it inicts all sufferings on man. In other words, by his becoming enfolded within the divine {eyn sof the saddiq attains a state in which there is no difference between suffering and joy, and in which one can grasp that all events are for the good of man and derive from God’s love for him. This is the “state of the world to come” (behinath {olam ha-Ba), or “like the world to come” (mexeyn {olam ha-Ba), which his followers, too, can attain through him, when they confess before him (Rapoport-Albert 1973: 84–85).

It seems, according to Rapoport-Albert, that the practice of confession ceased in 1802, though sources do not bring a clear explanation as to why.47 Rapoport-Albert describes in the quotation above how the follower reaches a state of the world-to-come, because the zaddik is able to create an inner space, which becomes lled with En Sof. The reason I have rendered Rapoport-Albert’s quotation is that she comments on

45

Cf. Rapoport-Albert 1973: 81. For more on the zaddik’s function as channel between God and man; cf. Moshe Idel’s chapter: “Zaddiq as “Vessel” and “Channel” in Hasidism” in Idel: Hasidism— Between Ecstasy and Magic, SUNY Press, Albany, 1995: 189–207. 47 Cf. Rapoport-Albert 1973: 87; 95–96. Green disagrees with her as to when the practice of confession ceased. See Green 1992 (1979): 60–61n79 for Green’s evaluation of Rapoport-Albert’s article. I can add to their disagreement that in tale #12, “the Master of Prayer”, confession in front of the zaddiklike gure of the master of prayer is a condition for being part of his group of followers. This is quite interesting, since this tale was told in 1809. 46

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a situation that has relevance for the tales. She describes the inner space of the zaddik in a way that pertains to the possibility of mystical union that Nahman offers to his listener/reader by telling his tales. Thanks to the mystical, scriptural aspect of the tales, they provide the listener/reader with access to a pretaste of the world-to-come. The listener/reader perceives the world through the self-annihilated zaddik, who is therefore able to perceive from a divine perspective. In this way the tales could be seen, on a functional level, to be a continuation of the practice of confession. It should furthermore be added that the practice of confession plays a role in the twelfth tale from 1809 in the community of the main character, the master of prayer. During the Zlotopolye-period Nahman criticized popular Hasidism and developed a theology centered on the zaddik because he could reach the otherwise unreachable God, as it has been described through the practice of confession. His critique of popular Hasidism could, as I have suggested, involve an inspiration from Shneur Zalman. However, the practice of confession reveals a difference from the theology of Shneur Zalman. Joseph Weiss, who was probably the rst to represent an academic approach to Bratslav Hasidism (see Chapter 3), presented in 1953 a comparative typological analysis of these two different types of Hasidism.48 Dov Baer and Shneur Zalman’s Habad-school were seen as representatives of “contemplative mysticism”, whereas Nahman was seen as the representative of the “faith” approach. “Contemplative mysticism” is, according to Weiss, characterized by its impersonal concept of deity where God’s divine essence is present in and pervades all things.49 As a consequence, “contemplative mysticism” is intrinsically monistic. The “whole universe is full of God, the realm of the metaphysical evil, the realm of impurity and kelipah has no place in it”—and of course not outside of it, since everything is full of God. Despite an inspiration from Lurianic Kabbalah, “the Lurianic concepts have lost all their dualistic poignancy”.50 The supreme value

48 Cf. Joseph Weiss: “Contemplative Mysticism and “Faith” in Hasidic Piety”, Journal of Jewish Studies 4/1, 1953. The article has been reprinted in a collection of Weiss’s articles from 1946 through 1969, edited by David Goldman and with a new introduction by Joseph Dan; cf. Joseph Weiss: Studies in Eastern European Jewish Mysticism & Hasidism, Littman Library, London 1997. 49 Cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 45–46. 50 Cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 47.

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that determines man’s relation to God, and thereby man’s life, is devekut and the subsequent ecstasy that emerges from having realized that God is everywhere. In this way man bridges the gulf between God and man.51 Man is able to bridge this gulf, when s/he renounces his/her own personality. This renouncement, or rather self-annihilation, is known as Bittul haYesh. Prayer, devoid of any personal interests, is an occasion to or a means to achieve Bittul haYesh.52 Man’s evil urge is transformed to something divine, once the all-pervasive divine essence is recognized. In this way evil does not exist, and contemplative mysticism does therefore not have any interest in the Messiah or in collective redemption. If it should come, redemption would not cause any fundamental change to the present state of the world.53 “Hasidism of faith”, according to Weiss and of which Nahman is the main representative,54 differs from “contemplative mysticism”. “Hasidism of faith” is characterized by its personal conception of God.55 God rules the world “from above by absolute will”. “God’s power is unlimited” and God “bequeaths life to all being” (Weiss 1997 (1953): 47). Man can only wonder and be amazed as to God’s decrees and deeds, because in “Hasidism of faith” there is no fusion between God and the world, and man thus cannot comprehend God. According to Lurianic Kabbalah, God created the world by the act of tsimtsum, of withdrawal from the universe, making room for man as well as for “evil as a metaphysical reality”, referred to in personal terms in Bratslav Hasidism as the Devil.56 The open gulf between man and God can only be overcome by faith, and so faith comes to play the essential role in Bratslav Hasidism. Faith is paradoxical and the believer must hold to it, not by an intellectual act of understanding, but by the sacrice of his intellect; this amounts to an “existential” struggle and a permanent logical crisis, since man is confronted with the paradoxical God and the paradoxical Saddik (Weiss 1997 (1953): 49).

51

Cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 48. Cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 49–50. 53 Cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 52–53. 54 Weiss mentions Menahem Mendel of Rimanov, Menahem Mendel of Kotzk, Alexander Susskind haKohen and Zevi Elimelekh of Dinov as belonging to “Hasidism of faith” as well; cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 45. 55 Cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 46. 56 Cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 47–48. 52

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Faith is a matter of casting off the intellect and instead putting faith in God or the zaddik, neither of whom man can understand because they reect the ontological as well as logical transcendence of the divine.57 Faith is expressed through prayer, nevertheless, as a dialogue, as “the relation of one personality to another”, as the relation between “I” and “Thou”.58 What man asks for in prayer is God’s deliberate intervention in the world; he asks for miracles…The Brazlav prayer, therefore, always originates from a given situation and refers to a concrete state of misery; the personal note is never eliminated…The essential human remoteness from the divine characterises man’s status and is the result of his original sin (Weiss 1997 (1953): 51).

The essential human remoteness can, according to Weiss, only be replaced by redemption in paradoxical ways. And the few good spots, which are in man, do not sufce.59 This is where the Zaddik haDor, Rabbi Nahman himself, emerges as the mediator between man and God. By having faith and by attaching hope to this redeemer, redemption will come. When redemption comes, radical changes will occur, which will annihilate the present paradoxes in the world, as man knows them at present.60 One cannot help but admire Weiss for outlining the differences between “contemplative mysticism” and “Hasidism of faith” as lucidly as he does. And I can only agree with Rivka Schatz Uffenheimer’s recognition of this early attempt by Weiss “to comprehend the ne distinctions among the different nuances within Hasidism itself, rather than, as was customary among most scholars, to obscure the differences and exemplify only that which was common to all.”61 I will return in Chapter 3 to Weiss’s inuence on the study of the tales, also with a few comments on why I prefer the term “dialectical” instead of “paradoxical”. Here I will limit myself to mention something from the tales that does make Weiss’s presentation not refutable, but debatable. The personal conception of the remote God stands in opposition to Shekhinah’s presence in the tales of Nahman, where she reects God’s

57

Cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 46. Here Weiss is indirectly referring to Martin Buber’s concept of the “I”—“Thou”— relationship in Bratslav Hasidism. For more on Buber, see Chapter 3.1. 59 Cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 52. 60 Cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 52–53. 61 Cf. Rivka Schatz Uffenheimer: Hasidism as Mysticism—Quietistic Elements in Eighteenth Century Hasidic Thought, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1993: 19. 58

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immanence in this world.62 That prayer is allowed to reect personal needs is countered in the thirteenth tale where the deaf beggar blames mankind for praying to God to make God ll man’s lacks and deciencies. I agree with Weiss that the dominant conception in the tales is that the world-to-come is fundamentally different from what we know. However, I too am countered here by the end of the twelfth tale where a redeemed world is described as a praying congregation, where the only difference between this world and the world-to-come is that man has no human physical needs to attend. The members of the congregation recognize the supremacy of God, which is much closer to what Weiss expects from a description of the world-to-come stemming from “contemplative mysticism”.63 Probably urged by his uncle, Barukh of Medzibozh,64 who was on good terms with Aryeh Leib, Nahman left Zlotopolye by the end of 1802. From Zlotopolye Nahman moved to Bratslav, which had a Jewish community of around thousand people who gave him a house upon arrival.65 One year later, in 1803, a controversy broke out between Nahman and his uncle. Barukh lived at that time in Tulchin, close to Bratslav. Green suggests as a reason for the controversy that Barukh originally may have suggested to Nahman to move to the town of Bratslav to have a chance to consider him as heir to his dynasty. However, instead Nahman may have “stolen” his Hasidim and may have shown contempt for Barukh’s princely court and his grand manners. Some Bratslav sources suggest that the controversy dealt with the right to the legacy after the Baxal Shem Tov.66 Because of the many conicts Nahman experienced, conict was developed into a theological principle where it became the task of the zaddik not to ee controversy “but to uplift it, returning it to its pristine state” (Green 1992 (1979): 115–116). This is an aspect of tikkun—i.e., of rectifying the world. Nahman came to see himself as the only

62 Weiss claims that the conception of God’s immanence can only be found in the school of “contemplative mysticism”; cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 45. 63 Green also writes that “Weiss tends to ignore the clearly mystical side of Nahman’s thought”. Instead, Green suggests that Nahman is highlighting the existential dimension of religion, while he himself was still attracted to mysticism; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 335n53. 64 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 110. 65 Cf. Kaplan 1985: 78. 66 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 110–111.

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one in his generation who was able to redeem the world. It is in this period that Nahman develops the idea that he incarnates the last of the world’s ve Zaddikey haDor. His precursors are Moses, Simeon bar Yohai, Isac Luria, the Baxal Shem Tov, and Nahman himself.67 Green writes: “The single earthly zaddiq, parallel to the zaddiq-gure within God [Yesod ], is depicted as the one and only channel through whom heaven’s blessings ow to man, and through whom all prayer should be directed if one wants assurance that it will reach its goal” (Green 1992 (1979): 120). As this channel between the indenite divine and a world of limited perception, Nahman could prescribe techniques to further tikkun, techniques that he applied himself. Playing music and hand-clapping could assist Shekhinah in elevating the divine sparks from within the kelippot. Dancing could transform the evil forces and nullify decrees.68 Simple joy confronted with sadness and one’s own inner forces of evil could develop into sacred joy through a dialectical process. Visits in nature could help out the individual to seek out holiness in each aspect of creation and in this way help the individual to recognize God’s omnipresence.69 The Bratslav community was not a large one while Nahman was alive. At the time of his death there were only around a few hundred Hasidim. Probably because of his high aspirations as a Zaddik haDor, “the demands he placed upon his hasidim could appeal to but a small and intense spiritual elite and could never attract the masses” (Green 1992 (1979): 143). Naftali and Nathan Sternhartz belonged to this elite and joined the Bratslav community between 1802 and 1803. In return for the high demands, Nahman offered his Hasidim to be in Bratslav, which had come to replace Zion. He offered his own way of life as a model for them to mirror. He gave them advice, especially by emphasizing the importance of the practice of hitbodedut. Green describes the practice as

67

Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 116–119. Wolfson points to the symbolic act of lifting the feet as parallel to the act of the dancer’s lifting himself to a closer relationship to Shekhinah; cf. Elliot R. Wolfson: “Walking as a Sacred Duty: Theological Transformation of Social Reality in Early Hasidism” in Rapoport-Albert 1997: 206; 206n128. 69 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 139–143. 68

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Lone daily conversations with God. The hasid was to set aside a certain period of time each day, preferably out of doors, if possible, and always alone, when he was to pour out before God his most intimate longings, needs, desires and frustrations. [It should be done] aloud, to bring those usually unspoken inner drives to the point of verbalization. He also insisted that one do so in one’s native language . . . hitbodedut was depicted as the single most important activity of both zaddiq and hasid. There is simply no other way to be close to God, Nahman taught, and nearness to God was the single ultimate goal that a Bratslav hasid was to allow himself (Green 1992 (1979): 145).70

In contrast to other Hasidic courts, Nahman’s followers depended solely on Nahman as Zaddik haDor.71 His function is to be a channel between the followers and the upper worlds.72 The Zaddik haDor represents the link between this world and the upper worlds that has been forgotten by and thereby lost to mankind. Green reveals his great explanatory skills when he chooses the image of the mirror from Nahman’s homilies to explain the master/disciple relationship. Green writes: “the purpose of the master/disciple encounter is to bring the disciple to grips with his own personal situation; through the mirror of the master’s face, he sees his own face and is forced to confront the bleakness of his own spiritual life.”73 Nahman wrote: If the disciple’s face shines like a polished mirror, then he can ‘greet’, receiving the light of his master’s face. Thus the master will be able to see himself in the face of the disciple who has received his face, just as one

70 Green sees the technique of hitbodedut as therapeutic—for Nahman as well as for his followers; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 147. Howard Schwartz also notices Nahman’s role as therapist to his disciples; cf. Howard Schwartz: “Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav: Forerunner of Modern Jewish Literature” in Judaism—A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought #121, vol. 31.2, 1982: 212. 71 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 154. Green mentions Abraham of Kalisk as an example of someone who grants his followers responsibility for their own spiritual development. Abraham of Kalisk must have been an exception, if one compares him with the general tendency in Hasidism to let the zaddik function as a channel between God and man; cf. Idel 1995: 189–207. 72 The appellations “channel”, “a mother who breast-feeds”, “seed-yielding part in an intercourse”, etc. applied on Nahman have led Wolfson to write an article where he points to the relevance of looking at the sexual metaphors in Nahman’s thoughts. Cf. Elliot R. Wolfson: “The Cut That Binds—Time, Memory, and the Ascetic Impulse”; Magid 2002: 103–154. See as well Nathaniel Deutsch: “Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav: The Zaddik as Androgyne”; Magid 2002: 193–216. Deutsch is clearly inspired by Wolfson’s approach. 73 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 157.

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chapter two would when standing before a mirror…the disciple has taken the master’s face into himself, so that the master’s face is seen reected in him. This is the meaning of qabbalat panim (Likkutey MoHaRaN #153).74

Green elaborates upon and reaches the subtle nesse in Nahman’s imagery: Through looking into the master’s shining face, the not-yet-perfected disciple comes to see all that he lacks, without a word of reprimand having to be spoken. As the master looks into the face of the disciple, he may or may not see his own radiance reected there, telling him how ready the disciple is to receive his light. When the disciple, like the master, has become a polished mirror (i.e. free both from enslavement to ego and from the struggle against it), he may return the master’s light being a moon to his master’s sun. These two usages of the mirror metaphor are not, however, simply two sides of the same mutual encounter. On closer examination it becomes clear that they represent two distinct stages along the path of spiritual development. In one stage the disciple is . . . yet on the path toward his own fulllment . . . The second stage, that in which disciple reects back the master’s light, is one where he . . . now stands in the relationship to the master that parallels the master’s relationship to God: a relationship of emptiness and potential fullness at once . . . Here the ethic of personal growth is paramount and the uniqueness of each disciple must be fully recognized. When we move on into the second stage, however, it is clearly of a mystical sort of relationship that we are speaking. Here the ideal of human community would seem to be a great hall of mirrors, each of them serving as another reector of divine light (Green 1992 (1979): 157–158).

Through the master/disciple relationship, Nahman has in fact initiated the process of tikkun, when he restores to each follower the latter’s link to the divine. He furthermore enables his followers to continue this process on their own, once they come to represent the link to the divine. Essential to the success of this mirroring is the follower’s ability to achieve Bittul haYesh—i.e., self-annihilation—and thereby benet from the divine ow of insight which is passed on by the Zaddik haDor, the axis mundi,75 the universal redeemer.76 The image of the mirror is often hinted at in the tales. 74 Quoted after Green 1992 (1979): 157. The entire chapter (i.e., Likkutey MoHaRaN #153) is on kabbalat panim. 75 Cf. Arthur Green: “The Zaddiq as Axis Mundi in Later Judaism” published in JAAR XLV/3, 1977: 327–347, reprinted in Fine: Essential Papers On Kabbalah, NYU Press, New York, 1995: 291–314. 76 As to the idea of universal redemption—as especially present in the tales; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 205–206; Liebes 1993: 132.

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Once the entire world turns into “one great hall of mirrors”, the Messiah will come. A consequence of this thought is that the image of the mirror refers to a Messianic activity going on between Nahman and his followers. This is unique to Bratslav in Hasidism. Nahman could not accept devekut—i.e., cleaving to God—as an ideal, as it was in “mainstream” Hasidism, because too much evil blocked the access to God, which is why devekut is not a realistic ideal. First, the zaddik would have to ght evil through tikkun, and then a union could be achieved.77 Devekut had to a certain extent become the vantage point for Hasidism in general from the onset, because devekut became the means, the rst rung on the ladder of inner spiritual ascent, in order to be unied with God.78 Ayin and Yesh are the two concepts which add to an explanation of why devekut is so central in Hasidism. Ayin literally means “not-being” and is in Hasidism synonymous with the innite being of God. God is the innite, all-encompassing, omnipresent entity and only reality. But due to man’s inability to perceive innity, God appears to be distant from this world and is accordingly “not-being” to those humans who base their sense of reality on human perception alone. Ayin is synonymous with God and man is through this concept ad negativum given one concept that reects real reality. Yesh means “being” and constitutes on the philological and ontological level the opposite of Ayin. On the cognitive level, the term Yesh reects that man is only able to understand what lies within the limits of time and space, and so man ascribes existence to everything that lies within the limits, within the nite. But from God’s perspective this is a distortion of reality, because true reality, or true existence, is encompassed by and depends on the innity of God, on Ayin. The dialectical relationship between Ayin and Yesh is implied in the description of Hasidism as panentheistic as well as pantheistic.79 Everything is in God, and God is in everything. God’s

77

Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 182–185. Cf., e.g., Moshe Idel: “Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem”; Rapoport-Albert 1997: 401–402. 79 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 184. I agree with Green to use both terms at the same time. “Panentheism”—i.e., everything is in God—is the most encompassing term, and one could say that it should leave “pantheism”—i.e., God is in everything—superuous. When everything is in God, it is not surprising that God is in everything as well. However, I choose to hold on to both terms at the same time because it points to God’s twofold nature. After shevirat hakelim God is present in the immanent world as divine sparks, which is possible for humans to perceive. That everything is in God refers to God’s essence as Ayin, which is beyond the grasp of human perception until redemption, according to Nahman; see Chapter 5. 78

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transcendent, innite being is immanent in this world, while this world at the same time exists inside his transcendent, innite being.80 From a human perspective God’s immanence presents a reason for the greatest joy, and this was the message that the Baxal Shem Tov delivered once he emerged in public. The Baxal Shem Tov is supposed to have said: One should always be in a state of joy. He should reect and behave in perfect faith that the Shekhinah is within and watches over him; that he beholds the Creator, and the Creator beholds him; the Creator can do anything He wishes …, for His vitality and grace (shefa) pervade everything, and I [therefore] trust and fear nobody but Him.81

Certainly, Nahman admires his great-grandfather, but Nahman did not share his great-grandfather’s ability to ward of evil as purely illusory. This is the point where Nahman must deviate from his precursor, which in Bloom’s phrasing is a matter of “clinamen”. As long as the root of evil has not been dealt with, it cannot be elevated to its divine origin, and one cannot come to see Ayin through Yesh. This is why Nahman turns to the Lurianic concept of tikkun including its Messianic connotations. Devekut was a means for the individual to cleave to God by annihilating human perception. In contrast to this general Hasidic practice, tikkun was, according to Nahman, a tool to go beyond the BeShTian strivings in order to confront, deal with, and then eliminate the obstacles for man to see Ayin. By confronting sins man would come to understand the debasement of something divine that lies in every sin. Such an understanding followed by repentance leads to the elevation of sins to their divine origin. The elevation of individual sins contributes to the process of universal redemption. This theme dominates the tales, according to my reading. Hasidism had emerged at the risk of being accused of bringing to life the embarrassing Messianic strivings of Sabbatai Sevi and Jacob Frank, and therefore, when Nahman openly agitated from 1804 to 1806 for tikkun including its Messianic potential, he was of course asking for controversy. But as it has been mentioned, Nahman considered controversy the obligation of the zaddik. But not only did Nahman argue for tikkun, he claimed that he was the last of the ve Zaddikey haDor—the completing link, cf. Bloom’s term “tessera”, in the process

80

This explanation relies on Elior 1993b: 13–18. Cf. the Baxal Shem Tov: Zavaxat ha-Rivash #137, quoted after Lamm 1999: 389. See as well Lamm 1999: 389n6. 81

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of redemption. According to Kabbalistic tradition, the last Zaddik haDor, also known as Mashiah ben Yosef, carried the soul of Moses, which shall be reincarnated in Mashiah ben David, who will follow this last Zaddik haDor/Mashiah ben Yosef. In the period 1804–1806 Nahman believed that the Messiah would come within a few years.82 This belief may be inuenced by his claimed descent from the house of King David. There are indications of Nahman having thought of himself as incorporating the soul of Mashiah ben Yosef as well as the soul of Mashiah ben David;83 and also that he believed that his son, Shlomo Ephraim, would emerge as the redeemer.84 In 1804 Nahman asked his followers to recite the midnight vigil prayers, known as tikkun hazot, on a regular basis. The purpose of this Lurianic ritual action was to restore Shekhinah to her intended place in the serotic system and bring an end to exile.85 Also in 1804, according to Green, Nahman instructed his followers to recite ten psalms86 in order to atone their sexual misdeeds and to prevent nightly emission of semen. This ritual is known as haTikkun haKelali. Yehuda Liebes has written a seminal article on Nahman’s haTikkun haKelali, in which he writes that it was rst discussed in 1805 and that the specic psalms to be recited were rst made public in 1809.87 Liebes writes that Nahman’s mission was the tikkun of man (rst and foremost himself ) and the tikkun of his community, as well as that of the whole Jewish people from all their sins: both their worldly sins, which were rst and foremost sexual, and the numerous doctrinal sins of his generation, that had ravaged traditional Jewish structures (“Enlightenment!”). But, above all, he was concerned with the tikkun of the original sin that, in my view, was for him the source of all his generation’s ills—Sabbateanism (Liebes 1993: 116).

82

Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 185–186. Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 190. 84 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 189. 85 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 206. 86 These ten psalms are Psalms 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, and 150; cf. Rabbi Nachman’s Tikun, Breslov Research Institute, Jerusalem, 1982. The ten psalms are chosen because they reect the ten varieties of songs present in The Book of Psalms with which, according to Nahman and Tikkuney haZohar, God/Messiah can awaken Shekhinah from her exile. Liebes sees this concept present in tales #1 and 13. In tale #1 it is present in the reverse in that it is Shekhinah who tries to wake the redeemer. In tale #13 the handless beggar knows the ten songs with which he can heal the queen’s daughter who has been polluted by the ten poisonous arrows—i.e., ten sexual sins; cf. Liebes 1993: 137. I think Liebes is correct in this suggestion. 87 Cf. Liebes 1993: 204n108. 83

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HaTikkun haKelali implied the rectication of all sins, since sexual sin includes all sins. In this way the “struggle for sexual purity becomes the messianic activity par excellence, and the Messiah’s main worldly concern is to guard from sexual sinfulness; all his Hasidim share in this war, perfecting the Messiah’s stature through their own chastity” (Liebes 1993: 127). The root and symbol of all worldly evil is the SabbateanFrankist heresy linked to this movement’s claimed sexual licentiousness.88 Nahman had previously fought against his own sexual desires, but had overcome them. His victory over sexual desires and his role as Zaddik haDor enables him to atone their sins and to turn their teachings back into Torah.89 According to Nahman, the Frankists had caused the Baxal Shem Tov’s death. The Baxal Shem Tov had tried to rectify the Sabbateans; however, the Baxal Shem Tov was not sufciently sexually pure to accomplish such a tikkun, which is why he died.90 Therefore, to found a discontinuity with his precursor on the matter of sexual impurity, cf. Bloom’s term ‘kenosis’, Nahman had to surpass the BeShT by being sexually pure. If so, he would have the potentiality to atone for all of their sins and all the sins of the world. Nahman as Mashiah ben Yosef reected Yesod, sometimes referred to as zaddik. Yesod is often conceived as the serotic phallus. Because Nahman had obtained sexual purity, he could come to function as Yesod and thereby link Shekhinah to the other serot. Linking Shekhinah with the serot above her is Messianic activity in itself. The theme of sexual purity is most clearly dealt with in the tenth tale “The Burgher and the Pauper”, according to my reading. In 1805 Nahman instructed his followers to further their own individual penitence and thereby tikkun by fasting on specic days during the year.91 Green sees the heightened Messianic activity related to the birth of Nahman’s only son in 1805. Nahman saw, as already mentioned, himself as the last Zaddik haDor. He knew that this last Zaddik

88 For an encompassing two-volume presentation of Sabbateanism and Frankism, edited by Elior and containing Hebrew and English articles on the subject, see:     ) ,   ,  :        —  2001 ,  ,    ,( . The title could be translated: The Dream that Shattered—The Sabbatean Movement and Its Aftermath: Messianism, Sabbateanism and Frankism. 89 Liebes argues that Nathan of Gaza, or Sabbatai Sevi, had “instituted a general tikkun for all transgressions and called it tikkun kelali” where the sexual sin is also mentioned as the one sin that subsumes all others; cf. Liebes 1993: 143–144. 90 Cf. Liebes 1993: 128–129. 91 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 207.

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haDor should be followed by the nal redeemer Mashiah ben David. He knew that he himself was from the house of King David. In other words, his son, Shlomo Ephraim, had to be the davidic Messiah. In 1806, on Shavuxot, Nahman dressed in white garments as a symbol of sexual purity and of redemption being at hand. However, a few weeks later his son died, and in August that year Nahman announced that the arrival of the Messiah had been postponed.92 The death of Nahman’s son and the postponement of the advent of the Messiah in 1806 caused a large number of followers to leave Nahman’s court. Aryeh Leib tried once again that year to denounce Nahman, this time in front of Levi Yithak, who had supported Nahman earlier.93 A re broke out in Bratslav as if to stress the failure of his Messianic claims.94 It is at this point that Nahman turns to telling tales. I shall elaborate on this tropological decision in chapter 2.3. Concerning the remaining years of Nahman’s life as a religious leader, the central events and thoughts shall be presented in my analyses of the tales. Here, I will nish by mentioning the ritual of Tikkun haNeshamot—i.e., of rectifying the souls (of the dead). The ritual has been dealt with in detail by Yakov Travis.95 Around 1809 Nahman turned his attention away from his followers and directed it to the souls of the dead. His living followers were in fact able to do something themselves for their tikkun, while those who had died before a rectication could or should have taken place were in need of his nal efforts. Furthermore, it was easier to work with the dead, who had been stripped off their free will, than with the living who were constantly tempted to act according to their limited human insight.96 Souls who

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Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 208–211. The continuing controversy with Aryeh Leib, according to Weiss, is said to have occupied Nahman so much that Aryeh Leib occurred in one of Nahman’s dreams from 1809 as “the old man” and caused Nahman to feel guilt and shame because of a certain sexual sin; cf. Joseph Weiss: “Rabbi Nachman of Braslav on the controversy concerning himself ”, (eds. Werblowsky & Wirszubski) Studies in Jewish Mysticism and Religion, Magnes Press, Jerusalem, 1967: 101; 105. James Kirsch, a Jungian psychologist, has studied this dream and argues against Weiss, suggesting that Nahman’s feeling of guilt and shame as mentioned in this dream is related to a sharp contrast between, on the one hand, Nahman’s claim to be Zaddik haDor and, on the other hand, his assertion of humility before God. In his article Kirsch presents one of the rare Jungian approaches to Nahman that is actually substantiated and convincing; cf. Kirsch: 29–40. 94 Cf. Green 221–222. 95 Yakov Travis: “Adorning the Souls of the Dead—Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav and Tikkun Ha-Neshamot”, Magid 2002: 155–192. 96 Cf. Travis: 155, 171, 173. 93

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have not had the opportunity to be guided by a zaddik in their lives and/or to perform individual tikkun would be “naked”. Each dead soul is in need of someone to garb his/her soul in its celestial garments before it may nally “gaze at the glory of God”.97 In Uman, Podolia in 1768 the so-called Gonta massacres had taken place, where several thousand Jews had been slaughtered and lay in mass graves as martyrs for their faith.98 Nahman decided to move to Uman at a point in his life when he knew he was about to die because of the tuberculosis he contracted in 1807. He arrived in Uman in May 1810 and lived there until his death on October 16, 1810. He was buried according to his wish, among these martyrs.99

2.2

Nahman as Composer of Homilies

When scholars have commented on Nahman’s theology, they have rst and foremost commented on Nahman’s homilies, known as Likkutey MoHaRaN, because this is where Nahman in detail and most explicitly argues for his religious outlook.100 The scope of my dissertation, however, is the tales, which is why I shall limit myself here to point to an article written by Shaul Magid on the method and style of Likkutey MoHaRaN.101 His observations have, as I see it, relevance for understanding the tales. Magid describes Likkutey MoHaRaN as retrieving and reconguring

97 The process of garbing the soul is highly detailed, and is described in Travis: 160–161. 98 Cf. Travis: 157. 99 Cf. Travis: 175. 100 411 of these homilies have been recorded. They were written down by Nathan Sternhartz, Nahman himself, and Abraham Peterberger. Abraham Peterberger only wrote down the early homilies before Nathan became Nahman’s secretary. Nahman wrote down a few, while Nathan wrote down most of them, usually reviewed by Nahman. The homilies mostly stem from the period 1801–1810, while a few are said to stem from 1789 to 1790. They were published in two parts. The rst one contains 286 homilies, while the second contains 125. The rst part was published in 1808, while the second was published by Nathan in 1811; cf. Kaplan 1985: 287. See as well Green 1992 (1979): 5. 101 Shaul Magid: “Associative Midrash: Reections on a Hermeneutical Theory in Likkutei MoHaRan”; Magid 2002: 15–66. For more, see Shaul Magid’s “Through the Void: The Absence of God in R. Nahman of Bratzlav’s Likkutei MoHaRaN”, Harvard Theological Review 88.4, 1995.

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older models of Jewish exegetical and sermonic stratagems, both the classical proemic ( petihta) literature of late antique midrash and the formalized sermons in the Middle Ages and early modern period . . ., [using] the term behina as a literary trope that serves as the foundation of his project of reconstructing the tradition (Magid: 15).

Traditional Midrash creates a new discourse out of its reading of Scripture without severing itself from Scripture. In this way Midrash has as its ultimate concern Scripture in itself.102 In Zoharic Kabbalah the reader, while maybe thinking midrashically, reads Scripture in an unmidrashic way, because he constructs his myth from images and ideas embedded in Scripture, but these scriptural and rabbinic referents are lifted out of their context to become independent symbols, only to return later as a hypertext used to uncover dimensions of Scripture heretofore concealed…to reveal the inner message of the text, that is, the soul of Torah (Magid: 17).

In this way, and despite the free use of scriptural images and symbols, the concern of the Zoharic Kabbalist is still Scripture, or rather, in contrast to midrashic reading, the inner message and soul of Scripture. Nahman, “being nourished from childhood almost exclusively on a diet of rabbinic and kabbalistic literature”, as Magid puts it, and interestingly enough not on early Hasidic texts,103 does not open a text for the purpose of reading/rereading Scripture: Nor does he construct his homilies to effect mystical experience, to transport his listener/reader to a biblical setting, or to convey esoteric knowledge; his interests are, according to Magid, to accomplish three basic objectives: “(1) to create a textual representation of his own inner life”, (2) to transmit his advice regarding the ways of worship, both existentially and practically”, “and (3) to transcend normative modes of Torah discourse by conveying its essential messages in the garments of fable narratives” and thereby cleanse the imaginative faculty—a necessary precursor for the Messianic era.104 The rst objective relates to Nahman being Zaddik

102

Magid is here basing his presentation on Daniel Boyarin; cf. Magid 2002: 21. Cf. Magid 2002: 17; 51n18. 104 Cf. Magid 2002: 18. I shall return to the concept of “cleansing the imaginative faculty” in chapter 2.3. I remember how Prof. Arthur Green, when I met with him in Amsterdam in August 2000 to discuss the tales, expressed the concern that he might not have emphasized enough the importance of this concept of “cleansing the imaginative faculty” for the tales. But from my rst reading of Tormented Master it was exactly his presentation of this importance that made the biggest impression on me. 103

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haDor, who is able to translate the supernal Torah—i.e., the primordial Torah—to the masses, which is in itself an act necessary for the advent of the Messiah. In this way the “torah of the zaddik becomes both the sacred text and the way one maintains an attachment to the zaddik, its author. This is not accomplished merely by studying the text, but also by living its precepts, aligning one’s entire spiritual life with R. Nahman’s devotional advice” (Magid: 19. Magid’s italics). In this way and relating to the second objective, listening to or reading Likkutey MoHaRaN becomes rst and foremost a matter of piety. When Nahman transcends, as described in the third objective, the normative modes of Torah discourse, he stands on the margins of heresy, which leads to criticism. However, as it has been explained in Chapter 2.1, Nahman was not afraid of controversy. On the contrary and recalling the thoughts of Kristeva, a self-critical attitude to the monologic tradition, in which he stands, is essential if he is to revolutionize Hasidism. It seems that Nahman considered it necessary to revise Torah to prepare the world for the Messianic era. He knew that heresy, as in the case of Sabbatai Sevi, was linked to behavioral deviations from halakhah, which is why Nahman never questioned the sanctity of Scripture or encouraged halakhic changes.105 What he did do was to make hidushim—i.e., innovations—deviations from conformist readings. The innovation lies in the structure and the central content. Nahman does, as in midrashic and Kabbalistic readings, dislodge the initial passage from its context in order to open it to new potential meanings through intertextual or symbolic modes of reading. However, after this he creates clusters of ideas and pieces together textual fragments from this initial passage only to use it, in a metamidrashic way, to direct the focus on “devotional practice or practical behavior” of the larger homily.106 By entering the zaddik’s mind and by following his devotional advice, the listener/reader comes to cleanse his own imaginative faculty and thereby to think imaginatively. This is crucial, since it is only the perfected imagination that can transcend the illusions of the intellect.107 I nd in Magid’s footnote that he has been inspired by Green on this matter as well, so I think it is appropriate to give credit to Green for having directed the attention of students and young and old scholars to the concept and its inuence on the tales; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 341–343. 105 Cf. Magid 2002: 22–23. 106 Cf. Magid 2002: 28. 107 Cf. Magid 2002: 30–31; 46.

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Behina has several meanings in Hebrew. Some are: aspect, dimension, correlate.108 When Magid is dealing with behina as a literary trope, he mentions Cordovero and Harold Bloom but resounds in my reading the thoughts of Ricoeur on the informative and performative function of split reference.109 Magid’s denition focuses on the informative and performative function of those aspects/dimensions/correlates of meaning that become clear through the tensive juxtaposition of, on the one hand, referents to authoritative texts and, on the other hand, devotional advice. Magid concludes that Nahman lures his readers into his own creative imaginings by using two different literary techniques, which I will call the “lexicographical” and “ideational/ devotional”. The rst is taken from midrash and classical kabbalistic exegesis, both of which use the words as connectors or signiers, placing disparate verses together via common words. Traditional readers of Likkutei MoHaRan will feel at home with this as it reects literature they are accustomed to reading. The second is more ambiguous, constituting what Arthur Green calls “associative reading”. This type of reading may be called “psychological-translation”, that is, translating the world of the text (and its interpretive history) through the imagination of the reader without the aid of traditional exegetical tools (Magid: 46).

Knowledge of midrashic and Kabbalistic tradition may help but cannot provide more than partial answers as to the meaning of this juxtaposition of known words and “associative reading”, and Nahman does not explain them either. He does not do so because his aim is to develop the reader’s imagination, to leave him or her pondering as to the meaning, because this lack of a conclusion enhances Nahman’s point that the Torah itself is innite. This is why conventional readings of Torah have to be replaced by the innovative readings, the hidushim, which make up Likkutey MoHaRaN, according to Magid.110 Two more things have to be mentioned, concerning Magid’s article. Having studied the structure of the different homilies in Likkutey MoHaRaN, Magid notes that those homilies written down by Nahman are “less uid, less repetitive, and less readable” than those written down by Nathan. Magid even uses the word “terse and choppy” about

108 109 110

See Magid 2002: 43 for more. Cf. Ricoeur 1976, 50–53. Cf. Magid 2002: 47.

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the homilies written down by Nahman.111 The homilies written down by Nathan are, in contrast, lucid and reect Nathan’s ability to “take R. Nahman’s improvisational spirit and create a literary document that reected the spirit but harnessed it in the form of literature” (Magid: 36). It is not that the authenticity of Nahman’s theology as presented in Likkutey MoHaRaN is threatened by this information, because Nahman reviewed most of what Nathan wrote down and gave it his stamp of approval. Neither does this information effect Magid’s point that Nahman changed traditional midrashic readings to revolutionary innovations, since it is denitely within oral capacity to do “associative reading”. In fact I should claim that “associative reading” is easier when one speaks than when paper and pen remind one about what has just been “said”. However, it does effect the reading of the tales, which I consider great literary accomplishments. If Nahman’s way of writing is terse and choppy, it indicates how much the tales have been inuenced by Nathan.112 I am not saying that Nahman did not tell the tales. There is too much testimony to him doing so, so there should be no doubt about that. It is also known that Nahman approved of some of Nathan’s recordings of the tales. But the literary ability to change a tale told into a written tale where so many details activate associations to the overall theological system indicate that Nathan may be just as responsible for the revolutionary power of the tales as Nahman is. Two original writers ought to be listed as authors, which brings to light another aspect. When Nahman appears in the tales as the one who adds a comment or an introductory remark,113 it makes him just as much of a literary character as it makes him the author. This is not similar to saying what the scholars in favor of a biographical reading do—i.e., that Nahman appears in the tales as “the viceroy in search of the lost princess”, etc. Nor am I claiming in Barthes’ wording that “the author is dead”. Instead I consider this an excellent example of how Nahman’s authorship intersects with the text and thus becomes part of the literary universe, as Kristeva would describe it. Nahman becomes someone who partakes in what every listener/reader is invited to partake in, thanks to the human disposition to incorporate the perspective of some “other”. 111

Cf. Magid 2002: 36. Minkin touched upon this redactional aspect already in 1935. See Minkin: 267–269. 113 Cf., e.g., the opening of tale #1 and thirteenth tale. 112

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According to Magid, the function of Likkutey MoHaRaN is to invite the listener/reader to enter the mind of the zaddik and follow his devotional advice. In this way the listener/reader can cleanse his/her imaginative faculty and thereby come to realize the innity of primordial Torah. By realizing this, the listener/reader also realizes his/her dependence on God. If s/he then acts accordingly, the world will be brought one major step closer to redemption. This corresponds exactly to what I am about to show in my analyses. Nahman/Nathan makes use of the juxtaposition of, on the one hand, referents to authoritative texts and concept and, on the other hand, advice on how the world can come to redemption. Maybe this is what Magid has an eye for, when he writes that rewriting tradition takes a more radical turn later in his life when he abandons the exegetical mode altogether and enters totally into the realm of fantasy. It is no coincidence that his thirteen tales bury the exegetical enterprise, making it part of the esoteric nature of the tale itself, as his narratological expression becomes a new phase of his exegetical imagination (Magid: 25).

As I shall show in chapter 2.3 on Nahman as teller of tales, Nahman makes a highly conscious decision when he turns to telling tales. But to a certain extent he remains an exegete, since the tales are full of imagery stemming from tradition; and he (and Nathan) cannot help making a hidush out of each one of them. This is probably why Magid writes that the exegetical enterprise is buried and yet part of the esoteric nature of the tale itself.

2.3

Nahman as Teller of Tales

The thirteen tales in Sippurey Maxasiyot114 are dissimilar to any previous Jewish mystical expression. Nahman created something new. Nevertheless, he was most likely inspired by different sources. Joseph Dan explains that the words, descriptions, and motifs, which build up

114 Some of the content in Chapter 2.3 will concern all the tales, which Nahman told. Nahman of Tsherin added other tales and parables in the 1870s. Some were published in Sippurey Maxasiyot Hadashim in 1909. Finally, some anecdotes, teachings and very short tales were published as Sippurim Niaim in 1935; cf. Green 1979: 338; Kaplan 1983: 506. However, my sole focus in this dissertation is the thirteen ‘canonical’ tales in Sippurey Maxasiyot, and it would be beyond the present scope to include the other tales.

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the tales in combination with their plots, derive from the cultural context in which they were composed.115 Dan refers to Nathan Sternhartz’s comment in the latter’s introduction to the tales that some motifs were taken from popular tales. Dan, however, informs his reader that only in one or two cases can a tale from Sippurey Maxasiyot be said to resemble a popular tale in its entirety. The popular motifs in the tales and the resemblance with popular tales only constitute an external layer.116 Howard Schwartz mentions oral Jewish folklore as a possible inspiration.117 Nahman admits that he is inspired by non-Jewish tales, though they of course needed to be rectied.118 Nahman may as well have been inspired by the “Zeitgeist” of the German Romantic period, in which the Brothers Grimm had begun to collect their folktales.119 A bold suggestion of Schwartz, which he is aware that he cannot prove, is that Nahman’s dreams may have served as an inspiration for the tales, because those dreams of Nahman that are recorded “seem like condensed versions of one of Nachman’s epic tales” (Schwartz 1982: 213). Another suggestion by Schwartz, which at the same time relates to Nahman’s decision to choose the genre of fairy tales, would be that fairy tales depict battles between good and evil, with happy endings

Cf. Joseph Dan: “Preface”, in Band 1978: xiv;  1975: 136. Dan mentions Yaxakov Yosef of Polynnoye’s rendering of the Baxal Shem Tov’s tale “  ” (a possible translation could be “the intervention of the merchants”) and the tale about R. Yosef Raina, who attempted to bring about redemption. These may have served as inspirations for Nahman’s rst tale. As an inspiration for Nahman’s thirteenth tale Dan mentions “The Sleeping Beauty”, in which the fairies bring presents, just like the seven beggars do; cf.  1975: 136–138; 144. 117 Schwartz 1982: 212. 118 Cf. David G. Roskies: “The Master of Prayer—Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav”; Magid 2002: 32. See as well Roskies: A Bridge of Longing: The Lost Art of Yiddish Storytelling, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1995. 119 Band and Roskies only go as far as saying that there is an analogy between the publication of Sippurey Maxasiyot and Kinder- und Hausmärchen in that same year of 1815; cf. Band 1978: 29–30; Roskies 2002: 99n21. For a very early suggestion on this analogy; cf. the translation by Martin Kavka of Samuel Abba Horodezsky: “Rabbi Nahman, Romanticism, and Rationalism”; Magid 2002: 263–276, in which Horodezsky makes a comparative analysis of Schleiermacher and Nahman. I too believe in a link between Hasidism and the Romantic period, substantiated by the shared notion of 1) the threefold division of history into a past with ideal living conditions, a problematic present, and expectations of a future where ideal living conditions will be restored; 2) the focus on the zaddik/the genius; and 3) the quest for the innite/the search for “the blue ower”; cf. Novalis, indicate that this is more than just an analogy. At least, one should not rule out the possibility that a “Zeitgeist” may have been hovering over Central Europe at that time. 115 116

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wherein evil is defeated. This corresponds to Nahman’s conviction that faith will “surmount any obstacle” in the end (Schwartz 1982: 213). David G. Roskies suggests stories that may have been told by rabbis as “brainteasers” to force those present to ponder if they supported and disputed “the privileged Mishnaic opinion”. He mentions stories, which may also have been told within rabbinic legal debates to refute the point of an opponent, where the specic story, labeled maxaseh, was “a factual occurrence or the account thereof ”, causing maxaseh to mean “a case concerning . . .”, or which were used in one way or another to comment on something already in Scripture.120 Finally, he mentions the mayse-bikhl—i.e., storybook—rst appearing in the sixteenth century in Italy, which contained a rendering in Yiddish of the most interesting and fascinating plots and stories in the Talmud, the various midrashim, and the Apocrypha with “just enough Hebrew-Aramaic ‘markers’ to render the work kosher” (Roskies: 70). In this case Yiddish was introduced to Ashkenazic Jewry as a way to reserve a role for Scripture in everyday life; but a mayse-bikhl did not contain stories as such, it only contained renderings. Still, it may have provided an inspiration.121 Finally, Roskies points to the Baxal Shem Tov as an inspiration. The Baxal Shem Tov was said to have told tales. Nahman is supposed to have extolled his precursor by saying: “And the Besht (may his holy memory be a blessing), could ‘unite unities’ by means of tales. When he saw that the upper conduits were ruined and he could not repair them through prayer, he would repair and join them by means of tales.”122 In addition to the suggestions of Dan, Schwarz, and Roskies, I should like to mention Hasidic legends. Legends differ from Nahman’s tales in that the legends are told about the legendary gure and not by him. However, whether one is in favor of the theory that Nahman is reected in the different characters of the tales, or suggests, as I do, that one should not rule out the possibility that the tales in some cases may reect the hope of redemption through divine or human collective forces, the mythic descriptions in the tales lend to the characters

120

Cf. Roskies 2002: 69. Cf. Roskies 2002: 32. Howard Schwartz also mention the mayse-bikhl as a possible inspiration; cf. Schwartz 1982: 212. 122 This is quoted from Band 1978: 32–33. In Band’s presentation, he turns to Joseph Dan who bases his explanation of “the Bratslaver theory” about the tales on this quotation. However, it should be mentioned that Green is skeptical toward the possibility of documenting such a claim; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 339. 121

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something legendary. Karl Erich Grözinger does not comment on possible inspirations for Nahman’s tales. Yet he characterizes different types of Hasidic legends.123 Hasidic legends have as their protagonist either a miracle worker or a redeemer. The miracle worker is typically present in the legends about the Baxal Shem Tov,124 whereas the redeemer-protagonist is known from the so-called tikkun-stories attributed to Josepf Karo and Isac Luria.125 Other types are the teacher-stories, about teachers who conveyed divine insight; disciple-stories, where disciples tell stories about how they were accepted by their masters; and nally there are the exempla-stories, where the virtues of different pious persons are being praised.126 According to my reading of Nahman’s tales, they are replete with miracle workers,127 redeemer protagonists,128 and teacher types.129 The disciples’ points of view are reected,130 and the exempla type who is supposed to inspire to a change in the behavior of the listener/reader is also present.131 I therefore nd it likely that the legend types, as characterized by Grözinger, may have inspired Nahman as well. Finally, one could mention how Nahman in Likkutey MoHaRaN #60 elaborates on a zoharic passage about Simeon bar Yohai, in which Nahman explains that “by means of tales ‘the true zaddik’ awakens from their sleep those human beings who have fallen asleep and sleep away their days”.132 Based on this quotation Nahman, who considered Simeon bar Yohai the second Zaddik haDor, may have been inspired by the main character of Sefer haZohar, who walks around in the hills of Galilee giving midrashim in the most fantastic garbs to his disciples. If so, this inspiration may relate to Nahman’s decision to turn to telling tales. Telling tales in their own right is in any case something modern133 and as far as I see it, it is impossible to decide which of the inspira-

123 Cf. Karl Erich Grözinger: “Die Hasidischen Erzählungen—Ihre Formen und Traditionen” in Frankfurter judaistische Beiträge, Bd. 9, Frankfurt, 1981. 124 Cf. Grözinger 1981: 102–107. 125 Cf. Grözinger 1981: 107–109. 126 Cf. Grözinger 1981: 112–114. 127 Cf. tales #5, 9. 128 Cf. tales #1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 11 (second part), 12, 13. 129 Cf. tales #3, 4, 11, 12, 13. 130 Cf. tales #8, 12. 131 Cf. tales #9, 12. 132 Quoted after Band 1978: 34. 133 Cf. Roskies 2002: 69.

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tions mentioned above were in play. However, what one can say, as Roskies does, is that when Nahman turned to telling tales, he mastered already “the languages of prayer and song; of biblical, rabbinic, and kabbalistic exegesis; of ethical exhortation” (Roskies: 72)—but his skills within these categories had not been able to hinder the postponement of the advent of the Messiah. He had to think of something new, and a hidush it was, when he rst began to tell his tales. Joseph Dan is the rst academic to explain the religious poetic behind the tales based on the writings of Nahman and Nathan Sternhartz. He describes the teller’s and the secretary’s intentions as a matter of raising the divine sparks that are conned within secular tales, be they Jewish or non-Jewish. Because of shevirat hakelim these tales are confused, ruined, and disorderly; and only the Zaddik haDor can reconstruct and restore them to their intended order. The tales, once they are restored, can assist in the process of uniting Tifxeret and Shekhinah—i.e., in the process of tikkun.134 However, from the following it shall be clear that this is Dan’s explanation of how Nahman and Nathan Sternhartz wanted the listener/reader to perceive the tales. Nahman’s real intention behind turning to telling tales depends on something else, according to Dan. Dan writes that Nahman sought “a new way to express himself, rst and foremost for his own sake” (Dan 1978: xvi). Based on the research of Weiss and Piekarz’ (see Chapter 3), Dan is convinced that the protagonists in the tales often reect Nahman and his attempt to bring about redemption.135 Dan nds support for this in the fact that the redeeming characters represent the efforts of individuals and not of collectives.136 Nahman is not interested in making his listeners/readers engage in the process of redemption through the tales. This is substantiated, according to Dan, by the missing ends in the rst and thirteenth tales, which are clearly Messianic tales.137 If Nahman had addressed the listeners/readers, he would certainly have needed to broaden the descriptions and be specic exactly at the end of the tale about the available ethics to be drawn from its actual wisdom, about

134 Dan bases his explanation on Likkutey MoHaRaN #60 and on Sefer haZohar III,128; cf.  1975: 136–137; Band 1978: 132–139. 135 Cf.  1975: 140. 136 Cf.  1975: 141. 137 Cf.  1975: 172.

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its immediate higher meaning. But the fact that the hardships of the redeemer, e.g., the second to the kingdom from the rst tale, is described so much and that the tale is not brought to an end indicates that Nahman was not concerned about a didactical purpose and that the protagonist should be interpreted as Nahman himself. Dan therefore refutes those interpretations that portray the tales as being didactical tales.138 Because of the Lurianic concept of gilgul—i.e., reincarnation of the soul, especially of the Messianic soul inherent in the Zaddik haDor—it is possible for Nahman to claim that he has witnessed what has happened from before the rst shevirah until now. Nahman internalizes the Lurianic Kabbalah as well as its historiography, according to Dan. They become chapters in the spiritual autobiography of his soul before he transforms them into literary creations. The form of popular tales only covers the autobiographical experiences and the Messianic commitments of the zaddik, Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav.139 Dan therefore writes that a detailed comparison between Lurianic theology and Rabbi Nahman’s tales cannot result in detailed identication between the various elements, for once this process has begun, personal and biographic elements are completely identied with cosmic events and become something new, a cosmic-autobiographical experience which escapes systematic, exhaustive interpretation (Dan 1978: xviii).140

In opposition to Dan141 and connoting White’s tropological theory, Green emphasizes that Nahman’s turn to telling tales is “not a turn from teaching [i.e., from the homilies] to storytelling in Nahman’s career, but rather a discovery, in his last four years, of an additional means of

Cf.  1975: 141; 143. See as well Dan 1978: xiv–xv. Cf.  1975: 144. 140 Dan is most likely inuenced by Scholem on this matter because Scholem doubted that one can “form the basis for a real and scholarly understanding of ” Hasidism on the tales; cf. Gershom Scholem: “Martin Buber’s Interpretation of Hasidism” in Gershom Scholem: The Messianic Idea in Judaism—and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality, Schocken Books, New York, 1971: 236. Grözinger points to Scholem’s great inuence on this matter too; cf. Grözinger 1981: 91–93. 141 Joseph Dan seems to be making Arthur Green an advocate for his view that the tales do not contain a communicative aspect in Joseph Dan: “Green’s Tormented Master”, Offprint from The Jewish Quarterly Review, Philadelphia: 333–336. (No year of publishing is listed; however, the offprint is listed in the Scholem-Library as #6751.11). In this review Dan writes: “The stories, which Green treats correctly as an expression of R. Nahman’s tormented soul and not as an allegoric description of his ideology . . .” (Dan 6751.11: 336). However, as I read Green, he reects an understanding that attributes to the tales a didactical purpose; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 338–344. 138 139

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communication” (Green 1992 (1979): 338). Green explains Nahman’s tropological turn in this way: The messianic attempt had failed, Nahman tells us in a teaching, because the people were not ready. The dream of redemption has not left Nahman—far from it!—but now it is clear that the light of that coming redemption will have to be given to the people more gradually, through the complex veils of stories. The tales thus represent both an innovation and a continuity in Nahman’s pursuit of his constant goal: the spiritual preparation of his followers and hearers for the advent of messiah (Green 1992 (1979): 340).

In line with Lurianic Kabbalah, redemption has to begin within the human mind, where contemplation and theurgic ramication can further the process of tikkun for the cosmos. Still, man does not realize how distant s/he is from the divine within man, which actually provides man with the means to accomplish tikkun. The reason for man’s lack of this realization is twofold. 1) Man’s limited intellect cannot grasp God, because God is innite. 2) Man has to realize that the imaginative faculty, Koah haMedammeh, is the locus of faith, and only through faith can man realize the divine aspect of man—i.e., man’s dependency on God.142 However, man’s imaginative faculty has been deled by sin. The deled imaginative faculty of man can only be rectied by the zaddik who possesses the spirit of prophecy. Owing to his status as Zaddik haDor, Nahman possesses the spirit of prophecy—i.e., access to God’s primordial Torah—which is why Nahman knows what it takes to bring man back to a realization of his limited intellect, of man’s dependency of God, which again leads to faith, which again can make man share Nahman’s longings for redemption.143 In support of Green, one can mention how the rst tale begins: “He [Nahman] said: ‘Along

142 Tzvi Mark deals with the role of the imagination and the concept of casting off the intellect in Nahman’s writings, especially in chapter 5 and 6, in his recent and innovative Ph.D. dissertation; cf. ,         :   ,                2000 ,  ,  . The title is translated by Mark as Madness and Knowledge in the Work of R. Nahman of Bratslav: On the Relation between the Worship of God and Mystical Experience and States of Consciousness Lacking Intellect. 143 The presentation is here based on Green’s arguments in Green 1992 (1979): 341–342, where he suggests a change in Nahman’s view on the imaginative faculty, which takes place somewhere between 1803 and 1809; cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #25; 54; and Likkutey MoHaRaN Tinyana #8.

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the way I told a tale, and everyone who listened, began to think about repentance.’”144 By leaving out names of historic persons, places, and references to time, Nahman could force his listener away from the realism, on which the intellect can comment. The listener had to take a step into Nahman’s imagination, only later to realize that his/her own imagination had been puried, had been transformed to realize the necessity of redemption. Resounding the effect on the reader of a poet’s revisit to the semiotic chora,145 Green nishes his overall presentation of the tales with a preliminary denition of what he describes as the mythical character of the tales: 1) The Tales take place in a dimension of reality other than our own. At the same time, this reality claims to have a higher status or represent a deeper truth than that world which is the object of our everyday experience. 2) They have about them an archaic tone that lends them a certain simple dignity, allowing them to transcend the poverty of language and style in which they were recorded. 3) As distant as their characters and events may seem to us, the tales are meant to evoke in the reader a sense that it is his own inner life, a secret truth buried in the depths of his soul, that is being spoken of here (Green 1992 (1979): 344).

From a somewhat different approach Yoav Elstein suggests that the death of Nahman’s son, Shlomo Ephraim, reects the exile of Shekhinah and the increasing power of Samael. The increased power of Samael is due to the defects of the zaddik related to sexual sin as well as oral sin. Both sins can be rectied through prayer. The practice of haTikkun haKelali has already been touched upon in Chapter 2.1, where this practice was one way of rectifying these sins. Another way was, according to Elstein, to tell tales that cause the rectication of speech because they embody prayer.146 Also with a focus on the didactical purpose of tikkun, Martin Cunz presents his suggestion of a religious poetic behind Sippurey Maxasiyot. According to Cunz, Nahman could no longer teach the written Torah

144

My translation. Cf. Kristeva 2002 (1974): 37. 146 Cf. 50–52 :1980       ” :   ,  ,5 ’  ,”    ’ . The title could be translated: The Metaphysical Component in the Creation of R. Nahman of Bratslav’s First Tale. 145

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because mankind in his view had fallen asleep and had fallen away from the seventy faces of Torah. Profanity and secularity had caused this fall; however, the initial cause for this fall was shevirat hakelim, something caused by God himself. According to Lurianic thought, tikkun is not only a matter of rectifying creation to the state, which God had intended but never realized; it is also a matter of mankind engaging in a process in which mankind assists God in completing God.147 When Nahman reads together Ps. 119; Ps. 126 and Sefer haZohar III, 127b in Likkutey MoHaRaN #60, Cunz argues that Nahman goes beyond the seventy faces of the written Torah, which can no longer awake mankind. Instead he draws upon the primordial Torah, as it lies latently in ordinary folk- and fairy tales. These folk- and fairy tales, be they Jewish or non-Jewish, contain sparks from the primordial Torah. Nahman liberates these sparks, originating in the primordial Torah, from their connes; he then rearranges them into their intended order and thereby achieves three things: To rectify the primordial Torah as God intended it, to awake the slumbering Jews and make them return to the written Torah, and to enable the written Torah to regain its vitality—all of this through telling tales.148

147

Cf. Cunz: 222–226. Cf. Cunz: 224–227. Cunz substantiates this suggestion with references to tales #1 and 11. Roskies is also touching upon Nahman’s rectifying intentions of drawing out the divine sparks of secular tales as a necessary way to engage in tikkun; cf. Roskies 2002: 73. See Dan as well; cf.  1975: 138, 144. 148

CHAPTER THREE

EARLIER SCHOLARLY COMMENTARIES ON THE TALES

Martin Buber was the rst to introduce Nahman’s tales to a Western audience. He did so by retelling the tales in German in Die Geschichten des Rabbi Nachman from 1906. Nahman’s tales are, according to Buber, stimulated by Nahman’s wish to plant a mystical idea in the heart of his followers.1 Buber is skeptic toward Nathan Sternhartz. He considers Nathan’s rendering of the tales garbled and fragmentary. Indirectly claiming access to and knowledge of the “true” version of the tales, Buber blames Nathan for often having forgotten the tales which therefore have become “entstellt”—i.e., distorted—because they reect rst and foremost what Nathan had understood and not what Nahman had told. This claim legitimizes Buber’s decision to retell the tales and not to translate them. Buber’s purpose is to render the spirit of the tales. When Buber decides what parts in the tales belong to the original spirit of the specic tale, the measuring stick is power and colorfulness.2 Buber probably had several interests in turning to Nahman’s tales, of which two shall be mentioned here. Mendes-Flohr and Gries center on Buber’s interest in “highlighting the spiritual verve and imagination of Hasidism” and that Buber thereby “also served to restore a

1 Martin Buber: Die Chassidischen Bücher, Schocken Verlag, Berlin 1927: 37. Die Geschichten des Rabbi Nachman from 1906 is included in this volume, only Buber left out tale #4 about “the Bull and the Ram”/“the King who Decreed Conversion” because he had come to feel estranged toward it; cf. Buber 1927: ix. The ve other tales are #8, 9, 11, 12, and 13. Recently, Paul Mendes-Flohr and Zexev Gries have republished Buber’s work from 1906, in a translation by Maurice Friedman, and added a very lucid introduction to Buber and his work on Nahman; cf. Martin Buber (eds. Mendes-Flohr & Gries): The Tales of Rabbi Nachman, Humanity Books, Amherst, Mass., 1999. 2 Cf. Buber 1927: 37–38; from a foreword from 1956 in Buber 1999 (1906): vii. Green has also noted a “less clearly obvious” reticence in Nathan’s role as editor of the tales than in his role as editor of Nahman’s homilies, where in the case of the homilies Green considers Nathan quite careful and reliable as does Magid; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 7; Magid 2002: 35–37. While I agree with Green and Magid that Nathan’s role as an editor of the tales may be quite dominant, I do not understand Buber’s claim that the tales are rendered in a garbled and fragmentary way.

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respect for Judaism”, for which Gershom Scholem admired Buber very much despite their differences on other issues.3 The point was that the representatives and followers of Hasidism had so far been seen as “the unenlightened residents of the vast ‘Oriental’ ghetto of Eastern Europe”.4 Buber, a disciple of Ahad haAm, attended the Third Zionist Congress in 1899 and contributed with his ideas on education, hoping that his philosophy, including his fascination with Hasidism, could help further a Jewish spiritual redemption and thereby prove the prejudice about unenlightened Jews wrong.5 The second interest in Hasidism is linked to Buber’s notion that the individual’s experience reects the soul and its ineffable mysteries. To convey the soul’s ineffable mysteries, one has to engage in a hermeneutical process—the core of humanistic endeavor—where “lived experience” is turned into “re-experiencing”. Buber is here inspired by his teacher, Wilhelm Dilthey. The “ability to relive the founding Erlebnis of any given spiritual expression is the ontological nexus between the past and the present, allowing for the retrieval of the past as an abiding ‘presence’ in the present.”6 The primal task of Buber was therefore to convey the re-experience of the lived experience of Nahman’s soul and its ineffable mysteries. The lived-experience stood in opposition to the stylized, recorded rendering of Nathan, which is why Buber was forced to reconstruct the livedexperience through retelling in order to convey the re-experience and thereby bridge the Hasidic past with the present of modern Jews.7 The main criticism against Buber concerns his attempt to portray Nahman as a model for his own early philosophy. However, everybody recognizes Buber’s signicance for being the rst academic ever to direct attention toward Nahman and for making his name known outside Hasidic and scholarly circles.

3 Paul Mendes-Flohr & Zexev Gries: “Introduction” in Buber 1999 (1906): x; xii. For explanations of the differences between Buber and Scholem; cf. Schatz Uffenheimer: 18–20; Rachel Elior: “Hasidism—Historical Continuity and Spiritual Change”, in (eds. Schäfer & Dan) Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism 50 Years After, Mohr, Tübingen 1993: 306–307. 4 Cf. Mendes-Flohr & Gries: “Introduction” in Buber 1999 (1906): ix. 5 Cf. Joan Comay: Who’s Who in Jewish History—After the Period of the Old Testament, Routledge, London 1995 (1974): “Buber, Martin”. 6 Cf. Mendes-Flohr & Gries in Buber 1999 (1906): xvi–xvii. 7 An inuence from Nahman may be traceable in Buber’s I-and-Thou-Philosophy from 1923. I am here thinking of the practice of hitbodedut, where one was supposed to speak to God directly for a certain amount of time each day, in the vernacular and as open-heartedly as possible.

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Simon Dubnov published History of the Jews in Russia and Poland in Philadelphia in three volumes from 1916 to 1920. This work reects his interest in examining Russian archival material and in describing Hasidism’s sociopolitical context. Dubnov’s contribution to scholarship on Hasidism’s sociopolitical context is still being commented upon.8 However, modern scholars who deal with the writings of Nahman have difculties in defending Dubnov’s claim that Nahman’s tales were “the feverish rantings of Nahman’s illness” (quoted after Green 1992 (1979): 17) or that Nahman’s thinking should reect Hasidism’s decline.9 Samuel Abba Horodezsky10 published in 1923 Rabbi Nahman miBratslav, in which he introduced the suggestion that Nahman had chosen the genre of fairy tales in order to disseminate his mystical, Kabbalistic theology to a wider audience.11 Otherwise, Green states that this book, co-edited with Eliezer Steinman, is “nothing more than anthologies of the Bratslav source material, selected with an eye to whatever would prove attractive to the modern reader”.12 Hillel Zeitlin wrote a short biography in Hebrew on Nahman in 1910.13 However, from 1932 until the Second World War, Zeitlin published a series of articles in the Yiddish newspaper Der Moment that were collected and published in 1952 by Zeitlin’s son, Aaron Zeitlin, in New York under the title Rabbi Nakhman Braslaver. Until Green’s dissertation, this was the only full-length biography on Nahman. Zeitlin took it upon himself to lead his contemporary fellow Jews back to the Hasidic world by tracing Nahman’s life according to the sources and by offering a translation in Yiddish of some of Nahman’s homilies, though a lack of notes and a critical examination of the sources leap to the eye today. Green characterizes the collection as “at once deeply perceptive” as

8 Cf., e.g., the many references to Simon Dubnov in e.g., Rapoport-Albert 1997: 65, 120–121, 232, 368, 370–371, 377–385, 405, 407, 409, 411, 416, 430, 442. 9 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 17. 10 For more; cf. Horodezsky, Magid 2002, in which Horodezsky makes a comparative analysis of Schleiermacher and Nahman. Since the article does not concern the tales, it is beyond the scope to present its content here. 11 Cf. Dan 1978: xiv where Dan counters this view, as is explained in chapter 2.3. See as well Green 1979: 368n1. 12 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 17, 22n28. 13 Cf. Hillel Zeitlin: Rabbi Nahman mi-Braslav —Hayyaw we-Torato, Warsaw, 1910, mentioned in Green 1992 (1979): 22n27.

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well as “highly romanticized” (Green 1992 (1979): 16; 22n27). The perceptiveness is especially evident from the analysis of Messianism as a key motif in Nahman’s writings.14 Magid has published Hillel Zeitlin’s article “Messiah and the Light of the Messiah”, which in particular deals with Nahman’s Messianism.15 Magid states in his postscript that Zeitlin’s religiousity is evident in Zeitlin’s attempt to revitalize Nahman’s call for prayer and repentance faced with the emerging Holocaust, against which his only protection was a prayer shawl and a copy of Sefer haZohar on the day he was sent to death in Treblinka.16 Jacob S. Minkin, before turning to Nahman as a teller of tales, explains in The Romance of Hassidism from 1935 how Nahman was committed to restore to Hasidism its initial success. “New and enlightened leadership was needed if the movement was to be saved from stagnation and death” (Minkin: 231).17 Nahman became such a leader who rebelled against those holy men, whose time was either taken up with “repulsing the attack of the enemy [the mitnaggedim] or with caring for the salvation of their own souls that they found no time for the spiritual needs of the masses” (Minkin: 239). According to Minkin, Nahman attached his hope to the young generation and to his followers.18 He describes the tales as follows: “The story-teller did not create dream worlds, but described realities, episodes and incidents taken from his own life and experience. The tales are taken as attempts at self-portraiture, colorful interpretations of his ideas and teachings” (Minkin: 265). “Rabbi Nahman was not drawing upon imagination, but was dramatizing his own life and the desparate struggle in which he was engaged to save the pristine truths of his great-grandfather” (Minkin: 266). It is obvious that Minkin did not associate Nahman’s changed attitude toward the imaginative faculty with Nahman’s discursive turn to telling tales, cf. Chapter 2.3. However, it seems that Minkin is the

14

Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 16–17. Cf. Magid 2002: 239–262. Although I have found three possible hints in Zeitlin’s article at tales #8, 12, and 13, it is beyond the scope to present the general content of this article, which is a presentation of Messianism in Nahman’s homilies and not in his tales. 16 Cf. Magid 2002: 257–258; Schatz Uffenheimer 1993: 16. 17 Minkin, in writing his book, was under the inuence of such personalities as Dubnov, Horodezsky, and Buber; cf. Minkin: Preface. 18 Minkin: 254, 257. 15

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rst to notice Nahman’s motivation for being a rebel within Hasidism, and the rst to point to the autobiographical as well as communicative aspects of the tales. Joseph Weiss and his article on “contemplative mysticism” and “Hasidism of faith” have already been presented in Chapter 2.1. Weiss began his studies on Nahman’s writings and personality in the 1940s. He represents something modern because of his methodological consciousness when outlining his approach to his object of study. He started out with an existentialist and phenomenological approach inspired by Heiler.19 He presented the thoughts of Nahman as centered on the paradoxical faith that had to be directed toward the transcendent God, who could not be conceived by the limited intellect of man unless man cast off his intellect. Divided between faith and human intellectual capacity, man had to sacrice the latter to gain faith.20 Weiss carried out his doctoral dissertation on Rabbi Nahman under the supervision of Gershom Scholem.21 The dissertation was submitted under the title The Dialectic Doctrine and Faith of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav in 1951. The rst three chapters presented respectively an epistemological, ontological, and reexive approach and conveyed Weiss’s understanding as mentioned in Chapter 2.3. The fourth and last chapter presented an existentialist approach, reading Kierkegaard and Heidegger into Nahman’s writings. Scholem, who considered the rst three chapters “an important and very original contribution to our understanding of R. Nahman’s thought” (quoted after Wilensky: 14, Scholem’s italics), could not, however, accept Weiss’s subjective way22 of applying an existentialist approach in the fourth chapter, in which “chronology has no meaning.”23 Scholem rejected Weiss’s dissertation 19

Heiler’s inuence is detectable in Weiss’s article “Contemplative Mysticism and ‘Faith’ in Hasidic Piety” from 1953 (see Chapter 2.1), a revised version of a lecture he gave in 1947; cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 44. See as well Weiss 1997 (1969): 249–252. 20 Cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 49. 21 Scholem had been Weiss’s teacher since 1942, and as Sara Ora Heller Wilensky, a friend of both Scholem and Weiss, explains, Weiss considered Scholem his mentor and spiritual father despite their differences in approach; cf. Sara Ora Heller Wilensky: “Joseph Weiss: Letters to Ora”; Rapoport-Albert 1997: 12. Scholem mentions Weiss as one of his most outstanding and colorful students and his closest pupil; cf. Scholem 1971: 176–178. 22 Weiss identied with Nahman’s perception of faith, and Scholem may have perceived what was later to develop into Weiss’s identication with Nahman; cf. Wilensky: 18; Weiss 1997 (1969): 253. 23 Scholem’s letter to Wilensky in 1952; cf. Wilensky: 13, 18.

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as it was. Weiss subsequently decided to leave the country to get away from his own dependence on Scholem at the cost of his doctorate.24 If diachronic relations are all that matters, as is the case with most historians,25 one can criticize Weiss for his use of Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard lived from 1813 to 1855, which of course rules out any possibility of him having inuenced Nahman. If one takes into account the human disposition to include partner-texts in interpretative enterprises, the juxtaposition of Nahman and Kierkegaard would not—in principle—be objectionable. What is problematic, however, is Weiss’s understanding of Nahman’s perception of faith as similar to Kierkegaard’s concept of “paradoxical faith”. To Kierkegaard, God is beyond time. However, the Christian is asked to have faith in Jesus Christ, who represents God incarnating himself in time, which is what constitutes the paradox. “Beyond time” and “within time” are incompatible, which legitimizes the use of the word “paradox”. If paradox covers the merging of two incompatible opposites, Weiss is contradicting himself when he describes Nahman’s theology as centered on “paradoxical faith”. Weiss argues that Nahman perceived himself as the paradoxical zaddik who represented the ontological as well as logical transcendence of the divine.26 The Zaddik haDor is pervaded by En Sof. As long as the divine sparks are present, even if they are conned within creation, there lies no paradox in God’s presence in the zaddik. There is a paradox according to human perception, but since the limited human ability to perceive does not enable man to a truthful understanding of reality where God is actually present in the world, the paradox does not apply to something essential. Weiss himself used the word “dialectic” about Nahman’s doctrine and faith in the title of his dissertation, and I should say that “dialectic” is a much more appropriate term to describe man’s approach to God and to Nahman as Zaddik haDor. The dialectic movement, which is initiated when man positions the transcendent next to man’s own limited ability to perceive, will eventually lead man

24

Cf. Wilensky: 14–15. Hayden White, mentioned for his tropology in Chapter 1, argues that the academic discipline of history suffers from its reluctance to include synchronic approaches in the related eld of intellectual history; cf. White: “The Question of Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory” (1984), The Content of the Form—Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1987. 26 Cf. Weiss 1997 (1953): 46. 25

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to faith through which man will come to understand his own divine origin and that there is no paradox.27 This critique of Weiss does in no way imply that Weiss’s contributions to scholarship should be rejected. An analytic use of Kierkegaard’s concept of paradoxical faith does not make Weiss’s suggestions unacademic. It only makes it debatable, and in such a case it is the task of Weiss and the future generation of scholars to nd out if phenomena within Bratslav Hasidism contradict his thesis or if they in fact verify it. Furthermore, Weiss’s perceptiveness in seeing how great a role faith played in the writings of Nahman is indeed a contribution to scholarship. Despite disagreements as mentioned above between Scholem and Weiss, Scholem did everything he could to help Weiss, and Weiss nally came to enjoy academic recognition.28 At his inaugural lecture29 in 1969, Weiss suggested about Nahman’s tales: A lack of emotional reticence gave his thought and writing an unmistakably autobiographical or rather confessional character. One would venture the statement that whatever Nahman says or writes, he says and writes about himself—so endless is his introspective self-centredness (Weiss 1997: 254).

Weiss is aware that he ventures a statement and is not being specic about the tales, but he is so in     —i.e., studies in Breslav Hasidism, in which he writes: “                    ,  ”—i.e., that “there is no single saying in the entire Sippurey Maxasiyot that will not

27 I am indebted to my colleague Lars Albinus for having discussed the difference between Kierkegaard’s and Nahman’s concepts of faith with me. 28 Scholem recommended Weiss in 1951 for a scholarship at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and Weiss cared for Scholem in return when austerity prevailed in Israel. However, Weiss chose Oxford for his further studies until 1954 when he was appointed to a teaching position at University College London. In 1959 Scholem and Weiss met again, and in 1961 Scholem recommended that Weiss be rewarded a Ph.D. at the University of London. From 1962 Weiss gave several lectures on Bratslav Hasidism in Jerusalem, and Scholem recommended to the dean at Hebrew University that Weiss take over Scholem’s position; but when Weiss heard the proposition, he refused. In 1966 Weiss was appointed full professor at University College London. However, only three months after his inaugural lecture in 1969 as full professor at University College London, he decided to take his own life; cf. Wilensky: 16. 29 Cf. Joseph Weiss: “Sense and Nonsense in Dening Judaism” in Weiss 1997 (1969): 249–269.

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lead back and refer to the gure of the man Nahman of Breslav”.30 When Weiss tragically decided to take his own life in that same year, Scholem saved Weiss’s unpublished manuscripts in order to preserve his scholarly contribution to the study of Hasidism.31 Scholem had Weiss’s manuscripts transferred to Jerusalem, where Mendel Piekarz’ edited them for publication. The quotation above, about the autobiographical character of the tales, comes from one of these manuscripts. According to scholarly standards of that time, and I shall here ask my reader to notice my caution, Weiss’s scholarly contribution could only be preserved if future references to Weiss focused on the part of his scholarship that was considered acceptable. Synchronic existentialist conclusions about the paradoxical faith, inspired by Kierkegaard, with consequences for how one should live one’s life, were not acceptable and did not help to preserve Weiss’s academic legacy. If this constitutes an actual reason, or if this is just my unsubstantiated conjecture, the result is, nevertheless, that scholars accept and still praise Weiss for emphasizing that Nahman’s sayings and writings should be understood as autobiographical—and this goes particularly for Nahman’s tales (see below). Biographical approaches to the tales are academically acceptable in the eyes of historians, as opposed to the hermeneutical alternative of trying to nd the didactical message of the tales, which involves the risky juxtaposition of historical research with moments where chronology and focus on historical contexts are temporarily pushed aside. This may provide one of many explanations as to why scholarship for so many years has focused on the autobiographical aspects of the tales.32 Abraham Berger published the article “Approaches to Rabbi Nachman and His Tales” in 1971.33 In this article, Berger gives a brief survey of religious and academic approaches to the tales. He then states that an analysis of the tales requires an understanding of the Kabbalistic language used in Likkutey MoHaRaN, though one should be aware of

30 Cf. 1974: 152,   ,   ,    : . My translation. 31 Cf. Wilensky: 17. 32 Scholem doubted that one can form the basis for a real and scholarly understanding of Hasidism by analyzing the tales; cf. Scholem 1971: 236. 33 Cf. Abraham Berger: “Approaches to Rabbi Nachman and His Tales” in (ed. C. Berlin) Studies in Jewish Bibliography History and Literature in Honor of I.E., Kiev, KTAV Publishing House, New York, 1971: 11–19.

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other traditional and mystical Jewish texts, which have been “assimilated [into the tales] by the heat of his imagination”.34 Berger detects a development in “the skill and boldness in the images and structures of the Maxasiyot”, from fairy tale, through an ‘ironic-realistic-didactic tale’, a ‘Kabbalistic-Messianic allegory’, a ‘psychological wonder-tale’,35 to the twelfth and thirteenth tales, which he describes content-wise. He nishes with his comments on the thirteenth tale.36 Mendel Piekarz’, already mentioned as the one who edited Weiss’s unpublished manuscripts, published himself his studies on Bratslav Hasidism in 1972 in Hebrew.37 Piekarz’, in his own right, continues Weiss’s research and studies Nahman’s life and thought, especially concerned with biobibliographical details. Events in Nahman’s life serve as structure for his discussions on his sayings and writings, including a survey of the writings by Nahman’s followers, which reect the followers’ expectations in Nahman as the Messianic gure who will return.38 Piekarz’ furthermore suggests possible sources as inspiration for Nahman’s tales.39 In 1974 Yoav Elstein submitted his dissertation40 which contains a summary of the critical literature on Nahman’s tales, including a biography. Chapter 3 in Elstein’s dissertation forms the basis of a publication from 1984, in which Elstein makes a structural analysis of the rst tale in Sippurey Maxasiyot.41

34

Berger 1971: 13. Berger 1971: 13. 36 It is rather striking that the only tales mentioned by Berger are those retold in Steinsaltz’s Beggars and Prayers, though Berger does not mention Steinsaltz at all. I am furthermore not convinced by the labels he attaches to the tales mentioned, since all of the tales can be said more or less to include these characteristics. 37 Cf.  ,      —    :'  . 1972 ,  ,  38 Cf. ': 132–136. 39 Cf. ': 152. 40 Cf. Yoav Elstein: Structuralism in Literary Criticism: A Method and Application in Two Representative Hasidic Tales, UCLA/University Microlms of Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, 1974. 41 Cf. '       —     :   1984 ,-  , -   ,   . The title can be translated: The Steps of the King’s Daughter—Studies on the Content and Form of R. Nahman of Breslav’s First Tale. 35

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Here mention should be made of Elstein’s article from 1980 on the metaphysical component in the creation of Nahman’s rst tale.42 In this he goes through the events in Nahman’s life preceding his decision to tell tales. Elstein concludes that the rst tale opens Nahman’s literary activity, which reects the metapoetic described in Likkutey MoHaRaN #60. Joining with Shekhinah is the point of departure for tikkun. The death of Nahman’s son Shlomo Ephraim is combined with spiritual concepts. The son’s death reects the exile of Shekhinah and the increasing power of Samael. The increased power of Samael is due to the defects of the zaddik related to sexual sin as well as oral sin concerning prayer. These defects must be rectied in order to overcome the power of Samael. Only in this way can Shekhinah be returned to “her father’s house”. By rectifying the speech through prayer, the sexual sin can be mended as well. This is why Nahman imposes on his followers to utter the psalms of haTikkun haKelali. By this act Nahman reveals his own weakness, through which the followers are endangered as well. It is impossible to know if Nahman’s weakness is caused by the followers, or if he is asking them to engage to prevent his present weakness to be transferred to them in the future. HaTikkun haKelali is not just a matter of rectifying previous coupling; it is also a matter of rectifying the power of procreation. Elstein emphasizes that the death of Nahman’s son is not the direct reason for telling the rst tale. The direct reason is Nahman’s perception of the crisis of Shekhinah as it is reected in the rst tale where the king’s daughter, Shekhinah, is captured by evil. The death of his son just indicates the worsening of this crisis, and it is the worsening that makes Nahman choose a new medium of expression—i.e., the tales. The rst tale represents the rectication of speech, because the tale utters and embodies prayer, and in this way the rst tale, including Likkutey MoHaRaN #60 as its intertext, becomes the introduction to all of the tales in Sippurey Maxasiyot.43 Joseph Dan published in 1975  , the Hasidic tale, in which chapter 3 is devoted to Nahman’s rst, ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth tales.44 I shall refer to Dan’s understanding of these tales in

42 43 44

Cf.   1980. Cf.   1980: 50–52. Cf.  1975: 132–188.

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my analyses. Along with these readings, Dan presents some general reections on the tales as literary creations. He distinguishes between content, structure and purpose. The innovation and uniqueness lie in the special combination of words, descriptions and motifs and in the structure present in Nahman’s tales. These words, descriptions and motifs in the tales derive from the cultural context in which they were composed.45 Before turning to the structure and the plot, Dan explains that the essential content of the tales is taken from Kabbalah and its symbols, and that many of the hints to this tradition and its symbols have been uncovered by Nathan Sternhartz and Nahman of Tsherin. Through these hints one comes to understand the cultural context of the tales and their true history. They even help the present-day reader to understand some of the content that Nahman concealed and to understand what Nathan Sternhartz and Nahman of Tsherin understood. 46 However, they       ,     ”        ,         “ ( 1975: 137)—that is “they did not allow themselves, for the sake of protecting the esoteric [content] of Bratslav Hasidism’s innermost kernel, explicitly to reveal their full knowledge about the tales”.47 Concerning the rst tale, Dan follows Nathan Sternhartz’s and Nahman of Tsherin’s interpretations, which suggest that the tale reects the process of tikkun. Dan agrees with them that the symbols point to a Lurianic context and furthermore explains how these Lurianic symbols create the plot.48 However, as Dan continues, an interpretation of Kabbalistic symbols will always be limited by the abilities of the individual to associate. Furthermore, every analyst is forced to guess about the impressions these Kabbalistic symbols made in the mind of Nahman, into which s/he cannot penetrate. Subsequently, such “”—i.e., guesswork or conjecture—cannot lead to good research.49 In other words, an identication of the content is helpful, but it cannot lead the analyst to the meaning of the tale. One therefore has to

45 Cf.  1975: 136–137. For more on the motifs as derived from popular tales; cf.  1975: 136, 144; or Chapter 2.3. 46 Cf.  1975: 137. 47 48 49

My translation. Cf.  1975: 137–138. Cf.  1975: 138.

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turn to the structure and the plot of the tale to nd its purpose and its fundamental content.50 Dan goes into details with the rst tale, and one will have to follow him to understand his point, which attains to something overall and essential in Nahman’s tales. Dan explains that when dealing with the identity of the protagonist and with the lack of an end in the rst tale, one is in fact dealing with only one question. Nathan explains that the protagonist is a representative of every Jew. The task of tikkun depends on the common people. If they keep the mitsvot, the process of tikkun will begin. At the same time Nathan says that all the zaddikim in every generation will engage in tikkun until the coming of the Messiah and until the end of tikkun. Dan points to the problematic aspect, which lies in the fact that there is a difference between all the zaddikim and every Jew. To understand this Dan turns to Nahman of Tsherin. Nahman of Tsherin explains that the awakening of the souls of Israel, especially the souls of the zaddikim, is an aspect reected in the protagonist. He reects the zaddikim, in which all the souls of Israel partake. To elaborate on this, Dan points to the research of Joseph Weiss and Mendel Piekarz’. They say that whenever Nahman or his followers speak about a zaddik, the true zaddik or zaddikim, he or they are no other than Nahman himself or in some cases maybe Nahman including his community of true zaddikim. If this is so, writes Dan, then it is obvious that Nathan Sternhartz tries to hide the personal dimension of the tale, which reects that Nahman is really the redeeming protagonist.51 The personal dimension is furthermore hinted at through the choice of an individual character as protagonist—in contrast to a collective. The tale therefore describes the hardships and aspirations of Nahman on his way to redemption, where he is up against torments with a clear, individual, Messianic purpose. This leads Dan to an answer of the second question, as to why there is no end in the rst tale, and why Nahman never returned to nish the tale. The end is concealed to the eye because it would have spoken about his redemption of Shekhinah, the end of tikkun, which would lie in the future that is still not here. Nahman could not bespeak his own role for the future openly, because he had already displayed his Messianic claims, which had caused fury

50 51

Cf.  1975: 138, 140. Cf.  1975: 140.

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and accusations against him and his community leveled by the mitnaggedim and by Aryeh Leib, the Shpoler Zeide, and had caused a crisis within Nahman’s community.52 Dan emphasizes that if Nahman had wanted to address the entire people of Israel, he would have been forced to broaden the descriptions and to have been specic exactly at the end of the tale about the available ethics to be drawn from its actual wisdom, about its immediate higher meaning. But the fact that the hardships of the redeemer, the protagonist, is described so much and that the tale is not brought to an end, clearly indicate that he is not anxious about a didactical requirement. Since there is no turn in the tale toward the people in its entirety, there is no guidance as to the collective’s Messianic activity, as one could deduce from R. Nathan’s interpretation. Consequently, we are compelled to accept the interpretation of R. Nahman of Tsherin that the protagonist of the tale represents the most excellent zaddikim, and rst and foremost the most excellent of them all, R. Nahman himself.53

Based on the arguments above, Dan criticizes Horodezsky and Buber, who portrayed the tales as being didactical tales. Horodezsky emphasized the didactical Kabbalistic message in the tales, while Buber emphasized the didactical ethical message. In opposition to this, Dan writes: R. Nahman’s tales do not have a didactical aim, instead they constitute a literary expression of a soul, tormented and complex, which cannot express itself in its fullness through theoretical prose and therefore seeks a belletristic frame to give a little expression to those things which in their entirety could not be given an expression . . . R. Nahman was an outstanding didactic who made use of different literary forms and who taught his students additional forms to convey through these his didactical teaching. In contrast to this, there is strong uncertainty about what is exposed in the tales; the things are not understandable, and certainly no man is able to learn from a turbulent reading of these vague tales, learn the Kabbalah of Isac Luria, learn Hasidic ethics, or anything else, except that when R. Nahman reaches the point where there is room for a clear didactical [message], guidance concerning the activity of addressing the tikkun and the coming of redemption, he speaks vaguely and interrupts the tale in the middle, without taking advantage of the didactical opportunity. We can do nothing but refute the didactical approach of interpretation

52 53

Cf.  1975: 141. Cf.  1975: 141. My translation.

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chapter three and refer to the tales as literary expressions of deep experiences which R. Nahman could not express through theoretical prose, and even within the frame of the tale he could not bring these to include their end, he had to interrupt them himself.54

Dan expresses his conviction that Nahman, because of his identication with Lurianic Kabbalah, seemingly expresses how he witnesses the primordial shevirah, how he has participated in the rst attempts of tikkun which shattered, and how he carries the yoke of the last tikkun, which lies in the future and which will bring about redemption.55 Because of the Lurianic concept of gilgul—i.e., reincarnation of the soul, especially of the Messianic soul—it is possible for Nahman to witness what has happened in this world since the rst shevirah. Nahman internalizes the Lurianic Kabbalah as well as its historiography. They become chapters in the spiritual autobiography of his soul before he transforms them into literary creations. The form of popular tales only covers for the autobiographical experiences and the Messianic commitments of the zaddik, Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav.56 Following a presentation of similar arguments, Dan therefore emphasizes in his preface to Band’s translation of the tales,57 that modern readers should not look for “any particular ethical or theological message which they supposedly carry”. The interest of modern readers should only be directed toward the literary quality of these tales (Dan 1978: xiv–xv). I agree with Dan that one can benet very much from applying a literary approach to the tales, with which one distinguishes between content, structure, and plot and yet pays attention to the relationship between these textual components. I agree that the imagery, be it metaphors, symbols, parables, or allegories, point to a Kabbalistic context. I agree that this imagery builds a bridge to the structure, which again parallels the structure in the Lurianic process of tikkun, from En Sof ’s wish to create, through tsimtsum, shevirat hakelim, to the participation of mankind/the individual in the attempt to achieve redemption. However, when it comes to the content and purpose of the tales, Dan and I represent two different stands on the study of Nahman’s tales.

54 55 56 57

Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf.

 1975: 143. My translation.  1975: 143.  1975: 144. Dan 1978: xiii–xix.

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Dan claims that the interpretation of the content, especially of symbols (which I refer to as imagery), depends on conjectures. However, I am too inuenced by a hermeneutical tradition58 and accordingly cannot see how one can engage in the study of ction, be it religious or not, without being forced to make guesses that within academia of course have to be qualied guesses—that is, to argue for and substantiate the guesses by constantly asking the surrounding text if the text contradicts or conrms the guess. When Dan claims that Nathan Sternhartz is hiding the esoteric content/the personal dimension of the tales by conveying a Lurianic interpretation of the symbols applied in the tales, Dan is basing this on conjecture. Maybe Nathan Sternhartz understood them as Lurianic, and maybe the tales were intended to convey a Lurianic message; past and present readers simply do not know. When Dan makes Weiss’s and Piekarz’’s claim (that the “zaddik”, the “true zaddik” or the “zaddikim” is used as a pseudonym for Nahman himself ) the basis of an understanding of the protagonist in the rst tale, Dan is accepting Weiss’s and Piekarz’’s claims without argumentation. He leaps from research on Nahman’s homilies to Nahman’s tales. Dan bases his interpretation of Nahman’s tale on Nahman of Tsherin’s interpretation of Nahman’s tale, where Nahman of Tsherin, not Nahman of Bratslav, uses the word “zaddikim”. This is conjecture as well. Furthermore, one has to add that a didactical message it is, if Nahman claimed to be the redeeming Zaddik haDor. In that case, Nahman’s identity would have consequences for the entire world, and the world would be forced to come to him for guidance on how to merit the participation in redemption. According to Dan, there is no guidance to the collective’s Messianic activity. But, as Dan mentions himself through Nahman of Tsherin, the protagonist/Nahman reects the souls of Israel, and therefore when the king’s daughter/Shekhinah instructs the protagonist in the rst tale to bring about her liberation through longings for her—i.e., God’s presence—and through abstinence from satiating the human senses, Shekhinah is also addressing the collective of souls reected in the protagonist. The instruction to long for God’s presence and to ignore human senses is a didactical message with a theological and ethical content.

58

Cf. Ricoeur 1976: 75–79.

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Dan claims that previous overt Messianic agitation would have prevented Nahman from speaking openly about his own Messianic pretensions in a possible end of the tale. If Nahman refrains, as Dan asserts, from speaking openly about his possible Messianic pretensions by not nishing the tales, I should say that nothing would have prevented Nahman from having hidden these Messianic pretensions underneath the garp of components, typical for a tale. It furthermore seems that Dan ignores that the tale in its composition and with all of its Kabbalistic symbols is giving away the Messianic identity of the protagonist and thereby the information about the end—i.e., redemption through the protagonist. One can say that the composition and the symbols hide this information, but one cannot claim that this information does not exist, or that interpreters should stop themselves from revealing this hidden message just because the information is not openly conveyed. Finally, the argument that Nahman could not have bespoken the protagonist’s nal steps toward redemption is not sufcient to explain why Nahman did not nish the tale. Such an argument requires an explanation of why the twelfth tale, which Dan does not analyze, ends with a description of the nal steps toward redemption and even conveys insight into what the redeemed world will be like. I am not convinced that a missing end or the complexity of the tales rules out an address to a collective to engage in the process described through the symbols (imagery) and structure. On the contrary, many scholars argue that complexity or polyphony calls for the engagement of the listener/reader to dwell on and reconsider whatever is communicated, to ponder on the meaning, to internalize the communicated words for them to participate in the message, once they come to perceive it.59 It is true that some people nd it easier to understand a systematic presentation of a message than to understand a complex tale verging on being a riddle, which is, however, what brings other people to understand the same message.60 Like Dan, I nd it likely that the tales represent a means through which Nahman expressed his aspirations. But I do not see why this should prevent Nahman from disseminating an address to the audience, now that the fulllment of his aspirations depended

59 Cf., e.g., my presentation of Kristeva and Ricoeur in Chapter 1—or—for that matter Magid 2002: 46. 60 See Green 1992 (1979): 346 for a similar opinion. Green’s opinion is dealt with below in Chapter 3.

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on the change in behavior within the collective. And I do not see why others should not be able to detect his version of Lurianic Kabbalah or his Hasidic ethics as the didactical message of these expressions. I am in no way excluding Dan’s contribution to scholarship. Dan’s contribution still stands as one in which one by necessity has to engage to come to an understanding of the complexity of the tales and its many layers, including the autobiographical. But I am emphasizing that Dan’s approach reects fragile arguments and that in some cases it is based on conjectures just like the didactical interpretive approach is, against which he warns. In 1976 Michal Govrin submitted her dissertation61 in which she examines the theatrical aspects of Hasidic rituals. Govrin, presumably inspired by Victor Turner, suggests that Nahman in his rituals presents to his followers a vision of the existing intimacy between the cosmic drama and the drama of the ritual that modies the perception of the participating follower, leading the latter through something analogous to an Aristotelian catharsis.62 When Nahman told his tales, they were often told around the Sabbath table, which Govrin sees as a continuation of the zaddik’s didactic discourse parallel to the theatrical aspect as present in the rituals. The telling of tales was a holy act, in which Nahman communicated his mystical doctrines.63 It was a matter of mediating between the man and the transcendent God; that is, it was a redemptive act. For this to succeed man had to be silent while listening, and Nahman had to garb the revelation of mystical doctrines in symbols and images as a matter of protection against evil.64 Yehudit Kook had prepared her Hebrew book on six of Nahman’s tales for publishing when she died in an accident in 1972. Her book was published posthumously in 1977.65 Kook retells and comments on the

61 Cf. Michal Govrin: Théâtre Sacré Contemporain—Théories et Practiques, Université de Paris VIII, Paris, 1976. 62 Cf. Govrin 1976: 151–152. 63 Cf. Govrin 1976: 241–242. 64 Cf. Govrin 1976: 245, 263–264. That evil, according to Nahman, would not be attracted to seemingly harmless stories is a point presented by Green as well; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 224. 65 Cf. "   . .  ,  —      : . 1977 ,  ,"     . One could translate the title: Rabbi Nahman of Breslav—Reections on His Tales.

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tales, and one could say that it is intended for inspirational purposes. However, despite her lack of academic aspirations, I often refer to her or discuss her understanding of the tales in my analyses. She rarely presents her own reading of the tales, but her understanding of the details in the tales is made accessible through her way of positioning the comments of Nahman’s followers, and here she reveals herself as a strikingly perceptive reader. Arnold J. Band published in 1978 the rst actual translation of all thirteen tales from the bilingual original version of Sippurey Maxasiyot. He is consciously aware of the need—and does accomplish—to pay attention to the intimate and familiar tone of the Yiddish, in which they were told; to the almost trance-inducing “waw”/“un”-consecutives in both the Hebrew and the Yiddish; as well as to the Kabbalistic terminology, images, and ideational patterns as present in the Hebrew.66 Nahman of Bratslav—The Tales does not only contain the translation of Sippurey Maxasiyot. Next to Joseph Dan’s preface to this book, Band has written an introduction as well as a two-to-four page commentary on each tale. The rst part of the introduction contains a biography on Nahman that includes information about the religious context which inuenced Nahman and Nahman’s turn to a Lurianic theology. Band here adopts Joseph Weiss’s characterization of Nahman’s theology as Hasidism of faith.67 Band then continues in line with Weiss and writes “that elements of the Hasidism of Faith paralleled some of his known personality traits and [they] will contribute to an enrichment of our understanding of the tales” (Band 1978: 22). Through an indirect hint to Weiss’s conception of paradoxical faith in the case of Nahman, Band sees a link, especially in the tales, between the “esoteric secrets of his soul and that of the cosmos”, on which the Hasid should reect “in order to purify his own soul and thus hasten the day of redemption” (Band 1978: 25). The second part of the introduction comments on, as the title says, “The Bratslav Theory of the Sacred Tale”. Band refers to Nathan

66 Cf. Band 1978: 46–47. That I have included my own translation of the tales is not an attempt to compete with Band’s translation. Such an attempt would be folly, since I am not a philologist. I admire and prefer Band’s translation, compared to that of Aryeh Kaplan. That I have included my translation is a consequence of my close reading; cf. Introduction. Band and I only differ on details. 67 Band 1978: 9–22.

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Sternhartz’s introduction to the tales, in which a comparison between King Solomon and Nahman is made—with the result that Nahman’s heralding becomes evangelic, since Nahman’s mouth is considered holy just like Solomon’s, which makes Sippurey Maxasiyot a sacred text.68 These tales should be studied for their content because, as Sternhartz writes: “[O]ur master has told us that every statement in the stories contains a potent meaning and he who changes one statement of these stories omits much of the meaning”. Sternhartz furthermore hints at a referential frame for their meaning: “[W]hosoever is expert in sacred texts, especially in the Zohar and the Lurianic writings can understand some of the illusions in this text” (quoted after Band 1978: 31). Band is here advocating against Dan. Band recognizes the communicative aspect of the tales69 and goes on to present the redemptive aspect of the tales,70 much in line with what has been described in Chapter 2.3. The third part of the introduction reects on issues pertaining to the act of translating the tales.71 Concerning Band’s commentary to the different tales, I will refer to and discuss his understanding in my analyses. In general one can say that Band’s introduction is highly valuable for the reader, who approaches the tales for the rst time. The book itself has obviously been prepared for grand publishing, which is probably why there are no footnotes and hardly any references to the primary and secondary sources that Band is using. Unfortunately, this makes it difcult to discuss his understanding, though his commentaries are denitely deserving of a discussion. An opportunity to discuss Band’s understanding of the tales is given in the article “The Function of the Enigmatic in Two Hasidic Tales” from 1982.72 The article deals with a tale attributed to the Baxal Shem Tov and with Nahman’s sixth tale, often referred to as “The Portrait”. The vantage point for Band’s article, with respect to Nahman’s tales, is his conception that Sippurey Maxasiyot should be understood as a sacred text. Band is aware that this contradicts Dan’s argument.

68

Cf. Huss: 257–307. Cf. Band 1978: 30–36. 70 Cf. Band 1978: 36–39. 71 Cf. Band 1978: 43–48. 72 Cf. Arnold J. Band: “The Function of the Enigmatic in Two Hasidic Tales” in Dan & Talmage (eds.): Studies in Jewish Mysticism, Association for Jewish Studies, Cambridge, Mass., 1982: 185–209. The article is based on a lecture given in 1978. 69

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chapter three Dan argues that the Hasidic tale does not embody the theoretical richness of Hasidic thought (he is clearly on the Scholem-Schatz side of this controversy with Buber), and has no didactic purpose other than hagiographic presentation of the zaddik (Band 1982: 186).

Band implies on the same page that Dan might have argued differently, had he made a “more detailed analysis” of the tales. Band therefore emphasizes his point that “the dichotomy so often drawn between the didactic and aesthetic in the treatment of Hasidic tales—or hagiographic literature—will be found to be an obfuscating simplication” (Band 1982: 187). Band substantiates his argument by pointing to the function of the enigmatic in the tales. In the analysis of “The Portrait”, Band explains how the hiddenness of the humble king constitutes an enigma. To nd this king, a wise man has to succumb to the methods of the king’s lying and cheating subjects, whom one could expect the king to represent. However, his hiddenness provides a tool, on the one hand, to keep his lying and cheating people at a distance, and, on the other hand, to draw those susceptible to change nearer to him. Later in the tale, the humble king contracts so much that he is nally reduced to nothingness because of the wise man’s praises. This is of course enigmatic too. What Band claims is that once these enigmas have been solved on the plot level, a theological notion, which is functional, will be detectable. The king who lives at a distance from his corrupt people points to the apparent difference between the divine world and this world. That the wise man has to succumb to corrupt methods hints at the Lurianic concept of “the descent of the zaddik”. The king who is reduced to nothingness through human praise refers to the ideal of perceiving God as Ayin, which is possible through man’s recognition of his dependency on God as expressed in praises. Band concludes that the function of the enigma is “to contrast illusion and reality sharply and unmistakably”. Such narrative devices “are designated to invite the reader to ponder and, perhaps, to accept new areas of experience”.73 With a few examples from the sixth tale Band thus argues against Dan’s conception that the tales should not have any didactic purpose. To elaborate on Band’s argument one needs to explain that it is essential that man recognizes the deceptive way of man to live in this world and

73

Band 1982: 196–199. My own interpretation of the tale is very close to Band’s; cf. Chapter 4.6.

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to understand that human behavior, as it presently is, keeps God at a distance. The wise man, be he a zaddik or even a Zaddik haDor, has to act in a way through which he can get close to the lying and deceitful people. But what this protagonist aims at is to come, alone or with the entire world, to recognize God’s actual essence and man’s dependency on God, because only in this way can redemption take place. A tale like this has communicative as well as theological implications, and I can only agree with Band’s arguments. Adin Steinsaltz, who is also known as a Habad rabbi, published in 1979 Beggars and Prayers in which he retells and comments on six of the tales in Sippurey Maxasiyot.74 Parts of the book had previously been published as translated articles of his stencil in the journal Shefa. Steinsaltz does not offer a scholarly commentary, cf. that there are almost no references to the sources which he sometimes use to legitimize his understanding. Had he inserted the necessary references, I am certain that more scholars would have referred to him. I am often referring to or discussing Steinsaltz’s reading in my analyses.75 In 1979 Arthur Green published Tormented Master —The Life and Spiritual Quest of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, the most encompassing biography to this day.76 Green devotes a chapter of thirty-four pages to comment on the tales in general and specically on the second, sixth, and part of the thirteenth tale.77 Prior to this chapter, Green has included the ninth and the thirteenth tale to exemplify Nahman’s emphasis on faith as opposed to reason.78 Green’s chapter on the tales should not been drawn out of its context which is an analysis of Nahman’s life and thought, which deals,

74 Cf. Adin Steinsaltz: Beggars and Prayers—Adin Steinsaltz Retells the Tales of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, Basic Books, New York 1979. 75 For Green’s and Wiskind-Elper’s evaluation of Steinsaltz; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 368n1; Ora Wiskind-Elper: Tradition and Fantasy in the Tales of Reb Nahman of Bratslav, SUNY Press, Albany, 1998: 5. 76 Cf. Green 1992 (1979). The 1992 edition is an unrevised reprint of the 1979 edition which was published by Alabama Press. Green 1992 (1979) is the revised version of Green’s dissertation under the direction of Alexander Altmann. 77 Cf. “Excursus II—The Tales” in Green 1992 (1979): 337–371. 78 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 290–292; 301–302.

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e.g., with Nahman’s decision to turn to telling tales.79 As it should be evident, my presentation of Nahman’s Hasidic context and Nahman’s role as religious leader, composer of homilies, and teller of tales is heavily dependent upon Green. In my analyses I refer to or discuss Green’s observations concerning specic occurrences in the tales. Here I shall limit myself to present Green’s thoughts on how to approach the tales and their content. On the overall level, Green is constantly aware of the many approaches to the tales one could take.80 He mentions those already taken81 and does not claim that there is one, and only one, that should be labeled as the correct one. However, Green is rst of all a biographer. We do not know what was in Nahman’s mind as he told the Tales. While it might be possible to make such a claim concerning the sort of discursive writing that appears in the homilies, surely in the case of complex symbolic ction such an attempt would be folly. Nahman’s mind will always remain beyond our grasp; in this claim the hasidim are correct. At the same time, it should be clear that this is a biographer’s interpretation. What we seek here is a reading of the tales consonant with the gure of Nahman as we have portrayed him (Green 1992 (1979): 339).

Green is aware that he of course has to steer clear of anachronisms and projections, since a biographer, when reading the tales in consonance with the gure of Nahman, does run the risk of seeking verication of his own understanding instead of falsication.82 Furthermore, Green does not hesitate to warn against being so biographical that one reduces “a person’s most serious thoughts to mere reections of so particular a setting in time and space that they can be of no more than historical interest. If Nahman is to be taken seriously as a thinker, one must to a certain point bracket the biographical circumstances” (Green 1992 (1979): 289). Green is aware of how much he is inspired by the work of Joseph Weiss: Weiss established the key guidelines for all further research in the study of Bratslav Hasidism. In his major articles he employed a method that combined the tools of intellectual history with the insights of psychoanalysis,

79 By the end of his encompassing book, he writes: “All of our work up to this point may serve as an extended prolegomenon to this task” (Green 1992 (1979): 340). 80 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 348. 81 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 337–378; 367–368n1. 82 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 339–340.

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demonstrating that in the case of so fully self-occupied a person as Nahman was, there can be no separation between biography and an understanding of his thought. Throughout both Nahman’s teachings and his stories, Weiss has shown, the central gure of concern is none other than Nahman himself. Whether he is offering a homily on the role of the true zaddiq in the world or spinning a fantastic yarn about kings and princesses, it is the clarication and justication of his own life-task that is constantly at the center of Nahman’s attention. This most basic insight of Weiss, though it has been somewhat criticized by Mendel Piekarz, has not been refuted, and is also a cornerstone of our present study (Green 1992 (1979): 17–18).

Green is here demonstrating his respect for Weiss. Yet nobody can “establish key guidelines for all further research”. Guidelines for research only last as long as the paradigm does. Historical criticism, which lies behind most of the nest research within Jewish mysticism, no longer stands alone. In fact, Weiss was the rst to divert from the purely historical-philological paradigm of Gershom Scholem, for which Weiss was criticized,83 and Green is aware of that when he writes that Weiss combined “the tools of intellectual history with the insights of psychoanalysis” (Green 1992 (1979): 17). Green rehabilitates Weiss’s claim that Nahman in his teachings did communicate an existentialist message that focuses on the premise of paradoxical faith. Green is, on the one hand, not critical toward Weiss’s problematic use of the concept “paradoxical faith”; but, on the other hand, Green is constantly aware that the so-called paradox is only apparent. Green describes his own approach as an attention to the historical, biographical, intellectual, religious, and psychological contexts of Nahman, insofar as these might have inuenced his literary works—in this case the tales. Nahman’s decision to turn to telling tales was, according to Green, governed by Nahman’s longing for redemption. Several events occurred in 1806 that caused his “more-or-less open messianic agitation” to fail. The dream of redemption was still intact; but Nahman realized that this dream now had to be conveyed to the people more gradually, “through the complex veil of stories”. Stories provide a medium, through which Nahman can cleanse the imaginative

83 Despite Green’s many references to Weiss, some of which are critical, Green does only hint once at Weiss’s “subjective” reading of Nahman, against which Scholem reacted; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 217n31.

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faculty of his followers to make them realize the necessity of redemption. Green therefore considers the tales an innovation as well as a continuity in Nahman’s pursuit of “the spiritual preparation of his followers and hearers for the advent of the messiah”.84 Green describes the tales as “myth”.85 The mythical dimension lends hope to the tales. Green writes about those people who still have not realized the necessity of redemption that they: “may be approached only by tales that themselves come from the realm beyond . . . Such stories must be of a uniquely mysterious quality, representing a narrative account of that which is itself beyond the very notion of event”. Green here touches on Nahman’s dialectical quest. “Nahman has discovered a way to express in language what we call myth, the narrative account of a transcendent and primal reality” (Green 1992 (1979): 346; Green’s italics). Soul and universe are linked together, which is what becomes apparent in myth. With this Green legitimizes his biographical approach to the tales. When Nahman is bespeaking the cosmic realm he is sharing what goes on in his own soul, and Nahman is capable of bespeaking the cosmic realm because he, as Zaddik haDor carrying the all-inclusive soul of mankind, has access to the upper realms.86 So far I agree with Green’s argumentation. But I disagree when he draws the conclusion as to the literary characters in the tales: “That the redeemer gure, the prince, the messenger, the wise man, and so forth, represent Nahman is a level of the stories’ meaning that we should not seek to deny” (Green 1992 (1979): 348). I argue that just because Nahman claims to have access to the upper realms, it does not mean that he imposes himself on every redeeming gure in the tales. Green has through his thorough analysis of Nahman’s life shown that Nahman, especially in the last four years of his life, had doubts as to his own role. One should therefore not rule out the possibility that Nahman, in a state of doubt while telling a tale, might have had someone else in mind, by whom Nahman hoped to be redeemed, and whom he described in the tales. Green nishes his overall comments on the tales by pointing to the tales as a medium in which Nahman calls upon his listeners/readers to turn to him, for the entire world, including himself, to be saved. Green

84 85 86

Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 340–342. Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 344. Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 346–347.

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does so qua Nahman’s claim to be Zaddik haDor. Again I will say that this is convincing only if Nahman can be proven to have constantly thought of himself as Zaddik haDor. If instances of doubt have sneaked in while Nahman was telling the tales, the tales can, in such cases, only be said to advocate for a turn toward Nahman’s theology and not toward him as a person. In such a case, Nahman is not the redeeming gure per se, but only participating in the process of redemption with a very crucial contribution. Maybe Green is actually hinting at this when he writes: To say that “he” is redeemer hardly means that “you” are not. There is ultimately no conict between a Nahman-centered reading of these tales and the most universal reading: as Nahman is seeker, messenger, lost prince wandering in the woods, and redeemer or repairer of the cosmos, so is all Israel (of which he stands at the center), so are all humans, and so is the one who hears the tale (Green 1992 (1979): 349–350).

Howard Schwartz published in 1982 his article “Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav: Forerunner of Modern Jewish Literature”,87 in which he presents Nahman as “the rst rebbe to make the telling of tales the primary method of conveying his teachings” (Schwartz: 211). Schwartz mentions possible inspirations for turning to telling tales, cf. Chapter 2.3; and then directs his focus on Nahman’s immediate followers, who thought of the texts as sacred texts and subjected them to an exegesis typical for sacred scripture.88 To substantiate his claim that the tales were used to convey a theological message, Schwartz analyzes the rst, the sixth, and the thirteenth tale in Sippurey Maxasiyot,89 and also includes some of Nahman’s minor, lesser-known tales,90 and nishes his argument by pointing to the fact that Nahman did not order the tales to be burnt, when Nahman before his death ordered his followers to burn his other writings.91 Aryeh Kaplan is a Bratslaver who translated Sippurey Maxasiyot in 1983, published under the title Rabbi Nachman’s Stories.92 In this translation he has added footnotes containing his comments on details in the tales.

87 88 89 90 91 92

Cf. Schwartz: 211–224. Cf. Schwartz: 211–214. Cf. Schwartz: 213–219. Cf. Schwartz: 219–222. Cf. Schwartz: 223. Kaplan 1983.

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These comments reect the tradition of interpreting the tales within the Bratslav community.93 Even though Kaplan is not an academic, and even though his comments now and then tend to be automatic translations of the allegorical potential of the tales, his comments have often been of great help for my analyses. They reect almost two hundred years of thoughts on these tales, which is why they should not be ignored, no matter how much trust Kaplan has in the authoritative readings of earlier Bratslavers. It should furthermore be added that Kaplan is very precise and reliable when it comes to his references, and no one can doubt his vast knowledge on religious material relevant for Nahman’s tales. Because of Kaplan’s vast knowledge and reliability, I often refer to him and discuss his suggestions on the meaning of the tales.94 Ora Wiskind-Elper published in 1998 Tradition and Fantasy in the Tales of Reb Nahman of Bratslav. The book is difcult to characterize because of its many approaches, but Wiskind-Elper herself applies the words and approaches: postmodern, intertextual, feminist hermeneutic, psychobiographical, and personal.95 This reading of Sippurey Maxasiyot does not systematically go through each tale, but the tales are included to shed light on her presentation of the four major themes with which Wiskind-Elper deals in separate chapters.96 The themes are: “The Poet’s Self and the Poem”, “Telling Tales; or The Physics and Metaphysics

93 The sources for this interpretation are books written on Nahman’s life and teachings by leading Bratslavers covering a period from Nahman’s death in 1810 until 1935. R. Nathan Sternhartz (1780–1845) wrote a biography on R. Nahman, Hayyey MoHaRaN, which was published posthumously by R. Nahman of Tcherin in 1874. R. Nathan Sternhartz’s autobiography, Yemey MoHaRNaT, was published posthumously in two parts. The rst part was published in 1876, the second in 1904. A collection of the letters of R. Nathan Sternhartz, Alim LeTerufah, was rst published in 1896, but a more complete edition was published in 1930 by R. Aaron Leib Tziegelman. Additional stories and teachings of R. Nahman were published in Kokhavay Or by R. Avraham ben Nahman of Tulchin in 1896. Anecdotes and teachings about R. Nahman, commentaries to the tales, as well as unpublished stories by R. Nahman were published in Sippurim Niaim by R. Shmuel Horowitz in 1935. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 138, 493–511. 94 Compared with Band’s translation, Kaplan’s translation is less accurate. Sometimes he chooses to translate certain words in accordance with his allegorical interpretations. However, when this is the case he almost always notes the Hebrew or Yiddish words from the original versions in his footnotes, thereby giving his reader a chance to be skeptic toward his translation. 95 Cf., e.g., Wiskind-Elper: 1, 7–8, 10, 155–156, 168, 188. See Wolfson 2002: 134n26 for a critique of Wiskind-Elper’s evaluation of Nahman’s gender terms. 96 Surprisingly, she makes no mention of tale #5 in Sippurey Maxasiyot.

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of Fiction”, “The Romantic Drama”, and “The Dimension of the Fantastic”. Wiskind-Elper agrees with Joseph Weiss to see the characters in the tales as referring to Nahman himself and to see this “self-referentiality inherent in the stories he told as an essential aspect of their strength and worth” (Wiskind-Elper: 39). At the same time, she stresses that the readers of the tales are invited to see themselves in the characters and in this way to partake in the ction. Through the participation of these readers, ction can be transformed to reality because the participation of the readers will be a matter of engaging in the process of redemption that the tales themselves describe.97 Nahman deploys fantasy in his ction to reach the truth beyond “the illusions posed by the dispersive, contradictory world of everyday life” (Wiskind-Elper: 223). Nahman is urging his reader to trust in and to feel the intimation of the Messianic future inside the fantastic realm of the tales.98 I very much agree with Wiskind-Elper’s understanding of this “invitation” to participate in the tales. Wiskind-Elper is aware that her book does not represent a typical scholarly work. She balances between an academic and a personal approach and is aware of the risks it involves for being criticized.99 I shall not criticize her for choosing to mix an academic and a personal approach because this is a fully legitimate decision. However, a consequence of her decision is, in my case, that I sometimes refrain from commenting on some of her claims because, from an academic perspective, they are unsubstantiated or fail to live up to basic standards of argumentation. Nevertheless, she is an excellent reader with an impressive knowledge about Nahman, his tales and teachings. I will refer to and discuss some of her readings of the different tales in my analyses. Tzvi Mark submitted his dissertation in 2000 on madness and knowledge in Nahman’s work with an emphasis on the relation between the worship of God, mystical experience and states of consciousness where the intellect is cast off. Mark analyzes Nahman’s mystical thought in its theoretical as well as practical aspects. Faith and intellect are presented

97 98 99

Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 72–73. Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 223. Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 1–8.

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as opposites, and with reference to this dichotomy Mark devotes a chapter to Nahman’s sixth tale.100 I shall refer to and discuss Mark’s reading of this tale. Some observations in David G. Roskies’s article “The Master of Prayer” in Magid 2002 has already been presented in Chapter 2.3. The remaining part of the article presents very brief but lucid comments on twelve of the thirteen tales in Sippurey Maxasiyot. Roskies’s comments pay attention to recent scholarship and reect his own original understanding at the same time. I shall refer to and discuss his reading of these tales in my analyses.

100

Cf.  : 286–313.

CHAPTER FOUR

ANALYSES

4.1 The First Tale The King Who Had Six Sons and One Daughter Introduction “Once upon a time there was a king who had six sons and one daughter” is how the tale proper begins. The rst tale was given the title   —i.e., the king’s daughter who was missing.1 However, I prefer in this case to follow the Hebrew tradition of naming a text according to its initial sentence. The six sons are only mentioned in the rst sentence, whereas the king’s only daughter is in focus throughout the entire tale. The silence about her brothers and the focus on her may prove to be important to understanding why she has gone missing. I therefore prefer the title: “The King Who Had Six Sons and One Daughter.”2 Summary The rst sentence in the Hebrew version explains that the tale is Nahman’s answer to a question the reader does not hear. What becomes an answer in the Hebrew version is the information in both the Hebrew and Yiddish versions that Nahman told this tale along the way and that everybody who listened to it began to think about repentance. The tale itself begins when a king dismisses his favorite daughter from the palace

1

Tale #1 was told on July 25, 1806; cf. Kaplan 1985: 123–124. Kaplan calls the tale “The Lost Princess”; cf. Kaplan 1983: 31. Band calls it “The Loss of the Princess”; cf. Band 1978: 51. Steinsaltz calls it “the Losing of the King’s Daughter”; cf. Steinsaltz: 3. Dan refers to the bilingual title     ; cf.  1975: 132. Like Steinsaltz, I interpret   not as princess but as “king’s daughter”. I do so because the term “king’s daughter” connotes the closer relationship to the king and to the kingdom including its serotic potential (cf.  ) than that of a princess. It is furthermore central to the conveyed hope of the tale that the king’s daughter is not lost. She is only missing, and there is a chance she will be found again. 2

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by wishing that the “Not-Good” should take her. She disappears, and the regretful father is unable to nd her. The protagonist in the tale, who is called “the second to the kingdom”, volunteers to nd her. Followed by a servant, a horse, and with some money, he leaves the palace to search for her. Inside a desert, on a path to the side, he nds and enters a castle, which proves to be the stronghold of the Not-Good who has captured the king’s daughter. The male protagonist engages in a dialogue with her, and she formulates a quest for him that should enable him to liberate her. He will have to seclude himself for a year. He must yearn, wish, and wait to liberate her. And nally, on the last day, he must fast and refrain from sleeping. However, the protagonist fails the rst quest when he eats an apple and falls asleep. She formulates a similar quest for him, only this time he will be allowed to eat, as long as he does not sleep. Wine will cause him to sleep, so he will have to refrain from wine. But on the last day, he drinks wine and fails in this way the second quest. Upon this second failure the king’s daughter is transported to a golden mountain with a pearly castle, but before she arrives there, she succeeds in leaving the second to the kingdom a message which describes how he can nd and liberate her. The description in the message brings the second to the kingdom back into the desert, where he encounters three huge men. He inquires about the mountain, but all three of them deny its existence. Nevertheless, in their own peculiar way they all help him nd the golden mountain with the pearly castle, especially at the end where one of them commands a tempest to transport him to this place. On the mountain outside the pearly castle, the protagonist has to arrange for a long-term stay since he will have to apply intelligence and wisdom to overcome the last distance that separates him from the king’s daughter. This is where the tale ends. Scholarly comments on the tale Yoav Elstein understands the banishment of the king’s daughter, her capture by the Not-Good, and the failed attempts by the second to the kingdom to liberate her as Nahman’s way to convey the message of the increased power of Samael. Elstein suggests that the tale represent an aspect of   —i.e., the rectication of speech. The aw of the covenant is caused by sexual sin. Sexual sin, as related to speech in need of rectication, is reected when the king banishes his daughter

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and evil speech slips from his mouth.3 When the second to the kingdom drinks wine from a spring a reference is made to the sin of Noah, which set in motion sexual sin. The sin of eating an apple, which he does in the second quest, refers to Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge, which through the seduction of the snake hints at a satanic symbol involving sexual impulses.4 Such crises and sins can only be overcome through faith. Rationalism and proofs from reality cannot lead the protagonist to nd the king’s daughter. Only when this worldly reality is left behind can the protagonist grasp the roots of reality. Grasping the roots of reality is a matter of devekut which again is a matter of transcending this worldly reality. By cleaving to God/focusing on Shekhinah the source of redemption becomes accessible through the yearning to restore Shekhinah to her father’s house—i.e., the serotic system.5 Yehudit Kook sees the rst tale as focused on the purpose of awakening mankind from its slumber and of making mankind turn to God. Kook then proceeds to an automatic allegorical translation of the different characters in the tale. The king represents God Almighty. The king’s daughter represents the human soul, part of which is divine. Her six brothers represent the six days of the week, while she represents the Sabbath and thereby becomes the divine presence during the week. The second to the kingdom represents man who has to choose between matter and spirit. The spirit fell from its spiritual level and became imprisoned in matter, and man’s task is to return it to its original upper level by cleaving to God and Torah. Every man has to search for the rectication of his “king’s daughter”. He can succeed in this quest by not despairing, when faced with obstacles and failures, and by insisting on his return to God even when he is detained and tormented along the way.6 Repentance as a return to God is the essential task of man. Repentance brings tranquillity to man and harmony to the world, which is why repentance is not solely a personal matter, but a matter between

3 The banishment of the king’s daughter/Shekhinah echoes, according to Elstein, the deciency of the moon (cf. Chullin 60) where God is held responsible for the diminution of the moon. The point is that supernal judgment causes evil and this worldly sin to be created; cf.   1980: 48. 4 Cf.   1980: 48–50. 5 Cf.   1980: 50. See as well   1984: 199–222. 6 Cf. : 71.

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God and Israel. The situation of the king’s daughter reects Shekhinah’s exile, the wandering of Israel among the peoples, and the distance between God and man, all of which can only be rectied when Torah is disseminated to the entire world and when the souls of mankind long to return to God.7 But mankind does not long to return to God as it is. When man remains at a distance from God, God remains at a distance from man.8 The second to the kingdom is an exception. During the rst part of the tale, the listener/reader is informed about how he is faced with difculties and how certain obstacles prevent him from obtaining his goal. However, this protagonist has the right intention. Whenever he wakes up after a failure, he sets out to pursue the king’s daughter again. He is indeed very stubborn, and this kind of stubbornness is exactly what is required to alter the situation.9 The stubbornness of the protagonist pays off in the meeting with the three huge men. The three huge men are at rst portrayed in a negative way, as demons that try to detain him. But as soon as his stubbornness becomes apparent to them, they are transformed into helpers. Kook interprets this as Nahman’s way of conveying that there is no such thing as evil in the world. When man turns to performing good deeds, evil is transformed to good. That evil transforms to good is God’s way of always offering a way to man, along which man can turn to God. This is why the king’s daughter cannot wake up the second to the kingdom: The awakening has to come from within.10 Dan mentions Yaxakov Yosef of Polynoye’s rendering of the Baxal Shem Tov’s tale “  ”—i.e., the intermingling of the merchants—and the tale about R. Yosef Raina, who attempted to bring about redemption, as possible inspirations for Nahman’s rst tale.11 However, what might stem from these two tales or what might be recognizable motifs from Nahman’s cultural context only constitute an external layer in the tale.12 The essential content is taken from Kabbalah and its symbols. On the details in the rst tale, Dan follows Nathan Sternhartz and Nahman

7 8 9 10 11 12

Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf.

: 72. : 74. : 75–77. : 76–78.  1975: 138.  1975: 136–137.

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of Tsherin. The king’s daughter represents Shekhinah/Malkhut. Her six brothers are the six serot from Hesed to Yesod. Her captivity by the evil one is to be interpreted as shevirah. From here the tale is built up according to the Lurianic context and depicts the development from shevirah to redemption. The rst failure to liberate the king’s daughter depicts the rst failure by the rst human being to bring about tikkun, cf. that the second to the kingdom eats an apple. The second failure constitutes a parallel to Noah’s drunkenness, which once again brought about the state of shevirah despite the attempt of tikkun after the ood. From there it depicts the consequences of shevirah until the coming of the Messiah. The three huge men represent three steps in the process of tikkun, and the trees they carry represent the serotic system. In other words, the Lurianic symbols create the plot.13 However, based on Weiss and Piekarz’, Dan suggests that the Lurianic plot is a cover for the personal dimension of the tale where Nahman is really the protagonist, the second to the kingdom.14 Dan substantiates this claim by pointing to the choice of an individual character as protagonist, in contrast to a collective. The failures of the rst and second quest refer to failures of individuals, not to failures caused by a collective. The tale therefore describes the hardships and aspirations of Nahman on his way to redemption where he is up against torments with a clear, individual, Messianic purpose. There is no end to the rst tale, because it would have spoken about Nahman’s nal efforts to bring about the redemption of Shekhinah, the end of tikkun, which would lie in the future—which is still not here. However, afraid of further accusations leveled by the mitnaggedim and Aryeh Leib, the Shpoler Zeide, Nahman had to refrain from nishing the tale.15 The tale has no didactical purpose, and one should therefore conceive of the tale as a chapter in the spiritual autobiography of Nahman himself.16 Adin Steinsaltz understands the rst tale as “the quest to redeem the Shekhinah . . . who is to a certain extent equivalent to Knesset Israel, the collective soul of Israel”. In continuing a direct allegorical translation, he

Cf.  1975: 137-138. Cf.  1975: 140. 15 Cf.  1975: 141. 16 Cf.  1975: 143–144. See Chapter 3 for my comments on Dan’s understanding. 13 14

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understands the second to the kingdom as a leader of the people of Israel, while the king represents God. The plot of the tale reects the historical struggle of the Jewish people. In an “unexplained, and perhaps inexplicable” way God causes Shekhinah to be captured by evil. Steinsaltz sees here a possible reference to the Book of Isaiah: “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great compassion will I gather thee” (Is. 54.7).17 It becomes incumbent upon the second to the kingdom to help the Jews nd their collective soul, cf. the aspect of Shekhinah, and to reunite daughter and father.18 Once the protagonist enters the castle of the Not-Good, he can enter unharmed because, as Steinsaltz sees it, evil is only a mirror image of reality and has no existence of its own. The protagonist has realized this. Yet at the same time he has realized that the king’s daughter has to be found within evil, which reects the mystical idea of the divine kernel within the shells. This realization initiates the process of redemption. The king’s daughter instructs the protagonist to perform penances, self-mortication, and incessant yearning.19 The rst failure, where the protagonist eats the apple, refers to the fall of Adam; whereas formalistic reasoning, which enables the protagonist to avoid obeying a quite clear commandment, causes the second failure, where he drinks wine.20 After the second failure, where the king’s daughter is removed to the golden mountain with the pearly castle, redemption can only nd its beginning “in a form and place that are beyond human comprehension and experience”. The servant, representing the common people, is left behind because he cannot take part in the spiritual torment and despair of the redeeming protagonist, whom Steinsaltz here interprets as Nahman himself. The nal stage of the quest has two levels: At the rst is the exile of the Jewish people, where the gentile peoples like the three huge men mock the hopes and faith of the Jews. At the second the protagonist is taken from the real world into another dimension of being, to other, metaphysical worlds, where the problems at hand have to be solved. The unnished end of the tale is taken by Steinsaltz to indicate that redemption is a matter of the future.21

17

Quoted after Steinsaltz: 10. Cf. Steinsaltz: 9–11. 19 Steinsaltz claims that the subsequent failures are explainable since suppression by asceticism and penances cannot conquer evil; cf. Steinsaltz: 11–13. 20 Cf. Steinsaltz: 11–13. 21 Cf. Steinsaltz: 14–16. 18

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Arnold J. Band understands the context of the rst tale as “the peak of Nahman’s messianic yearnings”.22 According to Band, the tale focuses on faith as “the excruciating struggle the true man of faith must engage in to maintain his belief in certain specic instances of divine intervention in history, particularly in redemption” (Band 1978: 53), even though he encounters rebuffs as those of the three huge men in the desert. Band interprets the king’s daughter, the golden mountain, and the pearly castle as objects of this faith. The king’s anger and the banishment of the king’s daughter are interpreted as “narrative correlatives of the process of tzimtzum and shevirat hakelim by which God created the world” (Band 1978: 285). Tsimtsum and shevirat hakelim involve “the expulsion or exile from the presence of God of part of the divine spirit, usually the Shekhinah, here portrayed as the princess” (Band 1978: 53). The process of tikkun is reected in the attempt of the second to the kingdom “to restore Shekhinah—the princess—to her home, thus restoring the primordial harmony of the cosmos” (Band 1978: 53). As to the interpretation of the second to the kingdom, Band remains open to a polysemous representational value.23 The protagonist may represent “any individual pious person or the gure of the zadik or Nahman himself, the zadik hador, or the messiah or the historical people of Israel” (Band 1978: 286), though he is most likely the messiah or Knesset Israel, since the king’s daughter and the protagonist recognize each other in the castle of the Not-Good, indicating the close bond between them. Band understands the two failures in the quests of the protagonist as referring to Adam’s fall and Noah’s drunkenness, both causing spiritual slumber. The second slumber of seventy years refers to the Babylonian exile. The message she leaves for him is interpreted

22 Band’s argument for this is that the tale was written in the spring of 1806; cf. Band 1978: 53. However, according to the Bratslavers and academic scholars, tale #1 was told on July 25, 1806; cf. Kaplan 1985: 123–124;   1980: 43; and Piekarz’ as referred to in Band 1978: 44. Nahman’s son, Shlomo Ephraim, had died at the end of May this year; cf. Kaplan 1985: 121;   1980: 41; which is why I believe that Band, who does not have any references for his claim (except for a reference to Piekarz’ who also sets the tale to have been told in summer 1806; cf. Band 1978: 44) is mistaken. Band’s claim leads him to conclude that the tale was told at the peak of Nahman’s messianic yearnings. Even though I am not a biographer, I should say that the fact that the tale was told after his son’s death indicates that Nahman was not at the peak of his messianic yearnings. On the contrary, it is quite more likely that disappointment and redenition of messianic hopes were at stake. 23 Cf. Band 1978: 53.

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as Torah. The persistence of the protagonist is what nally enables him to be transported to the golden mountain. That Nahman did not nish the tale is, according to Band, in line with Nahman’s tendency not to describe “the actual act of redemption” with the purpose of leaving the reader “to ponder and yearn”.24 Howard Schwartz mentions that Nahman is supposed to have hinted at Ps. 83.18: “They shall search and be lost” as to indicate the personal dimension in the portrayal of the protagonist in the rst tale as “the lost Tzaddik”. This portrayal reects “the necessity of accepting the futility and extended effort that is required for a successful ascent” and for the end to the exile of Shekhinah and the people of Israel. Like Kook, Schwartz also understands the six sons and one daughter as reecting the six days of the week and the Sabbath.25 The meeting with the three huge men designates a transition or return through the stages of emanation.26 Aryeh Kaplan brings his comments in footnotes to specic details in the tales he has translated.27 I shall return to his comments when relevant. In the case of the rst tale, he does not present an overall understanding. Ora Wiskind-Elper interprets the main theme to be that of exile and redemption.28 The second to the kingdom functions as an intermediary sent to save the king’s daughter and return her to her father. The hardship, which the protagonist has to go through, is seen as a reference to the Hasidic concept of “descent for the purpose of ascent” with relevance for every Jew, as well as a biographical reference to Nahman’s own battles with destructive forces.29 Based to a certain extent on Jung, the three huge men are interpreted as guards of the threshold between two planes of reality, which at rst try to convince him that the fantastic realm does not exist. The effect of this tactic is to iname the

24 25 26 27 28 29

Cf. Band 1978: 286–287. Schwartz does not indicate what relevance it has for the tale. Cf. Schwartz: 214–215. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 31–54. Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 47–48. Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 36, 83.

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protagonist’s desire to arrive there even more.30 The missing ending is seen as Nahman’s conviction that certain “explanations belong not to this world; they will be revealed only in the future, in messianic times, or in the world to come” (Wiskind-Elper: 175). David G. Roskies suggests that the tales cry out for a pluralistic interpretation, normally reserved for Scripture, and here he mentions the fourfold reading known as PaRDeS.31 On the peshat-level the rst tale is about a king’s daughter “taken into captivity; a hero volunteers to set her free and undergoes severe tests until he does” (Roskies: 78). However, as Roskies notices, the fact that Nahman gives away the happy ending at the beginning of the tale signals that the peshat-reading alone does not t the mold. On the remez-level the king is an allegorical representation of God, the king’s daughter is Shekhinah in exile, and the second to the kingdom represents the people of Israel, through which the trials of the protagonist become phases of Israel’s sacred history. If Israel repents, Shekhinah will be restored to her intended place in God’s temple. On the derash-level, the tale tells the story of how easy it is to enter “the Devil’s habitat”, while getting out is something else. The pearly castle, as the place of the good king’s daughter, is in contrast very difcult to breach—only the one with a pure heart can enter. On the sod-level, the king represents Keter; the six sons represent the lower serot from Gevurah to Yesod; while the king’s favorite daughter represents “Sovereignty, the queen, the bride, whose union with the Godhead is the ultimate goal of cosmic tikkun”.32 Adding to the PaRDeS-levels, Roskies mentions a biographical level with Nahman as the protagonist, as Zaddik haDor, which nds substantiation in the many tears, prayers, struggles against bodily passions, theological doubts, and yearning for material wealth. However, the desert and the meeting with the three huge men become the place of Nahman’s radical self-confrontation, with the huge men as agents of tikkun.33 30

Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 130–131. PaRDeS is an acronym for peshat (contextual approach), remez (allegorical approach), derash (homiletic approach), and sod (mystical approach); cf., e.g., Roskies 2002: 76-77. 32 Cf. Roskies 78–79. The demonic forces came alive, according to Roskies, with an act of tsimtsum, of the king retracting his love for his daughter. “Her sudden disappearance is the act of shevirah that follows. The viceroy’s quest to return her to her proper place necessarily leads him into the world of evil and seduction. Only by purging the root of evil in one’s soul can the redemptive process be completed” (Roskies 2002: 79). 33 Cf. Roskies 2002: 79–80. 31

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Analysis 5:—1:-, 3:—1:- 34 [Nahman] replied: “Along the way I told a tale, and everyone who listened began to think about repentance. This is the tale:” Once upon a time there was a king who had six sons and one daughter. The daughter was very important to him. He cherished her the most and used to entertain himself with her. Once, on a certain day, when he met with her, he became furious with her and so the phrase: ‘May the NotGood take you!’ slipped from his mouth. At night [the king’s daughter] went to her room, but in the morning nobody knew where she was. Her father became very sad and went to search for her here and there. The second to the kingdom stood up, because he noticed how very sorry the king was, and requested that he be given a servant, a horse and some money for expenses, and then he went to search for her. He searched for her for a very long time until he found her. (Now [Nahman] told how he searched for her until he found her).

Sippurey Maxasiyot begins in the Hebrew version as an answer, cf. “[Nahman] replied”. What the question was, the listener/reader does not know. The Hebrew as well as the Yiddish version states—and this is the answer to the Hebrew question—that Nahman originally told this tale along the way. That Nahman told the tale along the way may have been placed here as a reference to the narrative parts of Sefer haZohar where Simeon bar Yohai discusses Torah with his disciples as he is walking around the hills of Galilee.35 This does not necessarily inuence the content of the tale; however, it has the potential of placing this tale side by side with the most authoritative mystical opus—i.e., Sefer haZohar, and Nahman side by side with Simeon bar Yohai. Nahman did consider Simeon bar Yohai the second Zaddik haDor and he himself the fth and last one.36 The canonical status of Sefer haZohar lends authority to Nahman and the tale. The introducing lines in both versions end by stating that “everyone who listened, began to think about repentance”.

34 The single yud () refers to the Hebrew text and the double yud () to the Yiddish text. The Hebrew letters indicate the page number, while the Arabic gures specify the line number. 35 Another activated association to the fact that he is telling the tale as he is walking along the road may be to many itinerant preachers in the contexts of early Hasidism; cf. Wolfson 1997: 180–181; 180–181n1–3. 36 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 118.

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It indicates that a hoped-for performative function of the tropological turn to telling this tale could be to bring every new listener/reader to think of repentance too.37 The tale proper begins like a typical tale in a distant past. The setting is the residence of a king, who has six sons and one daughter. They all live together in a harmonious relationship, even though the king’s way of cherishing his only daughter, of meeting with her, and of entertaining himself with her, strikes an ominous cord, pointing forward to an end to the harmonious family portrait. This end comes abruptly. One day the king’s love for his daughter bursts into an expression of fury and cursing. The almighty father wishes: “May the Not-Good take you!” Maybe unaware of his own might, the father witnesses that his favorite daughter has gone or has in fact been taken away from him on the following morning. No explanation as to the father’s t is given. The king’s daughter has to walk alone to her room. Sending children to their rooms is a matter of making them realize what they have done wrong; however, the daughter has done nothing, except for one thing, and that is to arouse her father’s love. A modern interpreter analyzing a modern text with a content like this would not hesitate to claim that the description deals with an incestuous relationship. But that I am a modern interpreter does not make Nahman’s tale modern, and the question is if Nahman could have even thought about incest. Though Elstein explicitly does not mention the love between father and daughter, he emphasizes that sexual sin is related to the aw of speech present in the king’s curse in the opening scene.38 I am not sure if Elstein only has in mind speech containing evil words or if he mentions sex as related to the opening scene as a way of indicating that he knows there is something sexual about the relationship between father and daughter. If Nahman was so occupied with sexual sin, as most biographers believe, incest may

37 Wiskind-Elper has noticed this possible performative intention as well. She writes: “The resemblance between Reb Nahman’s concept of personal engagement between listener and narrative and the traditional, unquestioned recognition of engagement vis-à-vis biblical narrative seems more than coincidental” The references to the biblical narratives and the biblical gures become encoded messages with signicance for every listener as a matter of identication; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 58–59. 38 Cf.   1980: 48.

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have crossed Nahman’s mind as an example of sexual sin. But I am not looking for the sole explanation of a written work in the author who produced it. My task is to show what the text might want to convey, and due to a structural parallel, incest may be a theme placed at the beginning of the tale to disseminate an important message.39 The Hebrew Bible never mentions incestuous relationships between father and daughter in the lists of incestuous crimes.40 The Anchor Bible Dictionary informs that the punishment for incest would probably have been the father’s banishment from the town and a need to purify the town after the father’s banishment as was the punishment according to Hittite and Babylonian laws.41 This punishment is parallel to the punishment for incestuous crimes in general in The Hebrew Bible where the country would spit out the sinner and God would wipe him out (Lev. 18.6–19). Abiding by these sexual laws was a premise for entering the Promised Land,42 and once inside the Promised Land these laws, also concerning the punishment for incest, of course had to be followed. Yet in this tale the father’s love for his daughter leads to the daughter’s banishment from the kingdom. The victim has been punished and banished, leaving the sinner still within the Holy Land, thereby causing its impurity. A state of injustice, a state of impurity, and a state of lack characterize the situation. To rectify the situation, the sinner will have to be punished, the kingdom will have to be puried, and the victim will have to be returned to the kingdom, where she belongs. The required rectication for such a sexual crime may signal a theme of this tale. If Nahman has been so bold as to position a reference to incest at the beginning of his rst tale—and if it implicitly carries a message about the rectication of a sexual sin—still, one must include the other connotations to allow for the tensive relationship between the terms in the opening lines of the tale proper. Roskies suggests that the number

39 From a psychological point of view, incest would be able to explain the otherwise inexplicable anger of the father, since anger at oneself projected on the victim is not uncommon. 40 Cf. Lev. 18.6–19, 20.11–21, Deut. 32.1, 27.20–23. 41 Freedman, David Noel (ed.): The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Doubleday, New York, 1992: Vol. V, 549–550. 42 Nahman dealt with the purity required for entering Israel in that he explained that the intellect of Moses was blemished because of wantonness, when Moses was smiting the rock, and this kind of spontaneity is related to sexual sin; cf. Liebes 1993: 123–126. Liebes here deals with Likkutey MoHaRaN #20, which focuses on the land of Israel, rectications of sin and Moses.

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of sons does arouse associations to the lower serot from Gevurah/Din to Yesod in the serotic system.43 In zoharic Kabbalah the comparison would not make sense because Gevurah/Din and Hod are considered female serot. However, in Lurianic Kabbalah the six serot from Gevurah/Din to Yesod are considered male and considered to make up Zexir Anpin,44 who is the Lurianic pendant to Adam Kadmon mentioned by Schwartz.45 Schwartz mentions Adam Kadmon with respect to the three huge men later in the tale, where he says that this primordial man serves as the transition between En Sof and this world. Though I am not convinced that the three huge men represent Adam Kadmon, I agree with him on their function, where each of these huge men serve as a kind of custos liminis between this world and the upper world.46 I nd it plausible when Roskies suggests that the six sons should be interpreted as Zexir Anpin within the serotic world. At the end of the tale, the protagonist is setting out on an ascent. Here, the unjust banishment of a victim signals a descent, which could indicate that the six sons mentioned constitute a lower level than the king, their father, and yet a higher level than the level of the daughter, especially after the moment when she is banished. If the six sons connote Zexir Anpin, it leaves but one role to the king’s daughter, and that is the role of Shekhinah, the tenth and lowest serah. If she represents Shekhinah, the banishment suddenly becomes understandable. Dan, Band and Roskies agree that her banishment evokes connotations to shevirat hakelim, the Lurianic breaking of the vessels.47 The banishment of the daughter would parallel the expulsion of Shekhinah from the serotic system after the cataclysm of tsimtsum where all following efforts of the mystics are concentrated upon her return just like in this tale. This may be a very important frame for understanding the tale, which is why I have chosen the title

43 Cf. Roskies 2002: 79. Kook and Schwartz interpret the six sons and one daughter as references to the six weekdays and Sabbath. Kook may have a point when she writes that the Sabbath represents God’s presence during the week, thereby indirectly referring to God’s immanence in this world; cf. : 71. Schwartz does not argue for his point; cf. Schwartz: 214–215. 44 Cf., e.g., Daniel Chanan Matt’s commentary to “tsimtsum and shevirat” by Hayyim Vital in Matt: The Essential Kabbalah—the Heart of Jewish Mysticism, HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco, 1994: 93–97, 195–196; Scholem 1974 (1946): 269–270. 45 Cf. Schwartz: 214–215. 46 Wiskind-Elper is of a similar opinion; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 130–131. 47 Cf.  1975: 137–138; Band 1978: 285; Roskies 2002: 78–79.

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from the initial sentence, since the union between the six sons and their sister would signal her hoped-for return. Interpreted within a Lurianic paradigm, the love between father and daughter means that God’s wish to create is based on his love for creation from before it came into existence; however, just like God is innite, so is God’s love, which is why the vessels/the daughter cannot contain it. The vessels break and the daughter has to leave. That the daughter has to go to her room at night and that she has gone in the morning indicates an intertextual transposition of meaning from Sefer haZohar into the tale. In Sefer haZohar it says about Shekhinah that: ‘She rises while it is yet night, and gives food to her household’ (Prov. 31.15) . . . And, when the morning comes, called ‘the dawn’ it brings to her the pains of exile, and she is therefore called ‘the hind of dawn’, because of the blackness of the morning, when she experiences pains like a woman in childbirth . . . Where does she go? She . . . enters the mount of darkness. [As soon as] she enters the mount of darkness a tortuous snake is prepared for her, and it follows her, and she goes up from there to the mount of light . . . When she is pregnant, she is closed up. When the time comes for her to give birth, she lows, and utters cries, cry after cry, . . . The Holy One, blessed be He, hears her, and goes to her aid. He immediately brings forth a great snake from among the mountains of darkness, and it comes through the hills, its mouth licking dust. It draws near to the hind, and bites her twice at the appropriate place. The rst time, blood comes out, and it licks it up. The second time, water comes out, and all the animals in the mountains drink, and she is opened and gives birth (Sefer haZohar III, 249a–b).

According to this zoharic passage, entering and confronting the domain of darkness, or rather the domain of evil, is a necessary step toward the free ow of divine energy. Birth pangs are therefore not to be considered punishments but substitute sufferings for humankind. Shekhinah always reects the behavior of the people. Every mystic who knows this zoharic passage, and who hears that the king’s daughter goes to her room and that she has gone the next morning, will relate her disappearance to the fact that mankind is to blame for her exile and future sufferings. The mercy of The Holy One only comes about when the people repent. The original listener/reader, who did know about Jewish mysticism, may also relate the narrative unit to the fact that whenever Shekhinah is in exile, she is expelled from the palace of Tifxeret, she is expelled from the serotic system, and the ideal union

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between male and female is brought to an end.48 Her expulsion is a threat to the serotic union between male and female that preconditions the free ow of shefa to mankind. Whether one chooses the incestuous, the Lurianic, or the zoharic connotations, the opening lines of the tale proper leave the listener/reader to realize the gravity of the situation, caused respectively by either impurity, shevirat hakelim, or the sinful behavior of the people. When the king nds out on the following day that his daughter has gone, he begins to search for her all over, but to no avail. His failure to make her return points toward the necessary efforts of a third character. This is where the protagonist appears in the tale and offers to search for the king’s daughter. The protagonist appears under the name of

 -/ —i.e., the second to the kingdom.49 To understand this designation it is worth remembering that the rst in the kingdom is the king, whereas the second is the one who is to inherit it. At the same time

 is another name for Shekhinah. By reading these split references together along with the fact that Knesset Israel, the ideal community of Israel with all its members, in zoharic Kabbalah shall enjoy a unication with Shekhinah and shall reign as kings in the world-to-come,50 it is likely that the protagonist becomes a collective representation of Israel. The collective representation of Israel has the potential of becoming Knesset Israel if Israel repents its sins and returns to a life in fear and love of God. If this is so, the liberation of the king’s daughter depends on mankind being transformed from Israel to Knesset Israel through collective repentance and a confrontation with evil which, as the listener/reader will see in the next passage, holds Shekhinah captive. Repentance and a confrontation with evil are parts of the process of tikkun where man’s confrontation with evil preconditions the event where the presence of

48

Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar: I,182a, 210a–b; II,42a–b, 69a, 175a; III,17a–b. The commentators either call him “the viceroy” or “the Chamberlain”. Chamberlain makes no sense; however, “viceroy” does connote a certain closeness to the throne. But by choosing this translation, one misses the potential of the second to the kingdom becoming next in line by being united with the one who is one step closer—i.e., Shekhinah—who also designated Malkhut—i.e., kingdom. This is why I shall stick to the rather clumsy designation “the second to the kingdom” or simply refer to him as the male protagonist. 50 Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar: I,206b, 235a; II,135b,145a. 49

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God—i.e., Shekhinah—can be returned to her intended position, be it in the house of the king together with her father and six brothers or in the serotic system. Thus, the imagery would refer to a Lurianic type of Kabbalah, because in Lurianic tradition everybody is responsible for tikkun.51 At the same time this is the rst point in the tale where the listener/reader has to consider if he is actually addressed and if he should engage in repentance to help the collective representation transform into Knesset Israel. The male protagonist asks for three things before he sets out to nd the king’s daughter. He is granted all three: a servant, a horse, and some money.52 The three-part wish helps the narrative take its form as a tale. Together with the servant, the horse and the money, the male protagonist sets out to search for the king’s daughter, and then, already at this point, it is revealed that the male protagonist succeeds in nding her, though it took a very long time. One wonders why Nahman or the redaction reveals the ending of the tale already at this early stage, but maybe as Roskies indicates, Nahman may be countering potential expectations to this tale to conform to norms.53 My suggestion, which is not supposed to rule out Roskies’s, would be that the ending is not central to the scope of the tale, which ts the statement in the introducing lines where it says that this is a tale of repentance. The process is in focus. Redemption will come; the only question is how? The tale may be the answer to this. 11: —5:-, 7: —4:- [The second to the kingdom] walked for a long time here and there, in deserts, elds and forests, and he was searching for her for a very long time. When he was walking in the desert, he saw a path to to the side. He thought to himself: “Since I have been walking in the desert for such a long time without being able to nd her, I shall walk on this path. Maybe I will come to a settled place.” He walked for a long time until he saw a castle surrounded by soldiers. The castle with its soldiers looked nice, renovated

51

Cf., e.g., Scholem 1974 (1946): 275. Kaplan interprets these three kinds of aid respectively to be the soul incl. human logic, the body, and worldly goods; cf. Kaplan 1983: 36–37. Kook understands them as representatives of matter, as opposed to the divine spirit within man, which man is supposed to return to its divine origin; cf. : 71. Steinsaltz only comments on the servant to be symbolic of the people; cf. Steinsaltz: 11. 53 Cf. Roskies 2002: 77–78. 52

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and orderly; however, he was afraid that the soldiers would not let him in. Still, he thought to himself: “I shall try and enter!” He left the horse behind and went to the castle. They let him in, and they did not even try to detain him. He walked from room to room without being detained and came to a palacelike room, where a king was sitting with his crown. Some soldiers were there, and some singers with instruments were standing in front of him. It was nice and very beautiful. Neither the king nor anybody else asked him anything at all. He saw ne and delicate food, and so he stood there and ate. After this, he went and lay down in a corner, from where he could see what was going on.

The male protagonist walks through deserts, elds, and forests. This narrative topography to be considered as imagery replete with split references deserves some attention. The negative characteristics of deserts are their lack of water, vegetation, humans, and fertility. It is associated with demons and darkness as well (cf. Lev. 16.10, Jer. 2.6). The positive associations of deserts refer to the Israelite past where the relationship between God and the Israelite people was established. Deserts would then represent a kind of space that is constitutive for the chosenness of Israel as the people of God—a space into which several traditions are being projected and reinforced.54 The positive and negative associations create a tension that renders the desert a rather ambiguous place.55 The ambiguity is reected, e.g., in Hosea 2.16–17 where the desert is considered the place where the relationship between God and Israel can be restablished. The listener/reader can only hope that this shall be the case in this tale as well, given the most likely situation where Shekhinah has been expelled from the serotic system because of sexual impurity, shevirat hakelim, or the sinful behavior of the people. A passage from Sefer haZohar may be quite central to keeping this hope alive. [T]he Holy One brought the Israelites out in order to lead them through the terrible wilderness, the very realm and domain of Samael the wicked, in order that the evil power might be broken and the ruler of the regions of darkness be crushed, . . . And so I also separated myself from the haunts of men and departed to dwell in the desert in order to be able better to meditate upon the Torah and to subdue that “other side”. Besides, the words of the Torah can best sink into the soul there in the desert, for there is no light except that which issues from darkness, for when that “other

54

E.g., the holiday of Sukkoth is in commemoration of this theme. Steinsaltz is of a similar opinion (Steinsaltz: 11), whereas Band focuses on the negative connotations of the desert; cf. Band 1978: 286. 55

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chapter four side” is subdued the Holy One is exalted in glory . . . And when a man enters upon an evil way and then forsakes it the Holy One is exalted in glory. Hence the perfection of all things is attained when good and evil are rst of all commingled, and then become all good, for there is no good so perfect as that which issues out of evil . . . (Sefer haZohar II, 184a).

The desert is here the place in which the Torah “can best sink into the soul”, and in which man can confront evil, maybe forsake it, and subsequently exalt God in glory. This would support the notion that the male protagonist enters the desert in order to confront and transform evil.56 , which is usually translated “eld”, has two meanings. One is the open land where wild animals live and are hunted by humans who ght for their survival, which makes it a kind of battleeld. The other is the fertile land that prior to cultivation rst and foremost has to be cleansed for stones, thorns, and thistles. In Sefer haZohar, Lilith is mentioned exactly as the stone, the thorn, and the thistle that prevent the lily (i.e., Shekhinah) from growing.57 If Shekhinah shall be enabled to grow, “the stones, thorns, and thistles” must be removed, which makes the protagonist’s explicit act of walking through elds imply the human task of tikkun as well as a confrontation of the human condition after being expelled from the Garden of Eden; cf. Gen. 3.18, where the thorns and thistles will grow forth exactly from a . If the human condition is about to be removed, the ideal about to be achieved would be the inversion of the human condition—i.e., the return to the Edenic closeness to God in Paradise.58 A forest is one of the many images in the Book of Isaiah used to designate the people of Israel; cf. Is. 10. God’s anger will fell most of the trees, most of the Israelites, and it will leave as a remnant only those who have faith in God or who return to God.59 If forest as an image referring to the people of Israel has any relevance for this tale, it would be that the protagonist wanders among the people of Israel, maybe with

56 The realm of Samael, secluding oneself in the desert, forsaking evil, and walking on the evil way are expressions which make it quite plausible that this zoharic passage is an intertext to tale #1. 57 Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar: I,1a, 151a–152b. 58 In Nahman’s homily on the “Master of the Field” and the correction of souls given prior to his telling of tale #1, the uncorrected souls are portrayed as the major obstacle for this return to Paradise; cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #65; Hayyey MoHaRaN #48. 59 Cf. Is. 10.17–21.

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the purpose of making them return to God and have faith in God. In the Eastern European context, in which the tales were told, forests are mentioned quite often by Nahman. Sometimes forests constitute the setting for the practice of hitbodedut,60 or for seclusion to worship God.61 Sometimes a forest hints at innity,62 a place for insight and close relationship to God, but also for encounters with representatives of evil as it is obvious in some of the other tales of Nahman.63 In other words, the narrative topography in itself connotes the attempt to make people return to God and thereby initiate the process of tikkun. While the male protagonist is in the desert, and until he has made the decision to choose the path to the side, it is said three times that he was walking for a very long time. The time span should therefore be considered important or at least an emphasis on the fact that whatever this tale will be about, the way toward it will be very long. The path to the side, which the protagonist chooses, leads to the castle of the Not-Good. Such a path may refer to the thirty-two paths in the serotic system, and in this case, since the path leads to the castle of the Not-Good, a path toward Din could be in mind, from where evil emerges, according to Lurianic Kabbalah.64 The path also relives associations to the zoharic passage already mentioned: “And when a man enters upon an evil way and then forsakes it the Holy One is exalted in glory” (Sefer haZohar II, 184a). These implicit references hint at a forthcoming confrontation with evil. When the protagonist notices the castle, guarding soldiers surround it. To him the castle looks beautiful and the order in which the soldiers stand looks ne.65 Due to the hunch that the Not-Good is inside the castle, the castle connotes the palace of Sitra haRa—the evil side—inhabited by Samael and Lilith, a place that has its parallel in the palace of Tifxeret.66 The castle and the order of the soldiers impress the male

60

Green 1992 (1979): 145–148. Cf. Hayyey MoHaRaN #217. 62 Cf. Hayyey MoHaRaN #221. 63 Cf. tales #2, 3, 10, 11, and 12. 64 Cf., e.g., Scholem 1974 (1946): 263. 65 I have chosen to render the place “castle” after the Yiddish  , because castle connotes palace. However, it should be mentioned that “fortress” is part of the potential of the Hebrew word  . The connotation of power in relation to ‘fortress’ is worth remembering; cf. the presence of the soldiers. 66 Cf. Tif xeret’s palace in, e.g., Sefer haZohar I,245b; II,50b and Samael’s palace in Sefer haZohar: III,212b. 61

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protagonist, though he is at the same time afraid that the soldiers will not let him enter the castle. The fear of the male protagonist is understandable; yet his impression with the castle and the order of the soldiers are not, unless one considers the beauty of the “other side” often used to tempt individuals.67 From Sefer haZohar II, 184a, the listener/reader knows that God is only exalted if man succeeds in subduing evil, and s/he can only hope that the protagonist will be able to stand against this temptation.68 He leaves his horse behind, passes the soldiers, and walks from room to room unhindered. When he arrives at a palacelike room he sees the king sitting with his “crown”. This, as well as another possible translation of the Hebrew sentence, (3:-)      —i.e., he sat there in “glory”—indicates the power of the Not-Good. The Not-Good and his evil power are being protected by several soldiers surrounding the king. The power is protected, and the Not-Good has so much surplus that he can spend his time with amusements and musicians playing on their instruments. Musical instruments are usually considered a tool for Shekhinah to communicate with the kelippot,69 which serve as her protection under ideal circumstances. But here the instruments are in the hands of the servants of the Not-Good, indicating that evil is in power.70 This power gives rise to worries concerning the protagonist’s possible task of repressing it and causing good to issue from evil. The protagonist considers the place beautiful and ne. The male protagonist is fascinated and is treated well. He is not even asked about his presence in the castle, and nobody prevents him from eating

67

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,148a–b, Sitrey Torah. Steinsaltz interprets the castle of the Not-Good to be the illusory realm of evil. The illusory nature of evil explains why the chamberlain can enter unharmed as soon as he has overcome his fear; cf. Steinsaltz: 11. I do not nd proof of the notion that evil is to be considered as illusory as Steinsaltz claims, when almost every tale of Nahman includes the encouragement to confront evil. It is true that evil used to be considered illusory in mainstream Hasidism; however, this is exactly what Nahman opposed by returning to the Lurianic task of tikkun. Roskies notices the temptation and risk of seduction at hand in this scene in his reading of the derash- and sod-level of the tale. According to Roskies, the easy entry reects how easy it is to approach evil, while leaving evil behind is something else. Only by eliminating the root of evil can redemption be achieved; cf. Roskies 2002: 78–79. 69 Kelippah-Kelippot ( -/ ) is the designation for the shell/s around the kernel/s, signalling the protective—often evil—layer around the divine spark/s in the created world. 70 Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #3. 68

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the delicious dishes at hand. In other words, he is in danger of being tempted. However, he decides to lie down in a corner to observe what happens. By observing, it seems that he is able to resist. 3:—11:-, 3:—7:- [The second to the kingdom] saw that the king ordered the queen to be brought in. They went and brought her in. There was a great tumult and great happiness, and the singers were playing and singing so much because they brought in the queen. They put up a chair for her and placed her next to him. This was really the king’s daughter, and the second to the kingdom saw her and recognized her. After a while, the queen cast a glance and saw someone lying in the corner, and she recognized him. She stood up from her chair, went there and touched him. She asked him: “Do you recognize me?” He answered her: “Yes, I recognize you! You are the king’s daughter who has been missing!” He asked her: “How did you come here?” She replied: “Because the phrase ‘May the Not-Good take you!’ slipped from my father, the king’s mouth; and this is indeed the place that is ‘Not-Good’!” He told her how her father was very sorry and how he had been searching for her for several years. He asked her: “How can I liberate you from here?” She said to him: “It is impossible for you to liberate me, unless you choose for yourself a place and sit down there for one year. During that year you must yearn to liberate me. During the entire time, which you have to yourself, you must only yearn, wish, and wait to liberate me. You must fast. On the last day of that year you must fast, and you must not sleep from sunrise to sunset.

When they bring in the king’s daughter, tumult is what characterizes the expressions of joy. The Hebrew and Yiddish word for tumult is  . Next to tumult,   may mean noise or even earthquake. In Sefer haZohar Prov. 30,21 is transformed into a warning against the power of Sitra haRa, where it says that the earth quakes for three things, one of which is when a servant reigns.71 In Sefer haZohar the male servant is usually Samael, the male representative of evil.72 Therefore, when tumult occurs, it may indicate that evil is increasing its power, and it may help to see the implicit references to Samael in the king of the Not-Good. Concerning music within the hands of evil, now that the king’s daughter is forced to listen to it, Nahman writes: “And if the singer

71 72

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,122a. Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar I,144b, 174b; II,163a.

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is wicked, then when a person hears him and is attracted by his singing, he, too, becomes trapped in that evil snare. As it is written in the Zohar ‘so are the children of man ensnared’” (Likkutey MoHaRaN #3.1). Shekhinah reects mankind, which is why mankind is in danger of being trapped, when she is forced to listen to the music of evil. Furthermore, one should not forget that the second to the kingdom is present and is exposed to this music. Another threatening imagery is evoked through the passivity of the king’s daughter. When the king’s daughter is brought in, she is placed on the chair next to the king, who sits with his crown. She is made queen of the Not-Good against her will. Her passivity stands in contrast to another biblical queen—i.e., Vashti—whose active refusal to be brought in before a lustful king73 becomes a reason for the negative portrayal of her and her subsequent dismissal.74 In Nahman’s tale, the king’s daughter refrains from activity, and the female virtue of passivity could be an inversion of the Vashti-portrait, where the inversion conveys the positivity of the king’s daughter. Passivity characterizes the king’s daughter, as it characterizes Shekhinah when she is in a perfect union with her male serotic counterpart. However, if the people misbehave, the union is brought to an end, and Shekhinah is under milder degrees of sin transformed to her alter ego, Lilith, in order to afict the people that they may return to a behavior in accordance with the commandments. However, inside the castle, the king’s daughter/Shekhinah is held captive by the Not-Good, and she is suppressed to such an extent that the zoharic option of transforming to Lilith is ruled out.75 A heightened degree of sin forces her to a complete submission, and through the transposition of meaning from the Book of Esther captivity is to be read as a sexual threat directed at the king’s daughter. In her completely subdued position she is in danger of having to submit to the sexual intentions of the Not-Good. In Sefer haZohar, Shekhinah is sometimes forced to submit sexually to foreign powers:

73 In Esther 1, “the king with the royal crown”, whose heart has become “merry with wine” orders his “seven eunuchs” to “bring Vashti the queen before the king . . . for she was beautiful to look on.” His merry heart, his intoxication, his focus on her beauty stand in opposition to the sexually impotent servants. When he orders the queen to be brought in, the description of his intention becomes sexual; cf. Esther 1.10–11. 74 Cf. Esther I,10–20. 75 Cf. Sefer haZohar I,1a; II,20a–b; III,107a, 286b.

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When Israel sinned and burned incense to other gods in the Holy Land, the Shekinah was driven from its place, and other gods were associated with it, and so other nations obtained dominion and the prophets died out, and all the higher grades ceased to rule, and dominion was not withdrawn from other nations, because they drew the Shekinah to themselves. Hence in the time of the second Temple the rule of the other nations did not cease, and even less so in the period of the Exile, when the Shekinah found herself among other nations where other chieftains exercise dominion, deriving their sustenance from the Shekinah, which has consorted with them (Sefer haZohar I,84b).

Shekhinah is only forced to sexually submit to foreign powers when Israel’s sins amount to or equal the sins of idol worship. By letting this intertextuality work its signication, the threatened position of the king’s daughter/Shekhinah signals that her liberation and the efforts to make the people return to God depend on mankind alone. Thankfully, the second to the kingdom ignores the temptation of evil music. Instead he recognizes the queen as the king’s daughter as she touches him. Recognizing each other indicates that the king’s daughter and the second to the kingdom are acquainted, though the listener/reader has not heard anything about their previous acquaintance. Yet, an acquaintance may be deduced from the name of the male protagonist—i.e.,  —and from the other name for Shekhinah which is

 . Malkhut signals the ideal of a kingdom, in which God is present, because the people has turned to God. At the same time  —i.e., kingdom—is the geographical place where they both literally come from.76 Furthermore, all divine promises in mystical literature relate to the future union between Shekhinah and Israel, as does her touch, because in Judaism a woman does not touch a man unless there is a bond of kinship or marriage between them. Her touch therefore points forward to their union. This is why they can recognize each other. They are destined for each other. However, the transformation of Shekhinah to Malkhut depends on the transformation of Israel to Knesset Israel. An intimate discourse develops from their mutual recognition, which leads the second to the kingdom to ask how he can liberate her. She answers that he cannot liberate her unless he chooses a place to dwell for one year during which he must yearn, wish and wait to liberate her and fast.77 On the last day of that year he will have to refrain from eating

76 77

For a similar opinion; cf. Band 1978: 286. For the importance of longing; cf. : 72–74; and especially Wiskind-Elper.

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and sleeping. When the king’s daughter formulates the quest, she may in fact be asking him to engage in the process of transforming himself from Israel to Knesset Israel. When the king’s daughter formulates the quest she makes use of language for the rst time. Access to language in the literary world signies that she has the ability to effect the narrative development.78 It is most likely the presence of the second to the kingdom and his collective representational value that has caused her to move from passivity to activity. This equals the Lurianic world-view where the point of departure for bringing back Shekhinah to the union with Zexir Anpin must be that the people actively addresses God by repenting and observing the commandments. The formulation of the quest connotes meditation, seclusion, kavannah; and abstinence. Meditation and kavannah were quite common means to attain devekut in Hasidism. However, seclusion was not common, and abstinence or any other kind of asceticism was not welcomed in many Hasidic circles.79 Devekut alone was never an ideal to Nahman.80 Instead tikkun was his primary focus, and for that end Nahman did engage in asceticism and in seclusion, cf. the practice of hitbodedut.81 Fasting in general may evoke some connotations to The Hebrew Bible where it signaled humiliation in front of God, hope of forgiveness, preparation prior to a vision and contact with God, request for God’s intervention in periods of needs, and attempts to bend divine judgment.82 These biblical connotations do make sense in this context. Fasting in traditional Judaism is only prescribed for Tisha bxAv and Yom Kippur, and the biblical connotations should convey plenty of reasons for Nahman to

The general content of the tale as concerned with “longing and search for a beloved who is distant or even lost, . . . [with] trials, dismay, and hopes of the gure in search of . . . her” makes Wiskind-Elper suggest the Song of Songs as a possible intertext for tale #1; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 163–166. I agree with Wiskind-Elper that there is a parallel, but I should say that a parallel between the Song of Songs and the love between Tif ’eret and Shekhinah already exists in Sefer haZohar. 78 Cf. Trible: 103. 79 Lamm: 339; see as well the excerpt from Shneur Zalman’s Iggeret haTeshuvah, chapters 1–3 in Lamm: 339–342. 80 Elstein mentions devekut as grasping the roots of reality and of transcending this worldly reality. These were of course priorities for Nahman, and Nahman could be said to be concerned with that aspect of devekut; cf.   1980: 50;   1984: 199–222. 81 Cf. Sefer haMidot: “hirhurim”. 82 1. Reg. 21; Ps. 35, 69; Ezra 10; Dan. 9–10; 1. Sam. 7; Judg. 20; Joel 1–2; Neh. 9; Jonah 3.

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go against traditional Judaism of his time and choose fasting for biblical reasons. Furthermore, the ascetic demands in the quest may be implicit references to his more homiletic and advisory points of view and to his life as well.83 To refrain from sleeping is most likely a warning against Lilith, who steals the semen of men while they sleep only to use it to conceive her demon children.84 Nahman reinvented the Sabbatean idea and practice of haTikkun haKelali exactly to atone sexual sin, such as nightly emissions, which had so far been considered non-atoneable.85 However, if the second to the kingdom after a year of yearning is about to face the divine presence, there will denitely be no time to atone for such a sin, which could be why that night is so special. In the next passage, the king’s daughter informs him that the power of Yetser haRa is at its peak on the last day of the year. Giving Yetser haRa a chance to pollute the potential Knesset Israel by a sexual sin would cause the liberation of Shekhinah to be aborted. 14: —3:-, 8: —3:- [The second to the kingdom] went and did as he had been told. By the end of the year, on the last day, he fasted and did not sleep. He stood up to go there. He saw a tree, on which the nicest looking apples grew. His eyes desired them very much, and so he stood up and ate of them. As soon as he ate from the apple, he fell down and was seized by sleep. He slept for a very long time. The servant shook him, but it did not stir him at all. Later, when he woke from his sleep, the second to the kingdom asked the servant: “Where am I in this world?” The servant said to him: “You have slept for a very long time, actually for some years. Meanwhile I was nourished by the fruit.” [The second to the kingdom] felt very sorry for himself. He went to this place and found [the king’s daughter]. She expressed her deep sorrow in front of him: “If only you had come on this day, you could have liberated me. However, because of one day, you missed [the opportunity]. Indeed it is difcult not to eat, especially on the last day, when the evil urge is particularly strengthened. Therefore, return and choose for yourself a place and sit there for another year. On the last day you will be allowed to eat, as long as you do not sleep. Do not drink wine, which will cause you to sleep, because the essence here is sleep!” 83

Cf. Liebes 1993: 127, 136, 139. Cf. as well Green 1992 (1979): 27–28, 35–36,

39. 84

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,34b; III,19a. Cf. Liebes 1993: 135–136. The twist is, of course, according to Liebes, that haTikkun haKelali is taken from Sabbateanism to atone the sin of Sabbateanism. 85

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The formulation of the quest is taken to heart by the second to the kingdom. He went and did as he was told. This attentiveness and readiness to carry out the quest testify to his sincerity, but as the male protagonist walks to the place of the Not-Good to liberate the king’s daughter, temptation meets him and has the appearance of a tree with delicious apples. A tree with fruits, especially apples, is an imagery replete with intertextual references. A fruit tree in the Garden of Eden became the stumbling block that prevented mankind to live face to face with God, and a tree with apples echoes how “eld” earlier in this tale connoted the human condition outside the Garden of Eden.86 The eating of the apple initiated a period of decline that the protagonist and the listener/reader now share as a common condition of existence. However, fruits are not only negative. Fruits are God’s nourishment to mankind. These apples help the servant survive while the protagonist suffers from the rst long-lasting sleep. In the second tale in Sippurey Maxasiyot the emperor’s daughter survives by eating the fruit from a tree that connotes the serotic tree. Based on this, it seems that some trees bear fruit that is forbidden, and some bear fruit that is permitted. God distinguished between forbidden and permitted fruit in Gen. 2.16–17; and it is not up to man to go against God’s distinction. If man follows God’s commandment, man is in return permitted to remain within Eden face to face with God. However, if man ignores God’s commandment, man is banished from Eden and expelled to the declined state outside of it. The same logic is evoked in this passage. The protagonist ignores a commandment from the king’s daughter, and so he has to remain at a distance from the ideal Edenic closeness to God, here incarnated in the king’s daughter.87 He ignores God’s way of reasoning and allows his human senses to reign instead.88 After some years the servant becomes active in the literary universe by trying to wake up the second to the kingdom, but to no avail. The protagonist

86 Elstein, Steinsaltz, and Band understand the eating of the apples as a reference to the fall of Adam; cf.   1980: 48–50; Steinsaltz: 11–13; Band 1978: 286–287. 87 Steinsaltz sees the ascetic approach of the protagonist to penance and self-mortication as the reason why he fails the rst stage of the quest (Steinsaltz: 12). I do not think that one can blame the protagonist for trying to live up to the ascetic demands of the king’s daughter, and in this way, Steinsaltz argues against the logic of the tale. 88 Kook has an eye for this when she suggests that eating the apples refers to matter controlling the spirit, which represents the opposite situation of what Nahman advocates for: Spirit should control matter; cf. : 73. This theme is also very dominant in tale #11.

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wakes up by himself after a while and is absolutely disorientated and asks the servant where he is in this world. The listener/reader sits with the disillusioned answer: In a world far away from redemption. The protagonist wakes up to realize that he has failed the quest. The second to the kingdom repents as he faces the king’s daughter inside the castle. She expresses her great disappointment or rather deep sorrow of not having been liberated. But she is well aware that the power of Yetser haRa—i.e., the evil urge—is strongest on the last day. Nevertheless, man must be deserving of forgiveness to attain it, because God is  —i.e., the zealous God who only rewards those who are deserving. Even though she wants her own liberation, she cannot lead mankind to liberate her. Repentance will bring about her liberation, but mankind alone has to realize the necessity of repentance and strive toward it. Yet the king’s daughter gives the male protagonist a second chance by formulating a new quest. Again he must search out a place and stay there for a year. On the last day he will be allowed to eat; however, he must refrain from sleeping and drinking wine. Drinking wine could cause him to fall asleep, and refraining from sleep is the main challenge in this quest, cf. the power of Yetser haRa on the last day. If the king’s daughter represents Shekhinah, the presence of God, the second chance reects how God is able to remain strict and merciful at the same time. The chance for forgiveness is given again and again, but forgiveness is only granted if man is worthy. But one should not ignore that the king’s daughter/Shekhinah/God is in need of the quest to be fullled as well.89 5: —14:-, 3:—8:- [The second to the kingdom] went and did as he had been told. On the last day, when he was walking from there, he saw a spring gushing forth which looked red and smelled of wine. He asked the servant: “Do you see that this is a spring with reddish wine-smelling water?” [The second to the kingdom] went and tasted from the spring, and so he fell at once and slept for several years, actually for seventy years. Groups of soldiers were passing by with supply wagons behind them. The servant hid himself from these soldiers. Later, a carriage followed,

89 Wiskind-Elper claims that the second to the kingdom considers the acceptance of this function a duty, which only later is turned into the commitment of a yearning soul. This duty reects every Jew’s responsibility to concentrate on the union between God and Shekhinah; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 83.

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chapter four in which the king’s daughter was sitting. She stood up, descended and sat down next to [the second to the kingdom]. She recognized him and shook him vehemently but he was not stirred. She began to complain over him, about the many toils and troubles he had endured for so many years to liberate her. “You missed the one day on which you had been able to liberate me!” She cried a lot over this. It is such a great pity for him and for me. During the time I have been here, I have been unable to leave!” Upon this, she took the scarf from her head, wrote on it with her tears, and placed it next to him. She then rose, sat down in her carriage, and went away from there. When [the second to the kingdom] woke up, he asked the servant: “Where am I in this world?” [The servant] told him the entire story about the many soldiers who had passed by, about the carriage, and about how [the king’s daughter] had cried over him and had lamented that it was a pity for him and for her. In the middle of this, [the second to the kingdom] cast a glance and saw the scarf lying next to him. He asked where it came from, and [the servant] answered him that [the king’s daughter] had written on it with her tears. He took it and lifted it up against the sun, and so he began to see the letters. He read what had been written there, all her complaints and laments, and that from now on she would not be in the castle. He should look for a golden mountain with a pearly castle. “This is where you will nd me!”

The second to the kingdom nds a place, stays there and on the last day, as he walks toward the castle, he sees a spring with reddish wine-smelling water. His question to the servant—i.e., “Do you see that this is a spring with reddish wine-smelling water?”—is strange. The protagonist may be asking to have the servant conrm his sense perception; or the protagonist may be characterizing the water in a way where his reasoning enables him to construct a label where the exact word “wine” remains unspoken, as if it could excuse his drinking. Steinsaltz writes that the protagonist “Succumbs to a species of formalistic reasoning. The commandment he received was quite clear, but he manages to nd a casuistic way to circumvent it” (Steinsaltz: 13).90 It seems that something human, this time human reasoning, is used to ignore a commandment from the king’s daughter/Shekhinah. Human reasoning is used to satisfy the senses. In the rst quest, his sense of taste tempted him to eat. This time, his sense of smell and his sense of seeing tempt him to drink.

90

Cf.   1980: 50 for a similar opinion.

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The servant remains passive toward the protagonist’s decision to taste the reddish wine-smelling water from the spring. Steinsaltz believes that the servant represents someone who has no spiritual aspirations,91 and if this is so, one could say that he has no reason to intervene. Kook believes that the tale reects the internal battle between spirit and matter in man and that drinking as well as eating just reects the compulsions of the bodily needs, of matter. Since matter has no aspirations to strive toward the divine as the spirit has, the servant, who represents matter, does not intervene.92 Ignoring the commandments of a divine character and the lacking intervention of the servant led to seventy years of sleep. Band notes that the Babylonian exile lasted seventy years, and that the sleep of the protagonist should be interpreted as an allegorical reference to this exile of the people of Israel.93 Kaplan suggests that Likkutey MoHaRaN #60 may serve as an intertext. Seventy years of sleep is here considered the lowest level of delement that prevents man from interpreting the seventy faces, the seventy aspects, of Torah. This may be linked to the drunkenness of Noah whose sleep resulted in the seventy languages and seventy nations—i.e., the beginning of secularization, which also draws a person away from Torah.94 Here I should like to mention Cunz’s suggestion that Nahman, through his tales, is attempting to awaken the people and enable them to understand Torah. As Zaddik haDor, Nahman has access to God’s primordial Torah, and by purifying the imagination of his listener/reader through tales, the listener/reader can be awakened from his/her slumber and thereby enabled to understand the written Torah again.95 Cunz writes: Die überlieferte Tora könne nicht mehr gelehrt werden. Deshalb gelte es, die Schläfer mit Geschichten behutsam aufzuwecken, die jenseits der

91

Cf. Steinsaltz: 13. Cf. : 73, 76. One argument against the idea that matter is disinterested in the aspirations of the spirit is that the servant actually tried to wake the protagonist, once he fell asleep after having eaten of the apples. The message in tale #11, which could be portraying the battle between matter and spirit, conveys the notion that matter is in fact interested in subjecting itself to spirit. Kook is the one who argues for this notion, so she is actually contradicting herself here; cf. : 97–108. 93 Cf. Band 1978: 286. 94 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 43n. 95 Shaul Magid directs his attention to the same literary theory behind Nahman’s decision to make hidushey torah in Likkutey MoHaRaN; cf. Magid 2002, esp. pp. 30–33, 47–48. 92

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chapter four 70 Aspekte der überlieferten Tora stünden. Er nennt sie “Geschichten der früheren Jahre” (sipure maxasiyot schel schanim qadmoniyot) und er meint damit Tora, die direkt vom “Heiligen Alten” kommt, d.h. aus jener Shpäre der göttlichen Offenbarung, die der Sinaioffenbarung vorausgeht und die nach der Lehre des Zohar erst in der Zukunft offenbar werden wird . . . Nachmans Geschichten sind “Heilblätter” . . . Durch das Reden, d.h. Erzählen kommt es wie nach dem Zeugungsakt zu einer Geburt beim Menschen, der inbezug auf der überlieferte Tora taub und stumm geworden war (LiqI, 60,7–8) (Cunz: 223–224).

Human reasoning and subsequent sleep bring the protagonist to fail in his second attempt to liberate the king’s daughter, who therefore has to remain within the power of the Not-Good. According to Midrash, these seventy years of exile are a spiritual slumber,96 where no efforts can be made to bring Israel closer to Shekhinah, and where Israel according to Sefer haZohar does not receive any divine presence or inux at all.97 The coming separation from the king’s daughter/Shekhinah/the divine inux becomes even more tragic when she makes a stop on her way to further remoteness. A cortege of soldiers are leading her away, but she is somehow able to make them stop for her to descend from her carriage. Her carriage in the Hebrew version is  , which, besides its literal meaning as transportation device, brings associations to Merkavah mysticism in general. The chariot of Ezekiel came to represent the mobility of God’s presence after the destruction of the temple and the fact that God could still be perceived on this celestial throne.98 Furthermore, a voice is heard from the merkavah in Ez. 2.1–6, which commands Ezekiel to announce his role as a prophet. It is impossible to say if Nahman has had the merkavah of Ezekiel in mind based on only one word. However, this potential intertext evokes the association that still on her way to remoteness, Shekhinah can be perceived. What happens when she has gone is another question. When she recognizes him and tries to wake him up, a divine call for attention is made, just like Ezekiel hears the demand on him to pronounce his role as a prophet. However, unlike Ezekiel, this protagonist remains deaf and numb to her awakening call,

96

Cf. Midrash Rabbah to Song of Songs 2.32. For more on spiritual slumber; cf.

: 71; Band 1978: 286–287. 97

Cf. Sefer haZohar II,9b. Cf. Rachel Elior: “The Jerusalem Temple—The Representation of the Imperceptible” in Studies of Spirituality, Peters, Leuven, 2001: 140–141; Scholem 1974 (1946): 44. 98

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and so she laments over him before ascending into the carriage. The cortege, including the carriage, is probably coming from the castle of the Not-Good. Where they are heading the listener/reader does not know, but one may fear that the king’s daughter will be brought to a place of which the protagonist does not know once he wakes up. Fortunately, she left him a message on her scarf, which could reect God’s merciful willingness to give Israel yet another chance. Still, the fact that the message was written with her tears testies to her knowledge of the coming separation between her and the protagonist, between God’s presence and Israel. After seventy years, the protagonist wakes up and asks his servant once again where he is in the world. And once again the listener/reader sits with the disillusioned answer: The soldiers of Yetser haRa are moving closer to mankind but at the same time removing the king’s daughter/Shekhinah, i.e., the presence of God, out of reach for the one who, though failing, tries to reach out for her. After being informed by the servant, the second to the kingdom throws a glance, sees the scarf and holds it up against the sun. He gradually sees the letters and gradually realizes what is written: her lamentations, and that she would no longer be in the castle as before; in order to nd her he should look for her on a golden mountain with a pearly castle. It says that the protagonist cast a glance. Inside the castle of the NotGood this expression was used about the king’s daughter who cast a glance at the protagonist in the corner and went to stand next to him. If this is a deliberate inversion, it may signal an ominous change of situation. Inside the castle of the Not-Good it was the activity of the protagonist that enabled the king’s daughter to move toward him and describe her own liberation. In this situation it is the activity of the king’s daughter that proves ineffectual in her attempt to bring him out of his passivity. The message on the scarf seems to point back to their previous acquaintance and forward to their future destination, but still, this message is left on the ground as an almost dead symbol despite the hopeful content of its letters. The message will remain dead until the protagonist realizes that it is his activity that is necessitated.99 Thankfully, the protagonist picks up the scarf including the letters and holds it up against the sun. The letters become alive, and the imagery is quite infor-

99

Cf. : 76–78 for a similar understanding.

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mative if one bears Kabbalistic markers in mind. The sun usually refers to Tif xeret. The protagonist is probably the potential Knesset Israel. This would place the letters of the king’s daughter in between Tif xeret and Knesset Israel. Usually, Torah and Shekhinah are seen as the intermediaries between Tif xeret and the people of God. However, Torah and Shekhinah can only perform their intermediary role when Shekhinah stands in close relationship with Tifxeret, which depends on the law-abiding behavior of the people—i.e., the activity of Israel. This activity may be reected in the movement of the protagonist who raises the scarf up against the sun and revives the message of the letters from being a dead symbol lying on the ground to becoming the new message of hope, maybe as a referent to Torah. But hope depends on the protagonist’s will to act according to the message within this potential Torah.100 The servant seems to play at least a double role of surviving witness and victim. He suffers from and witnesses every setback of the protagonist. When the king’s daughter descended from the merkavah, she never engaged in a conversation with the servant. But one thing may be worth noticing, and that is, that the servant as well as the king’s daughter/Shekhinah have tried to wake up the protagonist. They have a common wish for his attentiveness and engagement in liberating her, maybe because the servant will benet from her liberation as well. Steinsaltz understands the relationship between the second to the kingdom and his servant as the relationship between the leader and his people; between Knesset Israel and Israel,101 where the leader/Knesset Israel has to go through the trials alone, even though the people will benet from it.102 I agree that the servant most likely represents Israel as people. But concerning the second to the kingdom, I am more inclined to argue that he represents the potentiality of Knesset Israel, which, like Shekhinah, always reects the general state of the people. The listener/reader only hears a little about the actions of the servant/people because the essential focus in this tale is that restoring the union between Shekhinah and Israel depends on the quality of the people’s actions. The second to the kingdom is a reection of this quality. The thirteen tales have different foci. Some

100

Band sees the scarf with the letters as a symbol of Torah; cf. Band 1978: 286–287. 101 Cf. Steinsaltz: 14–16. 102 Cf. Band 1978: 286–287. Roskies, without dealing with the servant, understands the protagonist as a representative of the people of Israel; cf. Roskies 2002: 78–79.

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tales focus on the quality of the people’s actions, while others focus on the individual aspects in the process of redemption. In this tale it seems that Nahman is interested in emphasizing the necessity of the entire people to turn to God, where the potentiality of the people and the actual behavior of the people are divided into two characters. 14: —5:-, 8: —3:- [The second to the kingdom] left the servant behind and went on his own to search for her. He walked for several years in search for her. He thought to himself, since he was an expert in world maps, that certainly one will not be able to nd a golden mountain with a pearly castle in a settled place. “I shall therefore go into the deserts.” He searched for her in the deserts for several years. He came upon a very huge man whose great size was not human at all. He was carrying a large tree, whose size could not be found in a settled place. This huge man asked [the second to the kingdom]: “Who are you?” [The second to the kingdom] said to him: “I am a human being!” [The huge man] wondered about it and said: “I have been in the desert for quite some time, and I have never seen a human being here!” [The second to the kingdom] told him the entire story and that he was searching for a golden mountain with a pearly mountain. [The huge man] said to him: “Certainly, it does not exist at all!” [The huge man] denied it and said that his intellect had been led astray by nonsense, because such a thing did certainly not exist. [The second to the kingdom] began to cry very much, because it denitely had to be somewhere. [The huge man denied it: “You have denitely been told nonsense.” The second to the kingdom said that it denitely existed. The huge man said to him: “As far as I know this is nonsense; however, since you insist, I am here, and I am in charge of all of the animals. I shall do something for your sake. I shall call upon all the animals. They roam throughout the entire world, and so maybe one of them will know about this mountain with the castle. [The huge man] called upon all of them, small as well as large, every kind of animal and asked them. They all replied that they had not seen anything. [The huge man] said to him: “Do you not see that you have been told nonsense? Listen to me and return to where you came from. You will not nd it, because no such thing exists in this world!” He pleaded very much and said that it denitely had to exist. The huge man said to him: “My brother lives here in this desert. He is in charge of all of the birds. Maybe they know. They y high up in the air, so maybe they have seen a mountain with a castle. Go to him and tell him that I have sent you to him!”

Steinsaltz compares the protagonist’s solitary search for the golden mountain with Abraham, who left his servants behind before he could

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climb the mountain and face the most terrible test of faith.103 This suggestion may be plausible, but I nd it more likely that Nahman could have had Moses’ ascent to the mountain in mind. Moses was a leader of the people, which parallels the role of the protagonist as Knesset Israel, according to Steinsaltz’s own reading, the reading of Band, Roskies, and me.104 Moses had to leave the people behind, once he ascended the mountain, cf. Ex. 19.20–21. Only he spoke directly with God and did so to receive the commandments. If one recalls Cunz’s claim that Nahman told tales based on the primordial Torah in order to awaken the people and bring them to understand the canonical Torah,105 a consequence would be that the second to the kingdom as leader of the people is now approaching God to receive the words from the primordial Torah. The primordial Torah can bring about the liberation of Shekhinah/the turn to God by enabling the listener/reader to understand the canonical Torah again. This would make the protagonist Zaddik haDor. A biographical argument for this interpretation is that Nahman considered Moses the rst Zaddik haDor with he himself as the fth and last one.106 With his knowledge of world maps the protagonist reasons that the golden mountain with the pearly castle must lie beyond any settled/ known place. His knowledge of the world/world maps is complete, which is why he is most likely transcending the human sphere. Once again the protagonist enters a desert to engage in a search. At the beginning of the tale, he entered the desert to search for the king’s daughter, God’s immanent presence in this world. Now, he enters the desert to search for something that transcends this-worldly phenomena. As mentioned at the beginning of the tale, deserts have previously provided room for divine intervention; cf., e.g., the exodus. Maybe it is divine intervention, or rather a divine test, when the second to the kingdom meets the rst of the three huge men. The huge man’s size is superhuman. He is furthermore carrying a large tree, which is unnatural in itself. The tree

103

Cf. Steinsaltz: 14. Cf. Steinsaltz: 14–16; Band 1978: 286–287; Roskies 2002: 78–79. I agree with them but stress the aspect of potentiality. 105 Cf. Cunz: 223–224. 106 Cf., e.g., Green 1992 (1979): 118. For biographical suggestions from the commentators on this tale; cf. Steinsaltz: 14–16; Band 1978: 286; Schwartz: 214–215; Wiskind-Elper: 36; Roskies 2002: 79–80. Their arguments are all more or less concerned with the parallel between the torments and toils of the protagonists and the torments of Nahman because of doubts and guilt. 104

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may automatically be translated to represent the serotic tree, though one cannot rule out that a second appearance of a tree, while the rst one represented temptation, may represent temptation again. The huge man has never seen a human being before, which in itself reects a superhuman condition. But when it comes to responding to the protagonist’s inquiry as to the place of the golden mountain, the huge man uses human reasoning in what could appear to be an absurd argument over the existence of something supernatural. The supernatural man says that the supernatural mountain does not exist, while the human man insists on the existence of the supernatural. The huge man claims that any talk about such a supernatural thing is nonsense—i.e., beyond what the senses can perceive—which is, according to Nahman’s Hasidic world-view, nothing but the truth. The senses misled the protagonist to fail the rst two quests. However, at this point in the tale, the protagonist insists on what cannot be sensed despite the attempts of the huge man to convince him to abort his quest by saying: “Listen to me and return to where you came from”. If he listens to this suggestion, he will fail the test and be forced to return to a world in lack of God’s presence, the place where he came from. Thankfully, the protagonist insists on the existence of this supernatural mountain. This insistence causes the huge man to change from being discouraging to being a true help. One interpretation could be that the huge man is ascribed the mythic/fairy tale–like role of a custos liminis, who makes sure that nobody except those with the right attitude/skills/insights/motifs enters the realm, in front of which this custos liminis stands. Given the fact that the huge man has never seen a human before and that his tree may refer to the serotic tree, his realm could be the superhuman/transcendent realm. Kaplan mentions the possibility of understanding the three huge men as representatives of the three lower worlds: Asiyah, Yetsirah and Beriyah—the upper world being Atsilut, which means closeness (i.e., to God);107 or they might represent the three levels of the soul: nefesh, ruah, and neshamah. There is a serotic system corresponding to each of the lower and upper

107

Steinsaltz has a similar understanding in one of his readings, in which the golden mountain is taken to represent a higher sphere of existence—above the three celestial worlds of the giants—inside which the problems preventing redemption must be solved. The giants are taken to be angels who cannot leave their individual sphere and who are unaware of the time of redemption. Man, however, is free to pass through different spheres of existence (Steinsaltz: 14–15).

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worlds and to the three souls. This would leave the serotic system to refer to the divine root of man which links him to his divine origin.108 However, if this custos liminis of a more or less divine sphere is carrying a serotic tree with its roots torn out of the soil (i.e., the foundation for its survival), the listener/reader is presented with a rather sinister situation. It is the link to God that has been severed. This custos liminis is waiting for a human visitor to come and help him plant the serotic tree/the soul root again109—of course making sure that this human is the one for whom he has been waiting. This could explain why the discourse between the huge man and the protagonist is so much in focus. Nahman’s use of an absurd exchange of words may be his way of encouraging the listener/reader to consider the existence of another dimension. It is this discourse, the persistence and tears of the protagonist, that enables the huge man to send him with a personal authorization into a new sphere guarded by his brother in charge of the fowl.110 The passage is too enigmatic to offer a clear-cut interpretation; however, Elstein,111 Steinsaltz,112 Schwartz,113 and Wiskind-Elper114 are of a similar understanding of the sphere behind the huge man respectively as beyond this-worldly reality, another dimension of being/other metaphysical worlds, the realm of En Sof, and the fantastic realm as one of two planes of reality. On the understanding of the three huge men, Schwartz suggests that they represent “Adam Kadmon, the primordial man whose creation serves as the transition from the unmanifested aspect of God known as

108 109

Sefer haZohar II,99a. For similar imagery; cf. tales #3 and 13 (the fth and hunchbacked beggar’s

tale). 110 I am here in line with Kook. According to her, it is the stubbornness of the protagonist that pays off in this and the following scenes, with which Band (and I) agrees; cf. Band 1978: 286–287. According to Kook, the three huge men are at rst portrayed in a negative way, as demons that try to detain him. But as soon as his stubbornness becomes apparent to them, they are transformed to helpers. Kook interprets this as Nahman’s way of conveying that there is no such thing as evil in the world. When man turns to performing good deeds and pursuing repentance, evil is transformed to good. That evil transforms to good is God’s way of always offering a way to man, along which man can turn to God. This is why the king’s daughter could not wake up the second to the kingdom: The awakening has to come from within; cf. : 76–78. 111 Cf.   1980: 50. 112 Cf. Steinsaltz: 14–15. 113 Cf. Schwartz: 214–215. 114 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 130–131.

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Ein Sof, to the world as we know it”. A result of this interpretation is to see the tree, which each of the huge men carry, as the serotic tree, “designating the stages in the process of emanation from nonexistence to existence”.115 In reverse, the protagonist will in this way be facing the ascent from existence to nonexistence, from Yesh to Ayin. But rst he has to nd the second huge man. 15: —14:-, 1: —8:- [The second to the kingdom] walked for several years searching. He came upon a huge man, who was also carrying a large tree, and who also asked him in the same way as the rst one. [The second to the kingdom] replied with the entire story and that his brother had sent him to him. [The second huge man] denied it as well, because such a thing denitely did not exist. He pleaded with him very much, and so [the second huge man] said to him: “I am here in charge of all of the birds. I shall call upon them. Maybe they will know!” He called upon all of the birds and asked all of them, small as well as large. They replied that they did not know about a mountain with a castle. [The second huge man] said to him: “Do you not see that this thing is denitely not in this world? Listen to me and return to where you came from, because it denitely does not exist. [The second to the kingdom] pleaded with him and said that it denitely exists in this world. The second huge man said to the second to the kingdom: “I have a brother here in the desert who is in charge of all of the winds. They roam throughout the entire world. Maybe they will know!”

This passage is parallel to the previous and shares the same structure, only this second huge man is in charge of all fowl. When the fowl proves unable to help the protagonist, the huge man tries to discourage him by suggesting that he return to the world he came from. Yet seeing the persistence of the protagonist, the huge man suggests that the protagonist go farther into the desert in search of a third brother. This brother, who is in charge of the winds, may be able to get some information from these winds. 3: —15:-, 2: —1:- He walked for several years searching. He came upon another huge man, who was also carrying a large tree, and who also asked him in the same way. [The second to the kingdom] replied with the entire story. [The third

115

Cf. Schwartz: 214–215.

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chapter four huge man] denied it as well, but [the second to the kingdom] pleaded with him as well. The third huge man said to him: For your sake I shall call upon the winds, I shall make them come. I shall ask them. He called upon them, and all of the winds came. He asked every one of them, but none of them knew about a mountain with a castle. The third huge man said to the second to the kingdom: “Do you not see that they have told you nonsense?” [The second to the kingdom] began to cry very much and said: “I know that it denitely exists!” Suddenly, in the middle of this, they saw another wind coming. [The third huge man] in charge became angry at it: “Why do you come this late? Did I not command all of the winds to come? Why did you not come together with them?” [The wind] answered him: “I was detained because I had to carry a king’s daughter to a golden mountain with a pearly castle!”

This passage parallels the two previous passages and nishes the threepartite description of the protagonist and his ability nally to withstand temptation. The second to the kingdom does not fall into temptation in any of the three cases. He did fall into temptation twice when he ate of the apples and drank from the reddish, wine-smelling water, but these two falls lie before the king’s daughter leaving her message on the scarf and being removed to the golden mountain with the pearly castle. Her absence might have convinced him of the necessity of his persistence. Suddenly, the entire situation is altered. One wind arrives late after the third huge man in charge of all the winds has summoned them. The huge man demands to know why this wind was late. And the wind replies that he was detained because he had to transport a king’s daughter to a mountain of gold and a castle of pearls. 8: —3:-, 3: —2:- The second to the kingdom became very happy. The one in charge of the winds asked: “What is expensive there?” [The second to the kingdom] said to him that everything is highly expensive. The one in charge of the winds then said to the second to the kingdom: “Since you have spent so much time searching for her and because of the toils you have had, and since money may now be a hindrance, I shall give you a vessel. Whenever you reach your hand into it, you can draw money from it. He then commanded a tempest to carry him to this place. It brought him to the gate. Soldiers were standing there who would not let him enter the city. He reached his hand into the vessel, took some money, and bribed them. He then entered the city. It was a nice city. He went to a rich man to arrange for lodging and food, since he would have to stay there for some time. One had to apply intelligence and wisdom to liberate her.

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How he liberated her, [Nahman] did not tell. However, he did liberate her in the end. Amen! Selah!

Once the wind conrms that the transcendent abode of the king’s daughter exists, the third huge man, who has put behind all his attempts to tempt, is transformed to the most concerned helper. He recognizes all the troubles that the protagonist has been through and anticipates those that may come by asking what will be expensive there. Everything on the golden mountain with the pearly castle is expensive. On one hand this does not make sense. If the entire mountain consists of gold and if the castle is made of pearls, then there should be plenty of richness with no need for high costs. On the other hand, and seen from a human perspective, pearls and gold and all the other precious things that will probably be there are indeed expensive. So, one has to ask from whose perspective is everything expensive? This may be a matter of evaluating reality. From a human perspective, humans will have almost nothing to offer in a superhuman sphere. However, the third huge man, being a custos liminis like his brothers, is a borderline phenomenon having access to the human as well as the superhuman realm, and he has the solution. The solution is a vessel, often translated as purse.116 The word for vessel in the Hebrew as well as Yiddish version is  , known also from the term ‘the breaking of the vessels’—   . Before the breaking of the vessels, the vessels contained God’s transcendent essence. But their breaking caused the immanent existence of Shekhinah and the humans. It caused Shekhinah to be separated from Zexir Anpin, and the scope of the tale seems to be to restore her to the serotic system. Now, the huge man gives the protagonist a vessel that has not been broken—i.e., it still contains the transcendent essence of God, the only thing that has existence in the superhuman, one could say divine, sphere. Access to the divine essence through the vessel is exactly what the protagonist is in need of to be able to transcend the immanence and to effect the return of the king’s daughter/Shekhinah to her father/God. The characteristics of this vessel t this interpretation. No matter how often the protagonist puts his hand inside it, he will be able to withdraw money. The content is endless, incessant, innite—which are exactly the characteristics of God’s transcendent essence. The transcendent content inside the vessel, being in the hands

116

Cf., e.g., Band 1978: 60; Kaplan 1983: 53.

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of the immanent protagonist in the transcendent realm, brings about hope for its effectiveness. A tempest transports the protagonist to the superhuman sphere where the king’s daughter/Shekhinah dwells within the pearly castle. This transferral of the protagonist to a different sphere could parallel a typical Hasidic ascent of a zaddik. A zaddik can raise his soul to the transcendent sphere inside, which he can cleave to God on behalf of his followers, be it the people of Israel. Inside it and by his mere presence he can liberate and raise the divine sparks from the connes of evil.117 However, the tempest, which transports the protagonist to the golden mountain, may as well be a reference to the tempest in 2. Reg. 2.1–11, where Elijah is torn from the human world. Elijah’s transferral to heaven occurs after he has functioned as a prophet who preached repentance as a necessary step toward God’s intervention, though he did not succeed in bringing about the complete repentance of the people. Here, repentance seems to be the intended performative function of the tale, cf. that “everyone who listened [to this tale], began to think about repentance”, according to Nahman’s prolegomenon. Repentance requires a certain understanding of the limits of man. Elijah constantly understood his own identity as a   , cf. 2. Reg. 1.10—that is as a man of God and not as an individual. The setting aside of the human self in the 2nd Book of Kings and in Nahman’s tale is completely parallel to the Hasidic concept of self-annihilation.118 When man through Hasidic self-annihilation realizes that everything is God, man is also able to realize that the mystical union is a characteristic of reality. However, once he arrives at the golden mountain, the protagonist is still far from being able to liberate the king’s daughter/Shekhinah. At rst, the soldiers standing at the gate do not let him in. But when he takes some “money” from the vessel and bribes them, he is let into the beautiful city. The soldiers share the functions of a custos liminis. The bribe, if it were only money, would not be worth anything in this golden and pearly realm. The soldiers only let him in because the content of the vessel has the same essence as the realm behind the guarding soldiers. 117

For the function of the zaddik in the transcendent sphere; cf. Idel 1995: 198–

207. 118 For an explanation of self-annihilation and the relationship between Yesh and Ayin; cf. Elior: 1993: 127–218.

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Once inside the gate, the protagonist goes to a rich man and pays him for lodging and board because he has to stay there for a long time until he is able to apply intelligence and wisdom to liberate the king’s daughter. Since everything of value seems to be markers of the transcendent essence of God, the rich man would very likely represent someone who either contains or has insight into the transcendent essence. It says that the protagonist has to stay in this rich man’s presence because he needs to apply intelligence and wisdom, as if intelligence and wisdom will follow from staying in the presence of this man. However, intelligence and wisdom may be implicit references to the concepts of Binah and Hokhmah, which would support the interpretation that this preparatory stay in the rich man’s presence will enable him to transcend into the realm of the three upper serot. According to Lurianic Kabbalah, the three upper serot were not affected by tsimtsum, which caused the expulsion of Shekhinah from the serotic system.119 Shekhinah is an aspect of God. That she moves from this world does not mean that God is lessened. The divine aspect of Shekhinah will always and foremost exist in God as included in God’s innite being. Maybe this is why she, in times of sins and despite her removal from this world, can always be found in the divine realm of the pearly castle on the golden mountain. She can always be found. The question is if mankind will engage in repentance that could bring about redemption, because only in the world-to-come will the upper serot be accessible. The added lines of Nathan Sternhartz suggest that mankind will. But the “Amen Selah” reects that this suggestion is based on hopes and wishes.120 Nahman knew that he had to make people realize the necessity of redemption, which may be one of the reasons why the tale is not nished.121 As Band writes: “The missing or declined cloture is a

119

Cf. Hayyim Vital: “Tsimtsum and Shevirah” in Matt 1994: 94–95. The concluding lines state: “And how he liberated her, he never told.” In the Hebrew it then continues: “An eye on the distant past, look, the allusions to this tale are marvelous”. The Yiddish ending is more modest: “At the end he liberated her. Amen! Selah!” It counters the abrupt ending and thereby calms the reader. The “Amen” is to be taken literally, i.e., let it be so! This tale is about hope. “Selah” is typically used at the end of the psalms where hope is a recurring theme. As far as I know, nobody has ever found out what exactly “selah” means, though it seems likely that it shares its meaning with “amen”. 121 According to Steinsaltz, the unnished end indicates that redemption is a matter of the future; cf. Steinsaltz: 14–16. 120

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narrative device found in both this story and ‘The Seven Beggars’, Nahman’s last story. In both cases the actual redemption is not described to the reader, who is left to ponder and yearn” (Band 1978: 287). Or as Wiskind-Elper suggests: The missing ending is seen as Nahman’s conviction that certain “explanations belong not to this world; they will be revealed only in the future, in messianic times, or in the world to come”122 Recapitulation The performative function of the rst tale is to create a longing for repentance within the listener/reader. Repentance is needed, and the tale explains why. As the title indicates, the ideal state of reality is when Shekhinah is united with the six lower serot within the serotic system. However, sin, injustice, and impurity among mankind cause her to be banished from the serotic system. She is sent into exile, and exile is the proper designation for a state where mankind lives without God’s presence and where the shefa does not ow to mankind. The sin, injustice, and impurity call for rectication of the wrongs done and for the repentance of mankind. Knesset Israel is dependent upon the people of Israel to activate its potential. The narrative topography indicates that contemplation on Torah, repentance, and confrontation with evil constitute the demands for a change. The process toward affecting this change will take a very long time, but once this process has been initiated, at least Shekhinah will be accessible yet within the domain of evil as it may be. This is where she can be found, and she needs Israel/man to confront evil before she can rise to a degree of activity from where she can give mankind further advice on how to liberate her. Man must long for her return to the serotic system, which includes recognition of man’s dependency on her return. Man must resist the temptations of the senses and trust the insight behind the divine commandments, which means that man must push aside human reasoning. Such demands will cause man to fail. And man’s failure will cause Shekhinah’s exile to be aggravated, and it will cause the separation between Shekhinah and mankind to increase. However, in this aggravated

122

Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 175.

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situation mankind will also recognize that man cannot live without God’s presence in this world. Once this recognition has been accomplished, a Zaddik haDor can rise and activate the potential of Knesset Israel. The Zaddik haDor will strive toward access to the primordial Torah, which can effect that man will again be able to understand the written and the oral Torah. This task lies beyond the human ability to perceive and reason. It has as its prerequisite that the Zaddik haDor recognizes his divine soul root. When this recognition has been accomplished, the Zaddik haDor, in his process of activating the potential of Israel, will have to ascend from Yesh to Ayin. Ayin constitutes the transcendent realm of reality, and to arrive there the Zaddik haDor must be in contact with the transcendent essence of God, he must rectify the divine sparks from within the connes of Yesh, he must annihilate his human self, he must disseminate to Israel/mankind that everything is God and that Israel/mankind needs God’s guidance through Torah. When this realization has been made, redemption will come. Israel/ mankind will live in an Edenic closeness to God, and Shekhinah will be able to return to the serotic system. Nahman never told how the liberation of Shekhinah took place, even though it did. Israel has not yet engaged in activating its potential as Knesset Israel, which is why the protagonist of the tale is still waiting for every listener/reader to long for redemption and to respond to this call for repentance.

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chapter four 4.2 The Second Tale The Emperor who Had No Children

Introduction The second tale123 was published with the bilingual title “

 

”—i.e., the second tale about a king and an emperor. Accordingly, it is mostly referred to as “The King and the Emperor” in English.124 However, the Yiddish and the Hebrew versions open with a slight emphasis on the emperor. The Hebrew version begins:  

     —i.e., “a tale about an emperor who had no children”. The Yiddish version begins: .       

        —i.e., “A tale: Once upon a time there was an emperor. The emperor had no children”. After the independent statement about the childlessness of the emperor, the parallel childlessness of the king is introduced. Childlessness is their common problem, but the upcoming description of the emperor is slightly more negative than that of the king. In Hebrew there is a tradition to let the rst sentence of a text constitute the title. The second tale is furthermore the only one of all thirteen tales that focuses so exclusively on Shekhinah, alias the daughter of this emperor, without letting the plot depend on the actions of any other character. Accordingly, I shall emphasize the role of the imperial family by choosing the title “The Emperor Who Had No Children”, though the juxtaposition of the emperor and the king will not be left out of consideration. Summary An emperor decides to travel across the world to nd a solution to his childlessness. A king suffers from childlessness as well and decides to do the same. By chance they meet and vow that if one should beget a boy

123 Tale #2 was told between 1806 and 1807. Nathan Sternhartz, who wrote down the tale, did not hear it directly from Nahman. Nathan Sternhartz probably heard it from Naftali, another close disciple of Nahman; cf. Band 1978: 44; Kaplan 1983: 55. 124 This goes for Band (Band 1978: 63); Green (Green 1992 (1979): 350), and Kaplan (Kaplan 1983: 55), whereas Wiskind-Elper, while choosing the bilingual title as well, names it “King and Kaiser” keeping it in the innite, as is the case of the bilingual title, but choosing to render  directly as “kaiser”; cf., e.g., Wiskind-Elper 1998: 47. Kook, who writes in Hebrew, refers to the tale as “ 

 ”; cf. : 299.

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and the other a girl, the marriage of these children should be arranged for. After they return home the emperor begets a daughter, while the king begets a son; but both fathers forget about the vow. Later on, the emperor’s daughter and the king’s son meet, fall in love and marry secretly. The king’s son gives the emperor’s daughter a ring as a token of their secret marriage. However, the fathers send for the children. At home both children suffer from the separation. Due to his concern for his son, the king nds out about the secret marriage, recalls that he had already agreed with the emperor to this match, and informs the emperor. The emperor, though unwilling to the match, writes to the king that he should send his son to him to see if he will be able to lead countries; in that case the emperor would give his daughter to the king’s son. One day the king’s son and the emperor’s daughter meet and decide to ee. During the ight, inside a forest, they lose the ring. While searching for the ring, they get lost from one another. The king’s son becomes a servant in a settled place, while the emperor’s daughter settles by the sea hoping to nd some people who either pass by or return to this place. An industrious and successful merchant’s son, who is sailing in his own ship, passes by the shore where the emperor’s daughter has settled. The emperor’s daughter makes the merchant’s son expect a marriage between them. When they reach his hometown, she persuades him to make all his sailors drunk, and when he goes to inform his family about the upcoming wedding, she steals the ship and sails away. The old merchant punishes his son for losing the ship by expelling him. As she sails, the emperor’s daughter comes across an unmarried king, who forces her to come to his palace. She also makes him expect a marriage between them. Among many gestures of the unmarried king the emperor’s daughter is given eleven noble daughters. She invites these noble daughters on board her ship, makes them drunk, then abducts them, and sails away. The twelve women then meet, on an island, twelve robbers who threaten to kill the women. But they avoid death when the robbers, pacied and joyous also by the prospect of marriage, are made drunk, after which the emperor’s daughter orders the noble daughters to slaughter the robbers. After the slaughter, the twelve women steal the riches of the robbers and decide to dress like men. They then sail off. The women in men’s clothes come upon a bald, frivolous king, who is playing on board his ship with his queen and ministers. When this bald

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king, half-naked, reaches the top of the mast, the emperor’s daughter decides to burn his brain with a glass lens and thereby kill him. The crew of this king approaches the ship of the emperor’s daughter, hoping to nd a doctor. The emperor’s daughter pretends to be a doctor and predicts that his brain will be burned. Once they have torn his brain open, they nd out that the prediction was true. The emperor’s daughter, who senses that the queen and the ministers are interested in having “him” as their new king, makes everybody drunk to have them reveal their wishes. When everybody has sobered up, the emperor’s daughter agrees to marry the queen, upon which they all sail to the country of the late bald king. The emperor’s daughter is made king. As part of the preparations for the wedding, “the new king” invites every living human being in the world to participate and to receive presents. “He” orders fountains with “his” image to be drawn upon them and orders guards to arrest anyone who frowns at this image. In this way, the emperor’s daughter hopes to be able to gather her intended along with the merchant’s son and the unmarried king who suffered unjustly from her behavior. All three of them arrive, frown, and are arrested. When the three of them stand before her without recognizing her, she gives back the ship and its riches to the merchant’s son and the noble daughters to the unmarried king. Finally, having her intended in front of her, she suggests that they should go home. Scholarly comments on the tale Kook understands the tale as concerned with the reciprocal relationship between faith and wisdom and between God and Israel mediated by Torah.125 Beginning with the king, she interprets him allegorically to be God, the emperor to be the human ruler of the lower worlds, the king’s son to be Torah, and the emperor’s daughter to be wisdom. The purpose of man, who is set in a relationship to God, is to link wisdom and Torah. This link, this eternal covenant, is reected in the relationship between the emperor’s daughter and the king’s son. The marker of this relationship is the ring. This covenant is intended because wisdom and Torah are both derived from the supernal spirit. Still, the world is characterized by oblivion, hardship, and apathy, leading to neglect

125

Cf. : 299.

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of the covenant. The separation between the emperor’s daughter and the king’s son refers to this neglect.126 The harmony is broken because man severs his wisdom from Torah, which causes the human spirit to be disturbed, which then leads to negativity, damage, and the opening of the actual plot in the tale. The emperor’s daughter turns into a character familiar from Prov. 7 on the evil woman who punishes the stupid man. Kook argues: The emperor’s daughter burns the brain of the bald king and opens it to nd it empty. Wisdom, intelligence, or knowledge is nothing without Torah, and the behavior of the bald king reects atheism. The comments of the emperor’s daughter to the robbers, that they are robbers with strength whereas she and the eleven noble daughters are robbers with wisdom, reect Nahman’s conception that gentile culture, philosophy, and heresy rob the human soul away from its purpose—i.e., to unite man’s capacity to think with Torah and be united with God through Torah.127 According to Band the plot of the second tale implies “the restoration of cosmic harmony”, where the cunning of the emperor’s daughter is “a manifestation of a controlling destiny”. At the same time, the emperor’s daughter reects Shekhinah in exile. Other characters in the tale are exiled as well, which leads Band to characterize the expression “to go home” as the so-called leitmotiv of the tale. The return home “is so subtly suggested in each episode”, and it will be accomplished if only one applies “will, persistence and cunning”.128 Band observes that the allegorical substructure of the second tale seems much slighter than in the rst tale, mainly because of the multifaceted identity of the emperor’s daughter. Her many facets make it difcult to explain her as Shekhinah when other narrative elements have to be explained as well. Band therefore points to “a tension between the narrative line and the putative allegorical system”.129 Nevertheless, he assumes that the

Cf. : 299–300. Cf. : 301–302. 128 Cf. Band 1978: 65. 129 Cf. Band 1978: 289. It is difcult to see if Band nds this tension between plot and allegory only in the portrayal of the “duplicity and ruthlessness of the emperor’s daughter” (Band 1978: 290), or if it applies to the other characters. Band does not comment on the allegorical meaning of the emperor and the king, who are responsible for breaking the pledge. In my analysis, the so-called ruthlessness of the emperor’s daughter is the most helpful key to an understanding of the tale, whereas the tension between plot and allegory concerning the fathers challenge me. 126 127

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emperor’s daughter does represent Shekhinah. Based on this assumption he suggests that the tale describes the “breaking [of ] the covenant and its restoration, thus recapitulating the dynamics of shevirah and tikkun.” He takes the king’s son to reect Knesset Israel, which includes both the historical community of Israel and an aspect of Shekhinah. The central theme of the tale is redemption and a return from the self-imposed exile of the emperor’s daughter and the king’s son.130 Green states that “the plot, suffering terribly from overcomplexity, has a certain comic-opera quality about it”.131 The tale “is one of the few in which it cannot be claimed that Nahman is the chief character”.132 Instead the tale seems to focus on the wandering Shekhinah who searches for her beloved while both are in exile. The purpose of the emperor’s daughter is to be reunited with her original intended—“a purpose she strives to fulll with a singlemindedness that may include some cruelty.”133 While the rst tale focused on “Nahman, Israel, everyman, what-have-you—seeking to liberate [Shekhinah]—this tale focuses on the active Shekhinah, who uses many of the characters in the tales as “steppingstones along the way”. To Green, one single interpretation of the tale is not possible, which is why he halts his own reading here and presents ve possible readings, none of which should be considered exclusive. The readings can be characterized as a Messianic-allegorical, a biographical, a biblical-allegorical, a universal, and a psychological/ Jungian one. These are presented as hypothetical constructs of different scholars and scholarly traditions.134

130

Cf. Band 1978: 291. Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 353. Green does not state what constitutes the overcomplexity in the plot. 132 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 353. 133 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 353. As to the cruelty and harsh side of the emperor’s daughter/Shekhinah, Green explains it by referring to Sefer haZohar (Green 1992 (1979): 371n19)—a reference I totally agree with. However, to prove his point Green also refers to the demonic and devouring mother-goddess, well known in Indian tradition, and to Nahman’s problems in relationship to women to explain the harshness of the emperor’s daughter. The reference to the Indian tradition, though maybe pedagogical, seems out of context. 134 I write “hypothetical constructs” because Green has no references to writings of the different scholars or scholarly traditions. Only in the case of the psychological/Jungian reading does Green refer to James Kirsch; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 371n20. I agree with Green on the suggestive character of Kirsch’s article from 1978, though it should be said that Kirsch does not interpret the tale. Kirsch deals primarily with Nahman’s childhood and self-understanding by analyzing one of Nahman’s dreams. 131

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The Messianic-allegorical reading stands in the tradition of Weiss, Piekarz’, and Dan. The king’s son would represent the soul of the Messiah intended as the true mate of Shekhinah (the emperor’s daughter) before the beginning of world. The soul of the king’s son is the soul of all Zaddikey haDor, including that of Nahman. The losing of the ring represents the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, after which both man and Shekhinah went forth as wanderers. The other suitors represent false messiahs, perhaps Jesus, Muhammad, and Sabbatai Sevi. They are, however, only steps toward the reunion between Shekhinah and Nahman/messiah.135 The biographical reading is based on Green’s own knowledge about the life of R. Nahman. Nahman, at the time of telling the tale, was to ee from his disciples. This escape may have been caused by the realization of the failure in his Messianic attempt and by the fact that redemption had once again slipped away. This would place Nahman as one of the unsuccessful suitors who, each of whom thought for a while that redemption lay within his hands, only to discover that the shekhinah had tricked him, perhaps in order to use him as a pawn, in some inexplicable way, along her journey (Green 1992 (1979): 354).

The biblical-allegorical reading sees the king’s son as Israel, as the intended mate of Shekhinah. Both had Torah as a common background, cf. the school; that they met again in Sinai; and that they lay down in Israel, cf. the place where they rested for the night. The ring refers to the covenant, and the subsequent loss of it refers to the destruction of the temple and the following exile for both of them. The suitors are to be understood as foreign nations that are used toward her nal goal, i.e., the establishment of the true Messianic kingdom.136 In the universal reading the emperor’s daughter is taken to be Shekhinah, who longs for the true soul of everyman, of which the king’s son is a collective representative. She represents cosmos, whereas everyman is distant from her due to his earthly body as symbolized through the lowly status of being a servant. This reading would be an introversion of a parable attributed to the #xal Shem Tov, of how man has to resist temptations as he searches for God, cf. that the emperor’s daughter has to resist the offers the suitors give her.137

135 136 137

Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 354. Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 354–355. Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 355.

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The psychological/Jungian reading argues that the second tale, as complementary to the rst tale, could be considered to take place within the self as a reection of the struggles of the inner male and female in search of one another for completion of the self.138 Kaplan understands the emperor and the king respectively as Hokhmah and Binah who decide to create man. This decision is reected in their promise to let their future children marry. Once the emperor’s daughter begets a daughter, Shekhinah has come into existence; and once the king begets a son, Zexir Anpin has been created. However, the children are born when the emperor and the king are separated, which is why they forget the promise.139 The secret marriage vow between the children is seen as a renewal of their fathers’ promise, and the ring is seen as the crown of Torah, binding Torah and Israel together. Forgetting the ring on the island symbolizes man who forgets his bond to Torah. When the king’s son decides to become a servant, he is contemplating his return to God as well as being trapped within the connes of the kelippot, waiting for Shekhinah to rectify him. When the emperor’s daughter settles in the fruit trees on the shore, she represents Shekhinah next to the sea of wisdom, living off the fruit of the righteous and waiting for mankind to return—i.e., to repent.140 The merchant’s son represents the good within evil.141 The unmarried king represents someone who wants Torah without really being willing to engage in it.142 The eleven noble daughters represent the eleven143 girls given to Esther, before she was brought before the king, and the eleven kinds of perfumes which can stop a plague.144 Music, languages, and wine are tools to confront evil and to elevate good from evil.145 The twelve robbers represent Samael and eleven kelippot.146 The male clothing stresses Shekhinah’s turn to activity and represents the necessity to confront the male aspect of evil, personied by the bald king, before she turns to marrying the

138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146

Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 355. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 55n–57n. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 57n–61n. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 63n. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 67n. There were only seven girls; cf. Esther 2.9. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 68n including references. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 65n; 69n. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 71n.

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queen—that is, rectifying Lilith.147 When the emperor’s daughter suggests to the king’s son that they should go home, Shekhinah is signalling that the way has been paved for her return to being totally involved with Israel again.148 Wiskind-Elper considers the theme of the second tale exile and redemption, inuenced by the Lurianic paradigm of raising the divine sparks.149 The remarkable change of gender in the case of the emperor’s daughter, a Messianic gure, and the eleven noble daughters represents a “reversal of gender stereotypes”, which is an example, according to Wiskind-Elper, of “an essential view in Jewish tradition regarding ‘women’s liberation’”. The reversal of gender roles will be part of the world-to-come for women to “righting the ills of patriarchal society”.150 In the second tale, man fails to dominate the emperor’s daughter, while she gains her ultimate victory over man.151 Next to this feminist reading, Wiskind-Elper also presents a more theological interpretation of the violent aspects as present in the emperor’s daughter. Based on the interpretation by Scholem and Tishby of Shekhinah’s violent aspects,152 she explains that the violence is necessitated because of the intention of her suitors to possess her by force. Mercy is put aside, and Shekhinah becomes the “belle dame sans merci [as] the incarnation of the divine attribute of din, or harsh judgment, recognized throughout mystical literature as archetypically feminine”.153 147

Cf. Kaplan 1983: 73n, 77n. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 81n. My interpretation of tale #2 is in many cases in line with the allegorical equations of Kaplan, though I do miss some arguments for how Kaplan reaches his understanding. 149 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 47–48. 150 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 111–112, 264n130. I completely agree with Wolfson when he writes that Wiskind-Elper’s claims about Nahman and his anticipation of women’s lib “suffers from an inability to evaluate the use of gender terms in a contextually nuanced way; cf. Wolfson 2002: 134n26. Though I, as well as Wiskind-Elper, should like to see women in this world liberated from restraining patriarchal stereotypes, I am afraid that Wolfson and Deutsch are closer to the core in their evaluation of Nahman’s view on women; cf. Wolfson 2002; Deutsch 2002. 151 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 109. 152 Wiskind-Elper is referring to Gershom Scholem: On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, Schocken Books, New York, 1965: 106; and to Isaiah Tishby: The Wisdom of the Zohar—An Anthology of Texts, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1989: Vol. I, 377. 153 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 108. I agree with Wiskind-Elper that the emperor’s daughter represents the judging aspect of Shekhinah, though I do not see why she needs to bring in archetypical theory to legitimate her claim about the feminine as representative of judgment. She would just have had to point to the serah Din being placed on the left and feminine side of the serotic system. 148

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Analysis 4: —1:-, 2: —1:- Once upon a time there was an emperor who had no children. There was also a king who had no children. The emperor traveled across the world searching for some possible advice or some remedy that would enable him to have children. The king also traveled for the same reason. They happened to meet at an inn, but one did not know the other. The emperor noticed the royal manners of the king, and so he asked him. [The king] admitted that he was a king. The king also noticed the same [royal manners] of the emperor, and so he admitted that he was [an emperor]. They told each other that they were traveling to have children. The two of them then agreed that, when they came home, and if one of their wives gave birth to a male child and the other gave birth to a female child, and if it would be possible for them to marry, a marriage between them should be arranged for. Upon this, the emperor returned to his home and fathered a daughter. The king returned to his home and fathered a son. However, both of them forgot about the marriage arrangement.

Faced with childlessness the emperor and thereupon the king travel across the world hoping to nd some advice or some remedy to solve this problem. Usually, in Israelite-Jewish religion God is in charge of fertility as well as of childlessness. God holds back fertility for reasons unknown to man, as a measure of punishment, or as a means to bring man to reect on his dependency on God.154 This divine measure or means seems directed toward what might be the divine representatives themselves, given Nahman’s tendency to let royalties represent aspects of the divine. The juxtaposition of possibly divine essence and childlessness could serve the purpose of connoting a divine wish “to father” creation. The assumed divine aura around the emperor and the king is, however, stirred when the listener/reader notices that both of them, when they meet at an inn, are more concerned with the high status of the other than with their common problem of childlessness. When childlessness is nally touched upon, they vow that if one should beget a boy and the other a girl, the marriage of these children should be arranged for. A vow in connection with childlessness is a well-known

154

Cf., e.g., Gen. 16.1; 1. Sam. 1; Jer. 15.7, Hos. 9.12.

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phenomenon in Israelite-Jewish religion. Hannah vows that she will give away her son to God, if God will just grant her one, cf. 1. Sam. 1,11, and she does remember her vow, cf. 1. Sam. 1,28. However, if positive vows in front of God like this are not remembered, the forgetful will be deserving of God’s punishment. The only question is: What will happen if the forgetful represents the divine and suddenly becomes deserving of punishment? When they return home, the emperor begets a daughter whereas the king begets a son. And since a daughter, in a Hasidic context, cannot inherit a kingdom, the fathers’ concern with the status of the groom becomes more transparent, because childlessness of royalties does not only threaten the lineage of the family, it also threatens the independence and survival of the kingdom. In this case, the emperor, being hierarchically the superior, would have to pass on his high status, including his kingdom, to the inferior king’s son. However, the emperor as well as the king forgets about the vow. 6:—4:-, 4:—3:- The emperor sent his daughter to study. The king also sent his son to study. The two [children] happened to study in the house of the same teacher. They fell deeply in love with each other, and so they agreed on a marriage between them. The king’s son took a ring and put it on her nger, and so they were married. However, after a while the emperor sent for his daughter to come home. The king also sent for his son to come home. There they talked to the emperor’s daughter about marriage arrangements, but she did not want any because she had promised herself away to the king’s son. The king’s son was longing for her very much. Similarly, the emperor’s daughter was constantly sad. The emperor used to lead her through his courtyards and palaces to show her his greatness, but she remained sad. The king’s son longed for her so much that he became ill. Whenever people asked him: “Why are you ill?” he refused to tell them. They said to his servant: “Maybe you can tell us about him!” He said to them that he knew, because he had been together with him in the place where he had studied. He told them about it. Suddenly the king remembered that he had already agreed with the emperor on a marriage arrangement. He therefore wrote to the emperor that he should prepare himself for the wedding, since they had already agreed upon it. But the emperor did not want to. However, he did not dare to refuse. So he answered [the king] that he should send his son to him to see if he was able to govern countries. If this were the case, then he would let his daughter marry him. The king sent his son to

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Coincidence—or even fate—interferes with the forgetfulness of the fathers. Some years later, the emperor’s daughter and the king’s son happen to be sent by their fathers to learn from the same teacher. They fall in love and vow to commit themselves to each other. The king’s son takes a ring and puts it on her nger and so they marry. The secret marriage seems unavoidable and becomes the fulllment of the vow of the unwilling fathers. Whole-heartedness characterizes the children’s commitment to their secret marriage vow. At home they face their fathers’ suggestions of potential partners; however, the children refuse. There is a difference between the kind of concern the fathers display. The emperor seems to believe that his greatness will be a comfort to his daughter, whereas the king sincerely inquires and nds out about the reasons for the illness of his son. But one should not forget that the king has nothing to lose, whereas exactly the greatness is at stake for the emperor. The king recalls that he had already agreed with the emperor to a match, so he writes to the emperor. The hesitance and the reluctance of the emperor to let the young couple meet have the effect of creating the antipathy of the listener/reader, because neither does he abide by his vow nor does he consider the feelings of love. Still, it is reasonable that he, an emperor who is about to pass on his empire, wants to test the young man to see if he is the right one to govern the empire and to marry his daughter. The emperor cannot allow himself just to be concerned about his daughter; he has to worry about the empire as well. If the emperor, furthermore—cf. his origin—represents a divine aspect, it is not only the future of an ordinary empire that is at stake, it may also be the entire world. From a human perspective he seems cruel-hearted, but if his decision to test the son and his hesitance to the marriage between his daughter and the king’s son reect a divine insight and especially a divine concern, maybe the tale is challenging the human perspective by positioning an alternative mystical perspective on the emperor’s concern.

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6:—7:-, 5:—5:- Once [the king’s son] was walking next to a wall of mirrors, he saw her and fainted. She came to him and woke him up. She told him that she did not want any other marriage arrangement because of the promise she had made to him. He said to her: “What shall we do? Your father does not want this!” She said: “Exactly, therefore!” They therefore came upon the idea to leave this place by sea. They rented a ship and left the place by sea. They crossed the sea and wanted to approach the coast. They approached the coast where there was a forest. They went there. The emperor’s daughter took off the ring and gave it to him before she lay down. After some time, the king’s son realized that she would soon rise, and so he placed the ring next to her. Later, they rose and went to the ship. During this, she remembered that they had forgotten the ring. She sent him after the ring. He went there but could not nd the place. He then went to another place, but he could not nd the ring. He went to search for it in different places until he got lost and could not return. She went searching for him and got lost as well. [The king’s son] walked and got lost. After some time, he saw a road that led to a settled place. There was nothing for him to do, and so he became a servant. She walked and got lost as well, but she thought to herself that she should settle by the sea. She walked to the shore. There were fruit trees and so she settled there. During the day she walked next to the sea. Maybe she would nd people who passed by or returned. She lived off the fruit, and at night she used to ascend a tree to protect herself against the beasts.

The weakness of the king’s son as he walks next to the wall of mirrors and faints by the reection of her, and the initiative of the emperor’s daughter once he has fainted, reverse the gender roles. The mere reection of her makes him weak and passive. Only her activity enables him to follow her and ee with her. At this point in the tale it is too early to comment on the purpose of reversing the gender roles. Instead attention should be given to the wall of mirrors, since mirrors do appear as imagery in Nahman’s homilies in relation to Deut. 5.4 where it says: “Face to face the Lord spoke to you.”155 Nahman interpreted this sentence as a reference to the relationship between the zaddik and the disciple. According to Nahman the disciple should stand with his face in front of the face of the zaddik where the latter would shine with divine light. In this mirroring it would become obvious to the disciple that his

155 Green’s understanding of Nahman’s use of the concept of mirrors informs my approach here; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 156–159.

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own face is darkened and that his own incompleteness necessitates the presence of the zaddik. Only the zaddik can change the incompleteness of the disciple by lifting up the divine spark of the disciple and thereby make his face shine as an expression of the fact that the disciple has reached his real divine self. This mirroring benets the zaddik as well. The face of the disciple, when it has reached the self-annihilated state of shining, can become a mirror for the zaddik, into which the zaddik can enter and into which the zaddik can pour his divine stream of insight and pass it on. In this way the zaddik has made the disciple a shining mirror for other incomplete faces, which indicates that mankind has taken one step further toward redemption and a world lled with divine insight. As Green presents it: [The] ideal of human community would seem to be a great hall of mirrors, each of them serving as another reector of divine light. Egoindividuality is here to be transcended, as the disciple who was formerly a self in search of a corrective mirror now seeks to become a mirror on his own (Green 1992 (1979): 158).

According to this, the feebleness of the king’s son could parallel the disciple when he realizes his own darkened face, i.e., when he realizes how much he is in need of the guidance of the zaddik. The king’s son needs the presence of the emperor’s daughter, her appearance, her promise, and her intention before he is able to move, able to act. Likewise, the disciple needs the zaddik. However, this parallel does not necessarily provide the listener/reader with the key to interpret the function of the split references stemming from the king’s son, but it helps draw attention to the basic structure of self-annihilation, which might be in focus. Furthermore, this structure of self-annihilation is also essential in the relationship between Shekhinah and the potential Knesset Israel, if the people of Israel should be able to transform into the ideal community of Israel that abides by the will of God and not by any kind of individual will. The scene where the emperor’s daughter and the king’s son meet next to the wall of mirrors suggests that they represent respectively Shekhinah and Knesset Israel.156

156

The word “self-annihilation” is not used directly here. It comes from the Hebrew

 , indicating that the perception of the “existing world” as man perceives of it has to be “cancelled”. In this way a vacuum can be made for  (ayin)—i.e., man only sees the ‘nothingness’ whereas this nothingness is everything according to God. In this way man can if not perceive then at least act according to God’s perception of reality; cf. Elior 1993b: 13–18 for an explanation of this basic Hasidic world-view.

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The intention of the emperor’s daughter to punish the fathers by eeing is understandable. Especially the emperor has complicated the bonding between her and the king’s son, even though the emperor agreed to this bonding with a vow before their birth. Only a few bonds have been agreed upon before someone’s birth in this world—one is the bond between God and Israel as portrayed in the Hebrew Bible.157 But where would this leave the emperor? Kaplan suggests that the emperor represents Hokhmah, while the king represents Binah.158 Binah is primarily a feminine serah,159 and I should suppose that Nahman could have invented a female character to commit to such a vow with the emperor, if he had wanted to. According to Kabbalah, the world came into existence when Keter appeared as will, Hokhmah as wisdom, and Binah as understanding directed toward an object. Binah reects the ability to think of something specic and dened, i.e., the divine intellectual act that enabled the immanent world.160 If an allegorical interpretation of the emperor and the king has to be found, it could be that Keter and Hokhmah, two male serot, were in Nahman’s mind. We actually do hear about the two wives of the emperor and the king,161 who could be representatives of Binah. In any case, the consequence of Kaplan’s suggestion and mine is that the wish to procreate/create originated among the upper serot. The punishment, which the emperor’s daughter will direct toward the fathers, resembles a consequence of the result of tsimtsum where Shekhinah is expelled from the serotic system. She belongs in this system, but as the presence of God in the existing world she accepts and chooses the identity of the expelled one in order to be close to creation. Wherever her children go, she goes. When they suffer because of their own sins or a mistake inside or prior to the existence of the Godhead, she suffers. But Sefer haZohar describes the side-effect to Shekhinah’s and Israel’s exile, and that is that God suffers as well.162 It is this sufferance of the latter I see paralleled in the punishment of the fathers.

157

Cf., e.g., Is. 44.2, 49.1–9; Jer. 1.5; Ps. 22.10–11, 71.6, 139.13–17. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 55n. 159 Cf. Matt 1994: 195–196. 160 Cf. Tishby 1989, Vol. I: 270. 161 Kaplan does not interpret the wives; in fact he writes that all it takes to beget the children is the mere decision of the two men. It may be that Nahman thought more about the procreative role of women than Kaplan does; cf. Kaplan 1983: 56n. 162 “ ‘This quaking of the earth is meant as a portent and a warning to you.’ At this R. Isaac fell a-trembling, and said: ‘Verily, it is written, “For three things the earth is 158

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Escaping from the emperor, they arrive at an island with a forest. As mentioned in the analysis in the rst tale, a forest is one of the many images in the Book of Isaiah used to designate the people of Israel, cf. Is. 10.17–21. God’s anger will fell most of the trees, most of the Israelites, and it will leave as a remnant only those who have faith in God and those who return to God. Furthermore, a forest contains references to places for hitbodedut,163 seclusion to worship God,164 understanding innity165 insight, close relationship to God, and also encounters with representatives of evil.166 If the ight of the two royal children should be seen as the consequence of tsimtsum and shevirat hakelim, this part of the tale could indicate the beginning of tikkun where the people of Israel are supposed to consider their role as the chosen people who must live up to the special demands to their ideal behavior. This reading nds support in the central imagery in this passage, which is activated by the wandering of the ring between the two lovers. The ring is likely to refer to the covenant. One reading of how the ring wanders between them, when they lie down together, would be a rather sexual one. The ring and the corona of the penis have the same shape because of the circumcision. Prior to the wandering of the ring, the king’s son gave the ring to the emperor’s daughter, which would parallel the commitment to the covenant, which every male Jew is offered as a unique gift on the day of his circumcision. But also, the emperor’s daughter can hold up the ring in front of her father, like Zipporah who threw the foreskin of Moses’ son in front of God’s feet to prevent God from killing him.167 The emperor’s daughter wants her father’s commitment to the covenant; she strives like Shekhinah for the protection of the people, and she tries to prevent the interference of her probably divine father. The wandering ring, which may connote the circumcised penis, would point as well to fertility not only in its

disquieted . . . for a servant when he reigneth, etc.”, that is, when the supramundane principality, who was previously under another ruler, reigns, especially over Israel.’ R. Hama bar Gurya said: ‘When God allows Israel to fall under the oppression of the Gentiles He (God) weeps’, as it is written, “My soul weeps in secret places” ( Jer. XIII, I7).” (Sefer haZohar II,17b). 163 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 145–148. 164 Cf. Hayyey MoHaRaN #217. 165 Cf. Hayyey MoHaRaN #221. 166 Cf. tales #2, 3, 10, 11, 12. 167 Cf. Ex. 4.24–26.

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own gurative right, but also because fertility is the benet of being in the covenant with God, according to, e.g., Gen. 17.11. In other words, that night in the forest, Shekhinah and Knesset Israel are united, and the result of this union would be that fertility, shefa, i.e., the divine inux, prosperity, etc. are passed onto the people of Israel. Yet, when she, the emperor’s daughter, forgets the ring the next morning, the mystical connotations implicate that the people of Israel have moved away from God, which necessarily will lead to the disappearance of the potential Knesset Israel. The king’s son only embodies the potential Knesset Israel, meaning that he, as a character, is not the actual people of Israel and thereby not responsible for their acts. He is there as an ever-standing possibility, which is why the emperor’s daughter and the king’s son can walk toward the ship together despite the loss of the marker of their common bonding. In other words: Shekhinah is always there, ready for the actualisation of Knesset Israel; however, the real bonding depends on the acts of the actual people of Israel. The royal bearing of the king’s son, which bespeaks him the greatest of futures, is stripped off as he decides to earn a living by becoming a servant, by placing himself in the lowest of positions. It is an infertile passive position from where he cannot affect any changes to his own situation or that of the emperor’s daughter. If the king’s son is the potential Knesset Israel, it parallels all the situations where Israel, as a punishment for the God-neglecting behavior of the people, ends up serving foreign nations. And again, since he only represents the potential ideal of Israel, he is not to blame and is without any inuence on his own condition. So much hope and so many promises are attached to his character; but something goes wrong, and he, the incarnate hope, disappears from the tale only to reappear in its very last lines. Initiative and positivity, which characterized the emperor’s daughter in the emperor’s palace, characterize her once again now that she is lost. She settles by the seashore, where there is a chance of her meeting someone who is either passing by or returning to this place. They may be able to help her move in whatever direction she has to. The perception of her as Shekhinah is strengthened in this passage. It says that she lives off the fruit and that she ascends a tree to protect herself at night against the beasts. Shekhinah is part of the serotic system as the tenth serah, where she is protected and strengthened by the shefa/ divine energy that ows to her from the six lower and the three upper serot. The serotic system is often described as a tree and its energy as

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fruits.168 Her purpose of ascending the tree is to guard herself against the beasts. The beasts could designate Sitra haRa. The sea, next to which she walks, is at times considered the residence of Samael.169 Samael and the other representatives of Sitra haRa want to impregnate Shekhinah.170 If their seed could be hosted by the most fertile of wombs, evil would prosper and conquer the world. She, however, has chosen to guard her chastity in what may be the serotic tree and to wait for someone to either pass by or return. Passing by or returning may be implicit references to negligence or repentance. Those who, on the one hand, pass by Shekhinah, ignore God’s presence in this world and their own divine origin including the commitment to the covenant that should follow by recognizing this human condition. Those who, on the other hand, return to the place of Shekhinah, do so because they have recognized man’s dependency on God. Nahman is recapitulating cosmic and immanent world history before he turns to describing future acts. No future improvements are possible before people have realized how the present situation came about. This could explain the length of the descriptions preceding the plot that leads to the reunion of the emperor’s daughter and the king’s son. Nahman has described how creation came about due to the wish of the upper serot, alias the fathers. However, when faced with the threat of passing on his power to Knesset Israel, the most transcendent aspect of God wanted to test Knesset Israel as to see if its potentiality was actualized as the ideal representation of Israel. It was not. Shekhinah, who wants Israel to actualize its potentiality as Knesset Israel, chooses exile together with Israel. She can suffer and she can act to bring the people of Israel to return to God, bring them to become a God-abiding people, where God will then entrust these children with the authority to rule his empire. But the emperor was correct in refusing to pass on the empire to Israel. Something had happened. The potential of Knesset Israel was so far away from actualisation that the people of Israel had ended up serving foreign nations, ended up in a situation where Shekhinah is now forced to effect a change herself. This is the present situation of reality.

168 169 170

Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar I,1a, 18b–19a, 33a, 35b–36a, 226; II,2a. Cf. Sefer haZohar II,105b; III,197a. Cf. Sefer haZohar I,84b.

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10:—7:-, 7:—6:- There was a time when there was a very distinguished merchant who had commerce throughout the entire world. He had an only son. The merchant was old. One day, the son said to his father: “Since you are old and I am young, since your partners do not advise me on anything at all, since you are about to pass away, and since I will be left empty-handed and not know what to do, please give me a ship with merchandise! I will set out by sea to become skilled in commerce.” His father gave him a ship with merchandise. [The merchant’s son] went off to different countries, sold the merchandise, and bought new merchandise. He was successful. While he was at sea, his men saw the trees (where the emperor’s daughter was staying), and they thought that this would be a settled place. They wanted to go there. As they approached, they saw that it was indeed trees and they wanted to return. Suddenly, when the merchant’s son glanced into the sea, he saw one tree there, and on top of it there was something like the reection of a human being. He thought that he might have been mistaken, and so he told the people who were there to have a look. They also saw something like the reection of a human being on top of the tree. They decided to approach the place. They sent a man in a small boat to this place. They looked into the sea to be able to give directions to the messenger for him not to lose his way but to direct him toward the tree. He went there and saw that a human being had settled there. The merchant’s son went there himself and saw that a woman had settled there. [The merchant’s son] said to [the emperor’s daughter] that she should descend. She said to him that she did not want to enter the ship, unless he promised her that he would not touch her until they had arrived to his home and had legally married. He promised her, and so she entered his ship. He realized that she was able to play on musical instruments and knew how to speak several languages. He was very happy that he had met her. Later, when they were approaching his home, she said to him that it would be proper for him, now that he was bringing home such an important woman, to go to his home and announce to his father, his relatives, and everybody he knew that they should all bid her welcome. Later, she would announce to him who she was. He agreed to this. She said to him that it would also be proper, now that you are bringing home a woman like this, that you let your sailors, who have led the ship, get drunk for them to know that their merchant is about to marry a woman like this. He agreed to this. [The merchant’s son] took his good wine, which was onboard, and gave it to them. They became very drunk. He then went to his house and announced [everything] to his father and his relatives etc. The sailors became very drunk and left the ship, fell down, and lay there in their drunkenness. While the entire family was preparing to go and bid her welcome, she went and untied the ship. She left the coast,

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The merchant’s son is described as the responsible heir who anticipates his need for knowledge about commerce to be able to distribute the wealth and reputation of his father, once the father is no more. The son asks for a ship with merchandise, his father listens willingly and grants him his well-substantiated wish. The son administers his father’s willingness with the great responsibility. Seen from a secular perspective, the son represents an ideal. At sea the merchant’s son looks into the sea, close to the shore with the trees where the possible representative of Shekhinah has settled, and sees the reection of a human being at the top of a tree. However, he does not trust his sense of sight. Only when his men have conrmed what he believed himself to see, he acts. The merchant’s son sends a man in a boat to have his sight conrmed, while he gives the man directions according to the reections he sees in the water. Then, when his envoy has conrmed that someone sits in the tree, he himself draws near to the place of the emperor’s daughter. The secular hero sees her only through reections and needs conrmation before he has faith in what he sees. This may signal that he does not have the qualities, which the king’s son had, who just needed one reection before he fainted in awe of her beloved. If the emperor’s daughter, representing Shekhinah, is so difcult for the merchant’s son to perceive, he is not ready for her presence. Nevertheless, the merchant’s son, once he nally perceives her, tells her to descend from the tree. She refuses—unless he promises not to touch her until they come to his home and have been legally married! Surprisingly, the emperor’s daughter, who is already married and who told the king’s son that she wanted no other but him, suddenly suggests a marriage with the merchant’s son and asks him to respect her virtue in order to make it a legal marriage. Her virtue, which she here bespeaks,

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becomes doubtful, and the listener/reader is entitled to question whether the female protagonist is about to leave her heroic features and leave the listener/reader with no hope for a happy ending. The emperor’s daughter descends. Descent contains split references. The explicit meaning is to come down from the tree; the implicit one could be that she as Shekhinah leaves the serotic system to enter the ship of the merchant’s son, unguarded by the shefa. Now she is on her own. However, the musical and linguistic skills of the emperor’s daughter are mentioned. According to Nahman, music can be used to rectify the divine sparks within evil or to protect the divine.171 More than one language came into being when the tower of Babel fell, causing confusion as a means to prevent man to be Godlike in man’s secular aspirations for power, cf. Gen. 11.1–9.172 Causing confusion and preventing secular aspirations for power may have become tools for the emperor’s daughter. Maybe this is Nahman’s way to calm the listener/reader. Even though it looks as if the positive and divine aspects are disappearing from the emperor’s daughter, when she puts her virtue and integrity at risk by suggesting marriage to the merchant’s son, the listener/reader has to remain condent in her. There may be a plan behind her suggestion of marriage. The merchant’s son appreciates her musical and linguistic skills, and he is happy that he has met her. However, his happiness resembles the joy of a fool, because he has not noticed who she is and how important she could be to him. She may be trying to help him, when she instructs him to announce and celebrate the importance of his coming wife, and yet, maybe it is too late. Her self-acclaimed importance, which makes her resemble her imperial father who recognized the royal manners of the king and who thought that he could comfort her by showing her his greatness, hints at her destination. Her destiny is, if she is Shekhinah, to make a God-abiding people out of Israel and pass on the earthly kingdom to this immanent creation, cf. Shekhinah’s other name, which is Malkhut. Passing on this kingdom must be preceded by the insight into her importance. Still, it is doubtful that the secular merchant’s son will be able to see the divine within the human appearance of the emperor’s daughter.

171 172

Cf., e.g., Likkutey MoHaRaN #3. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 65n.

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At the end of this passage, the emperor’s daughter continues to talk about her greatness. She makes the merchant’s son use his good wine and make all his sailors drunk. Wine causes joy, and with joy one can elevate the divine sparks from the connes of the kelippot.173 The divine sparks within the secular merchant’s son need to be elevated despite his ignorance. In Sefer haZohar wine furthermore connotes Torah,174 and if Nahman has had wine as Torah in mind, the emperor’s daughter is trying to elevate the merchant’s son from his secularism by letting him taste Torah. Elevation of divine sparks or elevation of man through Torah is in either case a matter of tikkun. The next step, in what seems to be the initiated process of tikkun, is to steal the ship of the merchant’s son. The theft causes the merchant’s son to be mistrusted by his own family, to be exiled from his home, and to be forced to an existence as a wanderer, which is of course sad. Still, the merchant’s son, secular as he is, has not understood that there may be a plan behind his exile, forced upon him maybe as a way to make him realize his need for Torah. But to the merchant’s son the strange ways of the protagonist are difcult to understand, as it is difcult for human intellectual capacity in general to understand God’s at times strange acts. 11: —10:-, 7: —8:- There was a time when there was a king who was building palaces upon the sea because he liked the weather at sea and because ships passed by. The emperor’s daughter was traveling at sea and came close to the palace of this king. The king cast a glance and saw a ship with neither oars nor people. He thought that he was mistaken, and so he ordered his men to take a look. They saw the same. She approached the palace and considered if she wanted a palace. She began to turn back. The king, however, brought her back and into his home. The king had no wife, because he was unable to choose. Whomever he wanted did not want him, and vice versa. When the emperor’s daughter arrived, she said to him that he would have to swear that he would not touch her before they had legally married. He promised her. She then said to him that it would be appropriate for him not to open her ship or touch anything onboard. It should remain like it was at sea until they had married, because then everybody could see the great variety of merchandise which she had brought along. They should not say that he had

173 174

Cf., e.g., Likkutey MoHaRaN #24.8, 25.5, 54.6, 41. Cf. Sefer haZohar I,240a, 250b; II,124b; III,39a, 95a, 152a.

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found a wife at the marked place. He promised her this. The king wrote to all countries that they should gather and come to his wedding. He built a palace for her. She commanded that eleven noble daughters be brought to her for them to be with her. The king then commanded that eleven daughters of the greatest nobility be sent for. A special palace was built for each and every one of them, just like the emperor’s daughter had a special palace. They gathered at her place where they played on musical instruments and played games with her.

The unmarried king has built palaces upon the sea175 because he loves the weather at sea. Palaces connote mundane power and mundane ruling. In Sefer haZohar the sea sometimes connotes the residence of evil.176 At the same time, water connotes Torah.177 If the unmarried king is expressing his power through palaces within the residence of evil, then the emperor’s daughter is in trouble. She runs the risk of being captured by evil and being forced to sustain the power of evil against her will.178 Yet the unmarried king, despite his inability to trust his sense of sight when he sees a ship—not a reection of a ship, but a real ship—and despite his way of forcing her to dock by his palace, is really quite harmless. Or is he? If the sea refers to the water of Torah, he is, as Kaplan suggests, basing his life on Torah but never emerging/engaging in it.179 He loves the weather that comes from it—i.e., the refreshing air, the fertile rain, the life-granting sun. He is ready to take the pleasures that come from Torah, but he is not ready to engage in it in return. He hopes to meet passers-by, but not people who return, that is, people who repent. This is the difference between this king and the emperor’s daughter who hoped to meet with the passers-by (the ignorant ones in need of tikkun) and the returnees (those who repent). God does not benet from a man like him, because such a man does not invest the efforts needed by man to form the world according to God’s will.

175 Nahman/Nathan is quite consequent in the Hebrew as well as the Yiddish version in writing - / / , if it is next to the sea; and - / / , if it is upon the sea. Band translates it that the “king built himself palaces near the sea”; cf. Band 1978: 71, while Kaplan translates it that a king “had built his palace near the sea”; cf. Kaplan 1983: 67. However, on page / a coast is being mentioned only within Nathan Sternhartz’s explanatory parentheses, which makes it difcult to decide if this king is really living upon the sea or just next to it. 176 Cf. Sefer haZohar II,105b; III,197a. 177 Cf. Sefer haZohar I,12b, 92b, 185a; II,60a; III,270a. 178 Cf. Sefer haZohar I,84b. 179 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 67n.

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And his supercial approach to Torah is a hindrance for this divine purpose with man. His superciality is a hindrance to himself on the personal level as well. He is unable to nd a wife. In Jewish mysticism, an unmarried man is only half a man. In Sefer haZohar it says: And therefore God created man male and female that he might be perfect. For when is man called complete after the supernal pattern? When he is joined with his mate in unity, in joy, and in affection, and there issue from their union a son and a daughter. Then is man complete below like the Holy Name above, and the Holy Name is attached to him (Sefer haZohar III,7a).

His unwillingness or inability to unite with a woman is a hindrance to the union between male and female in the serotic system, which again reects how mankind is separated from God.180 The inability of the unmarried king to nd a wife and his sudden turn to agreeing to a marriage with the emperor’s daughter is not convincing. If the emperor’s daughter is Shekhinah, she denitely has to be chosen, seen, and wanted as who she is. The unmarried king is not evil, but yet an obstacle; he is simply not the right one for the emperor’s daughter. His attempts to please by doing what she commands are like the attempts of a fool to please by the prospect of gain. Her emphasis on her importance is not conceived, and so she proceeds to the next step in her plan, which is to claim eleven noble daughters. The request of the emperor’s daughter for eleven noble daughters, who are procient in music and languages, could indicate Nahman’s attempt to hint at the eleven noble daughters as additional means for Shekhinah to raise the divine sparks from the connes of the kelippot, to protect the divine, and to confuse mundane aspirations of power.181 She needs them, and so she meets with them in her palace. 12: —11:-, 10: —8:- Once she said to [the eleven noble daughters] that she would travel at sea with them. They went with her and they played games there together. She said to them that she wanted to honor them with some good wine that she had. And so she gave them some of the wine that was onboard the ship. They became drunk, fell down, and fell asleep. She went, untied

180 This is in line with Kook’s understanding of the overall theme in tale #2; cf. : 301–302. 181 Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #3 and Gen. 11.1–9.

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the ship, spread the sails, and ed with the ship. The king and his men cast a glance and realized that the ship was not there. They became very frightened. The king said: “Be careful not to tell her at once. She will be deeply grieved about this valuable ship. Maybe she will think that the king has given her ship to someone.” They decided to send a noble woman from among the eleven noble daughters to tell her in a wise way. They then went from one room to another without nding anyone until they had been in all eleven rooms, but they found nobody. They agreed to send an old noble woman at night to tell her, and so they went to her room, but found nobody. They were very frightened. The fathers of the noble daughters, who were used to receiving letters from them, now realized that while they sent letters, their daughters did not send any letters back. The fathers stood up and traveled there themselves, but did not nd their daughters. It made them very furious, and they, the noblemen of the kingdom, said that the king should be sent away. They conferred with each other: “Is the sin of the king such that he should be sent away? In fact he had been violated in this case himself, and so they agreed just to remove him from his throne and exile him. He was removed and exiled. He walked away. Meanwhile, she (the emperor’s daughter, who had escaped with the eleven noble daughters) had gone with the ship. Later, when the noble daughters woke up, they (resumed their games with her. They did not know that the ship had left the coast. They) said to her: “Let us return!” She answered them: “Let us stay here for a while!” After a while, a tempest arose, and they said to her: “Let us return to our homes!” She then announced to them that the ship had already left the coast. They asked her: “Why did you do this?” She said that she had been afraid that the ship would splinter because of the tempest. This is why she had been forced to leave and set sail. The emperor’s daughter and the eleven noble daughters were traveling at sea. They played on their musical instruments there. They came upon a palace, and so the eleven noble daughters said to her: “Let us approach this place!” But she did not want to. “We will regret it, if we approach this palace!” (that is, if they approached the palace of the king who wanted to marry her).

The musical and linguistic skills of the eleven noble daughters indicate that the emperor’s daughter, alias Shekhinah, probably needs them. Their willingness to follow her is to be considered positive. Nevertheless, the emperor’s daughter inicts drunkenness upon them with her now well-known wine. Making the noble women drunk enables her to sail away with them without their knowing. This could, on the one hand, be considered abduction. Abducting women has a negative as well as masculine connotation. It could, on the other hand, convey that she is giving these women a possibility to come close to Shekhinah, God’s presence in this world, by giving them this wine, probably reecting

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Torah as it does in Sefer haZohar,182 and by liberating them from the unmarried king and his damaging approach to Torah. The unmarried king, once he realizes that the ship has gone with his future wife and the eleven noble daughters, is afraid of the reaction of the emperor’s daughter. He tries to avoid her anger at rst by telling his people not to reveal to her that her ship is missing. But his attempt to hide the truth is turned against him, as the fathers of the noble daughters nd out about their disappearance. Yet the fathers, being ministers or noblemen in this king’s country, do not understand that it was their own king’s lack of a proper approach to Torah that resulted in their disappearance. They assume that the king had been violated, and so they decide, instead of killing him, to exile him. Once the noble women wake up from their drunkenness, the scene is characterized by the lack of dialogue between them and the emperor’s daughter. They play with the emperor’s daughter at her bidding. They express their wish to return home, which is ignored. And too late, when the tempest arises and they express their fear of being at sea, she presents them with the fact that they have left the shore a long time ago, but still covers this fact with a lie about her fear of the ship splintering. When they see the palace, maybe of the unmarried king,183 she once again ignores their wish. Taken from a literary point of view this is a complete demonstration of power, where the eleven noble daughters are left without any inuence on the development of the tale. At the same time, this passage is a turning point in the tale as well, as we shall see in the next episodes, because from now on the eleven noble women and the emperor’s daughter sail together as one group of twelve women, maybe an implicit reference to the twelve tribes of Israel. 1: —12: -, 2: —10: - After some time they saw something like an island in the sea, and so they approached it. There were twelve robbers there who wanted to kill them. She asked: “Who is the greatest among you?” They showed her. She said to him: “What is your profession?” He said to her that they were robbers. She said to him: “We are robbers as well! It is just that you are robbers with strength, while we are robbers with wisdom, since we are skilled in languages and in music. So, what do you gain if you kill us?

182 183

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,240a, 250b; II,124b; III,39a, 95a, 152a. This information is given within Nathan Sternhartz’s parentheses.

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Is it not better for you to make us your wives? In this way you will have our riches as well!” She showed them what was onboard the ship. They liked what she had said. Then the robbers showed them their riches as well and took them to all of their places. They agreed not to marry all at once, but to marry one after the other. Each [robber] should choose a noble woman according to his greatness. A great robber should choose a great noble woman, etc. After a while, [the emperor’s daughter] said to them that she wanted to honor them with a very wonderful wine that she had onboard the ship. So far [she said] she had not touched it. She had concealed it for the day where God, blessed be He, would present her to her intended. She then gave them some of her wine in twelve goblets and told every one of them to drink to each one of the twelve [robbers]. They drank, became drunk and fell down. [The emperor’s daughter] then said to her girlfriends: “Go and slaughter your respective husbands!” They went and slaughtered all of them. Upon this, they found the most excellent riches, which no king had ever had. They decided not to take any copper or silver, just the gold and the precious stones. Those things on the ship, which were not that valuable, were thrown overboard, and instead they loaded the entire ship with the expensive things, the gold and precious stones they had found. They decided not to dress like women anymore, and so they sewed for themselves clothes like those that German men were wearing, and then they traveled on with the ship.

When the emperor’s daughter approaches the island with the robbers, who intend to kill her and the eleven noble daughters, her ambiguous ability to trick now becomes something purely positive, because of the obvious evil intention of the robbers. The emperor’s daughter responds to the information about the robbers’ profession by claiming that she and the eleven noble daughters are robbers too, the difference being that the twelve men are robbers with strength while the twelve women are robbers with wisdom. The word used for strength is , which means strength, might, and greatness, whereas the word used for wisdom is  . Gevurah and Hokhmah are at the same time designations for two serot. Gevurah, also known as Din, represents God’s stern and untempered judgment, whereas Hokhmah represents God’s transcendent wisdom. When the emperor’s daughter/Shekhinah says that the men are robbers of strength, she may be referring to the cleansing aspect of evil. Evil came into existence through Din/Gevurah. The purpose of Gevurah was and is to restrain mankind and direct mankind through punishment toward a God-abiding behavior.184 The robbers do not know

184

When the world was created, God used the aspect of Gevurah/Din to enable form,

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that their evil ways serve a greater and divine purpose, but this is what the emperor’s daughter is telling them. Surely, the robbers will not be able to understand that. But the emperor’s daughter is actually telling the truth. That she and the eleven noble daughters are robbers with wisdom may emphasize that they are authorized by one of the three upper serot to act as they do. The tools to carry out this authorization are once again music and languages, which connote the elevation and protection of the divine sparks and the confusion of people who seek power. The emperor’s daughter suggests for the third time a marriage, though this time between all twelve robbers and all twelve women. It may appear as if she is putting the virtue of herself as well as the virtue of the eleven noble daughters at risk, but each woman has access to the rectifying tools of music and languages; she has tasted Torah and has come to participate in the wisdom authorized by an upper serah. Each woman is, in other words, probably facing her rst act of tikkun on the part of an evil person. Tikkun no longer depends solely on Shekhinah. Her eleven noble daughters, whoever they represent, have engaged in the same process. The wine of the emperor’s daughter is introduced again, but with the blasphemous lie that she has concealed it for the day where God will present her to her intended. After twelve glasses of this wine, the robbers fall down drunk, and the emperor’s daughter gives her eleven noble daughters the drastic order to slaughter them, upon which they bring the riches, gold, and precious stones of the robbers on board the ship. It is worth noticing that this entire passage is built upon parallels between the robbers and the women: Twelve in number, robbers by profession, both having riches. These parallels are of course not true parallels, since the characteristics of the robbers present an evil system, whereas the characteristics of the women correspond to a divine system. In Sefer haZohar two serotic systems exist, i.e., the divine and the evil.185 Evil emerges from the serah Din and is strengthened when people defy God.186 In this passage the two parallel systems are reconnected due

i.e., nite being, since the purpose of judgment is restraint, to limit actions that they may not transgress the divinely ordered boundaries; cf. Hayyim Vital: “Tsimtsum and Shevirah” in Matt 1994: 94–95. 185 The evil serotic system lies behind the concept of Sitra haRa, i.e., the evil side; cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar I,160a. 186 “From the side of the Mother issue emissaries of punishment who are armed

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to the initiative of the emperor’s daughter to confront the robbers. To Nahman it was essential that evil had to be confronted.187 Confrontation of evil may be a key to understanding this passage as well as the entire tale. The women, after having slaughtered the robbers, search for the riches, nd them, and bring them onboard. These riches add to the greatness on board. It is part of the Lurianic process of tikkun that even evil contains divine sparks, and that it is a necessity to confront evil, since every conned spark must be lifted up and gathered—and brought on board the ship—before redemption can take place.188 Threatened on their virtues and lives and engaged in what seems to be acts of tikkun, the eleven noble daughters, referred to as the girlfriends of the emperor’s daughter, now constitute one group. Surprisingly, this group of women decides to dress like men, according to the male German dress code. Women are not supposed to dress like men and hide the sex that God gave them. Why it has to be in the German style, I do not know, though restoration of secularism may be a suggestion. However, the idea of changing their gender appearance may be Nahman’s way to indicate that the activity of these women is to be evaluated in new terms. Kaplan, the Bratslav commentator, is the one who most seriously deals with the change of gender.189 He sees the initial passivity and reactions of the emperor’s daughter as feminine, while her turn to activity reects Shekhinah taking on the male aspect. Kaplan bases this on the transformation from Shekhinah to Mashiah ben David in the world-to-come and on Sefer haZohar I,232a, where it says that Malkhut (Shekhinah) is male when she bestows blessings upon the

with the clubs of Geburah (Severity), and prevail over Mercy, and then the worlds are defective and there is conict between them. But when men amend their ways below, punishment is mitigated and removed, and mercy is awakened and prevails over the evil which arose from stern judgement, and then there is joy and consolation, as it is written, “And the Lord was comforted of the evil” (Ex. XXXII, 14). When judgement is mitigated, all the Crowns return to their places and the keys are restored to the Mother, and this is called repentance (teshubah, lit. returning), and the world is forgiven, since the Mother is in perfect joy” (Sefer haZohar III,15b). 187 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 184–185. 188 Cf. Isac Luria: “Bringing Forth Sparks” in Matt 1994: 149. 189 Band just mentions “the bizarre theme of transvestism” as dominant; cf. Band 1978: 290. Green and Wiskind-Elper do not comment upon it. Kook just mentions that one should not think that Nahman told the tales just to create an adventurous, tricky, and naughty novel. There is an allegorical meaning behind it. Kook may here have had the cross-dressing as well as the upcoming half-naked king in mind; cf. : 299.

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world.190 Confronting evil, elevating and gathering the divine sparks within it, while evil as such is destroyed, is a blessing to the world. 16: —2: -, 8: —3: - There was a time when there was an old king who had an only son. He had arranged for his son’s marriage and had passed the kingdom on to him. The king’s son said that he wanted to go on a journey with his wife at sea for her to get used to the weather at sea, in case and God forbid that one day they would be forced to ee by sea. He then went with his wife and some ministers and left with the ship. They were very joyous onboard, and they played games. After a while they decided that everybody should take off all of their clothes except for their shirts. They tested their strength by seeing if they could ascend the mast. The king’s son gave it a try. The emperor’s daughter arrived with her ship and saw the ship [of the old king’s son]. At rst, she was afraid to approach it; but then, when she came somewhat closer, she saw that they were playing games, and so they realized that they were not robbers. They approached [the ship]. The emperor’s daughter said to her girlfriends: “I can throw this baldpate down into the sea!” (That was the king’s son who was ascending toward the top of the mast). The king’s son had a baldpate; that is, he had no hair on his head. [The eleven noble daughters] said to her: “How would that be possible? Are we not too far away from them?” She said to them that she had a burning lens, with which she could throw him down. She said that she would not throw him down until he had ascended all the way to the top. If he were at the middle of the mast, he would fall onto the ship; but if he had ascended all the way to the top, he would fall into the sea. She waited until he had ascended all the way to the top. She then held her burning lens against the sun, directed it against his brain, until his brain was burned, and so he fell into the sea. When the people onboard the ship of the king’s son saw that [the king’s son] had fallen, there was a great tumult, because how should they be able to return to their homes? The [old] king would die from grief. They therefore said that they should approach the ship in sight. A doctor might be onboard who could give them some advice, and so they approached the ship (of the emperor’s daughter and the eleven noble daughters). (The people onboard the ship of the king’s son) said to (the noble women and the emperor’s daughter) that they should not

190 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 73n. For a stimulating argumentation against simplistic interpretations of gender conceptions in tale #2; cf. Justin J. Lewis: “Divine Gender Transformations in Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav”, Nordisk Judaistik—Scandinavian Jewish Studies, Arcus, Lund 2007.

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be afraid at all, because they would not harm them. They asked them: “Is there a doctor among you who can give us some advice?” They told them the entire story about how the king’s son had fallen into the sea. The emperor’s daughter said to them that they should pull him up from the sea. They found him and pulled him up. [The emperor’s daughter] took the pulse with her hand and said that his brain had been burned. They then tore his brain open and found that it was exactly as “he” had said. They were very frightened. They asked her to come with them to their home and become a doctor for the king. She would become very important and great, but she did not want to. She said that she was not a doctor, but only that she knew such things. They did not want to return to their home, and so both ships went on together. The ministers really liked the idea that their queen should marry the doctor, because of the great wisdom, which they had witnessed in “him”. “He” should become their king, while they would kill their old king. However, they could not say a thing like this to the queen—that is, that she should marry the doctor. The queen really liked the idea as well that she should marry the doctor, but she feared for the country in case it did not want “him” to be king. They agreed on giving some banquets, for them to be able, at the banquet in a moment of joy, to talk about this. Each of them was given a day to host a banquet. When the day of the doctor’s banquet arrived, “he” gave them some of “his” wine, and they became drunk. In a moment of joy, the ministers said: “Would it not be beautiful, if the queen married the doctor?” The doctor said: “Beautiful it certainly would be, if only it were not spoken of with a drunken tongue!” The queen consented but said: “Beautiful it certainly would be to marry the doctor, if only the country would agree to this!” The doctor replied again: “Beautiful it certainly would be, if only it were not spoken of with a drunken tongue!” When they had sobered up after their drunkenness, the ministers remembered what they had said. They became embarrassed because they had said something like this to the queen. However, she had said the same herself. She became embarrassed as well of what she had said to the ministers, even though they had said the same. They began to talk about it and agreed to arrange for her marriage with the doctor. They went to their country, and when they saw the inhabitants of the country, they saw that they were coming toward them with happiness. It was a long time ago that the king’s son had gone, and they did not know where he was. The old king had already died, before their arrival. Later, they realized that the king’s son was no longer their king. They asked: “How has ‘he’ become our king?” They told them the entire story about how [the king’s son] had died and how they had appointed the king who had arrived with them. [The inhabitants of the country] became very happy that they now had a new king.

The beginning of this passage resembles the previous passage on the merchant’s son, because both episodes are about a son who bequests a

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ship from his father in order to prepare himself in one way or another. However, this son, who has already become a king, who has already been granted the kingdom, and who has already married, does in no way return the trust of the father with responsibility as was the case with the secular merchant’s son. This newly appointed king is spending time with useless and frivolous games, sitting half-naked at the top of a mast in his attempt to prove his strength to his men and queen. When seeing the frivolous king, the emperor’s daughter also engages in boasting in this case of wiping the frivolous king off the mast and into the sea. In addition she mocks him for his baldness by calling him a baldpate. In the previous episodes the listener/reader became accustomed to her seemingly vicious acts which, however, seem to have led to a progress in the process of tikkun as well as having functioned as legitimate actions of defense. In this passage, however, the emperor’s daughter is not threatened by the bald king. She chooses to kill him. A very Freudian and yet theological explanation comes to mind. The emperor’s daughter, whose gender-appearance is male, may have incorporated a certain amount of masculinity. The emperor’s daughter chooses a burning lens for her killing, and this lens is directed toward an object. Functionally speaking, a lens prolongs the vision and vision has a phallic nature since it penetrates a space in order to reach its object. The emperor’s daughter dressed like a man with a phallic lens stands in opposition to an immature, irresponsible king climbing a mast in order to impress his crew and queen. Both males are engaged in boasting. Now, a mast is rather phallic, and when the emperor’s daughter waits to wipe him off the mast until he has reached the top, an imagery of terror is created. This imagery of terror consists of one person, who ought to have been a role model, at the peak of a masculine symbol. This imagery points to the future where a country will be governed by an irresponsible, frivolous, and power seeking man. Any listener/reader who knows the Hebrew Bible will know that a bad king attracts misgivings and infertility to his country.191 The emperor’s daughter is, despite her change of gender, still connected to the positive descriptions that linked her to Shekhinah—descriptions where she was a potential channel for the shefa and God’s will. Nothing in this literary universe prevents

191

Cf. Deut. 28.53ff; Lament. 2.11, 2.20, 4.9, 5.10; Ex. 10; Hosea 2; 1. Reg. 17.

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the emperor’s daughter as a man to serve a higher power and to punish the immature bald king for not acknowledging his responsibility as the future protector of his people. To prevent the people from suffering the bald king must be killed. It is a patriarchal system in opposition to another patriarchal system, which may explain why this episode is dominated by phallic symbols. That the bald king is sent into the sea may be a hint to the idea that he is sent back to where he belongs, cf. water as the residence of evil.192 The scene following the fall of the bald frivolous king denitely has some comic features,193 which reminds me of Bakhtin’s notion on how the seriocomical destroys any hierarchical distance, thus clearing the ground for a free investigation of whatever is portrayed.194 The comic scene in Nahman’s tale mostly depicts how the ministers of the late bald king are afraid to face the bald king’s father, and how they cowardly decide to kill this old king in order to pave the way for “the wise doctor”. It also describes how the queen fears for the reaction of the inhabitants in her home country before the ministers nally succeed in arranging for the marriage between her and the emperor’s daughter (dressed in male clothes). Finally, the marriage could be described as a homosexual bigamist marriage, probably comical to Nahman’s contemporary listener/reader. After having laughed at such comical portrayals, Nahman’s listener/reader may recognize the fear and cowardice that hinder him/her in being and acting in an honest way—a behavior needed in order to engage in the process of tikkun. The self-critical transference of guilt from the queen and the ministers onto the listener/reader could be part of Nahman’s didactical strategy to encourage him/her to self-scrutiny. Yet, on the narrative level the comic scene enables the emperor’s daughter to control the cause of events based on her newly gained position as king. The empty brain of the bald king, once his brain has been burned and torn open, could, as Kook suggests, be Nahman’s description of how wisdom without faith is nothing but emptiness.195

192

Cf. Sefer haZohar II,105b; III,197a. Green notes that the plot has “a certain comic-opera quality about it”; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 353. 194 Cf. Bakhtin 1981 (1975): 23. 195 Cf. : 301. 193

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11: —16: -, 11: —1: - “The king”, (who was really the emperor’s daughter who had now become king) commanded that it should be announce, in every country that whoever—whether a stranger or a visitor, a person on the run or in exile—wherever he is, should come to “his” wedding. No one should be missing. Everyone would receive great presents. “He” commanded that fountains should be made outside every town so that whoever wanted to drink would not have to walk far to drink. There should be a fountain next to everyone. “He” then commanded that “his” image should be drawn on every fountain and that guards should be placed to guard if anyone should come, stare for too long at the image, and then frown. In that case they should arrest him. They did all this. All three of them arrived: The rst king’s son who had actually married the emperor’s daughter; the merchant’s son (who had been exiled because the emperor’s daughter had ed with his ship with merchandise); and the king who had been removed [from the throne] (because of the emperor’s daughter who had ed from him together with the eleven noble daughters. All three of them recognized her image. They stared, remembered, and became sad. (When they came to the fountains and saw her drawn image, they recognized her and stared at it for too long). [The guards] arrested them. At the time of the wedding, “the king” commanded that the prisoner be brought before “him”. The three of them arrived and she recognized them. They did not recognize her because she was dressed like a man. The emperor’s daughter responded: “You, King, you were removed [from the throne] because of the eleven noble daughters who had gone missing. Here you have the noble daughters. Return to your country and your kingdom!” “You, Merchant, you were exiled by your father because you lost the ship with merchandise. Here you have your ship with all its merchandise. And since your values have lingered for so long, you shall now nd more than twice as many riches in your ship than there was before!” “And you, King’s Son, come here! Let us go home!” Blessed be God forever! Amen and Amen!

In her position as king the emperor’s daughter is able to direct the cause of events without interference from anyone else, cf. that nobody else is granted the ability to speak in this nal passage. Surely, the guards react, but their reaction is ordered by the emperor’s daughter. Her rst move is to invite everyone in the world to her wedding. If the entire world is present, the emperor’s daughter will be able to be reunited with her actual husband who disappeared. The entire world is promised great presents. These presents are probably not to be seen as rewards for participation, rather, they could point forward to a future abundance and prosperity for the entire

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world. Another imagery of abundance from the nale is activated by the fountains. They will be placed so that nobody will have to be thirsty. Beside the thirst-quenching function of the fountains, the fountains refer, cf. the running water, to the serotic system and its oating divine energies known as shefa. The most important function of the serotic system can be said to be the canalization of God’s will and life-granting nourishment that is passed on to creation. When the divine energies are oating, they do not only quench thirst, they are decisive for life and fertility. However, fertility, as a consequence of the freely owing energies within the serotic system, is only possible when Shekhinah is united with her male serotic counterpart, be it Tif xeret according to zoharic Kabbalah or Zexir Anpin according to Lurianic Kabbalah. The necessitated union is indicated by the image of the emperor’s daughter drawn on the erected fountains. The drawn image of the emperor’s daughter is the literary image that points toward the realization of the hope that Shekhinah will re-enter the serotic system after having been forced to leave her protected position in order to restablish the relationship between herself and the lost king’s son. After being banished and according to Nahman’s description of the emperor’s daughter alias Shekhinah, Shekhinah is instrumental in correcting mankind. Her responsibility is tikkun, and without tikkun the world will never be entitled to the abundance that comes from the covenant. When Shekhinah enters the serotic system it usually conveys that the behavior of mankind allows her to receive the shefa from Tifxeret or Zexir Anpin. The fountains as literary images refer to the ideal constellation in the serotic system. Together with the content of the tale this becomes an imagery whose informative function is to proclaim that future redemption is within reach, while its narrative function is to restablish contact between her and her real husband and also with the merchant’s son and the unmarried king. She compensates for the losses of the merchant’s son and the unmarried king. They were not as evil as the robbers and the bald king. Maybe now that they have spent time in exile and thought about the reason for this exile, Shekhinah shows her merciful sides by compensating for their losses. The fact that the robbers and the bald king are not mentioned at the end of the tale must be taken as an expression of the notion that their destiny was well deserved. The late bald king’s wife and his ministers are not mentioned either. In this way, the end of the

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tale, where the emperor’s daughter is united with her true intended, becomes the punishment itself for the ministers’ cowardly behavior and willingness to commit regicide. They lose a king and have made fools of themselves once they discover the true gender of the emperor’s daughter. Nahman has not left their behavior uncommented upon. He has just let silence and irony speak. Without revealing her true female gender, the emperor’s daughter turns to her beloved and encourages him to return home together with her. Where “home” is, the listener/reader does not know. The emperor and the king may still be alive. If they are able to offer the emperor’s daughter and the king’s son a home, the attitude of these parental gures toward their children will have to have changed. The emperor’s daughter was the one who suggested to the king’s son that they escape together because of the attitude of the fathers. Now, at the end of the tale, the emperor’s daughter is the one who suggests that they go home. Nothing has been told about their fathers, which is why an understanding of the changed situation must lie in the children and their exile. A return from exile must be preceded by the return of the Jews to a law-abiding behavior according to the will of God. A major cleansing has taken place, and Israel is ready to be united with God in the covenant again. Nevertheless, “home” seems not only to refer to the covenant and to the return to a God-abiding behavior where every action reects the insight of God. If man behaves according to divine insight accessible through Torah, and if Israel has activated its potentiality as Knesset Israel, the emperor cannot object to letting the king’s son govern his empire. One could venture the interpretation that “home” is the marker in this tale of man’s return to God. “Home” is thus a marker of happiness. That the representative of Knesset Israel and Shekhinah go home together indicate their common rule for the future. Given the perfected state of the world, it is likely that this tale has described the path toward the Messianic age, where Shekhinah and Knesset Israel shall rule together. Recapitulation In the introduction the decision within the primordial Godhead to create is described. Shekhinah as well as Knesset Israel are born and predestined to the covenant. However, the people of Israel cause the most transcendent aspect of God to hesitate concerning Israel’s ability to administer God’s creation. The behavior of Israel leads to the breaking of the covenant.

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The ideal representation of Knesset Israel disappears, the people of Israel serve foreign nations as an indication of their wrongful behavior, and Shekhinah is sent in exile together with the people as an ever-standing guarantee196 to the people of Israel a possibility for returning to the covenant. The covenant can be restablished if the people annihilate their own will and replace it with a God-abiding behavior, cf. the wall of mirrors; if the people recognize the importance of God’s presence in this world; if the world turns from secularism, superciality, and irresponsibility. The eleven noble daughters—probably being the eleven tribes that together with her as a representative of the twelfth tribe form the people of Israel—have to be abducted and forced to help her. When nally they agree together with her to confront evil and to elevate the divine within evil, a return to the ideal covenant can be initiated. In this return, she has to turn to violence, lies, and evil in the different episodes in order to cleanse the world and restore the possibilities for the intended union. This message is so uniquely Nahmanic, since confrontation of evil and tikkun according to him are the necessitated means to bring about the world-to-come, in cases where the people have become deaf and blind to the will of God as described in Torah. Because of the efforts and willingness of Shekhinah to strive for the coming of the Messianic age there is hope in this tale. However, despite the implicit meaning of “home” as a marker of man’s perpetual possibility of returning to God, the portrayal of Israel and of a world far away from its ideal state makes it a rather pessimistic tale.

196

Cf. Sefer haZohar III,114a.

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Introduction The third tale198 is referred to as “The Cripple” in all English translations and commentaries. “The Cripple” or “The third tale about a cripple” is based on the title:    in the bilingual version.199 I should like to stick to the initial sentence of the tale. In the Hebrew it says:       ,   —i.e., “A tale about a wise man who before his death called upon his children”. With a similar meaning, the Yiddish text begins:       

         .. The crippled child is healed from his handicap already at the beginning of the tale, whereas the old wise man who calls upon his children delivers a message that prevails throughout the tale as the central riddle. The address of the old man even transcends the tale and becomes a universal message for any listener/reader who feels addressed by the old man’s call. I therefore prefer the title: “The wise man who called upon his children”. From a religious perspective, God has power over the entire universe. At the beginning of the Book of Isaiah, God addresses the universe: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken, I have reared and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not consider” (Is. 1.2–3). The heavens and the earth listen and become witnesses in what is about to become a major trial, where God blames Israel for not recognizing its dependency of the father, the master, the one who feeds the people—which, however, even animals do. The third tale of R. Nahman does not bear any special resemblance to the opening scene in the Book of Isaiah except for one: the incorporation of the universe. It is the universe that constitutes the

197

I am indebted to Prof. Kirsten Nielsen for having discussed the details of this tale with me. 198 Tale #3 was told between 1806 and 1807. Nathan Sternhartz, who recorded the tale, did not hear this tale directly from Nahman. Nathan Sternhartz probably heard it from Naftali, another close disciple of Nahman; cf. Band 1978: 44. 199 Cf. Band 1978: 79; Kaplan 1983: 82; Wiskind-Elper: 47.

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scenery, and the four basic elements of this universe—earth, water, air, and re—will be crucial for the listener’s/reader’s understanding of the shifts of scenery adding to the complexity of this third tale. While Is. 1 constitutes a more or less accidental parallel, Psalm 1 functions as the active intertext for the third tale:200 Happy is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scorners. But whose delight is in the Torah of the Lord; and in his Torah he meditates day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season; its leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. The wicked are not so; but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgement, nor the sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous: but the way of the wicked shall perish. (Ps. 1)

A fundamental dichotomy between the student of Torah and the wicked is presented in Ps. 1. The student of Torah follows God’s advice, as it is present in Torah, whereas the wicked invents his own counsel, sins, and scorns. The student of Torah is likened to a tree, whereas the wicked is likened to the chaff, which the wind carries away. The wicked is not founded in the ground as a tree; the wicked is rootless. The student of Torah/the tree is planted by the rivers of water and draws its sustenance from the water, with the result that it bears everlasting signs of life and fertility, cf. the leafs and fruit. The wicked, on the other hand, is rootless and shall perish when he falls victim to the wind; cf. the way of the angry God is in the wind.201 For humans there are two ways—the way of the righteous and the way of the sinners. These two ways run within the universe, and the third tale relates what happens to those who walk, whether they choose one or the other, and how the four elements of the universe host the response of God. The third tale is lled with markers pointing to Ps. 1 and with several shifts of scenery. Intratexts and other intertexts beside Ps. 1

200 Nathan Sternhartz already mentioned the importance of Ps. 1 at the end of the tale; cf. p. . 201 Cf. Nachum 1,3.

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are constantly being transposed into the tale and contribute to a very important dialogue. Chronological caps and parallel characters create a disorder. It is indeed substantiated when Band, Kaplan and WiskindElper emphasize that this is a complex tale, and I shall be the rst to agree with them.202 However, by distinguishing between imagery referring to the elements of the universe and imagery referring to Ps. 1. the gurative language gives away some important clues as to its meaning. Summary The tale opens with a dying father, a wise man, who calls upon his children. He grants the members of his family the right to support themselves, though this right depends on the premise that they engage in watering trees. After this statement the wise man dies. Among his children there is a son who cannot walk. After his father’s death the son decides to engage in commerce to support himself. In a wagon he travels through a forest, inside which robbers attack him. After the attack he is left alone. When he runs out of food, he is forced to eat grass. Eventually he comes across a special straw of grass that has a diamond attached to its roots. The diamond is a magical one that carries him to a place where he overhears a conversation between the sun and the moon. The sun is worried about a tree whose ability to grant fertility, livelihood, and cures for illnesses depends on it being watered. The sun does water it, but its rays dry out the tree. The moon has private worries. Demons with strengthless cock’s feet in an area of two thousand mountains have stolen the strength in the feet of the moon. The sun informs the moon about a road upon which dust lies, which can cure its feet. The son, who cannot walk, is in need of a cure for his feet as well, so he seizes the diamond, which carries him to the dust road, and he is immediately cured. There is dust on the other roads in this place with other qualities, and with this dust he retaliates the misdeeds of the robbers. After this the son goes to the two thousand mountains where demons reign. Among the subjects of the local demon king are those who joke about the misfortune of others. But the demon king also responds to 202

Cf. Band 1978: 81; Kaplan 1983: 82n; Wiskind-Elper: 133.

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the sorrow of two demon parents, whose son has disappeared. The demon king commands a search for the demon son. A friend of the lost demon son is brought before the demon king. The friend relates how he and the lost demon son had taken away strength from an island king and given it to someone in need of strength who had been turned into a cloud, and how one of the sorcerers, whom the island king had engaged in order to regain his strength, had caught the demon son. The demon king of the two thousand mountains then sends out a messenger to nd the cloud. The son, who could not walk, follows the messenger of the demon king, who nds the cloud covering a town. The messenger asks the cloud why he has been turned into a cloud, and as an answer to the question the cloud tells a tale about a wise man and his family. The wise man is opposed to the rule of a secular emperor. The wise man is worried that his secularism should inuence his family, which is why he and his family seclude themselves in a desert to remain with the faith in God. The desert lies close to the area of the two thousand mountains. The wise man draws a magical circle around his family and him. Demon kings live nearby. Their joy depends on the vicious jokes about the misfortune of others. When these kings reach their highest state of joy they go to see if they can uproot a tree, whose lack of existence would benet all demons. The rst and the second demon king do not succeed in uprooting the tree. The tree begins screaming whenever a demon king approaches it. Upon retreat, the second demon king sees the old man and his family and decides to hurt them. However, the magical circle drawn around the family prevents some messengers of the demon king from approaching the family. The second demon king then asks the old man for permission to enter the circle. The old man lets him in, and they begin to argue about the right to this place in the desert. The demon king grows huge until he reaches the sky and threatens to swallow the old man. However, the old man removes himself from the demon king and prays for a while, after which thunder and lightning erupt. The lightning kills all the ministers of the demon king. The demon king survives. The thunder made the demon king respect the old man, and as a reward he gives the old man a book containing all the demon names. Furthermore, the demon king promises that the old man, his family, and family members to come shall remain protected from any of his attempts to ever hurt them again. When the old man is about to die he calls upon his children. He passes on the book to his

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grandson; however, he emphasizes that this book should never be used, not even in holiness. Instead they should have faith in God. Some talkers, who live among the demons, provoke strife and wars among kings, which lead to earthquakes and a collapse around the excavation, which prevents water from reaching the tree, which—if it were watered—would cause the death of all demons. The talkers try to tempt the grandson to use the book. The son is confused about the temptation, and therefore he visits the grave of his grandfather, who tells him not to be tempted; and so the grandson refrains from using it. A third demon king reigns in the country of the old wise man’s grandson. This third king falls ill. No medicine can cure the third demon king because the heat has increased in his country. The third demon king decrees that Israel shall pray for him. Probably a fourth demon king says that something beneciary should be done for the grandson, maybe to convince him to use his grandfather’s book in holiness so that the third demon king could be cured. The fourth demon king also commands the one, who is later turned into a cloud, to become a cloud and to cover the town of the third demon king whose medicine does not work because of the increased heat. This is the end of the cloud’s tale. The messenger brings back the cloud before the demon king of the two thousand mountains, who commands the cloud to return its strength to its original owner, the island king, upon which the island king is cured. Meanwhile, the sorcerer had tortured the lost demon son to get information about what happened to the strength of the island king. When the island king is given back his strength from the cloud, the demon son is released and returns to his family. The demon son is furious at the sorcerer and commands his family and children to remain enemies with this sorcerer. The previously lost demon son and his family make a plot against the talkers. The demon king of the two thousand mountains is unwittingly enrolled in the plot and ends up killing some of the talkers. The surviving talkers become furious and provoke strife and wars, which lead to earthquakes and the nal collapse of the earth. The excavations around the tree collapse, the tree is watered, and all demons are extinguished. Scholarly comments on the tale According to Band, the tale focuses on physical cure, cf. the crippled legs of the protagonist, and on spiritual cure, cf. the movement of the former

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cripple toward insight, which secures the understanding of the riddle: “You must always water trees”. The entire tale becomes “a description of spiritual growth, . . . [which] involves power gained through religious knowledge.” The tree, which has to be watered, is the source of sanctity, which has to be preserved—otherwise, as Band writes: “the world disintegrates into a zoo of demons”. The power of this source of sanctity can be restored through the act of the individual or by “an internal cataclysm within the world of demons” (Band 1978: 81). The tales’ “seemingly disparate episodes are controlled by the central theme . . . The development of the hero from dependence to independence and from innocence to profound knowledge” (Band 1978: 293). The protagonist realizes that the celestial bodies, the sun and the moon, are unable to alter the situation. Instead he sees that the watering of the tree is taken to mean “the [human] pursuit of the religious life with all its cosmic implications, leading to the messianic age and the concurrent annihilation of the demons.” As an observer the protagonist witnesses how the religious faith and wisdom of an old human man can protect a family against the demons.203 The spiritual message about watering trees is conveyed through the narrative progression. The perfect faith of the believer or the disruption of the demonic existence is tantamount to the age of redemption. Since we can assume that the hero has assimilated this message by the end of the story, he can, in effect, disappear from the vision of the reader . . . At rst the hero is the main dramatic gure; then he becomes the curious observer; then he simply disappears—or is replaced by the reader.204

Wiskind-Elper presents Ps. 1 as the key to the third tale and sees Ps. 1 animated by the protagonist who cannot walk, stand, or sit in different stages of the tale.205 According to her, the theme of the third tale relates to the lurianic paradigm of exile and redemption, which provides a skeletal frame on which the tissue of the tales is woven.206 The primordial paradigm of exile and redemption is linked to the hero’s crossing and recrossing of a certain threshold. A diamond “transports the hero from the largely reasonable framework in which the story opens to a surreal land of demons and cloud kings” where “he remains

203 204 205 206

Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf.

Band 1978: 294–295. Band 1978: 295. Wiskind-Elper: 206. Wiskind-Elper: 47–48.

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an outsider, . . . inactive in the weird drama that unfolds before him.” Wiskind-Elper then points to the two planes of reality in between which threshold sites of pilgrimage, rites, and mystical experiences can be found.207 Kaplan provides an understanding of the tale in his footnotes. I shall comment on them when relevant. Analysis 10: —1: -, 6: —1: - A wise man called upon his children and his family before his death and commanded them to water trees. “You are allowed to engage in different ways of supporting yourselves as long as you always engage in watering trees.” Upon this the wise man passed away. He left behind his children, and among them there was a son who was unable to walk. He could stand but not walk. His brothers provided him with support for his livelihood, and they gave him so much that something remained. Bit by bit this son gathered a considerable amount from what remained from this support and so he said to himself: “Why should I receive support from them. It is better to begin to engage in commerce.” As he could not walk, he decided to hire a wagon, a faithful servant, and a wagon driver. He traveled with them to Leipzig. In this way he could engage in commerce even though he could not walk. When the members of his family heard of this, it pleased them very much and they said: “Why should it be up to us to provide him with support. It is better that he has his own livelihood?” They gave him some extra money for him to conduct his commerce. He did so and hired a wagon, a faithful servant, and a wagon driver and began to travel.

When people are about to die, they exist in a kind of liminal zone between life and death, and if thought about by people who believe in the existence of a hereafter in closeness to God, they may claim that the dying ones can draw upon an insight into the divine realm and pass it on to the living.208 This may be the case in the opening scene 207

Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 132–133. Cf. Sefer haZohar I,218a which describes that just by being close to R. Simeon bar Yohai on his deathbed, R. Isac is able to vision his own life in the hereafter. In Gittin 13a it says: “And if he was on his death bed, why must the money be put on the side? Even if it has not been put on the side, it is to be given, because the instruction of a man on his death bed has the same force as a written document formally handed over!” 208

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of Nahman’s third tale. The command of the wise man is sufciently cryptic to frame his words in a supernatural light. The command itself contradicts common sense. Why should this old wise man decide if the members of his family should be allowed to support themselves? The command to water trees is repeated in the direct speech and thereby forms the end of an inclusion with the effect, that the permission to support themselves is doomed in both ends by the premise to water trees. There is something strange here. In the following, the family of the son, who cannot walk, is pleased to see this son’s willingness to support himself by engaging in commerce.209 One’s life depends on one’s ability to support oneself or on the support from others. Yet, watering trees is more important. The reason for this importance probably lies in the meaning of tree. A tree has several connotations in Jewish tradition, and especially in Jewish mysticism, because of the tree of life—even if, as in this case, trees appear as   in the Hebrew version and not as  as in   . The listener/reader has no clue of the context to come and is left with the gurative potential of this word. If it is the tree of life alias the serotic system, the watering would mean that every member of the wise man’s family is made responsible for living a life in accordance with the will of God. If they do so, the shefa, the divine uids within the serotic system, will ow to the benet of mankind and this world.210 The alternative would be that a life in ignorance of God would strengthen the aspect of Din, the serah of judgment, and thereby prevent the shefa from owing.211 The reason for the importance of watering trees could also lie, as Nathan and modern commentators suggest, in Ps. 1.212 In Ps. 1 the student of Torah draws his sustenance, his livelihood, from studying Torah; from walking on the way of the righteous; from following God’s advice on how to live one’s life. The student of Torah is likened to a tree, and the Torah is likened to the water giving sustenance to the tree. By studying Torah, life is transformed to a self-sustaining organism. In

209 In some of Nahman’s other tales, e.g., tale #2, the secular merchant’s son is described in a positive way when he decides to make an effort to support himself. It is only his secularism that constitutes a problem. 210 Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar I,151b–152a. 211 Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar II,242b–244b. 212 For Nathan Sternhartz’s reference to Ps. 1; cf. p. . Cf. Kaplan 1983: 103–104; Wiskind-Elper: 206.

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Ps. 1 it indirectly says that God will provide for the student of Torah, which transposes signicance to the dying father emphasizing the strange command of watering trees prior to any striving of supporting oneself. Within this intertextuality, the dying father is entitled to be considered a tree. He has drawn his sustenance from the words of God, and according to Ps. 1 he has neither walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor has he stood in the way of sinners, nor has he sat in the seat of the scorners. The listener/reader knows that the son of the dying father cannot walk. What appears to be a handicap is through Ps. 1 transformed into a glimpse of hope, since it could mean that the son, who cannot walk, cannot walk in the counsel of the wicked. Still, he can stand and sit, and, therefore, the question with relevance for the development of this tale is if this son can refrain from standing in the way of the sinners or from sitting in the seat of the scorners. The son, who cannot walk, has been supported by his brothers. He has been able to save some money and receives some additional money, which the family collects in approval of his willingness to support himself. He uses it to invest in a wagon, a wagon driver, and a faithful servant. These three make the son mobile. The mobility stands in opposition to his inability to walk. The inability to walk was seen as something positive because it hindered him in following the counsel of the wicked. The question is if this newly gained mobility alters the situation or indicates some kind of development toward watering trees. The son, who cannot walk, decides to go to Leipzig. Leipzig was known as a center of Jewish commercial enterprise213 but also as a center for Jewish religious reform supported by a certain Sulamith in 1806214 where this tale was told. Nahman could have mentioned this city to indicate an upcoming danger, since someone as religious as Nahman denitely must have perceived Reform Judaism and secularization as contradictory to a life in accordance with the will of God, as contradictory to the study of Torah, and thereby as an obstacle for watering trees. In other words, the historical context transposes signicance onto the tale as does Ps. 1. since the goal of watering trees has become endangered, now that he is traveling on the road to a secular city—i.e., “the way of the sinners”, cf. Ps. 1.1.

213 214

Cf. Cohn-Sherbok 1996 (1994): 116. Cf. Cohn-Sherbok 1996 (1994): 154.

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10: —10: -, 6: —6: - The son, who could not walk, came to an inn, and so the faithful servant said that they should stay there for the night, but the son, who could not walk, did not want to. They pleaded, but he was stubborn and so they traveled away from there. They lost their way in the forest and robbers attacked them. These robbers derived from a time when there was a famine. One man had come into a town and proclaimed that whoever wanted to eat should come to him. A few people had gathered around him. With cunning he did like this: He refused whomever he did not need. To another he said: “You can be a craftsman!” To another he said: “You can be inside a mill!” He then chose a few wise men and went with them into the forest, where he revealed to them that they were about to become robbers. Those who walked along the roads there, to Leipzig, to Breslau and to other places, they would be merchants on their way, and they would be robbed and ripped of their money.

The premonition of an upcoming danger was correct. The son, who cannot walk, ignores the pleas of the wagon driver and the faithful servant to stay at an inn for the night. They are all attacked by robbers inside a forest. The shrewd leader of the robbers has instructed his subjects to rob the merchants who travel on the roads in the forest to Leipzig, Breslau, and other places. I have commented upon Leipzig. Breslau has hosted a Sabbatean center215 and formed at the time of Nahman a center for Reform Judaism,216 two evils in the eyes of Nahman. According to Liebes, Nahman considered Sabbatai Sevi the reason for the #xal Shem Tov’s failure as a Zaddik haDor to bring about redemption.217 In other words, the attack of the robbers could be seen in a positive light in that they prevented the son, who cannot walk, from going to the centers of evil. Thus, divine interference may have manifested itself in the wrongdoings of the robbers, subsequently transforming them to tools of God. It prevents the son from going on “the way of the sinners”; i.e., the road leading to the secular cities. 6: —10: -, 5: —7: - The robbers attacked the son, who could not walk, his faithful servant, and the wagon driver. The faithful servant and the wagon driver were able to ee and so they ed, but the son stayed on the wagon. They came

215 216 217

Cf. Cohn-Sherbok 1996 (1994): 109. Cf. Cohn-Sherbok 1996 (1994): 145. Cf. Liebes 1993: 130–131.

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chapter four up to him, took his chest with money and asked him: “Why do you sit down?” He replied that he could not walk. They stole his chest and his horses, but he stayed on the wagon. The faithful servant and the wagon driver, who had ed, said to themselves that now that they had taken loans from the landowners they had no reason to return and risk to be put in chains. It would be better for them to stay at this place to which they had ed and become a faithful servant and a wagon driver there. As long as the son, who could not walk, had the food on the wagon, the dry bread, which he had brought from home, he ate that. When he ran out of food and had nothing to eat, he considered what to do. He threw himself down from the wagon so that he could eat the grass. He spent the night alone on the eld in fear. His strength was taken away from him so that he could not even stand. He could only crawl. He ate the grass around him as long as he could reach out for the grass. When there was no more grass there for which to reach out, he crawled on to eat grass at a new spot for a while.

The so-called faithful servant and the wagon driver ee from the scene when the robbers attack.218 They represent a part of the son’s newly gained mobility, and if this mobility indicates a development toward watering trees, the development is once more endangered. From the servant and driver’s decision not to return, the listener/reader is provided with a hint at difcult sociohistorical conditions. The secular trends in the major cities, the famine, and poverty, forcing people to take loans and preventing them from paying them back, testify to a world in need of the prosperity promised through the connotations of the tree if only it were water. The robbers wonder why the son, who cannot walk, remains seated during the attack. However, his answer does not stop them from robbing him. The fact that the son is seated while he engages in a brief dialogue with the robbers activates Ps. 1. cf. “sits in the seat of the scorners”, and could indicate that the son could be tempted to become

218 Kaplan writes that the faithful servant represents the intellect, whereas the driver represents the animal soul. Kaplan’s understanding must be based on an automatic allegorical tradition for interpreting these characters because nothing in the surrounding text supports this understanding. He also writes: “When a person is born, he loses the intellect that he had as a soul. He also does not have the power to travel through universes” (Kaplan 1983: 84n–85n). I agree with Kaplan that the son, who cannot walk, is limited in his ability to move after the escape of the servant and the driver. However, the following will show that this son actually gains an understanding of the world and an ability to travel through universes.

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like them. However, his handicap, which is what makes this son unique and a possible hero, makes the robbers lose interest in him. Thus, a danger is warded off. But another danger arises, when he loses the remaining part of his mobility. Beside his money, he loses his horses, which could have enabled him to move on. The development seen in the literal ability to move, which then connotes the gurative act of watering trees, is once more threatened. Eventually, he has to eat grass in order to survive, to support himself—or rather to support his physical organism. But another reason could explain why he has to eat grass. In the Book of Daniel, king Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, in which he saw: a tree in the midst of the earth, and its height was great. The tree grew, and was strong, and its height reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of all the earth; its leaves were pretty, and its fruits abundant, and in it was food for all; the beasts of the eld had shadow under it, and the birds of the sky dwelt in its boughs, and all esh was fed from it (Dan. 4.7–9).

But someone comes and hews down the tree, leaving only the stump of his roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, in the tender grass of the eld; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let its portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth . . . [L]et seven seasons pass over him. This matter is . . . to the intent that the living may know that the most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whom he will, and sets up over it the lowliest of men.” (Dan. 7.11–14).

Daniel is called upon to interpret the dream and explains to king Nebuchadnezzar that the great tree represents the king and his dominion over the world.219 The tree hewn down and the following period of seven seasons signify that Nebuchadnezzar shall be driven from his kingdom and live among wild animals where he will be forced to eat grass until he realizes that God is the true ruler, after which the kingdom shall be returned to him.220 The Torah student of Ps. 1 and the wise one of Nahman’s tale have already realized this, which is why they are likened to trees. The mighty tree in Dan. 4, however, is said to represent the earthly king who needs humiliation in order to understand that the true king is God. The humiliation helps the king

219 220

Cf. Dan. 4.17–19. Cf. Dan. 4.22–23.

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realize that a king, perceived as a tree, has to be someone who has faith in God just like the Torah student and the wise one already have. The development from ignorance to true understanding221 of who is in power goes through humiliation. In Nahman’s tale, the son, who cannot walk, loses his strength so that he can no longer stand, after which he is forced to crawl on the ground, on the earth (a universal element), and eat grass like an animal, or like the lowliest of lowly. Through the connotation to Dan. 4 the listener/reader will await to hear how God will set up the lowliest of men over God’s kingdom. This could be a Messianic aspect or at least a reference to the Lurianic thought of “descent before ascent”. The insight into the true power relations of the universe may have come to the son through three steps. First, he could not walk—which, with reference to Ps. 1.1, meant that he was hindered in walking in the counsel of the wicked. Second, he cannot, cf. Ps. 1.1, stand “in the way of the sinners”—i.e., he is unable to sin. Finally, by eating grass, the lowly position prevents him from sitting in the seat of the scorners, cf. Ps. 1.1, and helps him gain insight into the true power relations in the universe. All three steps make the son an obvious candidate to be elevated and thereby to perform ascent through descent. Some passages from Likkutey MoHaRaN may also transpose signicance onto the act of eating grass. The difculties that a person encounters when traveling are caused by the celestial bands. For there is nothing below that does not have a corresponding star above. There are stars that cause certain grasses to grow in those places on which they shine (Likkutey MoHaRaN #31.4).222

A correlation exists between the constellation of the stars and the difculties which meet the traveller on his way. Furthermore, a correlation between the stars and the different kinds of grass exists. The homily continues: And, just as here [on earth] grasses grow between the roads, so too there are stars that parallel each and every grass, from whose strength the grasses grow . . . Now, occasionally, when a person encounters some adversity or misfortune on the road, it is because paralleling that place there is interference to the star, preventing it from shining fully. The

221 222

Cf. Band 1978: 293 where Band sees a similar development taking places. Cf. as well Genesis Rabbah 10.6; Sefer haZohar II,171d.

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solution, therefore, is to give charity before setting out on the journey, as is written, ‘Charity will go before him, and set his footsteps on the way’ . . . Therefore, as a result of the charity he gives, he will illuminate the interference he has on the road which stems from the interference in the galgalim223 and the stars (Likkutey MoHaRaN #31.17).

The son may have interfered in the plans of a star to shine fully. But worse than that, the listener/reader has not heard of the son giving charity to anyone, not to mention the fact that he has not even watered trees. Maybe the son has not even studied Torah. This interpretation could nd support in Likkutey MoHaRaN #57.1, where it says: “We see, then, that all healing is dependent upon the Torah . . . This is because the Torah gives strength to the angels, and the angels transmit [it] to the grasses, so that the grasses heal through the power of the Torah.” The son, who cannot walk, is indirectly healed thanks to the grass he is eating (see below), but it is not thanks to his own engagement in Torah or in watering trees. But maybe the humiliation that lies in eating grass, as indicated in Daniel 4, could represent a kind of chastizement that makes the son realize the necessity of studying Torah along with an understanding of God as the true ruler of the universe. In other words, the star is in need of the son’s religious illumination in order to shine fully.224 9: —6: -, 4: —5: - Once he came to a certain straw of grass that he had never eaten before and which looked very becoming. He had been eating grass for a very long time and had come to know about grass, but he had never seen a straw of grass like this. He decided to tear it up by the roots. Under the roots there was a diamond. The diamond had four sides, and each side had a different potential. On one side it was written that whoever seized this side would be carried to the place where day and night come together. When he tore up the grass by the roots under which the diamond was, he happened to seize this side whose potential would carry him to the place where day and night come together—that is, the place where the

223 When it comes to astrology, galgalim is usually translated: “the signs of the Zodiac”. For further information on astrology in Jewish thought; cf. Moshe Idel: “The Zodiac in Jewish Thought”; Fishof (ed.): Written in the Stars—Art and Symbolism of the Zodiac, the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2001. 224 Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #31.17 and Sefer haZohar II,17b. In the latter potential intertext it says that the tree of life is Torah and that God will punish the students of Torah so that they are not separated from the tree of life.

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chapter four sun and the moon come together. He looked around and saw that he was already there where day and night—that is, where the sun and the moon—come together.

This passage focuses on a special straw of grass that the son, who cannot walk, nds in his pursuit for food. Earlier on, I wrote that the student of Torah is likened to a tree, and that the Torah is likened to the water giving sustenance to the tree. By studying Torah, human life is transformed to a self-sustaining organism. In Ps. 1 it indirectly says that God will provide for the student of Torah, which parallels to a certain extent the dying father’s premise in Nahman’s tale, where the father gives absolute priority to the strange command of watering trees. It is a parallel because the study of Torah/the watering of trees will secure God’s concern for the student/the gardener and thereby provide him with sustenance. The special straw of grass, which the son nds in the ground, in the earth (a universal element), in his pursuit for food, could be seen as one of God’s ways of sustaining the faithful—indicating that the son, from now on, should be considered a son of faith. Another connotation, given the potential intertexts of the previous passage, is that every straw of grass has its corresponding star. The relevant question here to ask is what correspondent star could effect this straw of grass and its attached diamond. The listener/reader is informed that the diamond comes to function as a transportation device that takes the son upward on a vertical scale to the place where the sun and the moon come together—i.e., in the sky, cf. air (a universal element). The question is if the midrashic/Kabbalistic tradition of free association225 can juxtapose stars with the sun and the moon and thereby place this special straw in a correlation with either the sun or the moon. At least, the idea of a connecting line is supported by the vertical route of the diamond, which takes him to the sun and the moon and not to some random star. The sun and the moon are heavily connoted names in Jewish mysticism, since the sun is another name for Tif xeret and the moon is another name for Shekhinah. The passages in Likkutey MoHaRaN also mentioned Torah. Shekhinah and Torah are interconnected, since they both represent the entrance to the serotic system, which again is known as the tree of life. If the son is taken to the entrance of the

225 For the important role of associative reading in Nahman’s homilies; cf. Magid 2002: 43–49.

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serotic system, it could function as further support for the son being considered a son of faith, since faith is a prerequisite for entering this system and since faith is what causes the tree to be watered or the shefa to ow within the serotic system. This could indicate that the sun and the moon are in need of the son’s presence for them to “shine fully”. Maybe it is their need that can explain why the diamond, being under a straw of grass that probably has its corresponding star in the moon or sun, functions as a tool for the luminaries and brings him upward on the vertical scale to this place. 11:—9: -, 9:—4: - He heard how the sun and the moon were talking together. The sun was moaning to the moon: “There is a tree that has many branches. Its fruit, its leaves—every single branch, every single fruit, and every single leaf—has a special potential. One has a certain potential for children, another a certain potential for livelihood, one a certain potential for curing an illness, and one for curing another illness. Every one of them has a potential for a different thing. Now this tree is in need of being watered. If this tree were watered, it would have been very potent. I do water it, but when I shine on it, I dry it out.” The moon replied and said: “You worry about the worries of others! I shall tell you about my worry. I have a thousand mountains, and around these thousand mountains are another thousand mountains, where the place of the demons is. These demons have cocks’ feet and they have no strength in these feet. They take strength from my feet, which is why I have no strength in my feet. I do have a certain kind of dust that is a cure for my feet, but the wind comes and carries it away.” The sun shouted: “So this is what you worry about! I shall give you a cure: There is a road, and this road is divided into many roads. There is one road for the zaddikim. For the zaddik dust is spread from this road under every step he takes, so that he steps on this dust. There is a road for the secular people. For the secular person dust is spread from this road under every step he takes. There is a road for the crazy ones. For the crazy one dust is spread. There are many roads. There is one road for those zaddikim who take suffering upon themselves and who are put in chains by the landowners. They have no strength in their feet. Under them dust is spread from this road, so that they regain strength in their feet. Therefore, go to this road where there is plenty of dust and you will nd a cure for your feet.” These were the words of the sun to the moon.

In this passage the listener/reader is rst of all reminded about the dying father’s command to water the tree, but the son, who cannot walk, is furthermore given an explanation as to the reason why the

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tree, mentioned by the sun, is so important. It is important because it grants fertility and healing. The tree provides healing in every respect. This tree can cure childlessness, lack of support for the sustenance of life, and all sorts of illnesses, if only it is watered. The healing aspects of this tree correspond to the characteristics of the tree in Ps. 1 and to the abilities of the tree of life, the serotic system, when the shefa, the divine inux, runs through the internal paths and transmits the divine sustenance to mankind.226 The sun, though it does try, cannot water it, since its rays dry out the roots. The sun consists of re (a universal element), which is why it alone cannot water the tree, since water (another universal element) will vaporize. Fire and water are incompatible counterparts. If the sun should be able to water the tree, it would need the presence of the two other elements—i.e., earth to contain the water and air to lessen the intensity of the rays and prevent an immediate vaporization. The son, who cannot walk, has on the gurative level incorporated these two elements by making the vertical journey from the earth, where he ate the grass, to the air/sky. His presence could indicate an upcoming solution to the sun’s problem. Another aspect of this imagery, where the sun is in need of help from someone else, is that it parallels a fundamental situation in the serotic system. Tifxeret cannot directly help the people of Israel when it is in need of guidance; instead Shekhinah is expelled from the system to follow the people of Israel as the guiding mother gure.227 In this tale the moon, another name for Shekhinah, is not willing to pay attention to the problems of the sun. It is as if it knows that the solution of its problem must be focused on before the problem of the sun can be solved, and its problem is the same as that of the son, who cannot walk. They have both lost the strength in their feet. So far, the son was prevented from walking in the counsel of the wicked, he was unable to walk in the way of the sinners, he became a son of faith through humiliation and consequently steered clear of the seat of the scorners. He could be seen as a representative for the ideal Israel. The ideal community of Israel is known as Knesset Israel. In the serotic system, the condition of Israel is reected in the appearance of Shekhinah. When the ideal has been realized, Shekhinah stays in the serotic system in

226 227

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,18b–19a, 35b; II,2a; III,87a. Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar I,120b, 134a, 159b, 211a.

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close union with Tif xeret. But when the people sin or when they are suffering, she suffers. She is the image of the people’s condition. The son cannot walk and neither can the moon. They have both lost the strength in their feet. This is probably why the son can use the piece of advice about where to go, given by the sun to the moon as a solution. If the son goes to this place and is healed from his handicap, the moon will automatically be healed as well because Knesset Israel is incarnated in the still-crippled son, and a change in him will lead to a change in her. In other words, the son, who cannot walk, is the only one who can alter the situation. In Dan. 4 the king was forced to understand that God is the true ruler of the universe. Through a transposition of signicance from Dan. 4 to the scene where the crippled son was forced to eat grass, the son came to a similar understanding. The moon in this passage is presented as the ruler of an area of two thousand mountains in which demons live. This may seem strange, however; Shekhinah’s maid and at times alter ego is Lilith, who brings up and kills an endless number of demon spirits every day.228 In such situations, Lilith does not recognize Shekhinah as her true ruler/God as ruler. When people sin, the maid conquers the domains of Shekhinah, for which the earth quakes.229 This power struggle with the subsequent victory of Lilith could be the intertextual cause for the sufferings of the moon, where the demons, with strengthless cocks’ feet, steal the strength in the feet of the moon, not recognizing the power of the moon. The dust, which she usually uses to cope with in such a situation, is blown away by the wind. Tif xeret, however, suggests a cure. He knows about a road which divides into many roads. Each road has a special kind of dust. At this point in the tale the listener/reader does not hear what happens on the roads for the zaddikim, for the secular people,230 or for the crazy ones. But on 228

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,34b; III,19a, 76b–77a. Cf. Sefer haZohar I,122a, 131b. 230 Secular is my rendering of , which is the term applied in both the Hebrew and the Yiddish version, p. . Kaplan translates  great atheist; cf. Kaplan 1983: 89n, whereas Band translates it heretic; cf. Band 1978: 85. An atheist does not believe, while the heretic believes in the wrong way. Nahman uses the word [epikurs], which refers to Epicurius, the Greek philosopher (341–271 BCE), who believed that the gods lived remote from and without interest in the humans, which he saw as the reason for man to nd his own criteria for living his life. Since Nahman is arguing against those who do not recognize their dependency on God and who therefore use the limited human ability to perceive to construct secular criteria for ways of living, and since Nahman differentiates between —i.e., heretic—and , I shall render  “secular” in my translation of the tales. 229

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the road for the zaddikim—who take suffering upon themselves and who have lost their strength in their feet because the landowners have put them in chains—the zaddikim regain their strength. This is where the moon ought to go, because the zaddikim who take suffering upon themselves mirror Shekhinah, who is known as exactly the aforementioned mother gure who takes the suffering of her children, Israel, upon herself.231 This is why the dust on this particular road should be able to cure her feet. But it is a vicious circle. The moon cannot go to the place in which she could nd a cure, which is why she needs the son, who cannot walk. 3:—11:-, 1:—10:- The son who had no strength in his feet overheard everything. He cast a glance at the diamond and looked at another side where it was written that whoever seized this side would be carried to the road that divides into many roads. He seized this side and was carried to this place. As soon as he set his feet on this road, where the dust provided a cure for the feet, he was cured. He went and took some dust from all of the roads and tied the different kinds of dust into bundles. He tied the dust from the road of the zaddikim in a separate bundle. He tied the dust from the other roads into separate bundles. He then decided to walk back to the forest where he had been robbed. When he arrived he chose for himself a tall tree that was close to the road from which the robbers went out to rob. He took the dust from the zaddikim and the dust from the crazy ones; he mixed it together and spread it on the road. He ascended the tree and sat down to see what would happen to them.

This is the second and last time that the four-sided diamond is mentioned. The magical diamond takes the son, who cannot walk, to the road that can provide a cure for his feet and divides into many roads. The road is characterized as the road for the zaddikim who take suffering upon themselves. The fact that he is cured on this particular road helps him to be understood as a zaddik who takes the sufferings of others upon himself—which is quite a remarkable characterization, commonly used to describe a Messianic gure or someone with a Messianic potentiality. It furthermore stresses the link between him and Shekhinah/the moon. The son has denitely developed throughout the tale. First he refrains from being wicked, then from sinning; then

231

Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar I,120b, 134a, 159b, 211a.

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he goes through humiliation, understands the sovereignty of God, and shuns the seat of the scorners, and nally becomes a son of faith. He then enters the serotic system and takes the sufferings of others upon himself. He becomes a zaddik aiding the character of Shekhinah. After his feet are cured, he separates the dust from the different roads emerging from the main road into different bundles. It is worth noticing that the road for the “compassionate” zaddikim—i.e., who suffer on behalf of others—is the main road. All the other roads are minor roads mentioning different types of people—ordinary zaddikim, secular people, crazy ones. On these roads the dust has a special quality, but the listener/reader, in this passage, only explicitly hears what will happen on the main road when someone treads on it: their feet will be healed. The effect of the dust from the other roads will only be described when some of the upcoming characters tread on it. Compassionate zaddikim have the ability to heal and elevate the divine sparks trapped within the husks. Elevation of the divine sparks is called tikkun. If one returns to Ps. 1. two roads are mentioned: the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked/sinners. The righteous are already in a more or less elevated state; however, the wicked/the sinners are in need of tikkun, which could indicate that the son has to initiate a process of tikkun by spreading the dust and tempting people to tread on the way of the wicked. Ps. 1.6 says that the Lord shall make the way of the wicked perish. What may be tikkun may include destruction. In Midrash Rabbah to the Song of Songs 3.8, the dust under the feet of Jacob will point toward the success of Israel in commerce and the behavior of those who fear God. The name Jacob in Jewish mysticism is an appellation for the righteous.232 In Sefer haZohar II, 151a dust is likened to the state of the souls after they have been puried in Gehenna. In Nachum 1.3 the clouds are likened to the dust under the feet of God reecting the either punishing or merciful sides of God. With these intertexts it seems that the dust, which the son collects, point toward the future state of the characters involved in the tale, just like Ps. 1 predicts that the wicked shall perish while the faithful shall be happy. The prediction seems to depend on the righteous son performing tikkun. The son, who previously could not walk, then returns to the place in the forest where he was once robbed. He makes a mixture of the

232

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,158a, 167b, 180a, 216a; II,2b.

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dust for the zaddikim—i.e., the righteous—and for the crazy ones and spreads it on the road on which the robbers sat out. He then climbs a tree. The scenery is interesting. The listener/reader has been forced to think about the meaning of a tree in need of water. In this passage the faithful one—i.e., the kind of person who was likened to a tree in Ps. 1.3 ascends one tree within a forest consisting of hundreds of trees. In other words, a holy army of trees/people of faith is being lined up while the holy one in charge, the son, awaits the robbers to come forward. But if this is related to tikkun, the upcoming war has to be just, and so, thankfully, the dust, which seems to point forward to the state of the souls after divine purication, is spread and thereby, qua its connotation to righteousness, guarantees a just outcome. 7:—3:-, 4:—1:- He saw how the robbers, sent out by the great robber, sat out to rob. When they came to the road and when they stepped on the dust, they became zaddikim and began to cry out about their souls, about how they had previously robbed and even killed some souls. But because dust from the crazy ones was mixed into this dust, they became crazy zaddikim and began to ght each other. One said: “We have killed233 because of you!” And the other said: “We have killed because of you!” And so they continued until they had killed each other. The great robber sent another group of robbers. The same happened and they also killed each other. It went on like this, until all of them were killed. The son, who previously had no strength in his feet and who had ascended the tree, understood that nobody remained beside himself, the great robber, and another one. He descended from the tree, removed the dust from the road, upon which he spread the dust of the zaddikim alone, and went back and sat down in the tree.

The result of causing righteousness and craziness in people guilty of murder and theft is obviously death. No opportunity to repent is granted them. Murder is not forgiven. It may seem harsh according to modern standards, but not to religious ones. By killing them, the son makes sure that their souls are sent to Gehenna, where they will be puried as soon as their bodies decay in the earth, cf. one of the universal elements over which God rules and thus secures their righteous

233

It says “killed” in the Yiddish version, whereas in the Hebrew it says “robbed”.

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destiny, cf. Sefer haZohar II, 151a. Their death is a necessary step in the process of tikkun. The son, who previously could not walk, descends from the tree and changes his strategy to revenge the misdeeds of the leader among the robbers and his companion. This time he only spreads the dust, which effects righteousness, upon which he ascends the tree. The shifting ascent and descent in the tree could indicate that the son is being closer attached to the processes taking place within the serotic system. He thereby becomes a clear tool for God, just like Abraham was for God when he descended to Pharaoh only to ascent later.234 4: —7:-, 2: —5:- The robber wondered why all the robbers, who were sent out, did not return. He decided to set out with the one who still remained with him, and he came to the road where the son had spread the dust of the zaddikim alone. The robber became a zaddik and began to cry out to his companion about his soul, about how he had killed many souls and how he had robbed and desecrated graves. He returned to his faith and repented. When the son saw that the robber had returned to his faith and had repented, he descended from the tree. When the robber saw that there was a human he began to cry out: “Woe to my soul. I did this and that. Alas! Give me a penance!” The son replied: “Give me back my chest which you robbed from me!” They had made lists of the things that they had robbed, on which date, and from whom it had been robbed. The robber replied: “I shall return everything and shall even give you all the robbed treasures that are in my possession. But give me a penance!” The son said to him: “Your penance shall be that you shall go to the town and cry out and confess: I am the one who gathered from among you those I made into robbers. I killed and robbed some souls. This shall be your penance!” The robber gave him all the treasures and went with him to the town, and [the robber] did as he had been told. In this town they decided on the verdict that for the many souls he had killed he should be hanged. This should be an example for everyone to learn from.

The return to faith and the repentance of the robber make the son, who previously could not walk, descend from the tree. This movement resembles the movement of Shekhinah, who can draw near to mankind when faith and righteousness rule among her children235—which 234

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,112b. When Israel sins, Israel prevents “the descent of blessings from above, as it is written: ‘and then the Lord’s wrath be kindled against you and he shut up the heaven 235

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supports the notion that the son’s acts correspond to those of Shekhinah, even though this son restores righteousness to himself before he brings the robber to repent and stand up for trial in the town. For the misdeeds of the leader among the robbers, the inhabitants of the town nd no excuse. In accordance with Ps. 1 the wicked shall perish, and so he is hanged to set an example. If this punishment reects some kind of divine will, it would indicate that the aspect of Din, because of such fundamental misdeeds, has been strengthened. In Sanhedrin 45b–46b a list of criminals who are deserving of hanging are mentioned: those who curse God, those who denounce faith, a male idolater, and a robber. The leader is a robber. Since he returns to faith, it can be assumed that he denounced it previously. Though it is not mentioned in Sanhedrin as a crime that should be punished with death, desecration of graves in Hasidic tradition could be seen as something very serious. Later in this tale, another young man visits the grave of his God-fearing grandfather, very similar to Nahman’s visits to his own great-grandfather’s grave.236 By desecrating graves of holy men, a pipeline for communication with God is severed—which is a setback in any process of redemption and which is disastrous for humans as well as God. In other words, death by hanging could be in accordance with the will of God, and so the son, who previously could not walk, has helped to actualize it. This help, which may not be the same as studying Torah, may still be sufcient to enable the moon/Shekhinah to regain her mobility or even for him to incorporate Shekhinah, as he in the next passage walks to the area of the demons. By incorporating her, he is able to substitute for her presence and thereby enable the healing of her feet. 3:—4:-, 2:—2:- Upon this the son decided to walk to the two thousand mountains to see what happened there. When he arrived he placed himself at a distance from the two thousand mountains. He saw that there were thousands of myriad demon families. They were as multiple and as many as human

that there be no rain’ (Deut. XI, 17); . . . as the heaven keeps the blessings to itself ” (Sefer haZohar II,26b). But if Israel adheres to Torah and keeps the Sabbath (for which another name is Shekhinah) “a tabernacle of peace descends from heaven and is spread over the world. This tabernacle of peace is the Sabbath, and when it comes down, all evil spirits and demons and all the creatures which dele hide themselves . . . For when sanctity spreads over the world, the spirit of uncleanliness remains inactive, . . . Hence the world is under special protection (on the Sabbath eve)” (Sefer haZohar I,48a). 236 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 35–38.

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beings. They were very many. He saw the leader of their kingdom sitting on a throne on which no woman-borne had ever sat. He saw all those who were making jokes: One told another that he had damaged a baby, one told another that he had damaged someone’s hand, one that he had damaged someone’s foot, and other jokes like this. During this the son saw a father and a mother crying as they were walking. They were asked: “Why are you crying?” They answered that they had a son who used to go for a walk and then return after this. But a long time had passed and still he had not returned. They were brought before the king, and the king commanded messengers to be sent out all over the world in order to nd him. The father and the mother returned home and met someone who had been walking together with their son. He asked them: “Why are you crying?” They told him. He replied: “I shall tell you. We stayed on an island in the sea. This was our place. The king of the island wanted to build palaces, and he had already laid down the foundation. Your son said to me that we should do damage to the king. We should go and take away the power from this king. The king had to engage doctors, but they could not help him. He then engaged sorcerers, and among them there was a sorcerer who knew your family. He did not know about my family, so he could not harm me. He only knew about your family, and so he caught him. The demon parents brought this friend before the demon king, and the friend told this to the demon king as well. The demon king said: “Return the strength to the island king!” The friend replied that there had been among them someone who had had no strength, so they had given him the strength of the island king. The demon king said that they should take away the strength from this one and return it to the island king. But the friend told the demon king that this someone had been turned into a cloud. The demon king said that the cloud should be called upon and brought before him. A messenger was sent after him.

The son, who previously could not walk, is now able to walk to the area of the two thousand mountains. Now that his feet have been cured, he is in no need of the diamond to transport him; however, thanks to the four-sided diamond he overheard the conversation between the sun and the moon, in which this place was mentioned. One could say that it is thanks to the four-sided diamond that the son sets out on the horizontal scale for this third place. The son seems to have reservations toward the demon area. He does not enter it; he places himself at a distance to observe what happens. From now on he remains an observer, maybe because there is nothing more for him to do. Ordinary humans and zaddikim can participate in the process of tikkun to a certain extent, but there are certain redemptive acts that can be performed only by a Zaddik haDor or by God’s

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either merciful or punishing manifestations. Maybe the fact that the protagonist from now on remains an observer indicates that he will have to await somebody else’s actions. The area belongs to the moon/Shekhinah. Demonic representatives are known to serve as her maids, though the problem is that sometimes these demons usurp power over her. The demons had stolen the strength in the feet of the moon, but the son may already embody her cure—i.e., her problem may be solved. It may be worth considering the willingness of the sun/Tifxeret to inform the moon about a cure. The sun was in desperate need of a certain tree being watered, and if the moon has actually been cured through the son, the remaining tale could be focused on the sun’s problem. Actually, the moon “owes” the sun a favor, which could be to confront the dominion of evil by using her own dark sides. Shekhinah’s alter ego is Lilith, whom she can send out when she wants to tempt and subsequently accuse those susceptible to evil.237 Power seems to play an important role. The word  occurs sixteen times in this tale, more than in any of the other tales.238 Somebody gains strength; somebody loses strength. Later in the tale, a new wise old man is introduced, who believes in God, and who is characterized by constant strength. The instability of power relations indicates a process, some kind of dynamic, which reects the development of the tale. This instability seems to characterize the condition of the world as long as the tree is not watered. The only stable factor of strength is that of the old man, who has constant faith in God. This could contain the main message of the tale, but at this point I want to hint at an upcoming clash between the stability of the faithful and the instability of the evil representatives ghting other evil representatives. Malicious jokes are being performed in front of the ruler where the misfortune of others seems to be the favorite entertainment of the ruler and his subjects.239 It is said about the ruler that he sat in a chair in which no human had ever sat, indicating that he is not human

237

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,148a–b, Sitrei Torah. The word for strength occurs only in four tales. In tale #3 it occurs 16 times, in tale #11 it occurs once, in tale #12 it occurs 9 times, and in tale #13 it occurs 11 times. 239 Cf. esp. tale #6 for a similar description of evil and its power presented through vicious jokes. 238

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at all.240 Nahman seems to be using the jokers and the nonhuman aspect as markers to indicate that evil has gained power and control. Furthermore, the jokes activate Ps. 1 once again, where it says that the man of faith does not sit in the seat of the scorners. So far, the people who have walked in the counsel of the wicked or stood in the way of the sinners have perished. By portraying the demons as jokers/scorners, Nahman hints at their upcoming destruction. However, at rst sight, the demons are mentioned as demons even though they may not be so demonic after all. Laughing about the misfortune of others is not an exclusively demonic phenomenon; unfortunately it occurs in the human world as well, where it is incumbent upon every human to choose between good and evil. And a humane gesture it is when the king in the following episode orders a search for the lost demon son of the two desolate demon parents. Therefore, the demons probably might have to be interpreted as more humane than one could assume on the basis of their name alone. It could be a portrayal of human reality where evil has just gained the upper hand,241 which nevertheless calls for the intervention of divine evil. The demon son used to walk. The listener/reader knows from Ps. 1 that walking implicates the risk of walking in the counsel of the wicked who will subsequently perish on the way of the wicked. The demon son used to go for a walk and return, but time has gone and he has not returned.242 One could ask if he had been playing with the thought of engaging in wickedness and now nally decides to set out on this way. It is a friend of this demon son who informs the demon parents and the demon king about what has happened. The demon son and his friend had gone to an island where they wanted to prevent the island king from building palaces, for which the foundation had already been made. They probably wanted to prevent him from extending his power.243 They therefore removed the power from the island king and gave it to

240 Cf. tale #2 where the Not-Good sits on a chair with his crown/in his glory, indicating the dominance of evil over Shekhinah. 241 Band notes a similar understanding when he writes that the portrayal of the demons is characterized by their human features which is why Nahman may have had the chaotic corruption of contemporary society in mind (Band 1978: 81). 242 The linguistic link between  , i.e., to return, and  , i.e., repentance/ re-/turning to God, could indicate that the demon son is not a character of faith. 243 Cf. my analysis of tale #2 where I interpret palaces to represent aspirations for power.

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someone in need of power. In this episode the listener/reader does not know who is good and who is bad. The listener/reader is informed that the island king after his loss of strength engages sorcerers to solve his problem. This could be considered negative; however, being a demon is negative as well; so maybe the listener/reader is presented with the rst clash between two evils. The word for foundation is . Yesod is the name for the ninth serah, which canalizes shefa to Shekhinah. But an evil parallel to the serotic system exists and could be hinted at in this passage.244 The demon son inherits the old son’s problem of immobility in reverse: He used to walk, but now that one of the sorcerers of the island king has caught him, he has become immobile. The new immobility of the demon son is reversed again, when the demon son prior to his capture together with the friend decides to pass on the power of the island king to someone in need of power. This someone, who receives the power and who becomes a new protagonist, is turned into a cloud and moves through the air toward a town, where the messenger of the king of the two thousand mountains nds the mobile cloud. However, just as walking may be negative, being a cloud can be considered ominous. In Sefer haZohar, Samael is like a cloud for God to ride on, when God descends to earth through the air to punish the wicked.245 In this tale a cloud constitutes an interesting phenomenon. It is placed in between the earth and the sky. It oats through air—and it consists of water! If this section of the tale is about solving the sun’s problem about watering trees, then the solution could lie in this cloud. The cloud probably represents an evil tool of God to confront evil, because the cloud connotes three universal elements all subjected to God as the master. The cloud is furthermore characterized by an unusual kind of mobility just like the son, who could not walk, cf. that strange kinds of mobility seem to lead to the watering of trees.

244

E.g., Sefer haZohar I,18a; II,242b–244b; III,70a. “Then He prepared for the throne angelic hierarchies to serve Him: malachim (angels), erelim, seraphim, hayoth (living beings), ophanim, hamshalim, elim, elohim, be’ne (sons of) elohim, ishim (supernal ‘men’). To these He appointed as ministers Samael and all his groups—these are like clouds to ride upon when He descends to earth: they are like horses. That the clouds are called ‘chariots’ is expressed in the words, ‘Behold the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt’ [Is. XIX, 1]” (Sefer haZohar, Raya Mehemna 43a). 245

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1:—3:-, 9—2:- The son, who previously had no strength in his feet and who had overheard everything, decided to go and see in what way a man could be turned into a cloud. He followed the messenger. He came to the town where the cloud was. He asked the inhabitants of the town why this town was covered by a cloud. They answered him that this was usually not so. The town had never been covered by clouds; however, recently a cloud had covered the town. The messenger came and called upon the cloud, after which he went away. The son, who previously could not walk, decided to follow them and listen to what they talked about. He heard how the messenger asked him: “Why have you become a cloud?” He replied: “I shall tell you a tale!”

The messenger of the demon king of the two thousand mountains, who arrives at a town covered by a cloud, calls upon the cloud and asks the cloud what seems to be an easy question: why has he become a cloud? The answer of the cloud takes the form of a tale that shall include an answer as well to the wondering of the inhabitants as to why a cloud has suddenly covered their town. The listener/reader who has perceived of the cloud as a tool of God in his decent to punish the wicked will await the tale and maybe consider everyone underneath it, including the inhabitants, as targets for this cloud carrying out divine judgment. 6:—1:-, 4:—1:- “Once there was a wise man. The emperor of his country was very secular and turned the entire country toward secularism. The wise man called upon his entire family and said to them: ‘I am sure you realize that the emperor is very secular and that he has turned the entire country toward secularism. Even a part of our family has already become secular. Therefore, let us seclude ourselves in the desert so that we can remain with our faith in God, blessed be He.’ They agreed with him. “The wise man pronounced a divine name, upon which they were carried to a desert, but he did not like this desert. He then pronounced another divine name, upon which they were carried to another desert, but he did not like it either. He pronounced yet another divine name, upon which they were carried to another desert, which he did like. This desert was close to the two thousand mountains. The wise man went and made a circle around them so that no one could draw near them. “There is a tree, and if this tree had been watered, no one from among us demons would have remained. There, some of us stand day and night and dig in order to prevent water to be led to the tree.”

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The wise old man in the tale of the cloud lives in a country inhabited by secular people. Even the emperor of this country is secular. The term “secular” indicates that the emperor and probably the inhabitants of this kingdom do not see any reason to follow the will of God. Following the will of God is essential for bringing about redemption and the Messianic age. The secular inhabitants constitute one set of opponents to the wise man. The wise man believes in God. The wise man fears the inuence of secularism on his family, which is why he decides to move to the desert to be close to God.246 The Hebrew Bible describes the desert as a place where water shall gush forth like a divine answer to those who believe in God, which could link the wise man with the command to water trees.247 The desert constitutes a frame for paving a way for God in the desert.248 Finally, the Hebrew Bible also mentions God commissioning a multitude of island and desert kings to direct their anguish against Israel,249 which could as well explain the confusing number of kings in this tale. This multitude of desert kings for example, shall attack Israel, and this attack leads to God’s nal judgment over the entire population on earth. Beside the Biblical meanings of desert, a desert consists entirely of dust. In the rst section of the tale, where the son, who could not walk, retaliated the misdeeds of the robbers, dust led to a purication of the evil souls. Maybe in the desert the nal act of purication, the nal act of tikkun, will take place. The wise God-fearing man is furthermore a master of divine names, a baxal shem,250 and by mentioning the divine names, these names transport his family and himself to the desert. This constitutes a parallel to the diamond that carried the son, who could not walk, to places where God needed him. Here, the old man mentions the names of God, but even though the old man is a “master” of these names, the true master of the universe will make sure that the old man knows if he arrives at

246

Cf., e.g., Ex. 3; 19; Num. 20; Deut. 32. Cf. Num. 20.8. 248 Cf. Is. 40.3. 249 Cf. Jer. 25. 250 A ba’al shem means a master of the name, usually the name of God. Ba’al shem refers to the type of person who possessed secret knowledge about the Tetragrammaton and other names and who knows how to produce miracles by magical application of these names; cf. Gershom Scholem: “ba’al shem” in Roth, Cecil & Geoffrey Wigoder (eds.): Encyclopaedia Judaica, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972. 247

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the place where he is needed. He arrives at a desert close to the area of the two thousand mountains. Probably alert to the possible dangers coming from this area, the wise man draws a protective circle around his family and himself. It is not only the secular inhabitants against whom he must protect himself and his family. The dryness of the desert and the dead matter of mountains make the place rather ambiguous despite the mentioned connotations to the Hebrew Bible, since it represents a lack of fertility, which could be seen as the immediate result of the lack of faith among secular inhabitants. Another negative trait about the desert is that this dryness constitutes a threat against the command to water trees, which this wise old man, however, has not pronounced. Nevertheless, a man of faith understands the meaning of “watering trees”. At this point, and with no immediate reference to the wise man in the desert, the existence of a certain tree is mentioned in the tale of the cloud. The tree has not been watered. Had it been watered, all demons would die. The demons prevent their own death by constantly digging ditches around the tree to prevent the water from reaching it. At the beginning of the third tale, the wise man commanded his family to water trees as a premise for their livelihood. Here, there is a wise man, and there is a tree that has not been watered. If this tree is watered, all demons will die, and water (a universal element) could be seen as a tool of God to destroy evil. Destruction of evil, be it the demons or something else, goes hand in hand with God’s offer to sustain those who study Torah and thereby provide them with the livelihood and well-being of mankind. In the rst section of the tale, studying Torah and refraining from sin could lead to the watering of the tree. In the tale of the cloud, watering trees seems to be a matter of destroying evil. 6:—6:-, 4:—4:- The messenger asked: “Why do they have to stand there and dig day and night? It should be sufcient if they had dug just once to prevent the water from coming to the tree.” The cloud answered him: “There are among us some talkers, and these talkers go and provoke strife between one king and another, which causes wars, which causes an earthquake, upon which the ground collapses around the excavation, after which the water can reach the tree. This is why they always stand and dig. “There is a king among us, before whom all kinds of jokes are made, and we are all merry. One jokes about how he has damaged a child and

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chapter four how the mother grieves because of it. Another comes forth with another joke, and there are other kinds of jokes. And when the king reaches the peak of merriment, he goes for a stroll with the ministers of his kingdom and tests himself as to see if he can uproot the tree. If the tree were not there, it would be good for all of us. He strengthens his heart in order to uproot the tree entirely. But when he comes to the tree, the tree begins to scream, upon which fear overcomes him and he has to retreat. “Once, a new king arose among us demons, and they also performed great jokes in front of him, and he entered a state of great merriment and strengthened his heart. He decided to uproot the tree entirely and went for a stroll with his ministers. He strengthened his heart very much and ran to uproot the tree entirely. But when he came to the tree, the tree cried out with a great voice, and fear overcame him and he had to retreat. He became very angry. He returned, and once when he was walking he cast a glance and saw some human beings sitting. It was the family of the wise man. The king sent some of his people to hurt them as was customary for them. When the wise man’s family saw them, they were overcome with great fear. The old man told them not to be afraid, since the demons, when they intended to draw near, would not be able to come near them because of the circle that was around them. The demons sent other messengers, but they could not approach either. The king became very angry, he went there himself, and even he could not approach them. He asked the old man to let him in. The old man said to the king: ‘Since you ask, I will let you in! However, it is not customary for a king to walk alone, so I will let you in together with another one.’ “The old man opened for them and let them in, after which he returned and closed the circle. The king said to the old man: ‘Why have you come to settle at our place?’ The old man said to him: ‘What is this ‘this is your place’. This is my place!’ The king said to the old man: ‘Don’t you have any respect for me?’ The old man answered: ‘No!’ The king said: ‘You have no respect!’ The king stretched himself and grew very huge until he reached the sky. He wanted to swallow him. The old man said: ‘I still do not have any respect for you! But if I want to, I can make you respect me!’ “He went and prayed for a while. Heavy clouds appeared along with loud thunder. The thunder killed them. All the ministers who had come along with him were killed. Nobody remained except for the king and the one who had stayed with him within the circle. The king asked the old man to stop the thunder, and so he stopped it. “The king proclaimed: ‘Since you are a man like this, I shall give you a book that lists all the demon families. There are certain masters of the divine names who only know one family, and this one family they do not even know completely. I will give you this book, in which all the families are written down. They are all written down in the book of the king.’ The king sent off the one who was with him to get this book, and he brought him the book. The old man opened the book and saw thousands of myriad demon families. The king promised never to hurt the old man’s

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family. The king commanded that all portraits of the members of the old man’s family were brought to him. Should a new member be born into the family, his portrait should be brought to the king as well, so that no one from the old man’s family should ever be hurt.”

The demons face the sabotage of the talkers, of which the consequence is death. Earthquakes receive signicance from, e.g., Proverbs and Sefer haZohar.251 In Proverbs it seems that the earth quakes when the God-given natural order is turned upside-down. In Sefer haZohar, which comments on the passage in Proverbs, the dominance of evil is added as a reason for earthquakes and it is stated that this evil will perish through the earthquake.252 Earthquakes furthermore take place inside the earth, one of the four universal elements that are subjected to the will of God, since God is the true master of the universe. An earthquake would reect the response of God. God should like to see the demons perish, cf. that they sit in the seat of the scorners, cf. Ps. 1. The destruction of the demons could be brought about by the talkers. The talkers are described as even more negative than the demons, as we shall see later in the tale, and thus the power struggle between the demons and the talkers could be seen as pointing toward a clash between two evils, which will eventually cause both evils to perish. The actions of the talkers, who belong to the line of Godless creatures, are counterproductive like the fundamental dynamic within the domain of evil, where evil is fought off with evil.253 The counterproductive actions represent an opposition to the self-sustaining organism of the tree of life, which a man of faith is likened to. Kaplan has an interesting observation, but does not explain it. He writes: “It appears that this tree became a much worse problem for the demons after the sage moved there” (Kaplan 1983: 97n). My explanation would be that the tree in this case represents the self-sustaining

251

Cf., e.g., Prov. 30.21–23; Sefer haZohar I,122a–b; II,131b. Cf. Sefer haZohar II,8a. However, there is another zoharic passage that sees an earthquake as a warning of the coming rule of evil/gentiles; cf. Sefer haZohar II,17b, where the earthquake results in the uprooting of a tree. I do not, however, see this passage as directly corresponding to the one of Nahman, since the zoharic uprooting of the tree would result in the total dominion of demons over God-fearing people and not in the reverse—i.e., the death of the demons as is the case of Nahman’s tale. 253 Roskies mentions the act of self-destruction in tale #3 among the demons as a sign of the approaching redemption; cf. Roskies: 79–80. This is Roskies’s only comment on tale #3. 252

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system that God offers to anyone who chooses to believe. But the tree/system is not complete without believers. The old man is a man of faith. So, when the old man moves into the desert, the tree is suddenly sustained and moved closer to being complete. Just like the moon was in need of the son, who could not walk, the tree is in need of the old man. Completion will cause a cure whether it is the return of strength to the feet, or if it means that the tree will be watered. The watering of the tree does not take place immediately, but the fact that the old man moves to the desert, close to which the tree is standing, brings hope to the listener/reader that the tree will soon be watered. The demons, who are opponents of the faithful, try to prevent the watering of the tree by digging ditches and attempting to uproot the tree. In the Hebrew Bible there is a tradition for likening people to trees. Ps. 1 is one, and several other examples could be mentioned. Here, I shall mention Ps. 52.3–10, since it emphasizes the destiny of the different “trees”. Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The love of God lasts for all time. Your tongue devises mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. You love evil more than good; and lying rather than speaking righteousness. Selah. You love all devouring words, O you deceitful tongue. God shall likewise destroy you for ever, he shall take you away, and pluck you out of your dwelling place, and root you out of the land of the living. Selah. And the righteous shall see, and fear, and shall laugh at him; Behold, this is the man who did not make God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness. But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God; I trust in the love of God for ever and ever.

The demons boast of evil before they try to root out the tree in the desert. But according to Ps. 52 it is within the domain of God to root out the wicked and to let David ourish as a green olive tree. The simple intention of the demons to root out a tree invokes an irony. They do not succeed in uprooting the tree because they are the ones who will eventually be rooted out. Nevertheless, at this point in the tale, the demons still constitute a threat. Thankfully, the demons are struck by fear whenever they try to uproot it, because the tree begins to scream. It is denitely not an ordinary tree. The tree has dominance over evil because it refers to faith and the faithful’s love of God, and as it says

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in Ps. 52,1: “[T]he love of God shall last for all times”. This is quite a comforting piece of information before the tale proceeds to the second demon king’s attack on the wise man. Upon retreat, after having failed to uproot the tree, the second demon king sees the wise man and his family who had moved to the desert in order to avoid the secularism of the demons. It is the wise man who has the surplus to calm his family, as it panics because of the approaching demon king, by reminding the family members of the protective circle. The messengers of the demon king who approach at rst to harm everyone inside are unable to enter the circle, as is the demon king when he tries. However, the demon king is sly enough to ask the wise man to let him in, which the wise man cannot refuse. Due to customs the wise man even has to let the king be accompanied by an assistant. The demon king and the wise man engage in a dispute over the right to this place in the desert. The dispute leads to a power struggle between the wise man and the demon king. The demon king can transform himself into hugeness, and he threatens to swallow the wise man; but the threat seems futile since the wise man is not frightened at all.254 The demon king seems to become powerless when nobody fears him, and in this way the power of the old wise man is emphasized. Upon this, the wise old man secludes himself and prays. Faith is the weapon, and so one can explain the wise old man’s victory through his faith. Faith provides stability. The old man’s prayers provoke clouds and thunder. The listener/reader is already familiar with the cloud consisting of water, oating through air, and directing God’s anger toward the evil humans on earth. A cloud is now about to host God’s response to the evil ones in the form of lightning and thunder. This cloud incorporates re, the fourth element to be mentioned in relation with a cloud. This cloud is also a tool of God, master of the universe. And the response is ardent. It kills all the ministers of the demon king, but the demon king and his assistant are safe from the response. The demon king asks the wise man to stop the thunder and lightning, and hospitable as he is, the wise man stops it. The thunder and

254 The rabbi in tale #8, who does not have faith, is frightened when Samael threatens to swallow him. The threat of swallowing constitutes a similarity, through which the demon king and Samael are both seen as representatives of Sitra haRa, while the signicance of faith is emphasized through a difference between the rabbi in tale #8 and the wise old man in tale #3.

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lightning have made the demon king respect the wise man, and so he gives the wise man a book that contains all the names of the demon families. The listener/reader knows from before that the wise man is a master of names, a so-called baxal shem. A baxal shem denitely knows how to make use of such a book and thereby, potentially, gain power over every single demon family in the world. Furthermore, it may be that Nahman has thought about the demon book as a counterpart to Torah. Torah is what brings sustenance to human life, cf. Ps. 1. whereas the demon book brings destruction. It is rather comforting that a man, who has faith in God, now has the demon book in his possession. Finally, it comes with the handing over of the book that the demon king promises never to hurt the wise man, his family, or family members to come. The demon encourages the wise man to send him the portraits of future family members in order to protect them against any demon attacks. This could be a trap though. The listener/reader knows that the lost son was caught by the sorcerer because this sorcerer knew of this son’s family. But it seems that the wise man trusts the demon king, now that the tool of the demons, the demon book, is no longer in their possession. 15—6:-, 10—4:- “When the time came for the old man to depart from this world, he called upon his children and made this demand: ‘I hand over to you this book. I am sure that you realize that I have the power to use this book in holiness, but despite this I have not used it. I only have faith in God, blessed be He. You should not use it either. Even if one of you should be able to use it in holiness, you should not use it. One should only have faith in God, blessed be He.’ Upon this, the wise man passed away.

A likeness exists between the opening scene of the tale and this short passage. A dying man puts a command to his children. The wise man in this passage overpowers the second demon king by means of prayer. His prayers are directly connected to his faith in God. When the wise man of the opening scene was about to die, I claimed that he was in a kind of liminal zone between life and death, and that the possibility existed that he could draw upon some kind of divine insight.255 The divine insight may also be reected in the last words of the second wise

255

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,218a; Gittin 13a.

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man because he too exists between life and death and because he has been constantly cleaving to God through his faith, cf. the concept of devekut.256 The second wise man sees it as his nal obligation to prevent his family from using the book that contains the names of the demon families. The command is restrictive. Nobody, even if he has the ability to use the book in holiness, is allowed to use the demon book. In the previous passage it became more or less obvious that Torah led to life sustenance, whereas the demon book led to destruction. However, who is about to be destroyed is a decision for God, not man, to make. Furthermore, now that one more central source of destruction has been removed; and now that dust has healed those deserving of healing and destroyed those deserving of destruction, it may be that redemption is waiting ahead, leaving the nal course of events to God. 1: —15:-, 11: —10:- “The [demon] book was passed on to his grandson as a legacy. The grandson had the power to use it in holiness. But he had faith in God, blessed be He, so he did not use it, just like the old man had commanded. However, the talkers had among them some who persuaded the old man’s grandchild, who had grown up daughters to support and to marry off, to use this book. He did not know that they were persuading him, instead he thought that it was his heart that advised him to do so. Therefore, he traveled to the grave of the old man and asked him: ‘You commanded us not to use the book and that we should only have faith in God, blessed be He, but now my heart persuades me to use this book.’ The old man answered: ‘Even though you have the power to use the book in holiness, the faith in God, blessed be He, is better for you. So do not use it! God, blessed be He, will help you.’ And the grandson did as he was told. “Once the king became ill in the same country, in which the grandchild of the old man was living. He had engaged doctors though they could not provide him with a cure. Due to the increased heat in this country, the medicine was not useful. The king decreed Israel to pray for him. “Our king said: ‘Since this is the grandchild, he will have the power to use the book in holiness. He does not use it. Therefore, we shall do something to his benet.’ The king commanded me to become a cloud so that the king of the country with increased heat could be cured by the medicine which he had already taken or was about to take. The grandchild did not know anything about this, and because of this I became a cloud.” This is what the cloud told the messenger. 256 Cf. Norman Lamm’s collection of Hasidic source material on devekut in Lamm 1999: 133–172.

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The grandson obeys the words of his grandfather of not using the demon book, but the obedience is now threatened because some of the talkers try to persuade him unconsciously to make use of this book to support his family and marry off his daughters. This is an interesting passage. First of all the talkers reappear, and one has to consider if this is part of their attempt to create wars, strife, and earthquakes, which will result in the watering of trees. Second, the listener/reader gains the information that talkers can manipulate the heart so that the victim thinks it is his heart that is talking to him. Finally, it is interesting that the concept of support reappears. The initial riddle was to refrain from supporting oneself unless one made sure to water trees. The answer to this riddle about the watering of the trees could lie in the following, not to comply with evil or the methods of evil but to have faith in God since faith will lead to God sustaining the faithful. The narrative time has developed. Two generations have passed since the confrontation between the wise man and the second demon king. In this passage a third demon king contemporary to the grandson becomes ill. Doctors are unable to nd a cure for this third demon king because increased heat in the country has made the medicine ineffective. The third demon king therefore decrees Israel to pray for him. The number three, known from most traditions of storytelling, invokes expectations of an upcoming nale. So far, the demon kings have had condence in their own power and/or have been secular—i.e., opponents of the faithful. But now, the portrayal of these demon kings changes to a more positive one because they recognize the power of Jewish faith by asking Israel to pray. The demons have returned to faith just like the leader of the robbers did. The robber had to die in order to be puried in Gehenna, which was considered a step forward in the process of tikkun. That the demons return to faith could point forward to a similar course of events. Another king, who is mentioned as the king of the cloud,257 and who is considered a demon king according to the Yiddish version, decides

257 In the Yiddish it says that this king is king over the demons. But the listener/reader is within the tale of the cloud, which means that the expression “our king” should point either to the cloud’s king within a demon area or to a fourth demon. It does not really make sense to have two demon kings next to each other in the same area; and the cloud comes from the area of the island king. But now that all demons, demon kings, and the island king are considered opponents of the faithful and all fall under the category of sinners, I think that the reader should just perceive of him as such.

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to do something beneciary for the grandchild, hoping that this could make the grandchild use the book in holiness to help cure the sick demon king. Nothing is told in these lines about the grandchild, except for the fact that he did not know of the commands of the king of the cloud to do something beneciary for him. This is where the tale of the cloud ends. 14: —1:-, 1: —11:- The son, who previously had no strength in his feet, had followed after them and listened to them. Now, the cloud was brought before the demon king. The demon king commanded that they took the strength from the cloud and returned the strength to the island king. The lost demon son returned to his father and mother who had cried over him. Tormented and without strength this son returned, because they had tortured him there very much. He was furious at the sorcerer who had tortured him in this way, and he commanded his children and his family to remain enemies with this sorcerer. Among them were the talkers, and they went and told the sorcerer that he should guard himself, since he had enemies. The sorcerer made plots and called upon other sorcerers who knew other families to guard themselves from them. The previously lost demon son and his family became furious at the talkers because they had revealed the secret about the sorcerer. Once, the family of the demon son and the talkers prepared themselves to attend the guard at the demon king’s place. The family of the demon son made a plot against the talkers, and so the demon king killed the talkers. The survivors among the talkers were furious, and so they went and caused clashes among the kings. Among the demons there were famine, frailty, destruction, and plague. Wars broke out among the kings. An earthquake followed, and the entire world collapsed. Upon this the tree was watered. None of the demons remained as if they had never existed. Amen!258

After the interpolated tale, the messenger brings back the cloud along the horizontal scale to the area of the two thousand mountains. The listener/reader is not told if the son, who previously could not walk, is following suit. He overheard the tale of the cloud, and after this tale, within the larger tale, the son, who previously could not walk, disappeared from the third tale. The listener/reader, however, witnesses the end of the tale. I have mentioned earlier that the son, who previously could not walk, might be a representative of the potential Knesset Israel. If the listener/reader is about to witness the nal events in the process

258

Cf. Nathan’s comments at the end of the tale, p. .

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of tikkun/redemption, it is obvious that Knesset Israel cannot yet be there. Israel has not yet realized its potential as Knesset Israel, which is why it is too soon to bring the potential Knesset Israel along. However, in order to cultivate the longing for the nal tikkun/redemption, it is important for the listener/reader to be present, because it is exactly this kind of longing that can bring about redemption. Green is commenting upon Likkutey MoHaRaN 234 and 248, which deal with this incomplete longing of the people. Green writes: [ M ]an’s longings are not yet deep enough, his awareness of the true spiritual exile is not sharp enough to call forth those redemptive energies that lie buried deep within the self. The struggle for redemption, Nahman realizes, must rst take place within the souls of those who hear him. The inner life . . . is now to be addressed in a new way . . . Tales of the zaddiqim, says Nahman, purify the mind. [Nahman] also says: ‘Know that the tales of the zaddiqim are a very great thing. Through these tales the heart is aroused and enraptured with the most powerful longing for God’ (Green’s italics, Green 1992 (1979): 341).

The demon king of the two thousand mountains commands the strength from the cloud to be returned to the island king. The lost demon son was the one who took away the strength from the island king and gave it to the one in need of strength, who was later turned into a cloud. This transfer of strength prevented the island king from building palaces—i.e., expanding his power on the island—but the lost demon son was tortured because of this. The return of strength to the island king enables the release of the lost demon son. He can return to his demon parents. In this part of the tale, the listener/reader witnesses how random the possession of power is within the domain of evil. There is no stability, only constant change to something, which proves to be no better and no worse than whatever it changed from. This as well advocates for faith in God. Due to the torture, the previously lost demon son is now the one without strength. In fury over the torture he commands the members of his family to establish a front against the sorcerers. Among the sorcerers the talkers reappear and reveal to the torturing sorcerer that the previously lost demon son and his family have decided to become their enemies. In return, this revelation leads the previously lost demon son to include the talkers among his enemies. At a guard, the demon son makes a plot against the talkers, which leads the demon king to kill them. This plot initiates all the catastrophes that lead to the collapse of the

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world and thereby to the watering of the tree259 and to the extinction of all demons. This course of events is what Band calls “an internal cataclysm within the world of demons” (Band 1978: 81). It is even an internal cataclysm within evil in general. From now on, humans will all be characterized as trees “planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season; its leaf also shall not wither; and whatever [they do] shall prosper”, cf. Ps. 1.3. The robbers have gone, the demon book has gone, the demons have gone too. The only characters left in this narrative universe underneath the sun and the moon within God’s universe are the family members of the rst and the second wise man. They are not present when the world of demons collapses. They are left several steps behind in the narrative process, waiting to move forward as soon as someone among the humans comes forward to activate God’s universal response to evil. It will take someone who can traverse the universe on the vertical as well as the horizontal scale. It will take someone who can activate the four universal elements to carry the responses of God. But until then, all Nahman can do is to nish this tale with an “Amen!” Recapitulation The message of the tale is to water trees. On the overall level the rst section of the tale, in which the son, who cannot walk, is the protagonist, watering trees means to refrain from walking in the counsel of the wicked, from walking in the way of the sinners, and to recognize the necessity of faith in God, since God is the sovereign master of the universe. This message is conveyed through several intertextual references to, e.g., Ps. 1 and Ps. 52.3–10, to the tree of life—i.e., the serotic system, and to the necessary humiliation of Nebuchadnezzar in Dan. 4. It is repeated by the diamond that enables the son to traverse the universe, from human life on earth to divine conversation in the air,

259 About the nal watering of the trees, Wiskind-Elper writes: “The benevolent ood of waters described by Ezekiel (47:9) as issuing from Jerusalem and healing all ills appears in the last scene of The Cripple, in which waters ow forth to save the vital tree . . .The emotional charge of these visions, truly the catharsis of ages of suffering the prophets knew so intimately, is transplanted to the tales that incorporate them” (Wiskind-Elper: 56).

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only to return to the dust on earth, which heals him so that he can initiate the process of tikkun—which implies that the very same dust is used to purify the souls of the evil robbers through death. The robbers did follow the counsel of the wicked, they did walk in the way of the sinners—i.e., the seculars, and they did not recognize God as the sovereign master of the universe. The son develops through this section and gradually assumes the characteristics of a zaddik/a Zaddik haDor, but also of the potential Knesset Israel, who reects the condition of Shekhinah. He, as a human being, can participate in the process of tikkun to a certain extent, but there are certain redemptive acts that can only be performed by God’s either merciful or punishing manifestations. Maybe the fact that the son, who previously could not walk, by the end of this section becomes an observer and indicates that he will have to await the actions of others. The message in the second section of the tale is that evil leads to instability and evil will ultimately destroy evil. In the tale of the cloud a nal confrontation between a man of faith and a king of demons take place. The man of faith kills a lot of demons by activating thunder and lightning by praying to God and thereby activating the elements that host the response of God. The demon king is left powerless, and so he surrenders. After the tale of the cloud, it becomes obvious that evil can only lead to unstable power relations and to clashes between different representatives of evil, and evil representatives will ultimately bring themselves to mutual destruction. This destruction will come in the shape of water, another element hosting the response of God. The tree is in need of water, and, thus, the tree must also be in need of the destruction of evil. When humans have come to faith and have come to recognize the power of God as the master of the universe, and when evil has been destroyed, the tree will be watered. The tree is likened to the man of faith, cf. Ps. 1,3, and so, when redemption has taken place, all humans, who will be humans of faith, will be watered by God, since God will always provide for the faithful. This message is intended to activate the longings for God in the listener/reader. The protagonist, from the rst section, who could not walk, did not participate in the last part of the tale, because he represents the potential Knesset Israel. As long as the faith of mankind is not complete, the potentiality of Knesset Israel will not be activated. This activation depends on every listener/reader coming to have faith in God and coming to long for redemption.

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4.4 The Fourth Tale The King who Decreed Expulsion or Forced Conversation—A Tale of Miracles Introduction The fourth tale260 contains references to expulsion of Jews from nonJewish countries and the emergence of Marranos. “Marranos” typically designate Jews from the Iberian Peninsula during the fourteenth to seventeenth century who accepted forced conversion to Christianity in order to maintain the right to remain with his/her property and professional position.261 Despite astrology, a golemlike creature262 and the ery road, of which the angel of anger is in charge, the reference to the historical phenomenon of Marranos make the fourth tale appear more realistic than the majority of Nahman’s tales. The fourth tale is referred to differently. Nathan Sternhartz refers to the tale in four ways:   (a bull and a ram),   ,263 (a tale of miracles),    

  (the fourth tale about a king who decreed forced conversion), or according to the initial sentences. The tale begins in the Hebrew:    ,        —i.e., “Once there was a king, and he decreed expulsion or forced conversion in the country”. With the same meaning the Yiddish version begins:       .             .264 Band calls it “The king who decreed conversion”265 and is thus in line with one of Nathan’s titles. So is Kaplan, who calls it “The Bull and the Ram”.266 Wiskind-Elper refers to it as “The King’s Evil Decree”,267 though there is no mentioning, word-wise, of the decree being evil.

260

Tale #4 was told between 1806 and 1807. Nathan Sternhartz wrote it down, though he did not hear it directly from Nahman. Sternhartz probably had it conveyed by Naftali; cf. Band 1978: 44. 261 Cf. M.A. Cohen: “Marrano” in Roth & Wigoder. 262 A golem is a “creature, particular a human being, made in an articial way by virtue of a magic act.” In Jewish tradition the magic is practiced through the use of holy names; cf. Gershom Scholem: “Golem” in Roth & Wigoder. 263 In Rimzey Maxasiyot, that is, Nahman of Tcherin’s Bratslaver commentaries to the tales, the tale is also referred to as   ; cf. Kaplan 1983: 105n. Nahman of Tcherin was the closest disciple of Nathan Sternhartz. 264 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 105n. 265 Cf. Band 1978: 95. 266 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 105. 267 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 156.

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I agree with Kaplan that the bull and the ram constitute a striking imagery in this tale, but the imagery is not absolutely crucial to the theological message of the tale. I see no reason in following Band’s choice when the initial sentence in both versions reect not the decree on forced conversion but actually the very choice between expulsion or forced conversion. I therefore prefer the title “The King Who Decreed Expulsion or Forced Conversion”. However, the title   , i.e., a tale of miracles, is dening the genre of the tale in a way unusual for the titles given to Nahman’s tales. At the same time, it is adding a totally different alternative to the difcult choice between expulsion and forced conversion, and that alternative is that of miracles. I shall therefore include “A Tale of Miracles” as a subtitle. Summary A king decrees that Jews in his country will either be expelled or forced to convert. Some are expelled, whereas others choose to become Marranos—that is, to convert in order to remain in the country knowing they can only practice their Jewish religion in secrecy. After having issued this decree, the king dies. During the rule of the succeeding king, a Marrano who is also a minister fears the anarchy after a possible conspiracy against the king. He therefore decides to warn the king about the conspiracy. After the aborted conspiracy, the king decides to reward the Marrano minister for his warning, and the Marrano minister bequests that he can return to practice Judaism in public by wearing, for example, tallith and tellin. Though unwilling, the king cannot refuse his request. When the son of this king is made king, he wants to prevent a similar conspiracy. He therefore invites astrologers, who tell him to guard himself and his seed against a bull and a ram. This king dies and is followed by his son. The new king takes heed of the warning, which his father received, by deciding to remove every bull and every ram from the country. This king wants to conquer the entire world. He builds an articial man consisting of seven kinds of metal, and by consulting it, the king conquers the world. But the articial man is troublesome. It demands that the king lower the proud and elevate the weak, and the king follows its demands. As a consequence, the king has to degrade the Marrano minister. One day the king is tormented by a nightmare in which a bull and a

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ram among the twelve signs of the zodiac are laughing at him. Dream interpreters are called upon, but to no avail. A wise man appears, who tells the king about a place where a rod of iron grows. This rod of iron can cure a man from his fear. The wise man guides the king and his family to this place. At this place they meet the angel of anger, who is in charge of all destructive forces and who is placed next to a road of re. Kings are walking there together with Jews wrapped in tallith and tellin, and so the king decides to go there together with his family. But what this king does not know is that tallith is made from the wool of a ram and the tellin are made from the skin of a bull. The kings, who are able to walk unharmed on the ery road, all allowed Jews to wear tallith and tellin in public. But in the country of this king, Jews were not allowed to dress according to their faith, which is why the re consumes the king and his family. Scholarly comments on the tale Band interprets the historical references along with the existence of a magical/fantastic realm in the tale to testify to a Lurianic interrelation between earthly and cosmic states of exile. This Lurianic theme was inspired by forced conversion on and expulsion of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula between 1391 and the mid-seventeenth century. However, Band suggests that the adoption of Western secular practices could be hinted at as well by the term “Marrano”.268 The sad gure of the Marrano Jew was forced to live in two worlds, the religious one and the one of the kings, and never be able to gain anything from either.269 As central to the message of the tale, Band stresses that only kings, who allowed Jews to practice their religion, were not consumed by the deadly re. This should be the message to non-Jewish rulers.270 However, Band does not link this message with his own point that the Marranos’ existence in non-Jewish states is meant as a symbol of Jews living in a secular world. Band points to two examples of irony applied in the tale. The rst is that the Marrano’s reward for saving the earthly kingdom is that the Marrano again can worship God, who is the true king of the universe.

268 269 270

Cf. Band 1978: 97. Cf. Band 1978: 297. Cf. Band 1978: 297–298.

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The second example is the strange articial man, or massive statue, as Band calls it, which helps the king conquer the world. It forces the king to invert all social structures, which implies the eventual overthrow of the king.271 The central theological message of the tale is seen hidden in the rod of iron,  . Band points to another meaning of  as tribe, which could be taken as a reference to the Messiah.272 The tribe of Israel could have saved the king from his fear, had he allowed the Jews to practice their faith.273 This universalistic Messianic understanding of salvation is not typical of Hasidism in general, but it is a consequence if one derives information from the nal imagery of friendly kings walking together with Jews unharmed in the re. Kaplan has no overall interpretation of the fourth tale, but I shall include his commentaries from the footnotes to his translation when relevant.274 Wiskind-Elper275 has an eye for the intertexts in the tales of Rabbi Nahman. One source of Nahman’s free associations is the story of the loyal Joseph, who is, however, demoted by Pharaoh, who three days later has a dream where he learns of the forgotten prophecy that his seed is destined to be wiped out (Gen. 41ff ). Another source is the Book of Esther, where Ahashverosh looks in the chronicles to counter his sleepless nights (Esther 6.1). A third source is the Book of Daniel, where the troubled spirit of Nebuchadnezzar, cf. Dan. 2.2, compels the king to call for local dream interpreters whose “voice[s] did not enter his ears”. Instead it is the Jewish protagonist who is able to interpret

271

Cf. Band 1978: 297–298. Kaplan understands this rod as symbolic of the Messiah as well; cf. Kaplan 1983: 113n. 273 Cf. Band 1978: 297–298. 274 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 105n–116n. 275 Wiskind-Elper comments on tale #4 with the rather ambitious purpose of examining “the phenomenology of dream logic and symbolism outlined in Jewish sources and in modern psychological methods, and consider[ing] Reb Nahman’s conception in the light of those theories” (Wiskind-Elper: 155–156). However, what she does, as far as I can see, is simply stress the parallel between free association in Nahman’s nocturnal dreams, as recorded in Hayyey MoHaRaN and Likkutey MoHaRaN, and in the dreams described in the tales; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 155–163, which does not sufce to explain these phenomena. 272

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the dream just like in the tale of Nahman. A fourth source, which she mentions, is Ps. 2.276 According to Roskies, the fourth tale appears like a commentary on Ps. 2; however, this appearance is a garb for the tale’s Messianic message. This is indicated by the so-called wise kings’ slavishly literal interpretations; the dichotomy between wisdom as falsehood and wisdom as a reection of the world of truth; the metal golem as Adam Kadmon; the seven kinds of metal in this golem as the seven serot; the two bans on Judaism—one for the people and one for the Marrano minister—as examples of shevirah; the angel of anger as a herald of tikkun; and the Marrano minister revealed at the end as a zaddik with true visionary and introspective powers.277 Roskies argues: The most active agent of tikkun, it turns out, is not the wise man with his father’s traditions but the minister who himself takes credit for the king’s downfall and has the last triumphant word. And a tting end it is for a man who was born into a kingdom of lies, after the exile of the faithful had already occurred. At great personal risk, he gambles and wins his freedom to pray as a Jew, only to have it snatched away at the whim of a mad king who considers himself a sage. The minister is thus forced to live most of his life in disguise and even when he is granted “freedom of religion” he can never pray with a requisite quorum of other Jews. He stands alone wearing prayer shawl and telin and surrounded by enmity, while they, in their simple piety, are off somewhere else protected by a wall of re (Roskies: 83).

Roskies sees this portrayal of the Jew forced to hide his religion as an autobiographical reference to Nahman, who lived in “the real world of idolatry, war and falsehood”. Nahman had to strive toward his goals by cutting himself off from his people, from prayer, and from public observance. “The seeker’s soul is born into a world of falsehood, and that is where the redemptive struggle must be waged” (Roskies: 84).278

276 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 157–159. Following the Bratslav-tradition, Kaplan also mentions Ps. 2 as the key to this tale; cf. Kaplan 1983: 105n. 277 Cf. Roskies 2002: 81–83. 278 I am far from convinced by Roskies’s arguments. The Marrano minister does not take credit for the king’s downfall, and he does not “mock” the astrologers as Roskies claims on page 82. He did not take any personal risks when he asked to be rewarded by being allowed to practice his religion, because at that point the king was trapped to reward him according to his own wish. The king does not consider himself a sage; it is Nahman who uses this word as a narrative strategy to hint at its hollow meaning. It is the minister’s own fault that he cannot pray together with a quorum of other Jews.

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Analysis 11—1: -, 7—1: - Once there was a king who decreed expulsion or forced conversion in the country. Whoever wanted to stay in the country would have to change his religion, otherwise he would have to be expelled from the country. Some abandoned their entire property, all their wealth and went away in poverty in order to remain with their faith as Jews. Some took refuge at their property among their wealth and stayed there as Marranos. In secrecy they practiced their Jewish faith, whereas in public they were not allowed to behave as Jews. Upon this the king died.

The rst passage of the fourth tale contains a precise explanation of the historical phenomenon of Marrano Jews who chose conversion to avoid expulsion from whatever non-Jewish country they were living in.279 However, this historical explanation is surrounded by fairy tale-like components: “Once there was a king” and “Upon this the king died”, as if history, as man sees it, becomes included within a divine frame. On the narrative level, the king dies immediately after having issued the decree against Jews practicing their faith in public. Death could, because it constitutes the one end of the divine inclusion of history, be seen as the response from the divine and as a warning for what is in line for those who hinder Jews in practicing their religious faith. However, death is in line for us all, and could in this passage function just as a way to close the rst passage on one of many kings.280

He does not stand alone with a prayer shawl when the king burns up in the ames, because at that point he is still stripped of his right to practice Judaism in public. It seems that Roskies has been trapped in his attempt to show that Sippurey Maxasiyot in general reects the dichotomy between illusion and reality; cf. Roskies 2002: 82. I agree with Roskies that this dichotomy prevails throughout the tales; however, in the case of the Marrano, I am afraid that Nahman’s construction of the listener/reader’s sympathy for the Marrano is a trick, which becomes apparent once the Marrano is revealed as a coward vis-à-vis his religious identity with no faith in God’s ability to intervene for Jews in countries ruled by non-Jewish kings. The Marrano is not at all instrumental for the death of the anti-Jewish king, and the Marrano does not have the required faith of a zaddik. 279 Kaplan even sees it as a direct reference to the expulsion of Jews in Spain in 1492 during the reign of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Furthermore, Kaplan seems in line with Band when he points to the possibility that Nahman may have had in mind the secular Northern European Jews around 1800, who had to give up Judaism in order to be successful in the surrounding majority cultures; cf. Kaplan 1983: 105n; Band 1978: 97. 280 Since there are four kings in this tale, Kaplan sees them as representatives of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome who had power over the Israelites/Jews. The

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2: —11: -, 1: —7: - His son became king and began to rule the country with a strict hand. He conquered some countries and was a very wise man. Because he held the ministers of his kingdom with a strict hand, they conspired against him to destroy him and his seed. Among the ministers there was one of the Marranos. He thought to himself: Why have I become a Marrano? Because I took refuge among my wealth and at my property! Now that the country will be without a king, each one will swallow the other alive. A country should not be without a king. Therefore he decided to go and tell the king without their knowledge. He went and told the king that they had conspired against him. The king went and tested if this was true. He realized that it was true. He placed guards. On the very same night they came to attack him, but the guards caught them. He punished every one of them according to their sentences. The king called upon the Marrano minister and said to him: “How can I honor you for having saved me and my seed? I could make you a minister, but you are already a minister. I could give you money, but you already have money. Tell me, how I can honor you, and I will denitely do it!” The Marrano answered: “Will you really do what I say?” The king said: “Yes!” “Swear upon your crown and your kingdom!” And the king swore. The Marrano said: “For me the most essential honor would be for you to grant me permission to be a Jew in public, to put on tallith and tellin in public. The king became very angry, since it was forbidden in his entire country to be Jewish. However, the king had no choice because of his oath. In the morning the Marrano put on tallith and tellin in public. Upon this the king died.

The son of the anti-Jewish king succeeds his father. The son, the new king, is called “a very wise man” (  ), which follows the information that he rules the country in a strict way and conquers many countries. Wisdom does not necessarily have anything to do with being strict or victorious—and denitely not with being anti-Jewish. It is therefore surprising that Nahman chooses this word to describe such a king, since the wise men in, e.g., the third tale coined wisdom with insight caused by their faith in God. The so-called wisdom of this king therefore appears hollow, especially when the strictness of the king has as its consequence that the ministers of the country decide to conspire against him.

Babylonian king did exile some of the Israelites/Jews. I cannot refute that some of Nahman’s listeners/readers may have seen this connotation, but nothing in the rst passage supports Kaplan’s idea (Kaplan 1983: 105n).

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The main character of the tale is introduced as one of the Marranos. This Marrano is even a minister, but not one of the ministers who decide to conspire against the king. The Marrano is aware that he chose his identity as a Marrano in order to be able to live among his wealth and at his property. A conspiracy against the king could cause anarchy, which again could threaten his present possessions. This is at least how I would explain the described reection of the Marrano minister on his own identity. He therefore decides to warn the king against the conspiracy. Not only once, but now twice, has this Marrano decided to protect his wealth and property, which makes him a rather dubious character. He does not seem to feel allegiance to God, to his exiled fellow Jews, or to his own rank—i.e., of the ministers. He only feels allegiance to his wealth. The conspiracy against the king is aborted, thanks to the Marrano’s warning, and of course the king is grateful and swears that he will grant the Marrano minister whatever he bequests. The Marrano minister asks that he—not all the other Marranos—be allowed to dress as a Jew, i.e., in tallith and tellin. Due to his oath, the king cannot deny the Marrano minister his request, though the king is furious that he became trapped and in this way forced to break the anti-Jewish rule in his own country.281 13—2: -, 7—1: - His son became king, and he began to rule the country in a gentle way because he realized why they had wanted to destroy his father. He conquered many countries and was indeed a very wise man. He commanded that all astrologers should be gathered and that they should tell him by what he and his seed could be felled in order to guard themselves against this. They told him that his seed would not be felled, as long as he guarded himself against a bull and a ram. They wrote this down in chronicles. He commanded his children to rule after his death in a gentle way as well, and then he died.

281 Kaplan continues his theory; cf. Kaplan 1983: 105n, which makes this king a representative of Persia. Persia was more lenient toward the Jews, because he allowed them to rebuild the temple. Adding to this understanding, a parallel is mentioned between the Marrano minister’s warning and the conspiracy against Ahashverosh which Mordechai prevents by warning the Persian king in the Book of Esther; cf. Esther 2.22. I agree with Kaplan that this warning resembles the warning in the Book of Esther. Kaplan 1983: 106n. Band mentions the Esther story as an intertext as well; cf. Band 1978: 298, and so does Wiskind-Elper: 158.

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The new king’s designation as a wise man makes more sense since he realizes that the strict rule of his father caused his father’s death. Therefore, he decides to rule in a gentle way, though this gentleness does not prevent him from conquering other countries. Afraid of the survival of his family line, he commands astrologers to predict what could fell him and his family. The answer is a bull and a ram. In this passage the choice of words does not indicate that these animals should refer to the two signs of the zodiac, Taurus and Aries, as is revealed later on. In this tale the Hebrew/Yiddish words for a bull and a ram are  , but the Hebrew words for the two signs of the zodiac are   .282 Nahman as the teller of the tale probably wants to keep his listener/reader puzzled, though the fact that astrologers mention the two animals provides the listener/reader with a good hint. The king, however, does not seize the hint; he only commands the prediction to be written down in the chronicles, since it is a prediction with relevance for not only him but for all his descendants. Furthermore, to prevent anarchy, this king commands his children to rule gently like he has done. The prediction and the command to rule gently become a sort of will, since it is the last information the listener/reader receives about this king before he dies.283 13: —13: -, 8: —7: - His son became king, and he began to rule with a strict hand, with strength like his grandfather. He conquered many countries. He came across the wise idea of a command. He announced that no bull or ram should exist in his country so that his seed should not be felled. In this way he would not have to fear anything. He ruled the country in a strict way, and he became a very wise man. He came across the idea to conquer the entire world without war. There are seven parts of the world, which split the world into seven parts. And there are seven planets where each illuminates a separate part of the seven parts of the world. And there are seven kinds of metal where each of the seven planets illuminates each kind of metal. He went and gathered all the seven kinds of metal. He commanded that the golden portraits of all kings, which used to hang in their palaces, were brought to him.

282 Cf. the mosaic oor in the Hamat Tveria Synagoge from the fourth Century CE.   means lamb; however, in Nahman’s associative universe a ram is not that remote from a lamb. 283 According to Kaplan’s theory, this king represents Greece; cf. Kaplan 1983: 105n; 108n.

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chapter four He made a man out of the following: The head of the man was made of gold, and his body was made of silver, and the remaining limbs were made of the other kinds of metal. In this man were all the seven kinds of metals. They placed him on a high mountain, and all the seven planets illuminated this man. If a man was in need of a certain piece of advice on whether to engage in commerce or not, he could place himself in front of that limb, which consisted of that metal that belonged to that part of the world where he came from. The man would then consider whether to do it or not. If it was worth doing, that part would be illuminated and glowing, if not, that part would be darkened. With this thing the king conquered the entire world and gathered a lot of money.

The new king pays no respect to his father’s will. He rules the country in a strict way.284 Again the designation “wise” appears, this time in relation to the king’s idea of removing every bull and ram285 from the country and in relation to the king as he decides to conquer the entire world without spending money or wasting lives through war. And “wise” is once again hollow. It is as if Nahman wants to illustrate to his listener/reader how hollow any kind of wisdom is that is based on a secular world-view. Secular wisdom is opposed to the kind of religious wisdom one can gain through the Jewish faith for which Nahman advocates by the end of the tale, when the true wise man appears (and in all of his tales). Furthermore, a Hasidic listener/reader will be skeptic toward the king’s notion that he can avoid fear by acting according to a literal interpretation of the prediction.286 This king does not yet realize what fear is. His mind is limited, and he assumes that he can prevent any kind of danger with his secular mind. Nahman’s sarcasm has suddenly become a hint at a possible theme for this tale. The Marrano minister thought that he could save his property by being smart, by

284 According to Kaplan’s theory, this king represents Rome, though no textual argument is given; cf. Kaplan 1983: 108n. The fact that this king wanted to conquer the world without war could hint at the Roman strategy behind pax romana. The question is, however, if Nahman knew about this strategy. Nathan’s writings describe Nahman’s interest in world policy, but I do not know if this interest included world history; cf. Hayyey MoHaRaN #61. 285 In Jewish tradition,   —i.e., Taurus and Aries—connote the two months Iyyar and Nissan. The two signs connote as well Abraham and Isac; cf. Iris Fishof: “The Twelve Signs”; Fishof (ed.): 103; 99. In Nahman’s tale the strict king’s intention of removing every bull and ram (every Abraham and Isac) could be symbolic of a hostile attitude toward the Jews. 286 Kaplan notes the literal understanding of the astrologers as well; cf. Kaplan 1983: 109n.

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using his secular understanding of how the world functions. Religion was part of some outer appearance, not a part of a deep trust in God. The secular kings and the Marrano minister resemble each other. One can feel sorry for the Marrano minister, especially later when he is degraded,287 but when it comes down to the point they are equally preposterous. The theme seems to be secular knowledge vs. religious trust, where the kings as well as the Marrano minister represent the secular knowledge. The articial man, on which I shall comment later, is derived from Dan. 2. The biblical intertext also contains Daniel’s praise to God, which seems quite relevant for the theme of secular vs. religious knowledge. It says: Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever; for wisdom and might are his; and he changes the times and the seasons; he removes kings, and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals the deep and secret things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him. I thank you, and praise you, O you God of my fathers, who have given me wisdom and might, . . . (Dan. 2.20–23).

True wisdom and might comes from God, whereas the might of a king is as vaporous as time itself. In this tale the sarcastic designation “wise” in relation to the king could be Nahman’s way of initiating a transposition of signicance from Dan. 2. The secular king is very ambitious and uses strictness to achieve his goals. But beyond strictness he brings across the idea to create an articial man who can advise him on how to conquer the entire world and advise the subjects of his kingdom on how to advance within the secular profession of commerce. The recipe of how to construct this articial man derives from Dan. 2. In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Dan. 2,32–33 an articial man ( , i.e., image or idol) appears. This image’s head is made of gold, its breast and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. Thanks to the wisdom, which God has granted him, Daniel is able to understand the meaning of this dream as the eventual overthrow of Nebuchadnezzar and all the earthly kingdoms to come

287 Cf. 51: —31: - ,9: —9: -. Band mentions the Marrano gure as a sad one as well, since he lives in two realms at the same time, without gaining anything from either; cf. Band 1978: 297.

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until God establishes his eternal kingdom. The vaporous character of secular wisdom is repeated in the vaporous character of earthly kingdoms. Surely seven kinds of metal are not mentioned in Dan. 2, but ve should do to stress the parallel.288 The indication of an eventual overthrow of the kings can be found in Nahman’s tale as well if one looks at the golden portraits of all kings he mentions. Nahman initiates the construction of an imagery, even though he or the redactors do not nish it. Of course it says that the head of the articial man is made of gold. The question is if gold is one of the seven kinds of metal in the world, or if the gold is taken from these golden portraits. In either case, the earthly kings of the portraits are the rst to fall according to Daniel’s understanding of how the earthly kingdoms shall fall.289 Nahman does not nish the imagery; Daniel nishes it for him. As part of this imagery, two inversions occur. In Nahman’s tale it says: “With this thing the king conquered the entire world”; whereas in Dan. 2 the image refers not to a conquest but to its own collapse, cf. the golden head that represents the rst kingdom to fall. The second inversion is related to the collapse of the image. In Dan. 2 a stone will break loose and crush the feet290 and thereupon all the other kinds of metal, until the entire image is crushed. Finally this stone will be turned into a huge mountain that will ll the earth as if the solidity of the mountain contains a promise of the solidity of God’s eternal kingdom. In Nahman’s tale the articial man is placed on a high mountain from where it delivers its advice but also the troublesome demands which, as Band puts it, leads to an inversion of all social structures and the

288 Wiskind-Elper focuses on the number seven in relation to the creation of the articial man. Besides being a magical numeral and thus evoking an atmosphere of mystery, the number seven, in the case of the seven planets, evokes connotations to the seven days of creation and the seven lower serot. According to a Lurianic tradition, “silver and gold are Hesed and Gevurah; copper is Tif ’eret; tin is Netsah; lead is Hod; mercury Yesod; and iron is Malkut” (Sefer haLikkutim, Sha’ar haPasukim 84); cf. WiskindElper: 157; 273n. The number seven and the larger framework of the articial man are integrated in a larger context including connotations to three biblical prophecies—i.e., Ps. 2; Zeph. 3.8–9; Dan. 2. The three prophecies “are dramatized, and, moreover, are somehow actualized” (Wiskind-Elper: 157). 289 Cf. Dan. 2.38–40. 290 This is an inversion within Dan. 2 itself. In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, he sees how the destruction begins with a stone that crushes the feet and initiates the collapse from beneath and then upward, whereas Daniel’s interpretation points to the chronological decline of all kingdoms, beginning with the head and then moving downward.

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eventual overthrow of the king.291 The result is the same in Dan. 2 and in Nahman’s tale. The question is if the reversing of the order “image-mountain” to “mountain-image” matters. Because of the inversions and because of the troublesome nature of the articial man, cf. its later demand of reversing the social roles, I did wonder if Nahman could have had a golem like gure in mind. Scholem writes that a golem is a “creature, particular a human being, made in an articial way by virtue of a magic act.” However, he stresses that in Jewish tradition the magic is practiced through the use of holy names and not, as in the Greek and Arab tradition, through “astrological speculations related to the possibility of ‘drawing the spirituality of the stars’ to lower beings”. In Nahman’s tale there is no mentioning of divine names when the non-Jewish king constructs the articial man. However, drawing the spiritual powers of the stars down to the lower beings—just like the Greeks and the Arabs did—is exactly what the non-Jewish king does. I can in no way make plausible that Nahman should have had the same knowledge about articial beings like Scholem had. However, Nahman may have known some of the legends related to the golem. Scholem writes that there is a “parallel to the legends on images used in idol worship which are given life by means of names; the golem expresses a warning about it (idol worship) and demands its own death”. According to other legends about the golem the word

—truth—was written on [the golem’s] forehead, and when the letter  was erased, the word —dead—remained. Though thought of as a servant for its creator, the golem developed some dangerous natural powers; he grows from day to day, and in order to keep him from overpowering the members of the household he must be restored to the dust by removing or erasing the alef from his forehead. Here, the idea of the golem is joined by the new motive of the unrestrained power of the elements which can bring about destruction and havoc (Roth & Wigoder (eds.) 1972: “Golem”).

The golem as a dangerous creature became a widespread and popular gure in legends from the fteenth century and onward in German speaking areas. The famous legends about R. Judah Loew of Prague and his golem, which became widespread in the second half of the eighteenth century, also portrays the golem as something that runs amok

291

Cf. Band 1978: 297–298.

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and endangers people’s lives.292 The question is if Nahman may have had the golem in mind as he wrote this tale. The articial man is being treated like an idol, when potential merchants and the king consult it for advice;293 and it obtains power over the king who built it. To return to the change from Dan. 2’s “image—mountain” to Nahman’s “mountain—image”, it is as if the articial man in Nahman’s tale gains exactly as much power as the golem-legends has warned about—as if this thing ends triumphantly on the mountain instead of vice versa as Dan. 2 relates. But then again, Nahman’s golem actually becomes a tool to overthrow the non-Jewish king in the next passages. This is why one could consider if this tendency of golemim to run amok and endanger people’s lives reects evil gaining power, which is, however, a matter of God’s true power and of God’s way of letting evil eradicate evil.294 If Nahman had a golem gure in mind when he decided to bring the articial man into the tale, it could be rooted in this explanation and it could explain why “image—mountain” is inverted to “mountain—image”. The triumphant image on the mountain testies to God’s true power. The king placed his “golem” on the mountain not knowing, since he has no religious wisdom, that he doomed his own defeat. This evokes the theme of self-destruction within the realm of evil from the third tale. One thing I have left out so far is the role of astrology. The seven kinds of metal, of which the articial man consists, are related to the seven parts of the world and the seven planets. The metal, the parts of the world, and the planets are all interrelated. The phenomenon of astrology is considered with ambivalence throughout traditional Judaism.295 Even though ambivalence can be found in Jewish mysticism

292

The information on the golem is based on Scholem 1972b on the golem. It is worth noticing that the articial man’s way of advising is to shine or to be dark. This may be Nahman’s way of indicating that the articial man is performing the will of God; cf. the praise in Dan. 2.20–23 which portrays God as the master of darkness and light. 294 Kaplan seems in line with this interpretation when he considers the statue on the mountain as the counterpart on the side of darkness of God’s Messiah; cf. Kaplan 1983: 110n. Sitra haRa—i.e., the other side, is considered a tool for God to eradicate evil in Jewish mysticism. 295 Biblical texts, e.g., Is. 47.13; Jer. 10.2; Dan. 2.2, condemn the practice of astrology, and so do the Apocrypha—e.g., Jub. 12.16–18; Enoch 8.3. However, Josephus mentions that astrology was common among the Jews in his days ( Josephus: De Bellum VI, 288ff ). The popularity may have caused the changed stand in Talmudic texts on astrology, where the majority of sages did believe that the celestial bodies determined 293

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as well, Sefer haZohar stresses that there “is not a single blade of grass in the entire world over which a star or a planet does not precede” (Sefer haZohar II, 171d). In Likkutey MoHaRaN #31:4 Nahman referred to this line when he wrote: “[T]here is nothing below that does not have a corresponding star above. There are stars that cause certain grasses to grow in those places on which they shine”.296 This passage from Nahman’s homiletic opus informs the listener/reader that he believed that a correlation existed between the constellation of the stars and the world. Just as in the third tale, Nahman expresses this observation in the fourth tale where a correlation exists between the different kinds of metal, the parts of the world, and the planets. Furthermore, Nahman may have been familiar with one other observation. According to Eleazer of Worms from the thirteenth century, God could punish through the link that existed between the stars and mankind.297 By mentioning correlations between this world and the stars, Nahman may be indicating that the non-Jewish king is constructing this articial man without knowing that the parts of this man are governed by God and not by the king’s wish to conquer the world. The non-Jewish king has no religious understanding and is unaware of his own upcoming destruction—a process he himself has initiated. 15: —13: -, 9: —9: - However, this image of a man was only capable of doing this [i.e., advising the king on how to conquer the world] on one condition, which was that the king should lower the proud and elevate the weak. The king sent out commands to all generals and ministers who had rank and privileges.

human affairs in the sublunar world—e.g., Shab. 53b; Meg. 3a; Sanh. 94a; Ned. 39b; Gen. R. 10.6, though they were skeptical as to the ability of the astrologers to interpret the stars correctly. Different points of view occurred as to whether the people of Israel was subsumed under the inuence of the stars. This difference occurred already in the Talmud. Some claimed that contrary to the peoples of the world, Israel had no corresponding star. This conception continues into the Middle Ages. Abraham ibn Ezra writes in his commentary on Deut. 4.19 that it “is known from experience that every nation has its own star and constellation, and similarly there is a constellation for every city; but God bestowed His greater favor on Israel by rendering them starless and Himself their adviser.” Maimonides, in his epistle to Jonathan b. David ha-Kohen of Lunel, rejects astrology completely and even claims that it was the superstitious faith in astrology that brought upon the Jews the destruction of the temple and exile; cf. Alexander Altmann: “Astrology” in Roth & Wigoder. 296 Cf. as well Genesis Rabbah 10.6; Sefer haZohar II,171d. 297 Idel 2001: 25–26.

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chapter four They all came, and he degraded them and took away their ranks. Even if they had had privileges from the time when someone in their family had served the king’s father’s father’s grandfather, he took away the privileges. He elevated the weak and positioned them in the place of the proud. Among the ministers whom he had degraded was the Marrano minister. The king asked him: “What are your privileges and rank?” He answered him: “My privilege is that I am allowed to be a Jew in public because of the good I did for your grandfather.” He took this away from him, and so he became a Marrano again.

The troublesome articial man commands that the king invert the social order. I agree with Band that this could be a prediction of the eventual overthrow of the non-Jewish king.298 Another victim of the image’s command is the Marrano minister. One could feel sorry for the Marrano. However, he has only been concerned with his wealth and property, and he has shown no solidarity with his own colleagues—i.e., the ministers—or with his fellow Jews, cf. that he only asked for the right to wear tallith and tellin for himself, not for all Jews in this king’s country. If it is correct as suggested in my commentary to the previous passage, the Marrano is punished by the image performing the will of God, cf. that it is usually God who lowers the proud and elevates the weak.299 There is no reason for pitying the Marrano minister as he loses all privileges.300 18: —16: -, 1: —1: - Once when the king was lying in his sleep, he saw in a dream that the sky was clear. He saw all twelve signs of the zodiac301 and saw that a bull and a ram among these signs were laughing at him. He woke up in great fury and fear. He commanded that the chronicles be brought to him. He saw that it was written in them that a bull and a ram should fell his seed. He was seized by great fear. He told the queen, and so she and her children were seized by great fear too. His heart was pounding.

298

Cf. Band 1978: 297–298. Cf. Ps. 147.6. 300 Kaplan has a much more positive understanding of the Marrano. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 107n; whereas Band points to the dubious character of the Marrano as well; cf. Band 1978: 97, 297. 301 In the Yiddish version the following explanation is inserted: “The stars in the sky are split into twelve parts corresponding to the twelve months. One part of the stars is like a ram which corresponds to the sign of Nissan. The sign of Iyyar is called bull, i.e., an ox. Every single month has its sign.” 299

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He called upon all interpreters of dreams. Every single one of them was interpreting the dream, but he did not allow their voices to enter his ears. He was seized by great fear.

In the dream of the non-Jewish king, a bull and a ram are laughing at him from among the stars including the twelve signs of the zodiac. Probably the laughter or the impenetrable message of the dream is what causes the king’s fury and fear. The king commands the chronicles to be brought to him, and he nds the warning of his father’s advisors—i.e., that only a bull and a ram can fell his seed. Fear seizes not only him, but also the entire family, as he calls upon dream interpreters to have the message of the dream revealed. However, he remains deaf to their interpretations, and they are unable to calm the terried king. These interpreters have proven useless in their profession as dream interpreters and unable to deal with human fear. 7:—18: -, 5:—1: - A wise man came to him and told him that he had received this knowledge from his father: It is so that the sun has 365 orbits and there is a place where the sun’s 365 orbits shine, and where a rod of iron grows. Whoever is in fear and goes to this wand will be saved from the fear. This made the king feel better. The king went with his wife, his children, and all of his seed to this place together with the wise man. In the middle of the road there was an angel in charge of anger. Through anger a destructive angel is created, and this angel was in charge of all destructive forces. This angel has to be asked for direction, because there is a straight road in front of man, and there is a road full of mud, and there is a road full of pits and holes, and other roads are there as well. There is one road where there is re, where one would be burnt at a distance of four miles from the re. They asked the angel for direction, and he told them to take the road of re. They went. The wise man looked in front of him for this re, because he had received knowledge from his father about this re.

A wise man appears, and for the rst time in this tale wisdom does not seem hollow. The wisdom of this man is linked to the knowledge he has received from his father. In both the Hebrew and the Yiddish versions, this knowledge is referred to as  , which could be Nahman’s way of emphasizing Kabbalah as the means through which one can achieve an ability to understand the hidden messages that God sends through dreams. The wise man thus constitutes a contrast to the useless dream interpreters.

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Like a new Joseph, who removed the fear of Pharaoh concerning his dream about the upcoming famine,302 the wise man removes the fear of the non-Jewish king by telling him about a certain place. The wise man knows about a place at which the 365 orbits of the sun shine and at which an iron wand grows. The iron wand can save the nonJewish king from his fear. A lot of information may be imbedded in this passage. The association to Joseph may help the listener/reader to understand this wise man as a zaddik, since Joseph is an appellation for the phallic serah Yesod, which again is called zaddik.303 Yesod is the tool of God through which commands of mercy or of judgment are passed on to Shekhinah. In Ps. 2 it says: You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Now therefore be wise, O you kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Worship in purity, lest he be angry, and you perish from the way, for in a little while his wrath will blaze. Happy are all who put their trust in him (Ps. 2.9–12).

In Ps. 2 the rod of iron is God’s tool to punish the impure and all those who do not believe in God. Now the king in Nahman’s tale is a nonJewish king. Yesod is God’s tool with the same “law”-enforcing function as the rod, which is why I consider the wise man as well as the iron rod God’s tools for the upcoming scenery of wrath that is announced through the intertextual reference to Ps. 2.304 5:—8:-, 2:—5:- During this, the wise man saw the re and that kings and Jews were walking on the road of re wrapped in tallith and tellin. The reason was that Jews had been living in the countries of these kings. Because of this they had to walk on the road of re. “Because I have received the knowledge that one can be burnt at a distance of four miles from the re, I do not want to walk further!” The king thought that since one could see other kings walking on the road of re, he would walk there as well.

302

Cf. Gen. 41. Cf. Sefer haZohar I,71b, 154a–155b, 180a; II,145b. 304 In Wiskind-Elper’s comment on tale #4, she lists the parallels to Ps. 2: “[The] kings of the earth take council against God and his anointed; yet God laughs at their vanity, and soon His anger will burn against them; God promises to set His own king in Zion and have His people inherit the earth; His sole demand—awe, purity, and trust in His dominion” (Wiskind-Elper: 160). 303

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He said so. The wise man replied: “I have received this knowledge from my father, which is why I do not want to walk. If you want to go, go!” Upon this the king and his seed went. The re overcame them, and he and his seed burned. All of them were felled.

On the ery road Jews in tallith and tellin walk together with the kings of the countries in which these Jews used to live. The wise man knows, due to some ancestral knowledge, due to Kabbalah, not to walk on this road. The non-Jewish king, however, considers himself an equal of the kings who walk together with the Jews. He decides not to take heed of the wise man’s two warnings and so he treads on the road together with his family. The re consumes the non-Jewish king and his family immediately, as predicted in Ps. 2. The non-Jewish king and his family are felled. The listener/reader will remember that it was a bull and a ram that were supposed to fell him and his seed. The question is how this passage relates to the bull and the ram. But before this question shall be answered, one has to deal with the reference to the Book of Daniel. In Dan. 3 Nebuchadnezzar is angry with Daniel and his friends who refuse to worship the image, which has already been mentioned. Convinced that they will be consumed, Nebuchadnezzar decides to throw Daniel and his friends into the burning furnace, asking: “[ W ]ho is the God who shall save you from my hands?” (Dan. 3.15) as if Nebuchadnezzar were challenging God. The men, who lay their hands on Daniel and his two Hebrew friends as they are thrown into the furnace, are killed by the re from the furnace. Daniel and his friends, however, are untouched by the ames and are even accompanied inside the re by someone who has the appearance of a son of God.305 Finally, when Daniel and his friends are brought out of the furnace unharmed, Nebuchadnezzar recognizes the power of the Jewish God and even says: “[E]very people, nation, and language, who speak anything amiss the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, shall be cut in pieces” (Dan. 3.29). In other words, the non-Jewish Nebuchadnezzar predicts the end of every non-Jewish king who goes against God. In the tale of Nahman, Jews as well as kings, who had Jews in their countries, walk around unharmed. They are saved by the hands of God. The nonJewish king stands at the beginning outside the re gazing into it, like

305

Cf. Dan. 3.25.

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Nebuchadnezzar gazed into the furnace. The only but central difference is that Nebuchadnezzar recognized God’s power. The non-Jewish king is totally ignorant of the existence of God but did go against him once he and his great-grandfather prevented Jews from wearing tallith and tellin. This is one reason why the non-Jewish king has to be consumed.306 The second reason, concerning the bull and the ram, is explained in the next passage. 7:—5:-, 4:—3:- When the wise man returned to his home, the ministers were puzzled: “But the king did guard himself against a bull and a ram. How come he and his seed were felled?” The Marrano answered: “Because of me he was felled. The astrologers looked but did not know what they saw. One makes tellin from the skin of a bull and one makes the tsittsit for the tallith from the wool of the ram, and because of these things he was felled. The kings who walked unharmed by the re on the road had in their countries Jews who wore tallith and tellin, but the king was harmed because of those in his country whom he did not allow to wear tallith and tellin. This is why the bull and the ram in the zodiac were laughing at him. The astrologers saw but did not know what they saw, and so the king and his seed were felled. Amen that all your enemies shall perish, God!

As the wise man returns home, the ministers do not understand how come the non-Jewish king could die now that he had guarded himself against a bull and a ram. The Marrano, who lost all privileges including the right to wear tallith and tellin, and who has outlived at least three kings, provides the explanation. The astrologers were unable to interpret the stars, because they in their non-Jewishness were unaware that tellin are made from the skin of a bull, cf. Taurus, and the tsittsit for the tallith is made of wool from a ram, cf. Aries. The laughing signs of the zodiac were laughing at the king because they knew how God through the stars could arrange for the punishment of the anti-Jewish kings. The non-Jewish kings, however, who did allow Jews to be Jews in public in their countries, were protected against the devouring re just like the Jews. The righteousness of God lies in the universalistic

306 The irony, as Wiskind-Elper formulates it, is that in the tale of Nahman it is the dreamer who ends up in the furnace because he did not recognize “the signicance of the dream message in his waking life, that leads him to destruction” (Wiskind-Elper: 159).

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message that only the enemies of God shall perish. The enemies of God in this tale did perish, but it seems to be Nahman’s wish that this will happen in reality as well, which is probably why the tale ends with an “Amen!” Two Jews witness the end of the anti-Jewish rule: the Marrano, who gained nothing from denouncing his religion and choosing to stay within the kingdom of the anti-Jewish king, and the truly wise man, who believed in God according to Kabbalistic tradition. This belief in God is what enables him to understand the hidden message from God behind the bull and the ram. He appears as a dream interpreter, like a new Joseph or Daniel who interpreted the dream of a more or less anti-Jewish king as well. Joseph and Daniel remained faithful to their religion, and God intervened, protected, and rewarded them both. The wise man in Nahman’s tale has kept an attachment to Jewish tradition through Kabbalah. Thanks to his faith and the wisdom, which follows from faith, he becomes a tool for God’s punishment of the anti-Jewish king and survives. The concept of the Marranos is presented as if it depends on a choice between expulsion or forced conversion, because this is how the Marrano minister conceives of this choice. He does not have sufcient faith in God to see the third alternative, which is faith in God’s intervention. God intervened when Joseph and Daniel where faced with anti-Jewish rulers and they were both protected and elevated in the end. God is willing to protect those who have faith. By the end of the tale, the Marrano minister recognizes that the kings were punished because of their anti-Jewish reign, but he does not recognize his own lack of faith. The wise man appears and saves the Marrano minister from this royal family line and its hostility toward the Jews, but nothing indicates that he has learned to believe in God’s miracles. God’s miraculous intervention does not only come as punishment, it also comes as protection. Still, by the end of the tale the wise man is the only one who seems to have understood the divine message, which can be deciphered from Jewish history, concerning the options when living in exile: Expulsion, forced conversion, or faith in divine miracles. Recapitulation In the historical state of exile, it seems that Jews have to choose between expulsion from a gentile/secular country or conversion to a different religion/secularism. However, history does not exclude divine, miraculous intervention.

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The non-Jewish kings of the tale govern according to their secular wisdom. Their wisdom reects a secular world-view, a limited intellect and no understanding of how the world functions. These kings govern according to false wisdom. The Marrano falls victim to the capriciousness of the non-Jewish kings and their wisdom. However, he resembles them because he never takes the consequence of his religious identity. First of all, he decides that his wealth, property and position are more important than practicing his religion. Second, when he has the chance to have a wish fullled by a non-Jewish king, he only requests his own right to practice Judaism openly—he does not request it on behalf of his fellow Jews. Finally, he comes to see the vaporous character of his own tactics of dealing with the non-Jewish rulers when one of these rulers, for a second time, strips him of his right to be a Jew. However, God intervenes in two ways. One way of divine intervention comes in the shape of an articial man. This articial man is created by one of the non-Jewish rulers in his attempt to assist his people in being successful in their secular lives. People seek advice from this creature, but the advice they receive reects no insight into the “natural laws” of God’s inuence in this world. On the contrary, it lulls them into believing in it as if it were a god. The advice given by the articial man to the people and to the king cannot prevent the eventual overthrow of secular rule and initiates in this way the selfdestruction of secularism. The other way of divine intervention is initiated through a dream about a bull and a ram. None of the non-Jewish king’s secular advisers can assist the non-Jewish king in interpreting the dream or in overcoming the fear of his and his family’s death. Secularism has been proven useless. This is where the true protagonist of this tale appears. A truly wise man knows that the key to understanding God’s messages is Kabbalah. The dream contains one such message. The wise man therefore takes the non-Jewish king to a place where he can see nonJewish kings walk together with Jews in tallith and tellin on a ery road, hoping that this sight can make the king understand that Jews should be allowed to practice their faith. There is furthermore an iron rod there, which brings insight into God’s acts of punishment and mercy. But the non-Jewish king does not understand. On the contrary, he believes that he is the equal of these non-Jewish kings, and so he decides to enter on this road, despite the wise man’s warnings, together

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with his family, upon which they are struck by God’s punishment for preventing the Jews from practicing their religion. They die. When the wise man returns, the Marrano is for the rst time able to see God’s intervention behind the death of the non-Jewish king. But he is really in need of someone to guide him, since nothing indicates that he has understood that God’s intervention can take the form of protection of those who believe in God. Maybe the wise man could function as such a guide. He has faith in God. Kabbalah has enabled him to understand God’s ways of communicating to mankind. He knows that it is possible to live in exile as a Jew as long as one believes in miracles. He himself is still alive in a non-Jewish country despite his Jewish identity, and maybe his faith is the true reason for God’s intervention to punish those gentile kings who act as God’s enemies. If this is the case, then the faith of every single Jew can become a tool for God to change the present state of the world through miraculous intervention, though it seems that one has to be a mystic to understand the necessity of faith.

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Introduction The fth tale307 is known under several titles. Band308 chooses to name the tale after the initial sentence in both the Yiddish and Hebrew version, i.e., “The King who Had No Children”.309 Kaplan310 calls it “The Prince of Gems” after the Hebrew title in the bilingual version, i.e.,   '  . The aspect of childlessness should not be ignored. Nevertheless, I choose to follow Kaplan. As I will show, more information lies imbedded in the son’s stony nature than in the childlessness of the father. Concerning the words in the bilingual title, I differ somewhat from Kaplan. When use is made of a very hierarchical designation such as  , i.e., king’s son, it may be relevant to see the closer position of a king’s son to the throne and to the kingdom than that of a prince. Furthermore, I shall translate   “precious stones” instead of “gems” in order to reect the positive aspect of these stones more clearly. I therefore call it: “The king’s son who was made of precious stones”. Summary The fth tale evolves around a king’s lack of children. The plot of the tale is for him to have a child who can be an heir as well. At rst the king seeks help from doctors and sorcerers but to no avail. After this the king turns to the Jews who then address a zaddik. Thanks to the intervention of the Jews and the zaddik, the king begets a daughter. However, a daughter cannot be an heir in this narrative universe, so the lack is made explicit as the lack of a son. The Jews and a zaddik intervene once again, and the king begets a son who is predicted to consist of precious stones and to contain the potentialities of these

307 Tale #5 was told between 1806 and 1807. Nathan Sternhartz did not hear the story directly from Nahman. Nahman’s other disciple and friend, Naftali, probably conveyed it to Nathan prior to the recording; cf. Band 1978: 44. 308 Cf. Band 1978: 105. 309 The Yiddish version begins:        .        . The Hebrew version begins:          . 310 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 117.

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stones. But, the son does not consist of these stones. He does not contain their potentialities either, so the lack is this time made explicit as the son’s lack of a stony nature. The daughter is struck with jealousy as she witnesses the attention given to her brother. Through the mediation of a sorcerer she decides to cast a spell on her brother, upon which he is inicted with scabies/leprosy. This time the lack is made explicit as the son’s lack of health. Once more the king asks for the intervention of the Jews and a zaddik, this time to have his son healed. However, nothing happens and the lack is made explicit as the lack of God’s intervention. The nal solution to the different kinds of lack comes about when the zaddik is informed that a spell of scabies/leprosy has been cast into water. This description of reality provides the zaddik with sufcient information to solve the problem; however, before he works out a solution, the daughter brings about the healing and revelation of her brother through her evil acts. Scholarly comments on the tale According to Band, the fth tale is primarily concerned with the struggle of the two zaddikim. Usually, a zaddik is characterized by his piety, intense prayers, and ability to effect cures by spells and amulets; however the cures in this tale are performed with difculty, reluctance, and unexpected outcomes. The son represents a redemptive gure, while the daughter reects a demonic aspect.311 The zaddikim mediate the power of God, when they effect cures; in contrast, doctors and sorcerers act according to their own professional skills. The two hidden zaddikim in this tale, where one succeeds the other in the same struggle, reect the #xal Shem Tov and Nahman.312 The positive outcome of their struggle comes about after their threepartite failure: At rst the king is granted a daughter, not a son; when the king is granted a son, he does not seem to be made of gems as predicted by the zadik; and, nally, the zadik’s prayer that the son be cured of his scabs is ineffectual since a charm has been placed on him . . .Were it not for his sister’s jealousy, he would not have been aficted with scabs; his skin would not have peeled off revealing the true gem constitution of his body (Band 1978: 299–300).

311 312

Cf. Band 1978: 107. Cf. Band 1978: 299.

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Band emphasizes that the king and the zaddikim “comprise the dual foci of the narrative”. Band presents the biographical interpretation that the barrenness of the king and the failures of the zaddikim reect Nahman’s worries not to be able to transmit his religious doctrines,313 and subsequently forgets about the sister’s instrumental role that he himself has just touched upon. Kaplan sees the tale as reecting the exodus of the Jewish nation from Egypt headed by Moses who is present in the character of the son. The king’s childlessness reects God’s wish for a chosen nation that shall be given the kingdom/world-to-come.314 The daughter is instrumental in revealing the true nature of the son, and among many suggestions, Kaplan mentions the siblings as Zexir Anpin and Shekhinah, where the latter needs her musical skills to communicate with the forces of evil.315 The two hidden zaddikim refer to the thirty-six hidden zaddikim according to Succah 45b, which is why the rst zaddik dies after having performed his miracle and why the second zaddik has to hide his miracle—i.e., that the son consists of precious stones. That the king and queen are involved in making and drinking the special cocktail of the second zaddik indicates the “awakening from below”, the engagement in the process of tikkun.316 The jealousy of the daughter refers to the jealousy of the moon being jealous of the sun in Chullin 60a, as a result of which the moon was reduced. It also reects the Egyptians being jealous of the Jews, with the subsequent decree to kill all Jewish infant boys. The son’s self-inicted injury is a matter of cleaning the blood for impurities as a way to gain the world-to-come; however, this is contrasted by the impurity that comes about when the son is inicted with leprosy.317 Nevertheless, the prediction that the son will consist of precious stones still stands. The nal revelation of the son’s stony nature reects the revelation of the Jewish nation as God’s precious people.318 Roskies claims that evil is set in motion, “when the ruling elite has recourse to sorcerers who then carry out its nefarious plan” (Roskies:

313 314 315 316 317 318

Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf.

Band 1978: 300. Kaplan 1983: 177n–118n. Kaplan 1983: 119n. Kaplan 120n. Kaplan 1983: 122n–123n. Kaplan 1983: 126n–127n.

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79). This is an example of evil trying to prevent redemption. This is Roskies’s only comment on the fth tale.319 Analysis 5—1:-, 3—1:- Once upon a time there was a king who did not have any children. He had turned to doctors so that his kingdom would not have to be passed on to strangers, but they could not help him. The king then decreed that the Jews should pray for him having children.

The childless king is dealing with a problem known throughout the Israelite-Jewish tradition where the omnipotent God is in charge of fertility as well as childlessness. God holds back fertility for reasons unknown to man, as a measure of punishment, or as a means to bring man to reect on his dependency on God.320 Sefer haZohar deals with childlessness in a mythical way and adds a nuance to the IsraeliteJewish conception of childlessness. In Sefer haZohar the presence of God, Shekhinah, is pregnant but cannot give birth because of a blockage by the entrance to her womb. Shekhinah is forced to wait for the coming of a snake which bites her twice at “that place” and thereby paves the way for her delivery.321 This passage reects that fertility is held back because of the behavior of the humans. Otherwise Tif xeret, who calls forth the snake, would not have to call upon the evil snake. God lets punishment take the shape of evil to cleanse mankind and thereby take upon itself the role as the helper of God. The kingdom is threatened by the king’s childlessness. In both the Yiddish and Hebrew text the word  appears.  means kingdom but is at the same time a designation used for Shekhinah.  is a potential of Shekhinah. The activation of this potential depends on the behavior of the people of Israel. If the people of Israel lead a life in fear and love of God, they are blessed with the ideal kingdom where God’s presence will dwell and pass fertility on to the people. When the

319 The ruling elite in tale #5 actually recognizes the ineffectiveness of the magic of the sorcerers, contrary to what Roskies claims. Evil furthermore serves the divine purpose exactly of bringing about redemption. 320 Cf., e.g., Gen. 16.1; 1. Sam. 1; Jer. 15.7; Hos. 9.12. 321 Sefer haZohar III,249a–249b.

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king’s kingdom in this tale is threatened, it signies the possibility that something in this world is hindering a life under ideal circumstances in the presence of God. The king searches for help. The rst group of potential intermediaries the king turns to is a group of doctors. Doctors are characterized by their mundane knowledge through which they try to cure people. It is most likely that a religious person like Nahman would not trust mundane representatives to nd a solution to the religiously connoted problem of childlessness.322 And the doctors in the tale are indeed unable to help the king. The second group of potential intermediaries is the group of Jews. The king demands that these Jews help him. Nahman’s lack of trust in mundane knowledge, the Jews’ close relationship to God, and the subsequent possibility of divine intervention may add to an understanding of why the king turns to this group. Given the connotations of childlessness, the problem is most likely religious and the solution, therefore, has to be religious too. 8:—5:-, 5:—3:- The Jews went to ask and search for a zaddik so that he could pray and make sure that the king should have children. They searched and found a hidden zaddik and told him to pray that the king should have children. But he answered that he did not know anything at all. They told this to the king, so the king sent his messenger for the zaddik and he brought him before the king. By then the king began to talk to him in a nice way: “Surely, you know that the Jews are in my hand and that I can do to them as I please. Still, I am asking you in a nice way to pray that I shall have children.” The zaddik promised him that in one year he would have a child. The zaddik then returned to his home. The queen gave birth to a daughter, and the queen’s daughter was very beautiful. As she grew older and turned four, she mastered all kinds of wisdom, languages, and musical instruments. Every king from every nation came to see her. It was a great joy for the king.

322 In his personal life, Nahman did not always reject the help of doctors; cf. Moshe Mykoff ’s information in Rabbi Nathan of Breslov (ed. Moshe Mykoff ): Tzaddik—A Portrait of Rabbi Nachman, Breslov Research Institute, Jerusalem, 1987: 191n–192n. Tzaddik is Mykoff ’s edited publication of Hayyey MoHaRaN, Shivhey haRaN, and Sihot haRaN ). What is at stake in the tale seems to be the religious problem and the required religious solution.

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The Jews act upon the king’s demand immediately and turn to a hidden zaddik to make him pray for and secure that the king gets a child. In this way the Jews act as messengers. The rst zaddik in the tale is described as a hidden zaddik. Kaplan refers to Succah 45b in order to interpret this hidden zaddik to be one of the thirty-six zaddikim who are needed to further the redemption.323 Succah 45b is based on Sanhedrin 79b,324 but neither of these passages is clear about the necessitated number of righteous men, nor do they explain why they have to be hidden. If, however, one turns to the line of communication in the tale, i.e., king—Jews—zaddik, something interesting comes up. From the beginning of Hasidism, the zaddik in every branch of Hasidism functions as the intermediary between the Jews and God,325 but in this tale the Jews establish the link between the zaddik and the king, who may be God. By twisting the line of communication the structure surprises and encourages the listener/reader to reconsider the gurative meaning of the different characters. Why does Nahman talk about “the hidden zaddik”, when he in most of his other tales always hides the identity of the zaddik between some accidental character? The zaddik in this tale is introduced as the solution of the Jews to the king’s problem, though the zaddik—prior to this—is no active literary character. Only after the Jews have looked for him and have addressed him, does he become active by denying his own knowledge. Denying one’s ability to help is a famous response to an address by God326—but still, God does

323 “There are many hidden tzaddikim in the world, such as the thirty-six hidden tzaddikim in every generation (cf. Succah 45b) who can only accomplish their purpose if they remain concealed. If they were to be revealed, their effectiveness in helping to protect the world would cease” (Kaplan 1983: 120n). 324 The coming of the Messiah is delayed by the Attribute of Justice and by the fact that no less than thirty-six righteous men in each generation must stand before God according to Abaye. Raba argues: “The row [of righteous men immediately] before the Holy One, blessed be He, consists of eighteen thousand. The difference between thirty-six and eighteen thousand is explained in this way that “the former number [thirty-six] refers to those who see Him through a bright speculum, the latter to those who contemplate him through a dim one”. However, once R. Simeon b. Yohai said: “I have seen the sons of heaven, and they are but few; if there are a thousand, I and my son are included; if a hundred, I and my son are included; and if only two, they are myself and my son?” Despite the discussion about numbers Rab says in concluding: “All the predestined dates [for redemption] have passed, and the matter [now] depends only on repentance and good deeds” (cf. Sanhedrin 79b). 325 Cf. Rapoport-Albert 1997: 76–140. 326 Cf., e.g., Gideon; cf. Judg. 6.15; Moses; cf. Ex. 4.1, 4.10; Isaiah; cf. Is. 6.5.

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not address the zaddik, the zaddik is addressed by the Jews. A zaddik’s activity does not depend on any address; however, the only religious character whose activation really depends on the address of the Jews in relation to God is Mashiah ben Yosef. The function of the zaddik in this tale is instrumental. He serves as a means to secure the kingdom. This zaddik, therefore, could be interpreted to be the character who paves the way for the actual redeemer. Vis-à-vis the zaddik, the king threatens the continued existence of the Jews by emphasizing that the Jews are in his hand. Being in the hand of someone is a phrase that indicates that this someone has the power to protect, neglect or even destroy those within the hands. It is a phrase that in Israelite-Jewish religion is often used in descriptions of God’s power over the world, especially over the Jews because of the covenant.327 It indicates that the king could represent God as Kaplan claims.328 However, what would the childlessness of God then indicate? The answer should lie in the children. Faced with the threat of the continued existence of the Jews, the zaddik intervenes and the king begets a daughter. When the daughter is born, her characteristics are that she is called the queen’s daughter and that she is beautiful. Later on, when the son is called the king’s son, it becomes obvious that the listener/reader should pay attention to these designations. Why is the daughter linked to her mother, whereas the son to his father? In the serotic system it is the opposite. Usually Shekhinah is linked to Tif xeret, whereas Binah to Hokhmah.329 The only suggestion that comes to my mind is that no prospects of union are at hand and that the tale wants to stress the daughter’s connection to the left, punishing, and feminine side in the serotic system. The left side refers to God’s judgment, which leaves the son to represent the mediated or masculine and merciful qualities of the serot.330

327

Cf. 1. Chron. 14.10; Ps. 31.6, 31.16, 18.36; Ex. 9.3; Deut. 33.3; Is. 5.25. Kaplan 1983: 117n. 329 Matt 1994: 8–9. 330 Justin J. Lewis has kindly informed me that ben-melekh and bas/t-malkha are the common Yiddish designations for a prince and a princess, which is why no special attention should be given to them. However, since Nahman in his other tales uses, e.g., bat-melekh, I think it is worthwhile to note these designations even if they correspond to common Yiddish designations. My interpretation of the potential of these characters supports a focus on the designations. I am here in line with Kaplan, who notices the 328

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At the age of four the daughter masters all kinds of wisdom, languages and musical instruments. In other words, she is denitely not a normal child. Exactly these skills characterize Shekhinah in some of the other tales in Sippurey Maxasiyot, and in this way the listener/reader gets a hint at a possible interpretation of the queen’s daughter. In Jewish mysticism Shekhinah is called “the gate of wisdom”,331 and according to Kaplan she needs the languages to impress the kelippot,332 and nally, musical skills are her means to communicate with and elevate the kelippot to their divine origin.333 However, no matter how skilled this daughter is, she does not qualify as an heir. And so the king turns to the Jews again. 9:—8:-, 7:—6:- After this the king yearned for a son so that the kingdom would not be lost to a stranger. Once again he decreed that the Jews should pray for him having a son. They went to ask and search for the rst zaddik, but they did not nd him because he had already died. So they asked and found another hidden zaddik and told him that he should give the king a son. But he said that he did not know anything at all. When the Jews told this to the king, he said the same again to the wise man, i.e., the zaddik: “Surely, you know that the Jews are in my hand, etc., etc.” Then the wise man said: “Can you do whatever I bid you to?” The king said: “Yes!” The wise man said: “I need you to bring me all kinds of precious stones, because every precious stone holds a special quality. The kings have a book at hand, in which all kinds of precious stones are written down!” The king said: “I will give half of my kingdom to have a son.” And so he went and brought him all kinds of precious stones. The wise man took them and crushed them. He then took a cup of wine and poured them into the wine. He then gave half of the cup for the king and the other half for the queen to drink. He then said to them that they would have a son who would consist entirely of precious stones and inside of him he would have every quality of every precious stone. The zaddik then returned to his home. The queen gave birth to a son. It was a great joy for the king; however, the son was not made of precious stones. As the son grew older

designation “queen’s daughter”, though he explains it by claiming that she does not have her father’s interests at heart; cf. Kaplan 1983: 119n. I should say, though, that she has his interests at heart indirectly; see below. 331 Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar I,7b. 332 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 65n. 333 Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #3; Liebes 1993: 138.

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chapter four and turned four, he was very beautiful; he was a great wise man on all matters of wisdom; and he knew all languages. Kings came to see him. The queen’s daughter realized that she was not so important anymore so she became jealous of him. The only comfort to her was that the zaddik had said that the son would entirely be made of precious stones. It was a good thing that he was not made of precious stones.

The second zaddik, who is also described as a hidden zaddik, refuses to intervene at rst. However, when the existence of the Jews is threatened he intervenes as well. Hiddenness and refusal to intervene are the similarities between the rst and the second zaddik. Beyond the similarities some individual traits are attached to the second zaddik. His designation changes to  in both the Yiddish and the Hebrew version. “Wise man” helps to see the possible links to both Shekhinah as the gate of wisdom and to Hokhmah, the second serah, ( ), which represents God’s transcendent wisdom. However, the designation could as well be less loaded. Maybe it is just a use of a designation quite common in Bratslav, where  ( ), wise (student), was used as another word for zaddik.334 The rst zaddik dies after he has performed his miracle—which makes sense to Kaplan, who sees the performance of a miracle as the reason for the death of the rst zaddik.335 The second zaddik makes the preparations for and the prediction of a miracle, but the miracle does not reach full realization, since the son, as he is born, does not consist of precious stones. One could ask if these hidden zaddikim live the life of martyrs? The life of a zaddik for a miracle? But we do not hear of the death of the second zaddik by the end of the tale where the son’s stony nature is revealed according to the prediction. Is it because he is last in line? This will make sense if the passage from Sanhedrin 79b is recalled. Do the two zaddikim refer to Simeon bar Yohai and his son? It is known that Nahman in many cases associated himself with Simeon bar Yohai.336 In the line of the ve Zaddikey haDor, Simeon bar Yohai precedes the #xal Shem Tov who precedes Nahman, leaving Nahman to be the last in line to complete the redemptive, yet failed strivings of his precursors.337 Do the two zaddikim of the tale activate the net

334

Cf., e.g., Likkutey MoHaRaN #4:8. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 120n. 336 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 10. 337 Cf. Liebes 1993: 128–129. Liebes argues that Nahman considered his greatgrandfather’s lack of sexual purity a major reason for the BeShT’s failed attempt to 335

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of lineage of the mystical precursors and thereby activate associations to Nahman’s Messianic pretensions? Does the miracle of the second zaddik bring about the Messianic age and at the same time transport him to that Messianic age where death is no longer a precondition for miracles? In any case, Kaplan’s comment—that the thirty-six hidden zaddikim need to remain hidden in order to perform miracles on behalf of the Jews—is not convincing. In their hiddenness the two zaddikim in this tale do not perform miracles. The zaddikim differ in their way of being active. The rst zaddik makes a promise that secures the fulllment of the king’s wish for a child. The second zaddik does not make a promise. He makes a drink that requires a specic ingredient and a specic magical handling. The drink is followed by the zaddik’s prediction of the birth of a son and of his special nature. After having gained the full co-operation of the king, the zaddik can instruct the king to get him the ingredients for the special drink. The king supplies the zaddik with a book which mentions all the different kinds of precious stones as well as these precious stones, and the zaddik crushes them and mixes them with wine. To understand the meaning of this drink attention should be paid to the characteristics of the stones—i.e., each stone contains a special potentiality. Furthermore, all of these stones including their individual and special potentialities shall be present in one person. This bears a resemblance to Moses and the four following Zaddikey haDor who all contain the souls of Israel.338 This parallel could indicate that the zaddik is preparing to gather the divine sparks of all Jews. Containing souls or the divine sparks of each Jew is not enough, especially, if these souls or sparks are conned within the kelippot. This is why the wine has to be added. Wine brings about joy and joy can expel the kelippot, whereby the holy sparks can be elevated.339 In other words, the drink becomes an implicit reference to the world-to-come. Kaplan claims that the stones represent the twelve tribes of Israel, which was the symbolic meaning of the twelve precious stones on the breastplate of the High Priest or the stone, which made up the “pillow”

redeem the world. To surpass his precursor, Nahman subsequently reinstituted the ritual of haTikkun haKelali to obtain sexual purity. 338 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 118. 339 Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #41.

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of Jacob when he had his dream of the ladder and which made up the foundation stone of the ark. Jacob called this stone “the gate to heaven” (Gen. 28.17).340 However, I do not think it is likely that the son should consist of only twelve stones. If so, they would have to be rather large and in every case way too big later to be contained inside a wound of a nger. But the consequence of my interpretation and Kaplan’s seems to be the same—i.e., that the compilation of the stones points toward the world-to-come.341 The king’s joy of getting a son is mentioned immediately after the birth, whereas in the case of the daughter his joy was not mentioned until the kings of the world had seen her. It leaves the impression that the son in himself is a joy to the king, whereas only the recognition of the others of the daughter can effect the king’s joy. The daughter thereby becomes a means to achieve something, whereas the son appears as a goal in himself.342 The characteristics of the son are that he at the age of four, just like his sister, is very beautiful. Unlike his sister he does not only master wisdom, but is even a “wise man” when it comes to wisdom and languages. However, music is not part of his skills. The daughter probably needs the music to communicate with the kelippot, but the son does not seem to need this skill. But when it comes to wisdom and languages he is superior to his sister. 340

Cf. Kaplan 1983: 120n–121n. Tzvi Mark writes concerning Nahman’s magical use of niggunim: “Mystical activity is not only a precondition for the existence of the magical stratum, but rather itself comprises the magical activity. Magic and mysticism for R. Nahman are not opposing poles that exist next to one another or even in contradiction to one another or with tension between them, but rather are aspects of the same world, the identical conception, and the same phenomenon. . . . R. Nahman maintains that the magical system is not impervious to man’s feelings and attained perceptions. The magical activity of lifting up the sparks by means of niggun and the bringing down of shefa (emanation) is not a process that occurs in hidden channels upon which an individual acts from a distance by means of a formula that he learned in a book of incantations or received in a tradition, rather, these activities as well do not exist apart from the mystical and experiential world of the individual; they are part of this world, and there are ties of dependence and even of identity between magic and mysticism. The spiritual and magical processes that occur in the world are perceived as exposed to man’s spiritual senses” (Mark: viii). Even though Mark is here dealing with the magical aspect of niggunim, I believe he is emphasizing something very important for tale #5 and that is, that the second zaddik is uplifting sparks and drawing down shefa in his preparation of the special drink. This is not a matter of sorcery, because the zaddik is not claiming power over the world or over God based on his own individual skills. He is still acting within his faith in God, which is why the magical procedure remains within a mysticism of faith. 342 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 119n for a similar understanding. 341

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The greater love of the king for his son causes the daughter’s jealousy. Her only comfort is the unfullled prediction of his stony nature. The daughter’s lack of paternal love seems to be caused by the fact that she is a girl. Her father is partly to blame for her sex because he was not specic in his wish for a child. However, the zaddik could have guessed the nature of the king’s wish and so could God, which makes them both responsible. One should presume that the zaddik made the promise through God, and after all God should know what kind of a child the king was in need of. In other words, the situation of having a girl as the king’s rst-born could have been avoided; however, it was not. Therefore, the daughter being born as the elder sibling may serve a purpose, which the daughter simply has to endure. Three intertexts transpose additional signicance onto her jealousy. The beauty and the skills of the daughter do establish reasonable suggestions of the daughter’s identity as Shekhinah, who suffers from jealousy. Shekhinah’s jealousy stems from the intersection of Chullin 60b and Sefer ha Zohar I,181a. In Chullin 60b the moon is punished for her striving to rule without the sun in the sky.343 Later on in Sefer haZohar I,181a the moon is interpreted to be Shekhinah and the sun to be Tifxeret, even thought there is no zoharic mentioning of jealousy between the moon and the sun.344 Kaplan claims, when referring to these two intertexts, that the moon was punished for her power strivings by being made small.345 I do agree with Kaplan that the queen’s daughter strives for

343 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 122n. The passage from Chullin 60b is as follows: “And God made the two great lights . . . The greater light . . . and the lesser light. The moon said unto the Holy One, blessed be He, ‘Sovereign of the Universe! Is it possible for two kings to wear one crown’? He answered: ‘Go then and make thyself smaller’. ‘Sovereign of the Universe’! cried the moon, ‘Because I have suggested that which is proper must I then make myself smaller’? He replied: ‘Go and thou wilt rule by day and by night’. ‘But what is the value of this’? cried the moon; ‘Of what use is a lamp in broad daylight’? He replied: ‘Go. Israel shall reckon by thee the days and the years’. ‘But it is impossible’, said the moon, ‘to do without the sun for the reckoning of the seasons, as it is written: And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years’. ‘Go. The righteous shall be named after thee . . . On seeing that it would not be consoled the Holy One, blessed be He, said: ‘Bring an atonement for Me for making the moon smaller’ ”. And so God brought the he-goat as an atonement for making the moon smaller.” 344 Sefer haZohar I,181a: “When God created the world, He made the moon, and made her small, for she possesses no light of her own, but because she accepted her diminution she receives reected light from the sun and from the other superior luminaries.” 345 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 122n.

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acceptance and prominence, but her jealousy is not really touched upon or justied in Chullin 60b or in Kaplan’s commentary. Instead, in order to nd a justication of female jealousy, I suggest a focus on Sefer haZohar I,244b–245b as a third and strong intertext where the jealousy of Shekhinah leads her to actions of violence. Excursus to Sefer haZohar I,244b–245b The passage is part of the narrative line in Sefer haZohar where Simeon bar Yohai, his son and his disciples are walking in the hills of Galilee while they discuss the secret mysteries of Tanakh. R. Eleazar, the son of Simeon, and R. Abba decide to enter a cave at Lydda. Inside the cave they agree to surround the cave with words of Torah, which is why Eleazar quotes Cant. 8.6: “Place me like a seal upon thy heart, like a seal upon thine arm . . . its coals are coals of re, a very ame of the Lord”. Eleazar once heard his father, Simeon bar Yohai, explain this passage from the Song of Songs by alluding to Shekhinah’s yearning for God. Her yearning is brought about by the souls of the righteous, which preconditions the union between Shekhinah and God. When they cleave to each other Shekhinah urges God to set her as a seal upon his heart, so that he will not forget her and so that she by the impress of the seal can cleave to God even though she has to go into exile. Cant. 8.6 is quoted just after the decision to surround the cave with words of Torah. Torah appears as a designation of Shekhinah in Sefer haZohar. Just like Shekhinah represents the presence of God, so Torah is God’s way of offering his presence to the people. In the lines above, the union between God and Shekhinah is described. Therefore, by quoting Cant. 8.6 after having decided to elaborate on Torah, Eleazar and Abba ask Shekhinah to remember them and let them cleave to her just like she asked God. Eleazar continues. The kind of love, which Shekhinah has for God, is of the same strength as death. The reason for this comparison is that both love and death are connoted with separation. When the spirit has to depart from the body, the body is tormented by the prospect of losing the spirit and the loss itself only comes about through great violence. Shekhinah’s love for God is accompanied by such great violence. The strange couple, love and death, is now linked by Eleazar to a new couple, jealousy and Sheol, which have cruelty as their common denominator. But the linking is important. “Love without jealousy is no true love”. The jealousy perfects the love by preventing the man to look

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at any other woman and the jealous man becomes in this way more aware of his love. In the same way Sheol perfects death. The sinner who faces his sins can face his punishment in an enhanced sobriety. The sobriety of the sinner and the awareness of the jealous lover produce ashes of re that constitute the very ame of God. The ame is “kindled and issues from the Shofar”. If one takes into consideration one of the functions of the shofar during Slikhot or on Yom Kippur, it is to open the gates of heaven. In other words, here the sobriety of the sinner and the awareness of the jealous lover are presented to share the same function as the shofar. Eleazar now turns to Cant. 8.3: “His left [i.e., the punishing] hand should be under my head”. At a rst reading this quotation surprises; however, the reader is given the key to understanding the jealousy of Shekhinah. It says in the Zohar-passage: “It is this which kindles the ame of love in the Community of Israel to the Holy One, blessed be He” and God’s right hand—the many waters—cannot quench the ame of the left hand, on the contrary it fans the re of love. What we have here is a reference to  , the zealous God. And Shekhinah, who is still an aspect of God, cannot be understood—and neither can her love for God, without taking both the punishing and loving side into consideration. The purpose of jealousy is to enhance love, and therefore love needs jealousy, which is why love does not quench the ame of jealousy—it embraces it. Suddenly, when Eleazar and Abba are still sitting in the cave, Simeon bar Yohai comes to the cave. Eleazar and Abba have succeeded in attracting Shekhinah, the presence of God, and therefore Simeon bar Yohai asks what they have been discussing. Abba replies: “The love of the Community of Israel for God” and Eleazar adds the verse: “Set me as a seal upon thine heart, etc.” The theme of supernal love and affection leads R. Simeon to present to them “a certain gem”, which he describes as “a profound thought”. This gem, this profound thought is: “Everywhere the male runs after the female and seeks to incite her love, but here we nd the female courting the male and running after him, which it is not usually reckoned proper for the female to do. But there is here a deep mystery, much prized among the treasures of the king.” R. Simeon is inspired and explains this gem of thought by referring to the four souls: The supernal soul is beyond apprehension. However, all souls depend on this soul: “It drops pearls which are linked together like the joints of

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the body, and it enters into them and displays through them its energy. It and they are one, and there is no separation between them.” Then there is the female soul to which the body is attached. The energy that the body displays is the energy of this female soul. This female soul is concealed in the midst of her hosts and these hosts are the counterpart of the pearly joints coming from the supernal soul. Then there is the male soul. And nally there is the soul of the righteous, which originates from the female and the male soul. This soul of the righteous consists of the souls of the righteous in the world. These souls have a transcendent status, but they stay in this world until they are removed from it. It is the yearning of the souls of the righteous to be united with the female soul that stirs the love and affection in the female soul, which subsequently leads her to be united with the male soul. In other words, when Shekhinah is active and shows her jealousy, her love for God, she is not really active because she is only a reection of the yearning inside the souls of the righteous males, and her jealousy is therefore not improper. Furthermore, the righteous soul functions on behalf of the future world, which sends energy to the righteous males who can thereby effect the changes that brings about the future world. Return to 10:—9:-, 6:—8:- Several occurrences in Sefer haZohar I,244b–245b lead to my assumption that exactly this passage in Sefer haZohar was meant to transpose signicance onto “The king’s son who was made of precious stones”. Words like female jealousy and improper behavior, drops of pearls into the joints of a body, the necessary presence of the righteous—i.e., the zaddikim—water which embraces jealousy incarnate, the coming of the future world, and nally the conception of the dynamic relationship between different levels—in this case the souls—provide, if this is correct, the reader with a much broader understanding of the queen’s daughter and her jealousy. The love she feels for her father, her biological origin, is in no way negative—but neither she nor her love constitutes the nal step toward the future world—she serves as a means. The pearly and so far unrevealed nature of the king’s son are in focus, and in the future world, the true essence of what appears to be a body, will be observable thanks to the apparently evil and violent actions of the female—be it Shekhinah or the queen’s daughter. By having taken the excursus to Sefer haZohar I,244b–245b it should be clear that the jealousy of the daughter does not necessarily have to

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be interpreted in a negative way. One also has to remember the only time in the zoharic universe where Shekhinah is actually entitled to feel jealous: When the people of Israel sin, Shekhinah is left on the ground in the dust.346 In such times Lilith, her evil counterpart, enters the palace of Tifxeret and has intercourse with him.347 This experience results in a schizophrenic split in the personality of Shekhinah. Lilith, having achieved what she wants, remains passive during the intercourse with Tifxeret, however, parts of Shekhinah now leave and transform into the active Lilith, who punishes the people of Israel for their sins. This divine occurrence of evil has the purpose of cleansing the people, punishing them for their sins in order to prepare them for the coming of the future world. This as well refers to  , the zealous God.348 10:—9:-, 6:—8:- Once the king’s son was cutting wood and cut himself in the nger. The queen’s daughter ran to him to put a bandage around his nger and saw a precious stone there. She became very jealous of him, so she made herself sick. Some doctors came, but they did not know how to make her a cure. Sorcerers were called upon. There was one sorcerer to whom she told the truth that she had just made herself sick because of her brother. She then asked the sorcerer if it was possible to cast a spell of scabies on a person, and he said: “Yes!” She said to the sorcerer: “Maybe he will search for another sorcerer who knows how to cancel the spell, and then he will be healed.” The sorcerer said: “If one throws the spell into water, one would not know how to cancel it anymore.” And so she did it, she threw the spell into water.

As soon as the king’s son cuts himself in the nger, the queen’s daughter runs to get him a bandage and the listener/reader gets a very positive impression of her as a caring sister. But later on, after she sees the precious stone inside the wound, she is struck with jealousy. Through the cut the king’s son reveals his nature to his sister, but she is the only one who witnesses this revelation. This could support the assumption that she is a means to the revelation. It does not seem important whether the injury is self-inicted or accidental. In both cases the pearly nature of the son is in focus and not the jealous daughter. This does not mean,

346 347 348

Cf. Sefer haZohar III,42a–b. Cf. Sefer haZohar III,69a. Cf. Ex. 20, 34; Deut. 4–6; Joshua 24 and Nachum 1.

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however, that the importance of her jealousy should be excluded. Nahman as the teller of this tale just reminds his listener/reader to think of both. The psychological insight into the daughter’s jealousy is expanded in the following. Her father, the king, does not call upon the zaddikim to cure the daughter from her sickness. Only doctors and sorcerers are called upon. The lack of her father’s concern and presence makes her conde in one of the sorcerers, and she tells him how jealousy made her pretend to be sick. The lack of her father’s attention does enhance the compassion for her, which could be Nahman’s way of telling us to pay attention to her function. However, the compassion is countered this time by the daughter’s intention to cast a spell of scabies/leprosy on her brother. She asks the sorcerer if it is possible,349 and he assures her and furthermore instructs her to throw the spell into water to avoid that such a spell should be cancelled. The daughter follows the instructions and casts the spell. In the Yiddish version the disease is designated  , i.e., scabies. But the designation of the disease in the Yiddish version is changed at the end, when the healing of the son comes about, to the Hebrew word , which traditionally is translated leprosy.  is the word used throughout the Hebrew version. Although leprosy, as the disease was known to Nahman’s historical context, was not the same disease as the so-called leprosy in the Hebrew Bible, and although the description in the tale does not match the clinical features of neither scabies nor leprosy,350 the word is still loaded with biblical connotations. Scabies include serious permutations of the skins, where burrows and lesions indicate the contamination.  as it occurs in the Hebrew Bible has one characteristic, which is the production of scales on the inicted person. Much seems to indicate that  has not been thought of as a disease but rather as a sign of impurity. In the two chapters on  in Lev. 13–14—there are thirty-six occurrences of —i.e., pure—but

349 In Band’s and Kaplan’s translations it appears as if she asks the sorcerer if he can cast the spell. This is a possible translation. However, the question might as well be translated: if it is possible to cast the spell. The impersonal mode explains why she has to end up in the water—i.e., because she cast the spell. 350 Cf. Department of Health: Handbook of Dermatology & Venereology: “Scabies”, (http://www.hkmj.org.hk/skin/infest.htm); James L. Krahenbuhl: “Leprosy”, Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2006 (http://encarta.msn.com).

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only four occurrences of —i.e., was healed. This difference in occurrences can be explained by the fact that Lev. 13–14 are part of the Priestly layer (P), which is primarily interested in regulating the rituals. P actually comments on  as a source of impurity, not as a disease. This seems to be the case as well later on in the rabbinical writings since the rabbis state that the regulations concerning  do not apply to non-Jews or houses outside the Holy Land.351 Had it been a matter of healing a disease, it would have been logical that the regulations had been relevant to all humans and areas and not only to Jews and Israel.352 Jacob Milgrom, who has written on the occurrences of scale disease in the Hebrew Bible, says that focus should be directed toward the color white, because this color is associated with a corpse, cf. the white skin. When Miriam is stricken with leprosy Aaron begs: “Let her not be like a corpse that emerges from its mother’s womb with half its esh eaten away” (Num. 12.12). The purication rites for a corpse-contaminated person and for someone who is stricken with leprosy are strikingly similar. The scale disease described in Lev. 13 is characterized by the skin wasting away. This peeling off of the skin is seen as a marker of the onset of death, and it is exactly this connotation to death that makes a person aficted with scale disease impure.353 In the Hebrew Bible scale disease is primarily seen to be caused by divine wrath.354 God’s wrath comes about either because of a religious crime such as breaking a vow taken in God’s name or because of a moral failure since Israel’s moral behavior is subsumed under divine law.355 Exactly the moral failure of Israel is what causes Shekhinah to be transformed to the avenger/her alter ego, Lilith, with one purpose, which is to cleanse the people, to make sure that the chosen people does not get dragged down by internal sinners.  or scabies and the evil acts of the sister implicitly refer to a step in the process of redemption, the same dynamic inside the serotic system that serves to the actualisation of the ideal people, Knesset Israel, which then brings the ideal kingdom, Malkhut, the potentiality of Shekhinah.

351

Cf. Negaxim 3.1, 12.1 Cf. Jacob Milgrom: Leviticus 1–16—A New Translation With Introduction and Commentary, The Anchor Bible/Doubleday, New York 1991: 816–826. 353 Cf. Milgrom: 817–820. 354 Cf. Num. 12.9; 2. Reg. 5.27; 2. Chron. 26.18–21. 355 Milgrom is referring to Midr. Lev. Rab. 17.3; cf. Milgrom: 823. 352

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16:—10:, 8:—6:- The king’s son became scabrous. He had scabies on his nose, on his face, and on the rest of his body. The king turned to doctors and sorcerers, but they could not help him. So the king decreed that the Jews should pray for him, and they asked the zaddik and brought him before the king. The zaddik always used to pray to God, blessed be He, because he had promised that the king’s son would entirely be made of precious stones, but it had not come true. He argued before God, blessed be He: “Did I do this for my own glory? No! I did it for your glory, and still nothing has come true of what I said.” The zaddik came before the king, and he prayed, but it did not help. Then he was told that there was a spell. The zaddik was superior to all the sorcerers. The zaddik came and told the king that there was a spell and that someone had thrown the spell into water. The king’s son could therefore not be healed, unless one threw the sorcerer, who had made the spell, into water. The king said: “I give you all the sorcerers to throw into water, so that my son will be healed.”

The king is concerned about the healing of his son, while the second zaddik is concerned about blaming God for not enhancing God’s own glory. Is God fallible, or does God have a plan that the zaddik does not see through? Nahman was very well versed in Scripture and must have known that impurity, symbolic death, and God’s wrath were the main connotations of leprosy. I therefore have reason to assume that the leprosy of the king’s son should be read in relation to its intertextual connotations to the punishment of God, and that the leprosy of the king’s son, despite the prediction that the son’s stony nature shall serve to the honor of God, reects a state prior to this honoring. The skin, which falls off, is a waste product that furthermore leaves the body as pure and precious as predicted. Waste products have a literary history. In Is. 1.21–27 the waste product is mentioned as dross—a gurative representation of all those who must be removed from God’s people before God can elevate it. Dross also appears in Prov. 25.4–5, a passage that reoccurs in Sefer haZohar with a surrounding text that helps the modern reader see the mystical connotation. It says: Take note that every sin that is committed openly repels the Shekhinah and causes her to remove her abode from this world. The contemporaries of Noah committed their sins openly and deantly, and so they drove the Shekinah away from the world, in punishment for which God removed them from the world, in accordance with the maxim, ‘Take away the dross from the silver, and there cometh forth a vessel for the ner; take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness’ (Prov. 25,4–5) (Sefer haZohar I,57b).

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A transportation device will appear to transport the king, probably the Messiah, to his throne. The king/the Messiah will come when the impure dross/the impure representatives of Israel have been removed. But prior to the Messianic era one hears of how Shekhinah has been driven away from the serotic system because of the sins of the sinners. Nevertheless, one should not forget how Shekhinah is transformed into her alter ego, i.e., Lilith, when the sinning people deserve punishment. Shekhinah acts out the punishment, and she does not leave her role as the avenger until the people has been cleansed. This context sheds light on the function of the daughter in Nahman’s tale. She is moving away the dross (cf. the scales) from her brother—the gurative representation of the sinning people—who, when he has been cleansed, is transformed into the Messiah. This may be why she sees his stony nature as the rst one, as if this glimpse initiates her actions of cleansing. The Messiah is the reward of the cleansed people, and so both the people and the Messiah become present in the king’s son at the end when he consists entirely of precious stones. As it says in Sefer haZohar: For on this day all the earthly dross was removed from them and purged away, and their bodies became as lucent as the angels above when they are clothed in radiant garments for the accomplishment of their Master’s errands; [ . . . ]. And when all the eshly impurity was removed from the Israelites their bodies became, as we have said, lucent as stars and their souls were as resplendent as the rmament, to receive the light (Sefer haZohar II,94a).

Removing the earthly dross is the errand of the Master. In other words: Removing the dross is a necessary step toward the blessing and the welfare of Israel,356 which is an insight that the second zaddik in Nahman’s tale does not have. However, the daughter acts as if she knew—as if she was performing the errands of the Master. 9: —16:-, 5: —8:- The queen’s daughter became afraid and ran to the water to take the spell out of the water because she knew where it had been placed. She then fell into the water. There was a great tumult as the queen’s daughter fell into the water. The zaddik came and said that the king’s son would be healed. The leprosy dried and fell off, even the skin pealed off, and he was made entirely of precious stones. And he had all the qualities of all the precious stones. 356

Cf. Is. 1.25–26.

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The complexity of the daughter and her constructive function in the tale is pushed aside at the end. She has to stick to her negatively connoted jealousy and runs toward the water to nd the spell and thereby prevent the healing of the son, but she ends up in the water—the zoharic residence of evil357 echoing Is. 34, where Lilith is put up in Edom, and Sefer haZohar III,19a, where she is put up in Rome. The son is healed and revealed to consist entirely of precious stones and to include every potentiality of every one of them. What an imagery! A young man—stripped off of his skin—now stands as a pile of stone. Moving is most likely out of the question, and all the son can probably do is shine—to reect the lucent souls of Israel,358 even of all of mankind, now ripped off of its dross. To speak in the language of imagery as does the tale: The son is “nothing” more than a statue, a copy of the beloved of Shulamit,359 like a reversed version of his sister, the erected Lilith in the ruins of Rome. He has become a marker of the cleansed Israel standing on the threshold of the Messianic age. In his puried state he actualizes the potentiality of Knesset Israel, and the immediate consequence of this actualisation will be the intervention of God and the erection of the Messianic age. Recapitulation A king who represents God wishes for a child at the beginning of the tale, and yet the tale takes place in this world where good and evil representatives act. God addresses the Jews as one group, and the community of Jews responds by establishing a link between God and the zaddikim, who seem more like variations of the religious character Mashiah ben Yosef/Zaddik haDor. The rst zaddik causes the apparently evil sister to be born, whereas the second zaddik causes the wished-for male heir to be born through a prediction and a drink, consisting of wine and crusted precious stones. The drink implicitly refers to the connement of the divine sparks/the souls of the Jews within the kelippot, but it also refer to their eventual gathering and elevation. These references now become integrated into the tale through the act of the second zaddik.

357 358 359

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,52a; II,34a–35b. Cf. Sefer haZohar II,94a. Cf. Cant. 5.10–16.

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The precious stones within the king’s son reect the gathered sparks/ the souls of the Jews. These sparks/souls remain conned, until the king’s son reveals his stony nature to his sister. This initial revelation causes evil to take over. Her evil acts are caused by her jealousy, which reects the yearnings of the righteous. The evil acts resemble the acts of Lilith/Shekhinah’s alter ego, through which the dross of mankind/the sinning people is cleansed. The cleansing takes the shape of evil but is really God’s punishment. Thanks to her evil deeds and as predicted in the imagery of the drink, the king’s son is able to unite the souls of the Jews with his own nature, after which he can activate his full potential as Mashiah ben David and thereby transport himself and all of these souls from a this-worldly sphere to the threshold of the divine/Messianic sphere. By the end of the tale, sister and brother end up like erected statues. The sister is portrayed as Lilith in Edom/Rome, indicating the defeat of all evil, while the brother is portrayed as Mashiah ben David, indicating the beginning of the Messianic age, the true object behind the king’s initial wish for a child.

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chapter four 4.6 The Sixth Tale The King who Had a Wise Man

Introduction The sixth tale360 is given the bilingual title  

  —i.e., “The sixth tale about a humble king”. Kaplan,361 Wiskind-Elper,362 and Mark363 name the tale according to this title. Green, who brings an analysis of this tale along with a translation of the tale by Elliot Ginsburg, calls the tale “The Portrait”, because a portrait constitutes the object for the protagonist’s quest in the tale.364 Band chooses his title “The King and the Wise Man” from the initial sentence.365 The Hebrew version begins:    ,     —i.e., “the sixth tale about a king [who] had a wise man”; and with a similar meaning, the Yiddish version begins:            

  . I am in line with Band when I choose the title “The King who Had a Wise Man” taken from the initial sentence of the Hebrew and Yiddish text, though I think it is important to render it more closely as “The king who had a wise man”. It thereby becomes possible to convey the subjugation of the wise man to the king. The wise man is the possession and servant of the king, which is why the king can use him as his tool in the central quest of the tale. Summary In the sixth tale a king has a wise man whom he sends to bring back a portrait of another king, who designates himself a hero and a man of truth and humbleness. In his search for this king, the wise man crosses a sea, passes an army with cannons and walks on a narrow path across a swamp before he arrives at a country, in which a joker sits among men, in a certain house, in a certain city, performing all kinds

360 Tale #6 was told between 1806 and 1807. Nathan Sternhartz was not present when Nahman told it. It was most likely Naftali who conveyed it to Nathan Sternhartz; cf. Band 1978: 44. 361 “The Humble King”; cf. Kaplan 1983: 128. 362 “The Humble King”; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 47; 176–178. 363 “The Story of the Humble King”; cf. Mark: xiv. 364 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 355. 365 Cf. Band 1978: 113.

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of vicious jokes. The people in this country are full of lies, and so are their authorities who thrive on the bribes they receive. The mysterious king lives in this country, remote and hidden from his lying subjects. The wise man nds the king and confronts him with the lies of his subjects; and in this way the wise man succeeds in bringing the king to reveal himself. This revelation enables the wise man to bring back his portrait and also to convey an understanding of the designations of this mysterious king to the rst king. Scholarly comments on the tale Band, in his reading of the sixth tale, focuses on the ontological dichotomy of God’s being, i.e., the transcendent and immanent aspects. The rst king is considered to be temporal, whereas the second king is taken to be God himself. Interpreting the mysterious king as a hidden zaddik or as Nahman’s autobiographical portrayal would, according to Band, not conform to the specics of the narrative. Instead Band notes that the portrait nally brought back to the rst king is obviously blank, since every perceptive Hasid would know that a portrait of God must be blank. The country of lies is symptomatic of all countries and the entire human race. Band has a very positive understanding of the protagonist whom he considers selected, able to recognize truth from sham and deception, relentless and fearless. Band indicates that a daring point in the tale is that God’s insubstantiality is contingent upon human behavior, not upon God’s will or essence. In this way Band emphasizes the importance to recognize the mutual dependency between God and humans in this tale.366 Green does not hesitate to identify the mysterious king as God since it resembles the classic Jewish theodicy, hester panim, the hiding of God’s face. Green notes the “strange half-parody and half-defence of traditional Jewish liturgy” when the prayer’s goal seems to be “nothing less than forcing God out of hiding” (Green 1992 (1979): 358). Forcing God out of hiding connotes the very important notion of tsimtsum. Touching upon the concept of God’s self-annihilation, Green writes: 366 Cf. Band 1978: 115, 301–302. See Band 1982 for a more academic analysis of tale #6. Content-wise it is in line with Band’s commentary from 1978; but in the article from 1982 Band substantiates his understanding with arguments and some interesting considerations as to the function of the enigmatic.

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chapter four [R]evelation requires an act of divine self-contraction, as the fullness of the presence cannot be known to man. He dramatically adds that this self-limitation verges on threatening God’s very existence, and it is only at the edge of self-annihilation that He reveals Himself to the seeker. This is another aspect of the same highly radical version of zimzum we encountered in the preceding chapter367 (Green 1992 (1979): 358).368

Green asks if and “how can the two kings both be God” and what is the meaning and the result of the tale.369 To be able to answer these questions Green mentions the individual characteristics of the Hasidic quest to uplift the divine sparks as linked to the individual soulroot, which makes every individual a redeemer for his own sparks. The redemption of God depends on the redemption of each individual. Green suggests that the portrait of the mysterious God is really the seeker’s self-portrait that God (the rst king) is in need of, because it reects the individual’s new likeness of God. Green nishes by adding that this would make the protagonist a potential reection of every man though a reection of Nahman could be argued for as well.370 Kaplan presents an allegorical interpretation of the characters involved in the tale. The rst king represents Malkhut/Shekhinah. The wise man represents Yesod. The second king represents Binah, where his designation “great hero” refers to Gevurah/Din; the designation “man of truth” refers

367

I assume that Green is referring to the chapter on “Faith, Doubt and Reason” in Green 1992 (1979): 314 where he writes: “Creation had to be preceded by zimzum: the void is necessary for the world’s existence. If there were no void, all would be swallowed up in God, and there would be only ‘Eyn Sof ’, but no world. Thus we are brought face to face with the most basic of existence: the world can survive only because of the absence of God. God’s removal of Himself from the void is the gift that allows for the existence of the non-God”. 368 I agree that the primordial motion of tsimtsum could be alluded to through the contraction of the second king. However, the narrative contraction of the king follows the description of a world full of lies, which is why I am inclined to follow Band, who sees the king’s contraction as a consequence of the relationship between God and man; in this case between God and the wise man. Furthermore, I do not think that it is a matter of the protagonist “forcing” God out of hiding and thereby “threatening God’s very existence”. The second king is bursting to meet this protagonist and does so by his own free will. Instead I should say that the survival of the protagonist is threatened, since his survival depends on not seeing God; cf. Ex. 33.20, as well as the survival of this world, which Green himself is aware of; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 314. God seems to be putting at risk the survival of the protagonist, because God seems to want the unique protagonist to succeed in changing the world by realizing the true essence of God and in this respect help perfect the world and God. 369 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 359. 370 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 360.

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to the middle line in the Godhead; while the designation “humbleness” refers to Gedulah/Hesed. The narrow path as the only access to the kingdom of the second king is seen to represent the path from the lower serot to Binah. Binah means understanding, so according to Kaplan the rst king’s wish to understand “understanding” becomes a quest, where the different lower serot would have to ascent/return to the motherly womb (womb is a designation for Binah) of the Godhead. Kaplan sees the kingdom/Malkhut of the second king as a symbol of Jerusalem/Zion that reects the six other lower serot. This could explain why the rst king has portraits of the other kings, since “kings” is a designation for the serot. The hiddenness of the second king corresponds to Binah being part of the three upper serot. This is why Kaplan says that the wise man, in order to get a portrait of the hidden Binah, has to go to Zion, because Binah comes down to Zion. The return of the lower serot to Binah comes about when the wise man succeeds in rectifying the falsehood in the world, and his righteousness is what enables him to appear before the second king. In short it seems that Kaplan interprets the allegorical potential of the characters, their actions, and the places to reect the dynamics inside the serotic system, where the actions of the wise man aims at rectifying the existing falsehood in the world. The falsehood prevents the free ow of the shefa from the serotic system toward Jerusalem, which again prevents a true understanding of the transcendent aspects of God.371 Wiskind-Elper sees the kingdom of lies as a kingdom in need of tikkun. Tikkun will depend on the wise man revealing the true being of the mysterious king.372 This revelation depends on man accepting the sovereignty of a transcendent, unknowable God,373 and in this way the tale becomes a matter of understanding the essence of God. Her reading of the tale differs from the other interpretations known to me when she writes that the theosophical paradox, i.e., that God is transcendent and unknowable, ironically is not noticed by the protagonist at the end. Wiskind-Elper writes: Is it a prophetic vision, an encounter with innity? Or the vain imaginings of a too-clever fool, a servant who vaunts his success in outwitting 371 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 128n–129n; 133n. Kaplan’s understanding is interesting and also likely, but it is a purely allegorical translation without arguments and proofs from the text. 372 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 47. 373 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 176.

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chapter four the king? I believe the joke is on the protagonist. Unaware of the paradoxicality of his own discovery (that the king truly is both great and humble), he impetuously grabs some supposed likeness and scurries away, convinced he has captured the hidden king’s essence. What he does not realize is that this, too, is merely a partial image, a static picture; like the faces of all the other, earthly kings, it is but one aspect of the true king’s will, an utterly false portrait because of its very materiality. The servant watches as the king seems to vanish; he sees the ayin (nothingness) but never knows that Ein Sof is there as well, innity on the other side of the looking glass” (Wiskind-Elper: 178).374

Mark differentiates between Nahman’s philosophical system of thought and his Kabbalistic system of thought. The philosophical system is based on the conception that the purpose of knowledge is for man to realize that he does not know anything when he nds himself in the presence of God. This state of “not-knowing” calls man “to feed and intensify the sensation of wonder and awe with new perceptions and knowledge, and thereby constantly deepen and enrich that ‘not-knowing’ ” (Mark: xiv). The Kabbalistic system is based on the technique of “casting off of the intellect” or “withdrawal of the intellect” as a preparation for the mystical experience and “as a characteristic of the state of consciousness during the mystical experience itself ” (Mark: v). In this world, in the post-mystic state, “the mystical experience [builds] the vessel of the intellect through which Torah and knowledge come . . . containing ‘reshimu’ [i.e., the remaining impression] from En-Sof ” (Mark: v). Concerning the sixth tale, Mark sees both systems reected. The structure and the main features of the plot become clear by means of the philosophical system, while the painting of the portrait, the picture that documents the “nothingness”, makes use of terminology and images from the Kabbalistic system.375 This proceeding reects what Nahman believed; i.e., “that the wisdom of the Kabbalah begins where philosophy ends” (Mark: xv). The knowledge of “not-knowing” becomes accessible to the protagonist when he reveals the second king as Ayin; i.e., nothingness. However, at the same time this state of “not-knowing” 374 I am not convinced that the protagonist is ignorant of God’s transcendent being. There is not any negative touch in the description of the protagonist, and Nahman never applies sarcasm to depict characters who are driven by a sincere attempt to nd the truth. However, I agree with Wiskind-Elper that the theme of God being transcendent and unknowable appears as very central to an understanding of the tale, though I should prefer the term “dialectical” instead of “paradoxical” to describe the way toward the recognition of God’s twofold nature; cf. my criticism of Weiss’s use of paradox in Chapter 3. 375 Cf. Mark: xiv.

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is what leads the protagonist to “the mystical experience of the revelation of the countenance of God as Nothingness” (Mark: xv). In the protagonist’s journey through the country of jokes, Mark detects a bold idea of Nahman. That man’s acts according to the commandments are a sort of play that man presents, a play that contains a complete system of actions, stage settings, props, cast, and audience. All is conducted while disregarding the fact that this is not a “real” system, and that everything that is done is a joke in comparison with the greatness of God, and that everything is only “seemingly” (Mark: xv).

In other words, acting according to the commandments does not make sense; it is even laughable. However, man acts accordingly because of his longings and yearnings for God on a nonrational basis. Like the jokes performed in the country of the second king, man’s religious acts are “like the work of a jester, that mimics the real thing”, and the very great zaddik, “if he is not a jester acting like a monkey, is, at the very best, a “comedian” whose worship of God is a conscious act of folly” (Mark: xvi).376 Analysis 6:—1:-, 3:—1:- Once there was a king who had a wise man. The king called upon the wise man and said: “As far as concerns the king, who designates himself a great hero, a man of truth and humbleness, I know that he is a great hero because of the sea which surrounds his country. At this sea stands an army of ships with cannons which prevents anyone from approaching. Next to the sea there is a large swamp surrounding the country. Only a narrow path leads through there on which only one man can walk, and cannons stand there as well. And if anyone comes to ght a war, the cannons will be red. One cannot approach this place. But why he

376 I am convinced that Mark is correct in detecting the philosophical and Kabbalistic system of thought in this tale as well as in Nahman’s writings in general. I also believe that Mark is correct in pointing to Nahman’s conception in general of religious worship as a conscious act of folly out of longings and yearnings for God. But since the jokes in the country of jokes are malicious with the purpose of hurting someone, I am not convinced that the jokes in tale #6 should be perceived of as “conscious acts of folly”. I am here in line with Band, who considers the jokes reections of the “base, corrupt verbal play of the degenerate country”; cf. Band 1982: 197; and in line with Roskies, who sees the country of lies as the reign of evil prior to the nal redemption; cf. Roskies 2002: 79. Roskies has no other comments on tale #6.

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chapter four designates himself ‘a man of truth and humbleness’ I do not know. I want you to bring me this king’s portrait.” The king had portraits of all of the kings, but no king had the portrait of this certain king because he hid himself from mankind by sitting behind a curtain. He was far from the people of his country.

A king orders his wise man to appear before him and listen to what puzzles him about another king. This other king has three designations, of which “great hero” and “man of humbleness” constitute an apparent paradox. In between stands the designation “man of truth”. What truth is, and if truth is related to greatness and humbleness, is difcult to say. But since the listener/reader is about to follow the wise man in his attempt to solve the riddle, the listener/reader is forced to wonder about the meaning of these three designations too. The king of the three designations lives as protected as possible. He has a sea, an army, and a swamp to protect him. Cannons along the only access to his country, a narrow path, are ready to be red at anyone who approaches the country with a hostile intention. The narrative topography may prove to be important. In Sefer haZohar I,226a, the sea is mentioned as the phenomenon which surrounds the world which has Shekhinah, God’s divine presence, at its center. Mankind has inherited the world from God; and what the world appears to be, depends on the individual who looks at it.377 By allowing for a transposition of this particular notion onto the sixth tale, the center protected by an army of ships with cannons378 becomes signied as divine. Behind the army there is a swamp. A swamp, which is rendered in Yiddish in both versions,379 connotes another zoharic intertext where the synonym “mire” is conceived as something negative.

377 “For the human eye represents the world with its various colours. The outer ring of white corresponds to the sea of Oceanus which surrounds the whole world. The next colour represents the land which is surrounded by the sea. A third colour in the middle of the eye corresponds to Jerusalem, which is in the center of the world. Finally there is the pupil of the eye, which reects the beholder and is the most precious part of all. This corresponds to Zion, which is the central point of the universe, in which the reection of the whole world can be seen, and where is the abode of the Shekinah, which is the beauty and the cynosure of the world. Thus the eye is the heritage of the world, and so as the father leaves it the son inherits it’” (Sefer haZohar I,226a). 378 Cf. the concept of a holy army protecting the divine in e.g., Sefer haZohar III,191a, with orders to drive out the unclean spirits of the land; cf. Sefer haZohar I,124a, or authorising the ships of Samael to attack the approaching sinners; cf. Sefer haZohar III,197a. 379 Cf. p. .

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R. Hiya began his discourse with the text: ‘And the wicked are like the driven sea’ (Is. LVII, 20). “When can the sea be said to be ‘driven’? When it becomes violently disturbed and sways this way and that and is driven from its bed; it is then like a drunken man, reeling and staggering and heaving up and down. ‘For it cannot rest, and its waters cast up mire and dirt’ (Ibid.), i.e., it throws up all the dirt and foul matter of the sea on to the shore. So it is with the wicked who leave the straight path and reel and stagger in the crooked roads they have taken” (Sefer haZohar I,74b).

In this passage sea and mire are working together to protect the land against the arrival of the wicked. I have tried to render the encircular structure of the narrative topography of the sixth tale in gure 6.1.380 The encircular layers of protection parallel the overall idea in Sefer haZohar of the protective shell around the divine kernel. For, as the nut has a shell surrounding and protecting the kernel inside, so it is with everything sacred: the sacred principle occupies the interior, whilst the “other side” encircles it on the exterior. This is the inward meaning of “the wicked doth surround the righteous” (Habakkuk I, 4) . . . Observe that the exterior, the more it is enlarged the more worthless it becomes (Sefer haZohar II,233b).381

The protective layers and the army most likely allude to the manifestations of Sitra haRa, cf. “the other side”. This is God’s purpose of creating evil, i.e., to expel evil with evil for the divine not to get in contact with evil and for the divine not to be contaminated. In the zoharic passage it says: “the more it is enlarged the more worthless is becomes”. When the shell is enlarged it means that evil dominates, causing the protective

380

Figure 6.1: Sea Army Swamp Country King

381

Cf. as well Sefer haZohar I,1a; 20a–b.

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shell to grow. Protection against evil has to imitate evil in order to be able to ght it, but mankind cannot benet from evil, which is why the enlarged shell is called worthless. However, evil will only be directed against those “who leave the straight path”, as it says in Sefer haZohar I,74b. In the tale it says that a narrow path leads through there.382 This parallels the zoharic straight path, and only those who have good intentions will be allowed to walk unhindered upon it. The protagonist is being told by the rst king that it is possible to reach the country along this path. So far, and since the listener/reader has not heard that the protagonist should have evil intentions, it should be possible for the protagonist to succeed in the quest. The puzzling designations of the second king leads the rst king to bequest from his subject, the wise man, that he go there to bring back a portrait of the second king, though logically it is not given that a portrait can explain the mysterious designations and nature of this king. The only explanation to why a portrait would be able to reect the character traits of greatness, truth, and humbleness would be a connotation to physiognomy. One of the skills of the zaddikim was to read the nature of a person through his appearance. The application of physiognomy is old and is described in Midrash Rabbah—Numbers IX,1, in an intertext that transposes signicance onto the sixth tale. Different rabbis are discussing whether God would create a child in the likeness of its father or in the likeness of the adulterer, with whom the pregnant mother has had intercourse after conception. In relation to this question R. Abbahu says: To what may this thing be likened? To a painter who was painting the image of a king, and as he was on the point of nishing the face they told him that the king was dead and that another king had arisen. When the painter heard this, his hands dropped and he began saying: “What shall I make of these tracings? Shall I fashion them in the image of the rst king or in that of the second?” and he was greatly perplexed . . . In the same way, . . . the Holy One, blessed be He, fashions the features of the embryo in the image of the father. The adulterer in his turn comes 382 This brings to mind one of Nahman’s famous niggunim “     ”, where the words, which are constantly repeated, are: “The entire world is one narrow bridge, and the essence is: Do not fear for anything”. The meaning seems to be that as long as one has faith in God, one can pass unharmed through life and reach the transcendent realm at the other end of this bridge.

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and couples with her and so the materials are mingled . . . [God] turns about and transforms the features which He at rst fashioned in the likeness of the husband into the likeness of the adulterer . . . For this reason it says, ‘And didst forget God that bore thee’. “I”, says God, “have created you and constructed you with cavities upon cavities . . . but you forget Me and falsely say of Me that I do not see and do not know of your deeds” (Midrash Rabbah—Numbers IX,1).

The similarities between the tale and this midrashic passage are that God knows of the delement of his subjects and that words like painter, and rst and second king, appear. To a certain extent there is also a structural resemblance between the invisible king who becomes visible and then again invisible in the tale and the dead king who rises as another king in the midrashic text. In the midrashic text the physiognomy of the child is paralleled with the physiognomy of the king. The midrashic logic must be that just like the child is inuenced by the sins of the mother, the king is inuenced by the sins of the people. If this logic is transposed onto Nahman’s tale, the second king, who probably represents something divine, cf. the protective circles, will be inuenced by the behavior of his people. In the midrashic text the physiognomy of the child is a living proof to his parents that God knows of their sins, and the initial hiddenness of the second king in the tale could be standing proof that this aspect of the divine knows of the lies in his country. The midrashic painter is “greatly perplexed” as to which king to paint, whereas the nahmanic painter is told specically by the rst king to paint the second king. This indicates that Nahman’s painter, the wise man, is guided much more than the midrashic painter. The reason why he is being guided may lie in the designation “wise man”. In Sefer haZohar, in yet another possible intertext, wisdom is linked to insights into physiognomy. It says: “thou shalt behold” . . . by means of the gift of inner sight of those characteristics which we have mentioned. All are indicated in this verse: “thou shalt look” refers to the hair; “of all the people” to the forehead; “for able men” to the face; “God-fearing” to the eyes; “men of truth” to the lips; and “hating covetousness” to the hands. All these are the signs by which to recognize men: signs, that is, to those on whom the spirit of wisdom rests (Sefer haZohar II,78a).

In the same passage, the spirit of wisdom rests accordingly on Moses, Solomon, and the Messiah. They are not in need of understanding these signs because the Holy Spirit will automatically enlighten them. However, the above-mentioned passage continues: “The wise who are

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adepts in physiognomic lore must warn men and provide healing for their souls.” If this zoharic passage is indeed an active intertext for the sixth tale with its focus on “the wise man”, the guiding rst king becomes connoted with something divine as well, cf. the enlightning holy spirit. Furthermore, if it is the task of the wise men to provide healing for the souls trapped in a deformed physiognomy because of the sins of others, then it would be relevant to assume that Nahman’s wise man has to engage in a project of healing the second king. The rst king has a collection of portraits, but neither he, nor any other king, has a portrait of this second king. All other kings are portrayed like portrait-collectors. In this way all of these kings are juxtaposed, which disturbs the habit of every listener/reader of Nahman’s tales to equal a narrative character of a king with God. No doubts exist as to Nahman’s monotheism, which only leaves open one other possibility, which is—if the kings should equal God—that the different attributes of God are in mind. Every serah reects an aspect of God. The serot are in between the transcendent and immanent sphere, and though not completely conceivable it is still possible to contemplate on their qualities. Ayin is not conceivable, and if the second king represents Ayin, it would explain why nobody has a portrait of this most transcendent aspect of God. In other words, the rst king, who himself connotes something divine, wants a portrait of what may represent the transcendent aspect of the divine. In this world, such a portrait would be impossible to paint. 14:—6:-, 7:—4:- The wise man went to this country. He thought to himself that it would be necessary to understand the essence of this country. One could understand the essence of a country through its jokes, because if one needs to understand a thing, one needs to understand the jokes related to this thing. There are different ways of joking. There is the type who is really prepared to hurt a friend through his words. When this friend becomes angry with him, he tells him: “I am joking” like it is written: ‘As a mad man who throws rebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man who deceives his neighbour, and says, I was only joking!’383 And there is the

383

Prov. 26.18–19.

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type who is prepared to joke even though his friend is hurt by it. There are many kinds of jokes. There is a country within all of the countries that encompasses all countries, and in this country there is a city which encompasses all the cities of this country, which encompasses all the countries. In this city there is a house that encompasses all the houses of the city, which encompasses all the cities of the country, which encompasses all the countries. And there, there is a man who encompasses the house which . . . And there, there is someone who does all the mockery and joking of the country.

Kaplan and Mark suggest that jokes reect a higher level of consciousness, since jokes are never understood logically and since mankind is never able to worship God according to God’s greatness anyway.384 This understanding of jokes hints at an understanding of the kingdom of the second king as a place where the principles of causality may supercede the ordinary ways for man to think. However, the two examples of jokes mentioned in this tale conform in my reading to the sad way of humans to hurt each other, and so there is nothing transcendent about the logic of these jokes. The two examples of jokes in the tale differ in that the rst joker hurts his friend without admitting that hurting was the intention, whereas the other joker accepts that joking includes hurting someone. In any case, when jokes appear as something malicious, and when jokes reect a layer surrounding the essence of a country, it seems that these jokes are implicit references to the protective, evil layers surrounding the second king’s country. In this passage it is as if Nahman at rst jumps back to the rst description of the country of the second king. But then further down when the listener/reader realizes that a joker is sitting at the center, one is persuaded to forget about the other center character, the second king.385 Instead the task becomes to gure out the signicance implied by the apparent incompatibility between the divine connotations of a

384

Cf. Kaplan 1983: 131n; Mark: xv, xvi. This immediate impression supports the readings of Kaplan and Mark; cf. Kaplan 1983: 131n; Mark: xv, xvi. 385

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king and the evil connotations of a joker. The structure of the world of the joker is reected in gure 6.2.386 This time the encircular structure is not only a matter of encapsulating a center. Each layer around the center encompasses all man ifestations of what it represents in itself. Whereas nothing in the rst encircular description (cf. gure 6.1) seemed to interrelate, it becomes obvious in this second encircular description that a certain ow ties these layers together, maybe indicating an intensied cooperation between the layers of evil, still in the service of the divine. 1:—14:-, 1:—7:- The wise man took a large amount of money and went there. He saw that they engaged in mockery and joking, and he understood from the jokes that all of the country was full of lies from the beginning to the end. He saw that they were engaged in joking, how they deceived and led people astray in commerce, and how the one, who went to the authorities for justice, saw everyone lie and accept bribes. If one went to the higher court everyone would lie there as well and joke about all of these things. From these jokes the wise man understood that the entire country was full of lies and fraud and that no truth could be found in it. He went and allowed himself to be deceived in commerce, upon which he appeared before the court, but everyone was full of lies and bribes. One day he gave them a bribe, the next day they did not recognize him, and they were full of lies and bribes as well. Finally he came to the king himself.

The materialistic phenomenon of money seems to be the seal with which one can enter through the different institutions, which—also in an encircular structure—surround the center, where the king is

386

Figure 6.2: Country Cities House Man Joker

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seated. But this king with his divine connotations is once again within the connes of evil, this time as manifestations of lies. Figure 6.3387 describes the encircularity of these connes. As to the descriptions in the text there is not much to say, except that no truth exists in this country or among its jurisdictional representatives and institutions. The higher one gets, the more corrupt. This evokes the zoharic sentence: “the more it is enlarged the more worthless is becomes” (Sefer haZohar II,233b), which could help indicate that a thick layer of evil is needed to protect the divine against the enlarged amount of evil among mankind. Finally, the wise man appears before the highest authority in this corrupt kingdom, the king.388 Doubt has been raised as to the integrity of this king because of the corruption of the country. If, however, the corruption and lies parallel the protective jokes and manifestations of evil, this third encircular description could be seen as an extension of

387

Figure 6.3: Country of jokes Lies of the authorities Lies of the higher court King

388 After having interpreted the swamp and the kingdom as a womb and the narrow path as a birth-canal (?!), Green claims that the protagonist “turns to the one at the center who knows to make light of it and not to take its folly seriously. This wizard gure appears in several of Nahman’s tales . . .; here he lives at the center of the world and laughs at all the lies. He is the prototype of the zaddiq . . . ” (Green 1992 (1979): 359). I assume that Green is referring to the one who does all the mockery and joking of the country described on p. , lines 13–14-, 6–7- But nothing indicates that the protagonist meets this man, nor that this man as a wizard helps the protagonist along in his quest, nor that this joker should be equivalent to a zaddik, since all he does is hide the truth behind the vicious jokes.

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the rst one, which would leave a longer row of protective layers, as shown in gure 6.4.389

16–1:-, 9–1:- When the wise man came to the king he asked: “Over whom are you king in a country full of lies from the beginning to the end? No truth can be found in it!” And he began to tell all the lies of the country. When the king heard these things, he bent his ears toward the curtain to hear these things, because the king was puzzled to listen to the man who knew all the lies of the country. The ministers of the kingdom who heard these things became very angry with him, but he continued to tell about the lies of the country. He said: “It seems that one could say that the king would be like them, that he would love lies like the country. But from this I see that you are a man of truth: You keep far from them, because you cannot bear the lies of the country.”

The wise man expresses his immediate assumption that this king embodies the lies of the country he represents. But the wise man comes to realize that this is not the case. The more the wise man reveals about the corruption, the more he attracts the attention of the king eager to have the corruption revealed. The ministers are against this revelation, so actually they could represent an extra layer, which then should be added to gures 6.3 and 6.4. But the wise man has reached the king, and in his presence the ministers have no power to prevent the continuation of the revelation. The nal evil layer has been penetrated.

389

Figure 6.4: Sea Army Swamp Country/Country of jokes

Lies of the authorities Lies of the higher court

King

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By attracting the attention of the king through words of truth, the wise man is convinced that the king does not embody the delement of the kingdom. On the contrary, the king must resent the lies, since he keeps himself separated from them. By keeping himself separated from lies, the king becomes a man of truth.390 The rst king was puzzled as to the designation “man of truth”, and the listener/reader is here given an explanation of this epithet. 12: —16:-, 7–1:- He began to praise the king very much. The king was very humble, and his greatness lay in his humbleness. This is the way of the humble: The more his greatness is praised, the smaller and humbler he becomes. Because of the greatness of the praise of the wise man who praised and magnied the king, the king became very humble and small until he became nothing391 at all. He could not control himself and cast the curtain aside to see this wise man. Who was he, who knew and understood all of this? His face was revealed, and the wise man saw him, [painted his portrait],392 and brought his portrait back to the king.

Through the wise man’s praise of the king, the listener/reader comes to understand the designations “greatness” and “humbleness”.393 Greatness is humbleness, and humbleness is greatness. This tautological denition would be invalid according to standards of logic, which only reminds the listener/reader that this is a mystical universe. Nothing is what it seems, and what is great in one world is small in another, and vice versa. This dialectical understanding could refer to the ontological essence of Ayin and Yesh as seen from the perspective of the mystic who has gained insight into the Hasidic truths. God is in everything and everything is in God seen from a divine perspective, whereas the limited intellect of man cannot grasp the divine because it is hidden beneath what he

390 “He who speaks falsely shall not be established before my face” (Ps. 101.7); cf. Kaplan 1983: 134n. 391 In the Hebrew, the word is ; cf. p. . 392 That he “painted his portrait” only appears in the Yiddish version, p. , line 11, (       ). 393 Kaplan is probably correct when he writes that this is a reference to Megillah 31a where it says: “Wherever you nd gedulah, there you nd anavah”. He continues by explaining that gedulah and anavah represent the right side within the serotic system, thereby indicating that these designations refer to the mercyful attributes of the Godhead.

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considers existence.394 However, the wise man sees through this, which is probably why he, from the beginning, is able to walk on the narrow path and pass through the different layers that surround the divine to protect it from people with no insight into the true quality of existence, cf. my reading of Sefer haZohar I,266a where the appearance of the world depends on the individual who looks at it. The insight of the wise man attracts the presence of the king. But maybe it is not only God’s presence that appears before the wise man. It says that he magnied the king, after which the king became so small until he became nothing at all. Once the second king has thrown away the curtain, it is as if God meets the wise man on human conditions. God has to contract himself in order to emanate and allow man to realize the divine, as Green suggested.395 This would be a matter of recognizing the contracted God’s greatness through Shekhinah, which is something that God wants. He knows that his Beloved is lovesick like himself, so that none of her beauty can be seen, and so through the voices of those warriors of hers her Beloved comes forth from his palace with many gifts and presents, with spices and incense, and comes to her and nds her black and shrunken, without form or beauty. He then draws near to her and embraces and kisses her until she gradually revives from the scents and spices, and her joy in having her Beloved with her, and she is built up and recovers her full form and beauty. And this was brought about by the might and power of her doughty warriors. Hence it is written, “Mighty in strength that fulll his word”. And then when they have restored her to her form and beauty they and all the other hosts wait attentively for her words, and she is like a king in the midst of his army. In the same way below, when there are sinners in the generation, she hides herself and diminishes herself till only a dot is left, until the mighty ones, the truly virtuous, come and as it were restore her, so that she gradually brightens and recovers her form and beauty and becomes as before’ (Sefer haZohar III,191a)

This passage deals with Shekhinah’s wish to be seen as God’s awe-inspiring presence in this world. God’s presence in this world, Shekhinah, is also called the gate of fear, through which one must enter, if one wants to experience more of God. 394

Schwartz comments on the curtain mentioned in tale #6. Schwartz interprets the curtain as a reference to the concept of —i.e., the screen behind which God sits on the throne of glory, known from Hekhalot texts and Kabbalah. He writes: “The primary purpose of the Pargod is to serve as a reminder that complete knowledge of the divinity is beyond the capacity of humans”; cf. Schwartz: 216. 395 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 358.

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Assuredly, without entering through that gate one will never gain access to the most high King. Imagine a king greatly exalted who screens himself from the common view behind gate upon gate, and at the end, one special gate, locked and barred. Saith the king: He who wishes to enter into my presence must rst of all pass through that gate. So here the rst gate to super-Wisdom is the fear of God; and this is what is meant by reshith (beginning). The letter Beth (= 2) indicates two things joined together, namely two points, one shrouded in mystery and one capable of being revealed; and as they are inseparable they therefore are both joined in the single term reshith (beginning), i.e., they are one and not two, and he who takes away the one takes away the other as well (Sefer haZohar I,7b)

The praises of the wise man are proper expressions of the fear of God, but this fear is still linked to God’s presence in this world as the rst king or as the second king in this one’s greatness. But thanks to his fear he can experience more, which is important, because God as shrouded mystery, God in his state of smallness, is also in need of being revealed. If this higher and second aspect of God is not revealed, the wise man cannot bring back a complete portrait to the rst king. The state of smallness is described with the word “”, i.e., Ayin, nothing or nothingness. The wise man is witnessing nothing less than the very Nothingness, the very innite being of God!396 The revealed and the shrouded natures of the second king seem to refer to the divine states of gadlut, i.e., greatness, and katnut, i.e., smallness. Greatness and humbleness were two designations of the second king, while the third, truth, was situated in between. Maybe Nahman is indicating that true perception of God is a matter of recognizing God’s gadlut and katnut at the same time. In that case true perception would be to partake in the divine insight/truth. The rst king, representing something divine himself, uses the wise man and makes him partake in this truth. Recognizing God is a matter of following the invisible

396

According to Band, this is made possible through the qualities of the protagonist; cf. Band 1978: 301–302. According to Mark, this becomes apparent to the listener/ reader through the terminology and the imagery applied; cf. Mark: xiv. Kaplan also believes that the wise man, thanks to his praises of the second king, witnesses Ayin: “The highest levels of the Divine are referred to as ayin (nothing). They are called nothing, because man has no categories in his mind with which to grasp them...The more one praises God the closer one comes to this ideal . . . It is also when a person has this perception of God that he can “see”. God can reveal Himself to that person” (Kaplan 1983: 135n).

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line between God’s gadlut and katnut, between Shekhinah and Ayin, just like the protagonist has to travel from the visible king to the shrouded king. Seeing them both is a matter of restoring to God God’s original essence, as it was before it was forced into hiding because of evil. This makes one recall the lore of physiognomy which was able to heal the souls trapped within the deformed appearance caused by this world,397 though this time it becomes a matter of healing God. But seeing and understanding God’s twofold nature is not the same as painting it. To paint innity, man would have to enter the divine void. But man’s entrance to the divine void belongs to the future, to the Messianic era, and until then no expression of God’s innity is possible. This is probably why Band, in his interpretation, follows the Hebrew version, which does not mention if the wise man painted the portrait or not. The wise man just brought back his portrait, and this portrait would be, as Band notes: “obviously blank. For the perceptive Hasid versed in the intricacies of Bratslav theology, the portrait of God must be blank” (Band 1978: 115). The Yiddish version mentions that the wise man did paint the second king’s portrait. This would only be possible in the Messianic era. The protective layers of evil still exist and reect God’s need in the present world to protect the divine by hiding. If the portrait was not blank, but painted, Nahman is letting his painter portray the hopedfor future where man will be able to equally understand the twofold nature of God. Recapitulation A rst king, probably some divine and more or less immanent aspect of God, chooses a wise man to follow a narrow path of the righteous and thereby penetrate several layers of evil in order to reach a second king, who designates himself a great hero, a man of truth, and a man of humbleness. The rst king believes that by having this second king’s portrait, he will be able to understand these mysterious designations. The logic behind this reasoning probably refers to physiognomic lore according to Sefer haZohar, where the wise master of this lore will be able to heal those trapped within a deformed physiognomy because

397

Cf. Sefer haZohar II,78a.

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of the sins of the people. Since the second king’s physiognomy is so “deformed” that it cannot be seen, it is likely through the intertextual reference to Sefer haZohar that the wise man is about to engage in a process of healing. But since the rst king is using the wise man as a tool to approach the second king, one can expect that the healing will effect both kings. Once the wise man arrives at the country of the second king, he meets nothing but evil, corruption, and lies. This seems to reect the real world as well as those protective layers of evil with which God protects the divine kernel of reality. However, because the wise man has the right intention, he is able to see through and pass unharmed through these layers of evil and to arrive at the second king himself. By describing the evil in this world to the second king, the wise man succeeds in making the second king reveal himself. The revelation uncovers the two fundamental natures of God that can be characterized as Ayin and Yesh, innity and presence, divine katnut and gadlut. This is, however, not a matter of forcing God, in his twofold nature, out of hiding. God wants to be revealed in both forms. Suddenly, the initiative of the rst king becomes apparent. The rst king comes to represent God’s presence in this world and is able to activate someone who possesses the wisdom of the righteous to restore the twofold nature of God’s presence and transcendence. This is where the engagement of the wise man in a healing process becomes a matter of tikkun. However, it is one thing to accept that God has a twofold nature, and another to actually perceive and to express it in painting. In both the Hebrew and the Yiddish version it says that the wise man saw the second king and brought back his portrait. But the Yiddish version says that the wise man painted the second king. According to Band following the Hebrew version, this would not exclude that the wise man brings back a blank portrait, where the blankness reects God as Ayin. However, if the Yiddish version is followed, in which the wise man by painting is able with a human technique to portray the immanent as well as the transcendent aspects of God, it would mean that the wise man has gained access to a medium of expression which is no longer nite as are human media of expression by denition. That humans should be able to de-ne the innite is, in this present world, a contradiction in terms; however, it may reect the expectation that human perception in the Messianic era will be altered.

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Introduction The seventh tale398 is known under several titles.      , i.e., the seventh tale about a y and a spider, is the title in the bilingual version. Kaplan399 and Wiskind-Elper400 reverse the order and call it “The Spider and the Fly”, whereas Band401 calls it “The king who fought many wars”, following the rst sentence in the Hebrew and Yiddish text. In the Hebrew version it says:     ,   

   . In the Yiddish it says: .       

           . I should follow Band in choosing the title from the initial sentence, since the “war” between the y and the spider is only one “war” among the many/ several “wars” described in this tale. However, the initial sentence not only has the meaning “fought several wars”; it also has the meaning that these “wars” were burdensome, and that they rested upon him. I have no suggestion as to a completely literal translation of the initial sentence, but my choice for a title—i.e., “The King who Was Burdened by Several Wars”—should be close enough to render the circumstances under which the king lives. Summary The seventh tale is embedded in a frame from where Nahman and his disciples now and then appear with comments on the tale. Nahman begins the tale by saying that he will tell about the journey that he has undertaken. He warns his disciples that neither will he tell them everything nor should they expect to understand it. The tale proper begins at an ofcial banquet hosted by a victorious king. Jesters are performing comedies in which the customs of all nations, including the nations of Ismael and Israel, are being mocked.

398 Tale #7 was told on Sabbath, August 1, 1807. It was recorded by Naftali, who later conveyed it to Nathan Sternhartz; cf. Hayyey MoHaRaN #160, 162. 399 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 138. 400 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 166. 401 Cf. Band 1978: 121.

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By reading a book, which describes the customs of the different nations, the king is able to see through the mockery of the jesters. He realizes that the jesters have based their comedies on the descriptions in the book. Suddenly, the book is turned into a platform for a battle between a spider and a y. When the spider attacks, a wind lifts a page in the book, which protects the y, upon which the spider has to retreat. This is repeated several times, until nally the spider dies between two pages. The king falls asleep. In his dream a large number of men emerge from a diamond and attack the king sitting underneath his own portrait, above which a crown is placed. The men behead the portrait and throw the crown into the mud, but as they proceed to kill the king, the page of the book suddenly lifts itself and protects the king. This is repeated several times. The king screams while dreaming and awakes a mountain. The mountain has many enemies who try to ascend and attack the mountain, but whenever they try, the page protects the mountain as well. A tablet is placed on top of the mountain on which it is inscribed to what nation the customs of the protecting page belong. At the foot of the mountain there is another tablet, on which it is inscribed that whoever has teeth can climb the mountain. However, God has made grass grow on the track that leads to the tablet on top of the mountain. Whenever anyone tries to ascend, this one will slip and all his/her teeth will fall out. Seemingly unrelated, the large number of men, who had emerged from the diamond, now mend the portrait and hang it back above the king, and they also wash the mud away from the crown and hang it back in its place. The king wakes up. The rst thing he does is to look at the page, which had protected him, to see that it describes the customs of the Jews. Subsequently he wants to convert to Judaism and bring the rest of the world to realize the truth in Judaism. The king dresses up like an ordinary man and travels together with two men to nd a wise man who can interpret his dream. He meets a wise man who makes the king a mixture of incense on a certain day, which enables the king to understand everything. On that certain day the king is transported back to vision his soul state in the upper world before he was born. His soul is pure, and the heavenly hosts decide to let him descend into the world. Yet, Samael objects, since he feels that his function is threatened by the descent of this soul. The objection is denied by God, though Samael is granted to take counsel. Samael returns with an old, hunched

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man, whom he sends into the world, as the heavenly hosts let the king’s soul descend. The king then visions his life and the wars he has been through. This is where the tale proper ends. Fragments are presented about a beautiful girl who belonged to a group of prisoners taken captive by the king, about how this girl wore a diamond around her neck, about how this girl had all the graces in the world coming from the diamond, and about how only the rich and the wise could ascend the mountain. Scholarly comments on the tale Band introduces the seventh tale as “a composite of vision, nightmare, and trance”, dealing with the issue of religious insight. The gentile king was before birth destined to have become “a zadik, perhaps even the messiah”. However, Samael succeeded in his protests to God and was allowed “to create obstacles, including the “hunched old man”. These obstacles prevented this precious soul from descending to the earth as a zadik or the messiah”. Instead the soul descended “as a mere king with only occasional religious insight”.402 Band seems aware that the king has been interpreted in Bratslav tradition as Nahman; and the hunched old man as Aryeh Leib, the Shpoler Zeide; but Band refrains from following that tradition. Instead he focuses on the destiny of the king’s soul: “[The] king is guided in his pneumatic development by a divine force since three different devices—the spectacle [of the spider and the y], a double dream, and a vision—are utilized to lead him to the same goal of self-knowledge” (Band 1978: 305). Band would have expected the tale to end, where the king, after having decided to bring all his people to the truth, “understands that he must learn the truth about the essence of his soul.”403 Green does not comment on the seventh tale; however, he does comment on the travels preceding this tale, which is why I shall include him here. Green emphasizes, that Nahman wrote a letter from Zaslov to his disciples in Bratslav404 and told them that “the many troubles

402

Cf. Band 1978: 123. Cf. Band 1978: 304. 404 This letter is rendered in its entirety in Mykoff 1987: 74–75. The letter was rst published in Alim LeTerufah: 56. 403

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and misadventures” that had befallen him had made him leave Bratslav for a planned period of three months. Nahman continues and blames himself for bringing about these troubles and the deaths of many of his children (not the death of his wife). The sufferings and deaths are seen as signs of controversy that are means to confront evil.405 In addition to this, the long standing tradition in Jewish pietism of imposing oprikhtn golus, voluntary exile, on oneself as a means to atone sins, may be reected in Nahman’s travel. This leads Green to interpret the travel as Nahman’s confrontation with evil within himself.406 Kaplan also pays attention to Nahman’s travel during spring and summer 1807.407 Kaplan considers the “many wars” of the king a parallel to the hardship that R. Nahman had to go through on this travel.408 Kaplan mentions that it is a tradition within the Bratslav community to interpret this tale as concerned with Nahman’s dispute with Aryeh Leib, the Shpoler Zeide.409 Kaplan furthermore points to Nahman having said that Ps. 3 is the key to this tale.410 Wiskind-Elper attempts to examine the “phenomenology of dream logic and symbolism outlined in Jewish sources and in modern psychological methods, and consider Reb Nahman’s conception in the light of those theories.” In this light, she summarizes the tale and presents it as a classic dream session in front of the great analyst, the wise man. The dream phases “illustrate basic ideas in Jungian and Freudian theory concerning

405

Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 113–116. Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 228–234. 407 R. Nahman traveled a lot during this spring. First he traveled incognito, disguised as a businessman to Navritch. He then traveled from there to Ostrog, where he sent for his wife, Sosia, who was suffering from tuberculosis, to have her treated by a doctor whom Nahman trusted. They traveled together to Zaslov. However, Nahman’s wife died on June 11, 1807. Kaplan continues and explains that Nahman traveled to Dubno and Brody in July. In Brody he became engaged to the daughter of R. Yechezkiel Trachtenberg. Her name is unknown. But in Brody, Nahman himself contracted tuberculosis. Upon contraction, he decided to return to Bratslav, and on the rst Sabbath after having returned, on August 1, 1807, he told this tale. 408 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 138n; 493n–511n. 409 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 138n. Kaplan does not mention here what the controversy was about. Green believes that it dealt with the future role of Hasidism, whether the movement should stress the naive joy of grandfatherly wonder-working zaddikim or offer efcient means for the Hasidim to confront evil and to understand its divine origin; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 98, 104. 410 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 139n. 406

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symbolic thinking.”411 “The humble wise man leads his ‘patient’ through a truly Freudian ‘regression’.” However, his destiny “has not yet been realized. Thus, Reb Nahman’s tale trails off, inconclusive . . . as the psychotherapeutic process itself must be” (Wiskind-Elper: 168).412 Wiskind-Elper points to Ps. 3 and Shabbat 88b–89a as intertexts and to the allegorical nature of the king’s waking experience, his dreams, and his role in history. Only by seeing himself from without, by interpreting, the king comes to understand his true identity, which includes the “messianic responsibility in foiling the satanic foe”,413 and that his experiences reect all “of nature [being] guided by God’s hidden providence.”414 Analysis 6:—1:-, 5:—1:- I will tell you all about the journey that I have undertaken: Once there was a king who was burdened by several wars. He won many and took a lot of prisoners. (In the middle of this where he had begun to tell the tale, he said the following in a certain manner of speaking: “Do neither claim that I will tell you all nor that you will understand”). The king used to give a banquet every year on the day where he had won a war. At the banquet and according to the customs of the kings, all the ministers of the kingdom and the authorities were present. Some made jests, which they called comedies, and they played and made fun of all nations, of the nation of Ismael, and of all other nations. They distorted through mockery the customs and the behavior of every nation, and obviously they also made fun of the nation of Israel. The king ordered the book to be brought to him in which the customs and behavior of every single nation were written down. On every page by which he happened to open the book he saw that the behavior and the customs of the nation were written down in the same way as the jesters had performed them. The jester, who had performed the comedy, had obviously seen the book.

411

Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 155–156. One can say that the king’s dream and his subsequent wish to understand this dream resemble a patient’s dream and his/her wish to understand the dream through the insight of a therapist, but Wiskind-Elper does not specify in her own analysisthe interpretative benets of pointing to such resemblance. 413 Cf. Wiskind-Elper 167–168; 207–208. 414 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 208. 412

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On the one hand and given the fact that Nahman had just returned after several months of journey, it is likely that he introduced this tale around the Sabbath table as a tale related to this journey.415 On the other hand, Nahman’s disciples, while he was in Zaslov, had received a letter from him which said that the troubles he had met in Bratslav had made him want to leave Bratslav and go on a journey. Upon Nahman’s return, the disciples may have perceived the many wars of the king as implicit references to some of the troubles mentioned in the letter and may accordingly have informed Nathan Sternhartz that this was the context for the tale,416 without it actually being so. On yet another hand, Nahman may have introduced this tale as related to one of his journeys, where the journey, without the disciples’ knowing, could be just a common gurative expression for the physical, mental, or insightwise development which he, like anybody else, has had to go through. These suggestions may not be mutually exclusive. The tale proper is about a king who was burdened by several wars, of which he won many and where he had taken prisoners. This sounds like a common thing for a war-faring king to do, but the fact that the wars were burdensome indicate that the king had not initiated the wars. This could be an initial signal to think of the king in positive terms. Suddenly, and according to the rendering, Nahman interrupts his own tale by saying “in a certain manner of speaking” that the tale will be incomplete and that they would not be able to understand it. To explain this interruption, it may be worth considering that the end of the tale consists of fragments and that there is no direct link in the tale between Nahman’s journey and the experiences of the king. Therefore, one could interpret this interpolation as the attempt of the editors to lay down the basis for intentionally garbling the ending as to indicate some hidden eschatological matters, as Band suggests.417 In some of Nahman’s tales the banquets held reect cowardice or evil intentions.418 However, just like the emperor’s daughter differed

415

Cf. Hayyey MoHaRaN #57, 59. Because information in Hayyey MoHaRaN about Nahman’s travel is presented together with information about tale #7, Kaplan believes that the king should be interpreted as Nahman himself. However, he is aware that the gentile king’s wish to become a Jew could be symbolic of any Jew’s wish to become a true Jew; cf. Kaplan 1983: 139n. 417 Cf. Band 1978: 305. 418 Concerning cowardice, cf. the banquets of the bald king’s ministers in tale #2. Concerning evil intentions, cf. the banquets of the demon kings in tale #3. 416

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from the cowardly ministers in the second tale, the king here in the seventh tale differs from his joking ministers, in that he recognizes that their origin stems from a certain book that describes the customs and behavior of every single nation and so he refrains from following his ministers’ conception of what is laughable. The only two nations mentioned by name are the nation of Ismael and the nation of Israel. The nation of Ismael is the name chosen in the Hebrew version, whereas the Yiddish version presents this nation as the nation of the Turks.419 Ismael is, as Kaplan states, the antithesis of Isac;420 the one to whom no blessings were given, and the one to whom God’s angel predicted wildness and strife.421 Still, Ismael and Isac are both sons of Abraham, and through this connotation Judaism and Islam could be juxtaposed here as two monotheistic religions in the gentile majority culture of the tale. Islam and Judaism are two nations that have accepted the sovereignty of the one and only God already; the remaining nations still have to accept that. But Nahman could have had something else in mind. Later in the tale a book, including a protective page, appears as what probably symbolizes Torah. Torah contains the authoritative words and the will of God. By stressing that all the customs and kinds of behavior of every single nation in the world were described in this book, Nahman says that every nation is subsumed under the divine will and authority as it is expressed in Torah.422 The jesters base their portrayal of these nations on the descriptions in this book. But what comes out of it is nothing more than comedies, mockeries, and jests, as if this level of performance indicates the jesters’ poor insight into the consequences of the content of this book. Maybe Tzvi Mark should have chosen the seventh tale, instead of the sixth tale, to prove his point that jokes symbolize man’s lack of understanding of the true greatness of God. Mark suggests concerning Nahman’s view on man’s acts according to the commandments that they are “like the work of a jester, that mimics the real thing”, and the very great zaddik, “if he is not a jester acting like a monkey, is, at the very best, a

Cf. 10:-, 8:- Cf. Kaplan 1983: 140n. Concerning the Yiddish rendering of this nation, Kaplan suggests that the Turks could be related to the Turks with whom Nahman met on his journey to Palestine; cf. Kaplan 1985: 35–36. In that case the Turks should be considered adversaries of the Jews. 421 Cf. Gen. 16.12. 422 Cf. Band 1978: 304 as well. 419 420

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‘comedian’ whose worship of God is a conscious act of folly” (Mark: xvi). Mark inspires to the question if Nahman is here portraying a Hasidic hoyf where the king, representing an even greater zaddik than the one Mark mentions, suddenly realizes that his followers are acting according to the commandments without really understanding the origin behind these commandments. Has this potential zaddik come to realize the conscious acts of folly, inspired by his own previous guiding? This question may be crucial to an understanding of the tale. The opening scene of the tale is therefore likely to present two problems: the lack of gentile acceptance of God’s sovereignty and the ministers’ blind act according to their literal understanding of the book, which may be Torah. From this point on, the king must pursue the origin of what is written in this book. 3:—7:-, 1:—5:- When the king was sitting over the book he saw a spider crawling on the edges of the pages. On page two a y was standing. Where does a spider go?—Obviously, to the y. However, as the spider crawled toward the y, a wind came and lifted the page of the book, and the spider could not go toward the y. It retreated. Shrewd as it was, it pretended that it retreated and would not want to go toward the y again. The page returned to its place, and the spider once again went toward the y. Then again the page was lifted and prevented the spider from going toward the y, and so it retreated. It went on like this several times, and every time the spider returned to go toward the y. It crawled and walked until it grasped the page with one of its feet. Again the page was lifted, but the spider was already a little on the page. The page then let itself down completely, until the spider remained underneath in the space between the pages. It crawled and remained underneath, until nothing remained of it. (‘About the y—I won’t tell you what happened to it’). The king saw all of it. He was puzzled, since he knew that this was not an empty matter. It wanted to teach him something. (All the ministers saw how the king was staring and how he was puzzled). He began to think about it; what this was and what it was about. He fell asleep over the book.

As if the attack of the spider on the y were being described within the book, the spider attacks the y on page two, but the attack is aborted thanks to one page that is lifted by the wind. By composing this imagery at a point where the king is supposed to pursue the deeper meaning and the origin of the book, Nahman transforms the war of the insects on top of a page to an invitation to the king to emerge into the process of understanding. The y and the spider, one weak, the other strong,

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constitute a pair of binary oppositions among many, all related more or less to war: The king has been at war with many. Israel and Ismael refer to Isac and Ismael as two brothers, one favored by God, the other not. The monotheistic nations are in opposition to the gentile nations. One could even say that the king, who has realized the origin of the jokes, is in opposition to the joking court. The outcome of the war between the y and the spider is that the spider dies in between two pages of this special book. This ending could be a prediction of what will happen to those who attack the weak, those who do not accept the position of God’s favorite,423 those who do not convert to Judaism, those who do not see through the jokes, performed according to the literal readings of a very special book. Nahman never told what happened to the y. This seems to parallel other open ends in many of the other tales. By leaving the ends open, Nahman refrains from speaking about the far future.424 However, the king’s pursuit of insight prevails, and so he decides to think about the message which lies in the war between the y and the spider. His thoughts are given the form of dreams as he falls asleep. 10:—4:-, 6:—1:- He dreamed that he had a precious stone, a diamond, in his hand, and he looked at it. A large number of people came out of the diamond, so he immediately threw the diamond away. It was customary among kings to have their portraits hanging above them, and above the portraits they used to hang their crowns. In the dream he saw how all the people who had come out of the diamond took the portrait and cut off the head. Upon this they took the crown and threw it into the mud and ran toward him to kill him. A page from the book, over which he was sleeping, was lifted and protected him. They could do nothing to him, and they went away from him. Upon this the page returned to its place. Again they

423 Rabbi Avraham ben Nahman of Tulchin, a Bratslaver who wrote Hokhmah U’Tevunah, a commentary to Sippurey Maxasiyot, which was published in 1962, sees the battle between the y and the spider as parallel to the battle between Esau and Jacob, which already began at birth where Jacob’s “hand was grasping the foot of Esau”; cf. Gen. 25.26. According to Rashi, Jacob has to prevent Esau’s “foot” from getting the upper hand, otherwise Jacob will be dragged down. Thanks to Torah, Jacob is given the power to win over Esau and destroy him, which is the same that happens here in this tale; cf. Kaplan 1983: 143n. 424 Kaplan believes that the end of the y “involves the Messianic promise”, maybe Nahman’s own destiny, which is why Nahman does not revel it; cf. Kaplan 1983: 143n.

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ran to kill him, and again the page was lifted as before. It went on like this several times. He yearned very much to see which page was protecting him and to see which customs of what nation this page reected, but he was afraid to look. He began to scream: “Woe! Woe!” All the ministers who were sitting there heard it. They wanted to wake him up. However, it was not customary to wake up the king. Instead they clapped around him to wake him up, but he did not hear it.

In the second and fth tale, precious stones or diamonds most likely referred to the souls about to be gathered; and in the third tale, a diamond served as the protagonist’s transportation device to reach a transcendent sphere and gain insight into divine reection. The diamond in the seventh tale is special too, but at this point in the tale, it seems that it is linked with evil. Evil hordes coming out of the diamond attack a sympathetic though gentile king. The beheading of the head in the king’s portrait probably refers to the intention to behead the king himself. The crown in the mud probably refers to the intention to dethrone the king. However, just before they get close enough to the king to act out their intentions, the page in the special book is lifted and protects the sleeping king. If a diamond still in this seventh tale connotes something divine, it could be that it is giving the king a warning. He will be dethroned and killed, unless . . . The question is what the king has to do to avoid being dethroned and killed. The page of the book is lifted by some supernatural power with the purpose of protecting the king, not only in his dreams but in reality, cf. that it was the “page from the book, over which he was sleeping” that was lifted. The supernatural protection causes the king to yearn in his dream to nd out what specic page it is which protects him. His yearning is succeeded by his screams: “Woe! Woe!” It is unclear at what or to whom his distress is directed. It could be a call for help against dethronement and death, which activates the rst association to Ps. 3. A Psalm of David, when he ed from Absalom his son. Lord, how many are my enemies! There are many who rise up against me. Many are there who say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. Selah. But, O Lord, you are a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of my head. I cried to the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out from his holy mountain. Selah. I laid down and slept; I awoke; for the Lord sustained me.

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chapter four I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves around against me. Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For you have struck all my enemies on the cheek bone; you have broken the teeth of the wicked. Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing is upon your people. Selah (Ps. 3)

In this intertext, King David is on the run from his son Absalon and many adversaries who claim that God will not help David. However, David does not doubt God’s willingness to protect him, his glory, and his power, cf. the lifted head. David then recounts how his cry for God’s help caused God’s attention, cf. that Mount Zion is the place to address God for help, according to the Book of Psalms. From this mountain God sustained David, and God’s sustenance is what awakes him. Therefore, for the future, David will not fear for the thousands of enemies surrounding him. He just calls out to God for help because David knows that once before God struck the enemies on the cheek bone and broke the teeth of the wicked. This is why David knows that his and his people’s salvation depends on and is possible through God. The ministers, who surround the king in the seventh tale and who respond with jokes to the descriptions in the book, witness what to them may seem a nightmare, and so they try to bring the king back to this world. But the king sleeps on, as if he knew that the enhancement of his understanding of the one, whom he is addressing, depends on him staying in another world. In this way and in line with Mark’s understanding of jokes as an ignorance of God’s greatness, the ministers could be seen as the king’s enemies. 11:—10:-, 8:—6:- In the middle of this a high mountain came to him and asked him: “Why are you screaming like this? I have been sleeping for a long time, and nobody, nothing, has woken me up, but you woke me up!” The king said: “Shouldn’t I scream when they rise against me to kill me? Only this page protects me!” The mountain answered him: “If this page protects you, you have no reason to be afraid. A lot of enemies rise against me, but this page protects me as well! Come, let me show you!” The mountain showed him how thousands of myriad enemies were standing around the mountain. They were having banquets and were happy. Musicians were playing and people were dancing. The happiness consisted of the following: One of the groups had thought out a plan of how to climb the mountain, and therefore there was great happiness, a banquet, musicians, etc. It goes for all the groups. Only this page about these customs, which protects you, protects me.

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While God awakes the sleeping David in Ps. 3 after David has called out for God, the cries of the king awake a sleeping mountain. On the one hand, the listener/reader is told through this inversion that the mountain is being protected by God just like the king was, which, to a certain extent, juxtaposes the king and the mountain.425 On the other hand, while David’s call for God’s help resulted in God awaking a human to let him benet from the divine sustenance that again connotes the Davidic kingdom, the king here has to awake what through Ps. 3 is divinely connoted, indicating the absence/remoteness of God’s divine sustenance and the ideal earthly kingdom. In the following the listener/reader is told that thousands of myriad enemies are surrounding the mountain to attack it, just like a large number of people were emerging from the diamond to attack the sleeping king, and just like David was surrounded by tens of thousands of people in Ps. 3. The thousands of myriad enemies are making banquets at the foot of the mountain, being happy, playing, and dancing. The happiness, which this music and dance reect, is caused by their conviction that they know how to climb the mountain, probably to attack it. In the rst tale the Evil One surrounded himself with music and dance once he had captured Shekhinah, which indicated that evil had gained power. In the third tale, the demon kings tried to uproot the tree at the peak of their merriment. Maybe the happiness of the hordes reect something similar, that evil has gained or is about to gain control over them. What they do not know, however, is that the page of this special book will protect the mountain. The scenery evokes the banquet at the beginning of this seventh tale, where the ministers through jokes expressed their lack of insight into the descriptions of the book. It also constitutes an implicit reference to the dancing of the people around the golden calf, while Moses was trying to receive the foundation of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. At that time, people were also ignorant and lacked insight into the book they were about to receive.426 If this intertextual connotation is able to persist throughout the rest of the tale, then suddenly the king, the book and the mountain become linked. The mountain, which in

425 Concerning the similarity between the king and the mountain, Kaplan suggests that the y, the king, and the mountain are all the same. He writes: “Each time he gets larger with respect to his enemies”; cf. Kaplan 1983: 145n. 426 Cf. Ex. 32.

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Ps. 3 referred to Mount Zion and God’s presence and thereby ability to respond to calls for help, is slowly being transformed to Mount Sinai where Torah is being revealed.427 11:—11:-, 8:—8:- On the top of the mountain there was a tablet. It was written from which nation the customs on the protective page derived. However, since they were standing at the foot of the mountain, they could not read what was written. At the foot of the mountain there was a tablet as well, and on it was written that whoever had his teeth could ascend the mountain. The Holy One, Blessed be He, had made grass grow on the place from where one had to ascend. But whoever came there lost all his teeth—whether he came walking, riding, or driving in a wagon drawn by animals—he would lose all his teeth. Piles of teeth were lying there like mountains. Upon this the people [from the diamond] returned and restored the portrait. They took the crown and washed it and returned it. They hung them in their place.

The reference to Moses and the reception of the Ten Commandments is made almost explicit through the information that on top of the mountain, which is probably Mount Sinai, there is a tablet. However, the thousands of myriad enemies, which may be the king’s own ministers, are still dancing. This setting indicates that this tablet reects the rst two tablets that God made and wrote himself,428 despite the fact that there is only one tablet on top of the mountain. They were dancing around the golden calf until they faced the anger of Moses and Moses smashing the divinely made tablets. The tablet on top of the mountain in the tale contains the information, from which nation the customs of the protective page in the special book derived. The book and the tablet have now become related on the narrative level. The second tablet is at the foot of the mountain, where it is written that “whoever had his teeth could ascend the mountain”.429 In Ps. 3.8 the reader is told that God has broken the teeth of the wicked and in

427 I am indebted to Prof. Kirsten Nielsen for leading me to see this transformation. 428 Cf. Ex. 32.16. 429 Kaplan continues to elaborate on the idea of a parallel to the story about Esau and Jacob. In Sefer haZohar I,171b, Esau bit Jacob in his neck after he had returned from Laban. However, God hardened the neck of Jacob so that the teeth of Esau broke. Once again God helps Jacob to defeat Esau; cf. Kaplan 1983: 147n.

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Ps. 24,4 it says: “Who shall ascend to God’s mountain . . . He who has a pure heart.”430 Based on this intertextual logic, those who will be able to ascend will have to qualify as good human beings with pure hearts. The piles of teeth lying at the foot of the mountain in the seventh tale testify to the wickedness of the hordes, to the wickedness of the world. If one continues the association, these piles, lying there like mountains, threaten to grow so high that they will cast their shadow on the mountain associated through Ps. 3 with Mount Zion as God’s abode and through the tablet with Mount Sinai. The second tablet contains a message to the wicked. The second pair of tablets, which Moses brought down from the mountain, only contained the form and inscriptions carved by Moses, a human.431 The question is if this exactly constitutes the central problem of the tale? The commandments, accessible to humans, are the renderings by a human of God’s words, because of the wicked dancing around the golden calf. In the tale, access to God and thereby to God’s own words are only accessible to the one who does not fall on the slippery, grassy path toward the divine abode;432 that is, to the one who is not wicked. It is therefore appropriate to mention Magid’s suggestion that Likkutey MoHaRaN was intended to convey insights into the primordial Torah. Magid argues that not only did Nahman consider himself the last of the ve Zaddikey haDor, counting Moses, Simeon bar Yohai, Isac Luria, the #xal Shem Tov and then himself; he “extends this trajectory even further by suggesting that he achieved the spiritual level of the biblical patriarchs (in Genesis), making his teachings a pre-Sinaitic Torah through the lens of Sinai” (Magid: 33). Suddenly it makes sense that the court members of the king are acting like mimiking monkeys when they present their understanding of the descriptions in the book.433 The central problem is that mankind has no access to the primordial Torah and at the same time cannot see through the written and the oral Torah and realize the divine messages behind it because of wickedness in this world. When Mount Zion in this way is transformed to Mount Sinai containing what seems to be the primordial Torah, God’s response to

430

Kaplan has suggested the reference to Ps. 24.4; cf. Kaplan 1983: 146n. Cf. Ex. 34.1, 34.27. 432 That God uses grass as a tool is known from tale #3, where God let special grass grow for the sake of the protagonist through the inuence of the stars. 433 Cf. Mark: xvi. 431

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the king’s call for help becomes an emphasis on the need to reveal the primordial Torah. Suddenly and seemingly unrelated, the evil-minded people who had come out of the diamond return and restore the portrait and the crown to their places. These people have constituted a threat to the sleeping king. They ran toward him at a time when he was in need of enhancing his understanding. Now that the king has witnessed the protection of what is associated with Torah and how it protects the mountain against the evil hordes, and maybe understood, what I have claimed—i.e., the need of mankind to gain access to and reveal the primordial Torah—they can no longer harm him. Evil is used to ward off evil, but with the king’s present understanding, despite his gentile identity, he can no longer be associated with evil. Actually, since the evil horde guratively restores the king to his throne by mending the portrait and washing the crown and hanging both back in their place, it could be that these “evil-minded” people should be considered a tool of God. Initially, the tool should force the king to gain understanding, and once this understanding has been gained, the evil-minded people make sure to reward the king. 7:—11:-, 3:—8:- The king woke up. He stared as before at the page that had protected him. Which customs of what nation was it? He saw that it was written that it was the customs of Israel. He began to stare at this page with a truthful intention, and he understood the truth as truth. He thought to himself that of course he had to become a son of Israel, only how could he improve and make the entire world convert and bring it to the truth? He thought to himself that he would go and search for a wise man who could reveal to him the dream he had had. He took with him two men and traveled throughout the world not as a king but as a simple man. And he traveled from town to town, from country to country. He asked: “How do I nd a wise man who will be able to reveal the dream I had?” They informed him where he could nd a wise man like this. He traveled there. He went to the wise man and told him the truth, about how he was king and had conquered through wars. He told him the entire story. He asked him to reveal his dream. He answered him: “I alone cannot reveal it, only at a specic time, on a certain day, in a certain month. Then I will collect all kinds of incenselike drugs and make a mixture out if it. When a man smokes this mixture, this man will see in his thoughts what he wants to see and know, and then he will know it all. The king thought to himself that now that he had already spent so much time because of it, he would wait until that day in that month. When the time came, the wise man did it for him and [the king] smoked the mixture.

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[The king] began to see even what had happened to him before he was born when he was a soul in the upper world. He saw that they led his soul through all the worlds and that they announced and asked: “Anyone who has something evil to say against this soul should come forward!” But nobody had anything evil to say against this soul. In the middle of this, someone came running and screamed: “Lord of the Universe! Listen to my prayer! If this one comes into the world, what will be left for me to do? Why did you create me?” The one who screamed was Samael. And they answered him: “Of course this soul has to descend into the world! You—you will have to take counsel!” And so he went. They led the soul further through the worlds until they came to the Supreme Court to beseech the soul to descend into the world. But Samael had not yet come. They sent a messenger for him, and so he came. With him he had a hunched old man whom Samael had known from before. He laughed and said: “I have already taken counsel! First of all, he will go into the world.” They led the soul into the world. He saw what happened to him from the beginning until the end. How he became king. He saw the wars he had to ght, etc.

The king wakes up and nally gets a chance in full consciousness to see which customs of what nation had protected him. It was the customs of Israel. He stares at the protective page with the intention of understanding; and one should not forget that the king had actually realized through the spectacle of the y and the spider and through his dreams that he had to enhance his understanding. This time, because of his intention to truly understand, he understands. He understands that he has to become a Jew. The king does not want to belong to the hordes of people who only think they understand. He does not want to remain at a distance from the protector and be kept at a distance by some hoax tablet. He wants to gain access to the top of the mountain where the real tablet can be read—i.e., the primordial Torah. He wants to leave his gentile identity because he has realized, maybe through the primordial Torah, that every human, no matter to what nation s/he belongs, will be subsumed under God’s will anyway. As he understands this truth as evident, the king becomes aware of his wish to make the entire world convert to Judaism, since the real truth is only embedded in the covenant with God. Nahman is here being quite explicit about the universalistic scope of his theology. The king decides to nd a wise man who can help him interpret his dreams. Dressed up like a simple man,434 so that nobody can recognize 434 The Bratslavers interpret this way of dressing as proof of this text being an allegory over Nahman’s journey to Navritch in spring 1807, since Nahman on this journey disguised himself as a common businessman; cf. Kaplan 1983: 149n.

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his royal bearing, he travels through the world accompanied by two men. It was a common thought in Hasidism to believe that zaddikim could redeem the place to which they traveled. Wolfson explains how the image of walking was taken from the sociohistorical context of itinerants. Walking as an image was developed in early Hasidism to refer to two soteriological aspects, i.e., the liberation of the divine sparks trapped within the kelippot and the unication of the masculine and feminine aspects of the divine. The walking of the itinerants were associated with the walking of Shekhinah, which of course reected the walking which was forced upon the Jews due to the exile. In this way the exiled Jews became the feet of Shekhinah with which Shekhinah could actually redeem the sparks trapped in exile. Walking became expanded in some cases to connote the “footsteps of the Messiah” where her walking becomes a matter of gathering the souls in order to pave the way for the Messiah. When the zaddikim were walking, it affected the serotic system. Zaddik is one of the appellations for Yesod, the phallic serah. When the zaddikim walked, and when they redeemed the divine sparks, Yesod became united with Shekhinah, God’s feminine presence. On high it furthered the union between Tif xeret and Shekhinah, which is a precondition for the coming of the Messiah.435 Maybe the walking of the king throughout the world is the king’s way of converting the entire world. The protagonist is accompanied by two men, when the protagonist sets out to bring about redemption. Kaplan suggest a reason for the presence of these two men. When Abraham, the ultimate representative of faith, traveled to sacrice Isac, he also took two men with him; cf. Gen. 22.3.436 Maybe their presence in this tale indicates that the project is not only about enhancing the world’s understanding, but also about enhancing faith. When asked, people help the king to nd the wise man, to whom the king tells everything about his life and about his dreams. Upon this, the king bequests that the wise man help him interpret his dreams. Modest like most true wise men in Nahman’s tales, this wise man says that he alone cannot interpret the dreams. A certain time and a certain handling of some druglike incense are required. When the certain day arises, the

435 Cf. Wolfson 1997: 180–207. Kaplan is in line with this interpretation; cf. Kaplan 1983: 149.

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wise man prepares the druglike incense for the king to smoke. Band suggests that this certain day may be Yom Kippur.437 Additional support for this suggestion could be that Aaron on the day of Atonement had to burn incense on the altar to atone the sins of his generations,438 and that this atoning incense could actually nullify God’s intention to wipe out the crowd that had gathered against Aaron and Moses.439 The evil hordes, which were ready to attack the king and the mountain, could in this way be given atonement. The wise man’s handling of incense evokes connotations to atonement of the sins of the generation, which transposes the traits of a Zaddik haDor on the wise man. However, the king, who has ventured into the world to nd advice on how to make the entire world convert to Judaism, bears such traits as well. A difference between them will be emphasized later. That the king has to smoke the mixture might refer to a practice among hasidim of smoking as a preparation for prayer and communication with God.440 It is likely that the aim among the hasidim was to reach an altered state of consciousness in which one could raise the divine sparks. Affected by the smoking, the king actually does enter an altered state of consciousness where the dimensions of time and place are annulled. He is transported into the transcendent upper world, where he sees his own soul before it was born and how God and the heavenly hosts agree that nothing evil can be said about his soul. It is a completely pure soul. The praise of this soul is interrupted, as Samael, evil incarnate, feels threatened by the intention of the heavenly hosts to send this soul into the world since it would leave Samael with no purpose in life. This passage clearly evokes, as Wiskind-Elper has noted,441 connotations to Shabbat 88b–89a where the ministering angels ask God why God has decided to give to Moses “that secret treasure, which has been hidden by Thee for nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the world was created”. God then spreads the luster of His Shekhinah and casts it over Moses as a protection against the angels before God

436 437 438 439 440 441

Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf.

Kaplan 1983: 149n. Band 1978: 304. See Kaplan 1983: 150 for a similar opinion. Ex. 30. Num. 17; Shabbat 89a. Lamm: 176. Wiskind-Elper: 208, 284n198.

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gave him the primordial Torah.442 The only one who does not accept this act is Satan, and so, when Moses was delayed and the people got impatient, Satan descended and tried to convince them that Moses would not return.443 The idea of ascending to the upper world, traveling through the heavenly palaces, meeting Samael, and gaining insight into the future through witnessing actions taken in the upper world have a parallel in the descriptions found in the #xal Shem Tov’s letter to his son-in-law, R. Abraham Gershon Kutover.444 The BeShT ascends to the upper worlds and visions the souls of the living and the dead. He visions how Samael has arisen to accuse and force some to convert so that they be killed. The BeShT meets with the Messiah who tells him that he will not come until the BeShT’s teachings have become renowned and revealed throughout the world, and until everybody will be able to perform contemplative unications of the letters and ascents of the soul as the BeShT was able to.445 The meaning of the BeShTian vision and the vision of the king are not the same. The BeShT is told how to bring about the Messiah. Compared to his precursor, Nahman does more than merely receive information. Nahman lets his king engage in an active search for whatever information will lead to the advent of the Messiah. The BeShT failed in his attempt to bring about the Messiah, and so Nahman must surpass his precursor. The information that the gentile king acquires in the tale is that his soul was hindered in being actualized as the Messiah, because Samael felt threatened by the king’s unborn Messianic soul.446 The Messianic soul in Jewish mysticism is the only one who can annihilate all evil. Accordingly, the reason for the king’s gentile identity is to be found in the upper world. The heavenly hosts ignored the feelings of Samael. They intended to send the king’s soul into the world, but at the same time they encouraged Samael to take counsel. The heavenly hosts then led the king’s soul through the upper worlds until they came to the heavenly Supreme Court. This court probably

442

Cf. Shabbat 88b. Cf. Shabbat 89a. 444 The letter is rendered in Lamm 1999: 547–555. 445 Green told me in September 2000 that Nahman denitely knew this letter since it was published in the 1790s, and that the letter most likely inuenced Nahman’s Messianism. 446 Cf. Band 1978: 304–305 as well. 443

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requires the presence of Samael, who is known for his role as the accuser. But Samael had not come, so they sent a messenger for him, who then nally brought Samael along with a hunched old man who incarnated the counsel that Samael had taken. Samael says: “First of all, he will go into the world”. I believe that this “he” refers to the hunched old man. In that case it would mean that the hunched old man has to enter the world before or simultaneously with the king’s soul and probably carry out whatever Samael has planned. Samael’s plan is, if the intertextual reference to Shabbat 88b–89a be included, to make people believe that the Messiah will not come. By allowing for this transposition of meaning from the Talmudic tractate, Nahman surpasses the BeShT by clarifying that as long as people do not truly believe in the coming of the Messiah, then Samael will succeed in hindering this coming. Kaplan explains that the #xal Shem Tov once taught that Moses was destined to perform many miracles, so the Evil One complained that people would never be foolish enough to sin and take the Evil One’s advice. Therefore, an evil person had to be sent down who would appear to be a zaddik, and this person would be able to trick people (Kaplan 1983: 151n).447

Kaplan understands this as a reference to Aryeh Leib, the Shpoler Zeide, who engaged in controversies with Nahman. There were many reasons for these controversies, but one of them is likely to have been Nahman’s Messianism, according to Green.448 There is no doubt that Nahman and his followers considered the Shpoler Zeide an evil zaddik, and I cannot deny—or prove for that matter—that the hunched old man in the seventh tale could refer to the Shpoler Zeide. The important message, however, is that this incarnate counsel of Samael, causing the king, the Messianic soul, to be born a gentile, represents a huge setback in the redemptive process because of the huge gap between the incarnated soul and the Messianic age itself. Redemption is indeed far away when the most basic steps toward redemption have to be taken by a gentile. The tale proper ends by letting the king’s soul enter the world and by letting the king witness his life so far. Nahman is describing the present state of the world where nobody is able to see the divine messages

447 448

Kaplan refers to Toledot Yaxakov Yosef, Shoftim, 184b and Rimzey Maxasiyot. Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 208, 220n56.

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behind the canonical Torah—that is, the written and oral Torah—and where the Messiah, who could establish human access to the primordial Torah, is trapped within a gentile person. The only piece of hope in this tale is that this gentile person at least has come to realize his redemptive role and the depressive state of the world and has succeeded in nding a wise man who can explain to the bearer of the Messianic soul why he is trapped within a gentile. However, since the wise man bears the traits of a Zaddik haDor, it is interesting to read that the Messianic soul in his attempt to make the entire world convert to Judaism, which is a task of a Zaddik haDor/Mashiah ben Yosef, is dependent upon another Zaddik haDor-type. The wise man/Zaddik haDor-type is crucial to the success of this redemptive act. Somehow the wise man/the Zaddik haDor-type becomes more instrumental than the Messianic soul, as if the Messianic soul should like to assist in tikkun, though he will have to remain passive, until the behavior of the world allows him to transform from a passive symbol to an active gure. 16—8:-, 3:—3:- (The king had taken prisoners, and among them there was a woman with a beautiful appearance. She had all the graces of the world, though these graces did not come from her. Around her neck the diamond hung, and it had all kinds of graces. Only the wise and the rich people could climb the mountain. He did not say more. There is more to this. But from “The king had taken prisoners” until the end it was not recorded precisely as he told it.)

Since the nal sentences of the tale have the characteristics of interpretive hints, I choose to consider them as such and not as part of the tale. The rst sentences about the beautiful woman with the diamond around her neck are probably meant to refer to Shekhinah, whom the king recognizes among his own prisoners now that he reexperiences his life. If the king had taken Shekhinah captive, it would mean that he had forced her into exile, into captivity. He of course did not do this consciously; however, the mere identity of the king, the Messianic soul as gentile, would denitely sufce to make Shekhinah a captive. If she bears the diamond, and if this diamond is the same as the one from which a large number of evil-minded people emerged, then it would indicate that the diamond was indeed a tool for God to bring the king to realize his obligations, cf. his identity. The graces of Shekhinah cannot be her own, since Shekhinah always

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reects an aspect of God which again reects the behavior of the people. That only wise and rich people can climb the mountain is probably similar to what was described at the end of the rst tale where the protagonist had to use a lot of money and gain a lot of wisdom in order to climb the golden mountain with the pearly castle. Richness in the rst tale was a marker of the values current in the transcendent sphere of Ayin. Wisdom was a marker of the understanding of the ontological dichotomy between God’s way of thinking and the human way of thinking. Only people who represent these values and who have this understanding can climb the mountain that was very high, as if the height itself refers to the path from the immanent world to the upper transcendent world. It would furthermore be obvious to think about a romance between the king and the beautiful woman. If the king is the Messianic soul and the beautiful woman is Shekhinah, then one would have to remember that Shekhinah as well incorporates Knesset Israel. Such a union would indicate the Messianic age when the entire world would be transformed into its originally intended transcendent state, where everybody would understand the truth as God perceived of it and accordingly conceive of themselves as sons and daughters of Israel. Universal conversion to Judaism could be achieved in this way.449 Recapitulation A gentile king realizes that death is predicted for those who attack the weak, those who do not accept the position of God’s favorite, those who do not convert to Judaism, and those who do not see through the literal meaning of Torah. Through a dream this king furthermore realizes that he is about to be dethroned and killed, which leads him to cry for help. His cry for help results in him being brought to a mountain. The mountain connotes Mount Zion as a place for God’s responses to such cries for help and Mount Sinai as a place for the revelation of Torah. In this way God’s help is likely to be explained as revelation of Torah. At the foot of the mountain there is a tablet referring to the canonical Torah, whereas the primordial Torah stands on top of the mountain. Evil hinders mankind today in this world in seeing the

449

For more on Nahman’s universalistic theology, see Green: 205.

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divine messages behind the canonical Torah. The gentile king should therefore strive to reach the top of the mountain and reveal the primordial Torah. Since such revelation is only possible for a Zaddik haDor, a tension arises between the king as being gentile and the king as being the one who should reveal the primordial Torah. The tension nds its explanation in the evil counsel taken by Samael, at the time where God had decided to give to Moses the primordial Torah. Samael has made people believe that the Messiah will not come. He has succeeded in convincing people by sending a false zaddik who announces this evil message. Because of people’s lack of belief in the Messiah, the soul of the Messiah has been trapped within a gentile king. The king actively searches for an enhanced understanding of his own identity, including his own responsibility for the advent of the coming of the Messiah, and nally he gains this information. In presenting this tale Nahman has surpassed his precursor, the #xal Shem Tov who believed that a universal activity of unifying the letters and securing the ascents of the souls would sufce to bring about the Messiah. Nahman has specied that universal conversion to Judaism and faith in the coming of the Messiah are required to initiate the process of redemption and to counter the obstacles laid out by Samael. Eventually, the actualized Messiah will be able to grant the entire world access to the divine messages in the primordial Torah, over which Samael has no say.

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4.8 The Eighth Tale The Rabbi who Had No Children Introduction The eighth tale450 is called      , i.e., the eighth tale about a rabbi and an only son, in the bilingual version. The initial sentence in the Hebrew text is:         —a tale about a rabbi who had no children. With a similar meaning the Yiddish text begins:      .       

   . Band and Kaplan agree to refer to the tale as “The Rabbi’s Son”, probably inspired by the Messianic signicance of the rabbi’s son. Wiskind-Elper follows the title in the bilingual version and refers to the tale as “Rabbi and Only Son”. Roskies follows this version as well and refers to it as “The Rabbi and His Only Son”. Even though the childlessness of the rabbi is brief, it becomes the key to understanding the conict between the conservatism of traditional Judaism and the revolutionary power of the young adherents of Hasidism described in this tale. Judaism cannot change before the young ones are born. I shall therefore refer to the tale as “The Rabbi who Had No Children”. Summary The tale portrays the only son of a rabbi who is missing something from ordinary studies and prayers and who therefore longs to meet with a certain zaddik. The tale also portrays the father, the traditional rabbi, who is condescending about this zaddik. The reluctance of the father to let the son meet with the zaddik, and Samael’s attempts to use this reluctance to prevent the meeting between the son and the rabbi—which would have resulted in the advent of the Messiah—eventually lead to

450 According to Hayyey MoHaRaN #59, tale #8 was told before Purim in 1809. Kaplan, however, refers to Yemey MoHaRNaT 20b and Hayyey MoHaRaN 15b giving August 1807 as the time of the tale; cf. Kaplan 1983: 154n. However, I have read these passages and do not nd any hints at the date for tale #8. Based on Piekarz’, Band suggests that the tale was told between 1806 and 1807; cf. Band 1978: 44. I am not in a position to judge what date is correct, though I nd it more likely that it was told in 1807. First, the tale constitutes the last of the short tales in Sippurey Maxasiyot. Second, it does not contain the complexity characteristic of the following ve long tales. Finally, the theme in this tale is dealing with Samael and his attempts to prevent the coming of the Messiah, which was also an obvious theme in the previous tale from 1807.

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the death of the son. This death, however, is a necessary step toward the traditional rabbi’s understanding of the shortcomings of traditional Judaism and every Jew’s need of Hasidism. Scholarly comments on the tale Band notes the highly polemical description of traditional Judaism and its skepticism toward Hasidism. The difference between traditional Judaism and Hasidism is caused by a different perception of reality. This skepticism of the rabbi, a representative of traditional Judaism, is the deliberate distortion of the rabbi’s perception of reality. It causes the failure of bringing the rabbi’s son in contact with the zaddik. The failure has cosmic consequences in that it prevents Malkhut/Shekhinah from being united with Tif xeret and/or Yesod and thereby prevents the initiation of the Messianic process.451 According to Kaplan the theme of the tale is “how the Evil One tries to prevent a person from traveling to a true tzaddik. It also shows the dangers of trying to be too sophisticated” (cf. Kaplan 1983: 154). Kaplan sees the son as a Jew in need of a zaddik. The father is seen as focused on pride and his own righteousness, which opens up for the intervention of the Evil One. The Evil One does appear, incarnated as a merchant, and causes the son’s death, which could have been prevented by the father, had he spoken about Torah to ward off evil, or had he refused to listen to what the merchant said about the zaddik. Because of the son’s death the coming of the Messiah was prevented.452 Wiskind-Elper characterizes the eighth tale as an aborted quasi-ritual pilgrimage to the “true zaddik’s” court with tragic and Kafkaesque consequences, when demonic and rationalistic persons prevent the rabbi’s son from joining his master.453

451 Cf. Band 1978: 133, 307–308. Band furthermore mentions how this tale resembles the many stories in Shivhey haBeShT, where the resistance of the potential Hasid to the new spiritual leader is being described. However, usually these stories have happy endings, while this one not; cf. Band 1978: 133. 452 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 154n–159n. 453 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 17, 81.

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Roskies considers the eighth tale “the most overtly autobiographical of Reb Nahman’s thirteen tales”. Dov of Cheryn was supposed to visit Nahman during his time in Medvedevka, but Dov’s teacher warned him against visiting Nahman, and so Dov was prevented from receiving spiritual counsel from Nahman. The “generational conict between the young, who are drawn to Hasidism, and the older, rabbinic elite who remain adamantly opposed” only constitutes an overlay in the tale.454 The merchant furthermore refers to Aryeh Leib, “the Shpoler Zeyde who stopped at nothing to link Reb Nahman’s name with the Sabbatian heresy”.455 The aborted Messianic advent as a consequence of the son’s death parallels the death of Nahman’s son [in 1806]. In this way Nahman is here blaming himself for having prevented the coming of the Messiah because of his own pride, inability to unite Tifxeret and Shekhinah, and his own self-interests.456 Like Band, Roskies sees an allusion to the stories about the #xal Shem Tov and how he drew close the souls who had strayed, and how the hitkarvut—i.e., drawing close—could result in bringing the Messiah.457 It conforms to these stories and conforms to “conventional folktale in which everything is tripled”; though Nahman “produces a story that is dead-ended”.458

454

Cf. Roskies 2002: 84. Cf. Roskies 2002: 86. Roskies bases this claim on Weiss 1974: 22–23. It does not seem that Roskies is aware of how uncertain it is if Aryeh Leib blamed Nahman for Sabbateanism; cf. the disagreement between Green and Piekarz’; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 126–128n26. Roskies is furthermore in line with Liebes; cf. Liebes 1993. 456 Cf. Roskies 2002: 86. I am not convinced that this tale should be autobiographical at all. Roskies does not substantiate his claim with textual evidence. He only points to parallels which might just as well be coincidental. In fact, Nahman descended from the Ba’al Shem Tov, so why should Nahman as the father say to the son that he came from a more learned and better family than the zaddik? 457 Cf. Roskies 2002: 84. 458 Cf. Roskies 2002: 84–85. The story is dead-ended if one has to make it t to the biographical interpretation which Roskies presents on p. 86. However, if the generational interpretation is in focus, redemption is brought one step closer. 455

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Analysis 8--1:-, 5–1:- Once there was a rabbi who had no children. Eventually he had an only son. He raised him and arranged for his marriage. The son used to sit upstairs and study in the way customary for rich people. He always used to study and pray. However, he felt from within that he was missing something without knowing what it was. Also, he did not nd any cause for his studies or prayers.

The eighth tale begins like most other tales in Sippurey Maxasiyot, by presenting the theme of childlessness; but in this tale no efforts are made to explain what caused the childlessness or how the childlessness was overcome. One could think that Nahman had succumbed to routine, but I trust Nahman’s skills as a storyteller too much to believe that this should be the case. As shall be shown below, young people have a positive connotation in this tale because they are more open to changes.459 In this tale it is as if not only hope but even redemption depends on this youth, which would make any kind of childlessness a threat to the emergence of the world-to-come, and every child born an image of hope. The birth of the rabbi’s only son presents a slight hope, cf. “only son”, for the redemption of this world. The father, who is the guardian of this crucial hope, is labeled “rabbi”. This rabbi has done his duty as a parent, i.e., raising him and arranging for his marriage, and as a rabbi he has taught his son to study and pray. It does not say directly that the father taught him, but the mentioning of the studies and prayers of the son is the only thing in this tale that relates to the father’s profession as a rabbi. But the studies and prayers of the son upstairs in the house of the father are described as the customs of rich people. The original listeners/readers of Nahman’s tale would typically be if not poor people then at least ordinary people, who would resent the customs of the rich rabbis who qua their positions in the kehillot had failed to defend the interests of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe.460 The rst critique of the

459

According to some scholars, Hasidism had a special appeal to the young people in the Jewish communities; cf., e.g., Gershon David Hundert: “The Conditions in Jewish Society in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Middle Decades of the Eighteenth Century”; Rapoport-Albert 1997: 46–47. 460 Cf., e.g., Stephen Sharot: Messianism, Mysticism and Magic—A Sociological Analysis of Jewish Religious Movements, the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill,

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father is presented in this description, where duty done and customs are considered insufcient. The son is aware of the limits of the rich rabbis’ customs. He misses something without knowing what it is, and he sees no purpose in his studies and prayers. Denitely, Nahman would advocate for studies and prayers, but the surroundings of the son or rather lack of proper surroundings and guidance seem to be the problem. 6:—8:-, 3:—5:- The son talked to two young men about it. They gave him the advice to travel to a certain zaddik. The son had once performed a mitsvah, through which he had come to the aspect of the lesser light. The only son went and said to his father that he did not feel any purpose in his work, that he was missing something without knowing what it was and that it was troubling him. Therefore he would like to go to this zaddik. His father said to his son that he was more learned and from a better family than [the zaddik] was, and that he did not understand why he should go to this zaddik. It would not be suitable for him. And he told him to abandon the idea. Finally, the father prevented him from going to the zaddik.

Rather than talking to his father, who is a rabbi and therefore supposed to be able to give advice on religious matters, the son decides to talk to two young men about his problem. They react by suggesting a visit to a certain zaddik. The only characteristic mentioned about the two men is that they are attentive and young. Their young age may indicate that hope is attached to the new generation. This hope nds further support in the son being the one who is open to visiting the zaddik. After this, a most peculiar piece of information is presented—i.e., that the son had performed a mitsvah, through which he had come to the aspect of the lesser light. According to Sefer haZohar, the lesser light is the moon, and the moon again is a designation for Shekhinah.461 At the same time Shekhinah as the tenth and most immanent serah is considered the gate through which man can enter the serotic system.462 The

1982: 130–135, 144–149. For some later observations on this matter, more complex than originally assumed; cf. Moshe J. Rosman: “Social Conicts in Miedzyboz in the Generation of the Besht” and Shmuel Ettinger: “Hasidism and the Kahal in Eastern Europe”, both in Rapoport-Albert 1997: 51–62, 63–75. 461 Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar I,20a–b, 46b, 64a. 462 Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar I,7b, 23b; II,51a, 99a.

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requirements for entering the gate are usually considered fear and love of God because fear and love of God are essential to the true wisdom needed for a mystic, and at the same time fear and love of God makes man a potential vessel for the shefa. In Likkutey MoHaRaN #35,5 the small light is considered an aspect of faith that can be transferred to man. In other words, if the son has come to the aspect of the lesser light, it should mean that he has come to have the right faith and has even acted accordingly, cf. the mitsvah performed. However, he lives according to the customs of the father in a house where no Shekhinah or no light can enter. This is how the dilemma of the son is explained.463 The zaddik in Hasidism is a pipeline for the shefa,464 which he receives and distributes from Shekhinah. This is why a zaddik would be the solution to the son’s problem. Having realized his needs he is able to express his wish to his father to whom he talks to for the rst time in this tale. However, the father is not interested in a dialogue on this matter. By claiming that he and his son are from a better family than the zaddik is, and by indicating that the zaddik is no solution to the son’s problem, the father exerts his power by refusing to let the son visit the zaddik. The father does not even try to solve the son’s problem in another way, maybe signalling that traditional Judaism cannot provide a solution to inner problems of faith. Its representatives defend their own institutional interests.

463 Kaplan understands this passage as the son “becoming” an aspect of the lesser light and thereby becoming a vessel for faith, which needs a zaddik as an object for this faith. In the Hebrew and Yiddish texts the words are, however,  /. . . . . .  . . . ; cf. p. , which is why I think Kaplan’s translation: “become an aspect of the Lesser Light” is “helping” his reader too much to understand the passage according to his own observation. Furthermore, Kaplan (1983: 154) reads the passage as if Nahman would claim that someone who has reached the aspect of the lesser light/entrance to the serotic system would be in need of a zaddik as an object of faith. Nahman’s conception of the zaddik, who conveys his understanding to the Hasid by being a mirror, and Likkutey Etsot B, Zaddik 86 support the interpretation of Kaplan. This would make Nahman an advocate for zaddikism. However, if attention is paid to the phrasing: “a certain zaddik” and to the fact that “a certain zaddik” in Nahman’s writings usually refers to Zaddik haDor; cf., e.g., Green 1992 (1979): 190–194, ordinary zaddikism would be irrelevant. It would more likely be a question of approaching and be in the presence of the Zaddik haDor/Mashiah ben Yosef. 464 Cf. Idel 1995: 198–203.

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12:—6:-, 6:—3:- The son returned to his study, but once again he felt that he was missing something. Again he consulted the two young men who advised him, as before, to go to the zaddik. The son went again to his father, who refused and prevented him from going. It went like this several times. The son still felt something missing, and he longed to fulll his need without knowing how. Again he went to his father and pleaded until his father was forced to go with him since he would not let him, his only son, go alone. He would go with him and show him that there was nothing special about the zaddik. They prepared the chariot and went. The father said to him that he would test it according to this: If everything goes according to the plans it is meant from heaven. If not then it is not from heaven and then we will return. They traveled and came to a small bridge. One of the horses fell, the carriage was turned upside down, and they almost drowned. His father asked his son if he saw that it did not go according to the plans and that the travel was not meant to be, according to heaven. And so they returned.

Again the son receives the advice of the young men, and several times the son confronts his father with his wish; but it effects no change in the reluctant father, who still refuses to let his son visit the zaddik. But nally the father gives in on the one condition that he, the father, comes along with the intention of demonstrating the futility of visiting the zaddik, though he claims in the indirect speech that he comes along because it is his only son. The reluctance precedes the preparations, and the father decides that the slightest interference with the plans will be conceived of as a heavenly warning against the visit. In this passage it is obvious that the father, the rabbi, is a God-fearing person, but the question is if it is legitimate in advance to make God responsible for any unforeseen events and to take God hostage with the purpose of demonstrating the relevance of one’s own reluctance. The unforeseen events do occur, and the rabbi and his only son are close to drowning. The rabbi’s reluctance against this visit is conrmed by the accident, which the rabbi understands as a heavenly warning. They return, and the son is left with no solution to his problem within the connes of the paternal house. 7:—12:-, 4:—7:- The son returned to his study and felt again that something was missing without knowing what. He went again to his father and pleaded until [his father] was forced to go with him for a second time. As they went the

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chapter four father set up the same test as before, i.e., if everything went according to the plans, then . . . As they were driving, two of the axles broke. The father asked his son if he could see that the travel did not go according to the plans, and asked if he considered it natural that two axles broke when they had been traveling with this carriage many times without anything happening. And so they returned.

The same line of events follows in this passage, except the unforeseen events take the form of broken axles. The father tries in a very monologic way to convince his son of how heaven tries to warn them against the visit. But the son is not even granted the opportunity to answer. The power relations reected in the lack of dialogue transform the monologic language of the father to an additional connement for the son. 17:—7:-, 8:—4:- The son returned to his study and once again felt that he was missing something. The young men advised him to travel, and so he returned to his father and pleaded until his father was forced to travel with him again. The son told his father not to set up another test, since this would naturally lead to the falling of the horse or the breaking of the axles. If the father did this, he sensed that it would be like this. They traveled and came to an inn to stay for the night. They met a merchant and began to talk to him as if they were merchants. They did not reveal that they were traveling to this place, because the rabbi was embarrassed to say that they were traveling to this zaddik. They talked about worldly matters until they ended up talking about zaddikim and where there were zaddikim. He told them that there was one here and here and there. They began to talk about the zaddik, to whom they were traveling, and [the merchant] answered them that this zaddik indeed was a light living person, that he was just traveling away from him and that he had been at his place and that he was a transgressor. The father asked his son if he realized what the merchant was telling them in all innocence and that the merchant was actually traveling away from there. They returned to their home, and then the son died.

In this passage the suffering son receives the same piece of advice from the two young men, and he turns to his father with the same wish as before of traveling to the zaddik. Only this time the son nds the courage to challenge the dominion of the father within the linguistic realm by asking his father to refrain from setting up tests, since he believes that a test in itself leads to the disasters. Testing God by taking God “hostage” in his/her attempt to prove that s/he is right is not acceptable, and the son has an eye for this. In Is. 7.10–12 King Ahaz knows that

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one does not ask God to prove his point by giving signs, since it will be considered a kind of temptation and it will cause God’s anger.465 With no tests set up, father and son reach an inn, a common place in the tales of Nahman for people to meet, cf. the second tale. And indeed they meet someone, a merchant, to whom the father is embarrassed to reveal where they are going. Due to an ominous insight of this merchant, they nevertheless end up talking about the zaddik, to whom father and son were traveling. Neither father nor son reveals any skepticism to this ominous coincidence. Instead the father greets the merchant’s negative description of this zaddik. The zaddik is described as being immoral. Furthermore, the merchant was traveling away from this zaddik, and the father, blaming his son for his lack of will to realize the immoral nature of this zaddik, decides to move in the same direction, away from this zaddik. The power of the father once again forces the son into connement. Upon return and after the son’s third aborted attempt to meet with the zaddik, he dies. No cause for his death is given, but the return to the paternal connes and the father’s reluctance throughout the tale have prevented the meeting and therefore appear as the indirect cause of the son’s death.466 17:—16:-, 8:—9:- In a dream the son appeared before his father in great anger. The father asked him why he was in such great anger, and the son answered him that he should travel to this zaddik who would then tell him why he was in such great anger. The dream came to an end, and the father said to himself that it was a one-time occurrence. He dreamt the same dream again but said to himself that it was a false dream. And he dreamt it for a third time. Finally, he understood and traveled there. On the road he met the merchant whom he had met earlier when he was traveling with his son. He recognized him and told him that he was the one whom he had met at the inn. The merchant answered him that sure he had met him. He opened his mouth and said that if he wanted

465 I am here in line with Kaplan, who refers to Hagah, Yoreh Deah 179,4 and its comments on Gen. 24.14 to argue that it is forbidden to set up such a test; cf. Kaplan 1983: 155–156n. 466 Kaplan writes that it is the slander of the merchant that conquers the faith of the son and severs him from the aspect of the lesser light; cf. Kaplan 1983: 157. But the listener/reader does not hear anything about the son losing faith or feeling convinced by the words of the merchant.

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chapter four he could swallow him. The rabbi asked him what he was talking about. The merchant replied and asked the rabbi if he remembered when he was traveling together with his son, how at rst the horse fell on the bridge after which he returned. Next time the axles broke and the next time again, when they met him, he told them that the zaddik was a light living person and that after he had left them his son had died. He told the rabbi that he was free to travel. However, his son was an aspect of the lesser light and the zaddik was an aspect of the greater light, and had they met, the Messiah would have come. Of course he had had to make him die; however, the rabbi was free to go. In the middle of his speech he disappeared, and the rabbi had no one to talk to. The rabbi traveled to the zaddik and cried: “What a shame, what a shame, what a shame for those who are lost and who will not be found. Blessed be God, may He return our exiles soon! Amen!”

After his death the subdued son nally approaches his father in a dream with anger and an accusation for preventing this meeting.467 The son dictates the future action of his father, i.e., to meet with the zaddik and have the zaddik explain the son’s anger. Of course the father, being reluctant to do anything out of the ordinary, does not trust a dream to carry any messages or truths. But after the third occurrence of the same dream, he sets off to meet with the zaddik. The aborted quasi-religious pilgrimage, as Wiskind-Elper describes the tale, and as the rabbi and his son have experienced it, is dissolved into its cosmic reality, when the merchant reveals himself and the motifs behind his actions.468 When the merchant opens his mouth and claims that he can swallow the father,469 already tormented by the demands of his haunting son to go and ask the zaddik for an explanation, the listener/reader knows that the merchant is no ordinary human being. Another strange occurrence is the fact that the merchant is providing the father with the information that the father was supposed to receive from the zaddik, according to the son in the dream. The demonic merchant and the zaddik share the same insight. The demonic merchant explains how a meeting between the zaddik and the rabbi’s son would have resulted in the Messianic age, the denite goal of all of Judaism,

467 I don’t understand why, but Band claims that the dream is revealed to him by the zaddik himself. It does not say so in either the Hebrew or Yiddish text; cf. Band 1978: 133, and it does not relate to what he writes in Band 1978: 308. 468 Cf. Band 1978: 133 as well. 469 In tale #3, the demon king, a representative of evil, threatens to swallow the wise man.

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whether traditional or mystical. The Messianic age would automatically come about when the aspect of the greater470 and of the lesser light had been united. The aspect of the greater light, the sun, is usually seen as Tifxeret, while, cf. above, the lesser light, the moon, represents Shekhinah. The union between Tif xeret and Shekhinah represents the most perfect ideal state in the serotic system, which again would be reected as the Messianic age.471 The demonic merchant prevented this union by causing the death of the son. When the son died, the reluctance of the father and the son’s return to the paternal connes appeared as the indirect cause of the son’s death. Here the demonic merchant takes full responsibility for the son’s death, though the listener/reader will still blame the father for his insufciency as a paternal and religious gure. The demonic merchant was able to hit his target because of his insights into the son’s achievement of reaching the aspect of the lesser light and of his understanding of the consequences of a union between the zaddik and the son. The listener/reader must ask the question of why the demonic merchant has this insight and understanding at all. Later in the tale it becomes obvious that this merchant is none other than Samael, the male representative of Yetser haRa. Despite his demonic and evil nature this character is serving as a tool for God to tempt people and to cleanse mankind when mankind is unsusceptible to God’s attempt to guide his people. If this is so, then why let the son die? The son was the hope of mankind, whereas the father, the obstacle for redemption, was the one deserving of the punishments through Samael. A possible answer may be found a few lines further below. Full of scorn the merchant explains to the rabbi how all the incidents, which the rabbi interpreted as warnings from heaven, really were the demonic but successful attempts of this merchant to go against the will of God. Scorning the rabbi seems to be sufcient reason for this second occurrence of the merchant in the tale. After the scorn the merchant disappears, and the rabbi is left with no son and full of his newly gained insight into what disaster he has caused. In the lowest of positions he nally travels to the zaddik, where all he can do is to confess his shame and pray for the return of the exiles. Return of the exiles has a double meaning in Jewish mysticism, i.e., the concrete

470 The concept of “greater light” indicates that this certain zaddik is a Zaddik haDor according to Kaplan 1983: 158. 471 For a similar explanation; cf. Band 1978: 307.

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geographical and then of course the redemption of the divine sparks in the world. The end to the concrete exile and redemption of the divine sparks would be equivalent to the Messianic age, so at the end of the tale the reluctant and rationalistic father ends up praying for what the son could have obtained. It is interesting to notice that the father, at the end, actually is more conscious about what the world is in need of than the son was. The son did not understand his own longings. Yes, the father prevented the Messianic age, but through his own fall he comes to realize the needs of the world on a higher level. The answer to the son’s death and not the father’s may lie in this. The father is a rabbi and a representative of traditional Judaism, and if traditional Jews do not realize the Messianic needs of the world then the world will not be ready for and worthy of the Messiah.472 The steps have to be taken in the right order. Samael is used as a tool for cleansing. The father is not killed. He is enlightened in the most unmerciful way by the consequences of his own lack of insight and of his actions. At the end of the tale, the father, the traditional rabbi, is able to realize the need of the world, when he prays for the return of exiles/divine sparks.473 The realization of the father is a necessary step, and maybe in this tale Nahman is relating how such realizations must precede the advent of the Messiah. These necessitated realizations may explain as well why Nahman leaves the fantastic behind and gives room for realism in this tale. Comments on reality are necessary, if the obstacles for the world-tocome lie in reality. One could claim that the obstacles as presented in the other tales lie in reality as well, which is true. However, this tale being critical of traditional Judaism is addressed to traditional Judaism, which would be death and blind474 to anything communicated through fantasy. The fantastic tales seem directed to the listeners/readers who are already open to Nahman’s message. But in this tale Nahman shows

472 Band seems to be in line with this observation when he writes: “. . . a necessary failure at that as we are told that had the young man united with the zadik, the messiah might have appeared. And since our experience of this world indicates that the messiah has not yet come, these gures were not destined to be joined in master-disciple relationship” (Band 1978: 307). 473 Band claims and translates accordingly that the nal prayer in the tale proper is by the zaddik, but in the Hebrew and in the Yiddish texts it would be the most obvious to let the subject, i.e., the rabbi, be the agent of the second verb (Band 1978: 137, 308). 474 Cf. Is. 6.9–10.

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his skills as a storyteller through a discursive change in style in order to establish a dialogue with a different audience whose participation in the redemptive process is crucial to its success. 8--1:-, 3--1:- (The merchant was Samael himself. He had disguised himself as a merchant. He had fooled them. The second time when he met with the rabbi he teased him for having followed his advice. This is the plan of the Yetser haRa. First he approaches man. Then, when man follows him—God forbid—he teases him for having followed him. God save us from him and turn us toward the truth! Amen!)

These last lines seem to lie beyond the tale proper. They are explanatory and appear after the “amen” on p. . They have some explanatory relevance. The descriptions of the mouth and the behavior of the merchant in the tale t common descriptions of Samael, and the description in these probably-added lines parallels the description of how the foreign woman or Lilith fools and punishes those who are open to temptation.475 Those who are not aware of these parallels can be helped by this information. The added lines end with a prayer to God for protection against the power of Samael and for help to approach the truth—a prayer different from the one of the father. Man is portrayed as helpless against the power of evil, just like the son alone seemed unable to transcend the power of the father that kept the son within the connes of traditional Judaism. The pessimism of these lines emphasizes the need for the intervention of God, but the lines ignore the responsibility of every single Jew, whether a mystic or a traditional one, as described in the tale, to engage in the precess of redemption. Recapitulation The eighth tale is the most realistic tale in Sippurey Maxasiyot. It portrays how a traditional rabbi, assisted by Samael, a representative of the evil urge, prevents his son, who is missing something from traditional Judaism, from meeting with a certain zaddik. The son has arrived at the entrance to the serotic system and has the capacity to bring

475

Cf. Prov. 7; Sefer haZohar I,148a–b, Sitrei Torah.

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together Shekhinah and Tif xeret, which would lead to the advent of the Messiah and signal the beginning of the world-to-come. However, the reluctant rabbi and the evil cunning of Samael prevent this goal of both traditional and mystical Judaism and thereby cause the death of the son—a marker of the Messianic hope. After the death of the son, Samael explains to the rabbi the rabbi’s responsibility for this disaster. Humiliated and full of shame the rabbi realizes the shortcomings of traditional Judaism and the need for zaddikim. This realization of the father is a necessary step toward redemption. Traditional Jews have to come to realize these shortcomings of traditional Judaism and the need of Hasidism. Fantasy is to a large extent left behind in this tale, because traditional Jews would be deaf and blind to any crucial message communicated through fantasy, which is why Nahman in this tale makes a discursive turn to realizm. Dialogue with traditional Judaism is necessary because redemption only comes about when all Jews live according to Hasidism and long for redemption in the same way Nahman did. It is not sufcient to convince those who are already open to Nahman’s Hasidic theology or to Hasidism in general; all Jews must be united for this common goal.

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4.9 The Ninth Tale The Wise One and the Simple One Introduction The ninth tale476 is the rst of the ve longer and last tales. It is known under the bilingual title: “     ”, i.e., the ninth tale about a wise one and a simple one. The initial sentence in the Hebrew text is:          . ; “A tale. Two house-owners were in one city.” The initial sentence in the Yiddish text has the same meaning and is:               

. As far as I see it, these initial sentences do not contain crucial information for the content of the tale, and I shall therefore make use of the title from the bilingual version as do all other commentators.477 Steinsaltz calls the tale “The Clever Man and the Simple Man”.478 Band calls it “The Hakham and the Tam (The Clever Man and the Ordinary Man)”.479 Green calls it “The Wise Man and the Simpleton”;480 Kaplan calls it “the Sophisticate and the Simpleton”.481 Wiskind-Elper calls it “Clever Son and Simple Son”.482 Roskies calls it “The Wise Man and the Simpleton”.483 When it comes to the title and subsequently the designations for the two main characters, I think it is difcult to choose the right translation. One priority is, however, to emphasize the links between the wise one and wisdom and between the simple one and simplicity without indicating that this simplicity should connote stupidity or foolishness. By choosing the word “clever” or “sophisticate” the reference to wisdom is lost. “Simpleton” connotes stupidity too much. The main characters grow from being sons to being men, which is why I want to avoid “son” or “man” as a designation for either of them. I am aware that “The Wise One and the Simple One” is not a catchy title, but it is the one closest to the bilingual title where no connotations are severed. 476 Tale #9 was told in the late winter of 1809; cf. Mykoff 1987:187. Naftali was most likely the one who conveyed this tale to Nathan; cf. Band 1978: 44. 477 Kook and Dan refer to the bilingual title in their Hebrew commentaries; cf. : 181;  1975: 172. 478 Cf. Steinsaltz: 113. 479 Cf. Band 1978: 139. 480 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 290. 481 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 160. 482 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 36. 483 Cf. Roskies 2002: 86.

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Summary Two wealthy house-owners both have an only son. One son is wise, whereas the other has a simple mind. The wealthy house-owners encounter decline and are subsequently forced to encourage their sons to provide for themselves. The two sons are friends, although they are different. The wise one decides to venture into the world. At the beginning he provides for himself by serving other people and taking a job as a shop clerk. Later in Spain, he learns the craft of a goldsmith and then the craft of a gem-cutter in no time, thanks to his intelligence. He studies medicine including Latin and philosophy and becomes a great doctor. But none of these professions guarantees him that he will always remain important in the eyes of the world. He decides to return to his hometown and feels lonely and discontent on his way back. The simple one decides to provide for himself by becoming a shoemaker. The simple one is constantly happy. He is married to a wife who assists him in his daily imaginings where he turns bread, water, and a pelt into the nest of foods, drinks, and outer garments. His prot on the shoes is meager because he does not master the craft completely, but he nds a delight in the process as well as in the outcome. The wise one has no house to return to as he decides to come home. He was traveling around the world when his father died, which is why he did not inherit his father’s house. However, the simple one is so pleased to see his childhood friend that the simple one offers him to stay at the house he inherited from his father. Furthermore, the simple one suggests, in order to counter the sufferings of the discontent wise one, that the wise one learn from his constant happiness. The wise one is contemptuous toward this suggestion and states that craziness or illness may cause him to descend to the simple one’s level of foolishness, but that the simple one will never reach his level of wisdom. The simple one replies that for God everything is possible, including bringing him to the wise one’s level of wisdom. The local king hears about the wise one and the simple one and decides to invite them separately. The simple one accepts without asking why. The king, who is aware that wise governors may engage in acts of fraud, appoints the simple one governor before they have even met. Finally, when the king and the simple one meet, and after success has made the simple one just as wise as the wise one, the king decides to appoint him minister of all ministerial affairs. The wise one does not understand why the king should invite him, and since he does not

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understand, he concludes that the king does not exist at all. The denial of the king’s existence initiates the wise one’s new journey where he, together with another wise man, travels around the world to prove that the king does not exist and that the entire population, who believes in him, is mistaken. When they arrive in the ministerial city of the simple one, they hear about a baxal shem whose power they deny as well. This denial causes them to be beaten up by several people. They then visit the minister, i.e., the simple one, to have him help them sue the ones who beat them up. During this meeting a messenger of Azazel comes to get the wise one and his wise friend. They end up in the mire, from where they now deny the existence of the Devil. Several years later the simple one asks the baxal shem to help him nd his childhood friend and bring him out of the mire. The baxal shem accepts and shows the wise one that his torments in the mire were the work of the Devil; he dissolves the mire, and turns the tormenting demons into dust. Upon this, the wise one is forced to admit that the king and a real baxal shem exist. Scholarly comments on the tale Kook points to the condemnation of rationalistically motivated pursuits versus the praise of simplicity as the two related themes in the tale. She emphasizes that the contrast between the two characters is exaggerated and that the designations “wise” and “simple” mean the opposite. The exaggeration serves to stress how seekers of modern/rationalistic wisdom will never be content or satiated by their pursuits.484 By quoting homiletic works by Nahman and commentaries by later Bratslavers, Kook conveys how Nahman does not wage war against wisdom in itself. Nahman sees inherent dangers in man’s own perception of what is wise as opposed to the life-sustaining “drugs” derived from Torah.485 Kook arranges a quotation from Kokhvey {Or in a way that results in a very illuminating explanation of Nahman’s purpose with this tale. According to this, man cannot approach the innite divine unless man, who is nite, allows his faith in and fear of God to undergo a kind of tsimtsum. This is where simplicity becomes crucial. Simplicity seems

484 485

Cf. : 197. Cf. : 198–199.

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to be able to provide the ground for such a tsimtsum. Once man has undergone this tsimtsum, simplicity can host the faith that is the sole prerequisite for true wisdom.486 Dan mentions Weiss’s notion, concerning the ninth tale, that the difference between the wise one and the simple one does not refer to Nahman’s opposition to the maskilim. It refers to the oscillation within Nahman’s mind, to Nahman as the wise one who had nobody to discuss with.487 According to Dan, it is difcult to nd aspects in this tale that reect problems related to the process of redemption. It is furthermore strange that the baxal shem is the one who imposes the punishment on the wise one, that the demons cannot bring the wise one to faith, and that the tale describes the awakening of faith within individuals, when the heretic only opens his eyes when redemption has been initiated. This proves, according to Dan, that the plot has been more important to Nahman than to nd an end in accordance with his fundamental ideas.488 Steinsaltz considers the simple one the hero and exemplar of the tale, though, as Steinsaltz writes: “he is depicted as a rather at, stereotypical gure.” The wise one, “on the other hand, is treated with greater depth and understanding”. The more detailed description of the wise one is taken to refer to Nahman’s acquaintance with “the agonies of cleverness”, which does not, however, exclude the uncompromising hostility and an irony that is frequently sharp with which Nahman describes this character. Steinsaltz’s overall perception of the tale is that it portrays the implicit pitfalls and problems of simplicity and cleverness. Behind the description of cleverness, Steinsaltz recognizes a polemic against Jewish rationalistic and atheist philosophy. Steinsaltz denes cleverness as an “intellectual disquiet, which is ultimately destructive” and which hinders the Jewish heritage in being passed on to the next generation. Steinsaltz denes simplicity as “seeing and accepting things as they are.”

Cf. : 201. Cf.  1975: 172. Dan is referring to: '         " :  371—358 :1958 , , ,      ,"   . I agree with Dan and Weiss that it would be too simplistic to interpret the wise one only as a representative of the maskilim. 488 Cf.  1975: 173. 486 487

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[T]he simple man is closer to true perception of reality. He may perceive things naïvely, and his understanding and grasp may be supercial, but his vision is not marred or distorted by untruthful ways of conceiving the world. The fool, on the other hand, always distorts the facts, wrenches them from their context, and thereby destroys their validity in order to make them accord with his own perceptions (Steinsaltz: 135).

Steinsaltz indicates in this passage that the wise man and everyone like him, who denies the existence of the king, be it God, or the devil, are the true fools. They have wrenched the facts in order to make them t their conviction of a world devoid of God and the Devil.489 Band presents his reading of the tale as related to the contrast between cleverness and simplicity and the contrast between skepticism and belief.490 Band also points to the many prototypes of this contrast within world folk literature, with which he claims Nahman was familiar.491 Band informs the reader about the meaning of the word hakham, which is the designation of the wise one throughout both the Hebrew and Yiddish texts. He writes: Ordinarily in Jewish literature the hakham is a sage, a truly wise and pious person whose advice one would follow. Here, however, the term is used ironically, almost in its Yiddish sense, connoting a person who is endowed with certain superior talents, who often boasts of his wisdom, but makes foolish choices in the conduct of his life (Band 1978: 309).

Band then explains how the wise one in the tale ts the descriptions of the hakham in the Yiddish sense of the word; whereas the tam is considered ultimately wiser and certainly happier because he is content with his life and has a devoted wife.492 The religious aspect of the tale becomes evident once the king appears in the tale. “[S]everal allusions . . . lead the reader to surmise that the king is probably an allegorical representation of God”. When Azazel summons the two wise ones, Band sees the contrast between belief and skepticism drawn and characterized.493 Concerning the wise one, Band notes that whereas the wise one scorns the simple one and

489 490 491 492 493

Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf.

Steinsaltz: 133–135. Band 1978: 309–310. Band 1978: 141. Band 1978: 309. Band 1978: 310.

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his ignorance, Nahman scorns “the secular self-reliance . . . and the corrupt, devious sophistication of urban life” of the wise one by creating his narrative decline only to let him be saved by the faith and love of the simple one.494 As to the allegorical potential of the wise one—the hakham—Band suggests that, despite some resemblance to Faust, the hakham represents a typical maskil.495 Green does not analyze the ninth tale, but he considers the portrayal of the wise one in the ninth tale a reection of Nahman’s own inner conicts vis-à-vis a world, in which “God as an experienced reality did not exist” (Green 1992 (1979): 290). Green explains: the experience of the absence of God, or man’s inability to experience God directly, must be taken seriously. Man lives in a world where God cannot be “seen”; given this reality, doubt is an inevitable part of the life of every religious human being, and the denial of God’s very existence is something at which the faithful cannot scoff (Green 1992 (1979): 291; Green’s italics).

Thoughts of heresy are not simply to be pushed aside. One has to know how to answer the heretic whether he appears as a philosopher or as an impulse within oneself.496 Kaplan explains his overall understanding in this way: “This story is unique insofar it can be understood in its most simple sense from the beginning to the end . . . Perhaps this is most tting, since the hero of

494

Cf. Band 1978: 310. I agree with Band that Nahman would have no reason to turn to the Faust gure in order to invent the tale, since the dangers of the haskalah movement seen from a Hasidic perspective must have sufced to render material for the portrayal of the hakham. Instead Band suggests that the Maskilim, whom he met in Lemberg in 1808, could have affected his portrayal; cf. Band 1978: 141. A reference to Faust can, as far as I see it, only serve as a parallel that emphasizes how Christianity felt threatened by secular thinking as well. While still living, Georg Faust, circa 1480–1540, became the main character in the folk saga Historia von D. Johann Fausten, which was written down in 1587 as a warning example of the search for secular knowledge as practiced by humanists and pleasure-loving adherents of the renaissance who opposed the religious world-view of Christian reformist Martin Luther. Later, with the publication of Faust, ein Fragment in 1790 and Faust, 1. Teil in 1806 (and Faust II in 1824/31) Johann Wolfgang Goethe made Faust a well-known hero; cf. Frenzel & Frenzel: Daten deutscher Dichtung, Band 1, DTV, München, 1990: 114–115, 242, 244–245. 496 I believe that Green is correct in seeing the many portrayals of heretics as expressions of Nahman’s concern with doubt as an obstacle for faith. The portrayals contain more than sarcastic descriptions. They are invested with a great deal of empathy, which supports Green’s notion that Nahman took the issue of doubt and heresy seriously. 495

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the story is the Simpleton, who took everything at face value, without probing beneath the surface”.497 Wiskind-Elper presents one theme of the tale as “melancholy caused by the lack of faith”.498 The clever son with his intellectual vanity worships his own ego and turns his back on faith. “The tragic end of the . . . tale shows, as a warning, the fate of the apostate who refused to be cured.”499 Sarcasm is used to tear away the disguise of the “godless philosopher”. “Reb Nahman’s parody derides [his] hubris and folds up [ his] follies to ridicule: he confronts the ape with its own subhuman face”.500 Another but related theme is the tormented struggle between apostasy and faith, which drives the wise one into the darkness of nihilism. Nahman’s portrayal of the wise one brings Wiskind-Elper to oppose the notion that this should be a simple tale. She writes about the wise one that he mistook paradoxical faith for the absurd delusion. All the unholy knowledge one can reap, Reb Nahman avers, is weighted with unbearable heaviness. God cannot be found in that howling wilderness, for He Himself removed His presence from it to enable the world to come into being. The only way to overcome the threat of a senseless universe, to continue beyond that terrifying empty space . . . is, as Kierkegaard says, a leap of faith. Such a leap requires lightness of being, a casting off of ‘the heart of stone’ and gaining ‘a heart of esh’ [Ezek. 11:19] (WiskindElper: 177).501

One paradigm that Wiskind-Elper detects in the ninth tale is the Lurianic paradigm of exile and redemption—of how the holy sparks are

497

Cf. Kaplan 1983: 160. Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 35. 499 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 36. 500 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 37. Wiskind-Elper is here hinting at Weiss’s description of the paradoxical tragicomic existential state of man as reected in jokes; cf.  1974: 127–128. 501 Wiskind-Elper is not quite clear here, and it is not accurate to bring Kierkegaard as an example of someone who praised simple faith in relation to his concept of paradoxical faith of which “a leap of faith” was the metaphor. Kierkegaard’s point is that faith is worth almost nothing unless man has been through doubt; cf. Søren Aaby Kierkegaard: Frygt og Bæven, Borgen, København, 1989 (1843): 99–109. Furthermore, Kierkegaard’s God is beyond time but decides to incarnate himself in time, which is what constitutes the paradox in the case of Kierkegaard. In the case of Nahman the paradox is only apparent, which will be revealed, once one comes to faith; cf. my comments on Weiss in Chapter 3. 498

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tragically imprisoned in matter as an omnipresent aspect of reality. This is the tragedy that the wise one faces and which estranges him from his heritage, from his family and childhood friend, and from himself.502 Roskies considers the tale a “contest between those who lived in a world of illusion and those who broke through to the truth of existence” (Roskies: 86). That the latter had to win reects Nahman’s intensied concern caused by an almost eighth-month visit to Lemberg, a center of enlightenment, in which Nahman was confronted with falsehood and heresy. Jacob, “a quiet man [ish tam], dwelling in tents” (Gen. 25:27), Job, who “was wholehearted [tam] and upright and one that feared God and shunned evil” ( Job 1:1)” (Roskies: 86–87), and the [tam] from the Passover Haggadah are seen by Roskies as inspirations for the portrait of the simple one in this tale. He has the ability to differentiate between good and evil, between simplicity and folly; and his faith in God’s ability to make him wise becomes a turning point toward the reversal of fortunes.503 Faced with the baxal shem the two major gures of the story act out their opposing world-views. The rationalist believes only what the eye can see and has delved so deeply into philosophical matters that he denies the existence both of the king and the devil. The simpleton’s path of joy and simple faith leads him to trust implicitly in the baxa shem’s powers. The true path of faith is through serving the king and not through scientic inquiry (Roskies: 88).

Roskies nishes his comments on this tale in line with Steinsaltz and Green, writing that the portrayal of the wise one reects Nahman’s fear of doubt.504

502 503 504

Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 47–48. Cf. Roskies 2002: 87. Cf. Roskies 2002: 89.

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Analysis 5:—1:-, 3:—1:- Once there were two wealthy house-owners who lived in the same city in two big houses. They had a son each and the two sons studied in the same heder. One of them was wise,505 the other was simple (not that he was a fool, but he had a simple mind and both feet on the ground). Despite their differences, they cared very much about each other. Time passed and the house-owners encountered decline. They lost everything, became poor, and nally had nothing left except for their houses. The sons grew up, and the fathers said to their sons that they could not support them anymore and that the sons would have to provide for themselves.

Usually, when the concept of an only male child occurs in the tales of R. Nahman, it indicates a fragile line of succession. If this child dies or if the child fails to follow in the footsteps of the ancestors, the line of succession will end and a heritage will be lost.506 The two only children are brought together in the same heder, which means that these children are Jewish children and that it is a Jewish line of succession that is at stake. The children are brought together in the same heder, which was the case as well in the second tale. In the second tale the emperor’s daughter and the king’s son were destined for each other and fell in love. The emperor’s daughter had to save the king’s son and secure their intertwined line of succession. In the ninth tale the children are both male children and are mutually attached. Though it is not a matter of love but of friendship, one of these children ends up saving the other by bringing him back to Judaism. Their friendship could indicate a mutual responsibility for securing the Jewish line of succession.507 505 “” is the word used in the Yiddish version, while “-” is the expression used in the Hebrew version; cf. p. . 506 Cf. tales #1, 5, 8, 10, 11, and 13. 507 Concerning the meaning of the houses and the decline, which the fathers experience, Steinsaltz seems to be of a similar opinion when he writes that the two houses of the fathers represent the Jewish tradition. The decline and death of the fathers symbolize the weakening of traditional Judaism; cf. Steinsaltz: 136. Steinsaltz does not argue for this by pointing to the introducing lines. Instead he jumps ahead to the place where the wise one returns only to nd his father’s house in ruins. “[N]eglect has taken its toll; his doubting philosophy has destroyed his heritage or, at least, has made it empty for him. Furthermore, he has lost the ability to relate to the place and to its people” (Steinsaltz: 140). The mutual responsibility for saving the Jewish heritage is touched upon, when Steinsaltz notices that the simple one offers the wise one room in his house; cf. Steinsaltz: 140.

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When the two sons are presented as “a wise one” and “a simple one”, the parentheses explain the meaning of “simple” as something positive despite the fact that it stands in opposition to wise.508 The word for ‘wise’ is hakham. Hakham as wise in Hebrew is perceived as something positive or as someone who possesses wisdom, i.e., Hokhmah. Hokhmah is also the designation for the second upper serah. In Sefer haZohar it says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom; . . . it is the beginning in that it provides entry to the level of the supernal wisdom” (Sefer haZohar I,7b). Band pointed to the Yiddish meaning of hakham, where hakham designates someone who boasts of his wisdom while still making foolish choices in his life.509 As it will be evident, the so-called “wise one” does not possess fear of God; he boasts of his wisdom; and he ends up being the fool. This supports Band’s notion that hakham in this tale relates to the inverted Yiddish meaning of the word.510 The word for the “simple one” is tam. In the Haggadah for Pesach four sons occur and they are designated , the wise one; , the evil one;  , the simple one; and   , the one who knows not how to ask. It is interesting to see what the four sons ask because this passage from the Haggadah may constitute an intertext for this tale. The wise one asks, “What are our testimonies, statutes and judgements, which the Lord our God hath commanded you?” By using the word “testimonies” the wise son expresses his understanding that he as a Jewish son is submitted to the Jewish heritage. In the tale of Nahman, this is the understanding the simple one has. The evil one in the Haggadah asks a question that reects that he denies God’s will to suffer with the people and that the evil son wants the focus to be on himself. In Nahman’s tale this is the kind of self-centredness the wise one exhibits. The simple son in the Haggadah asks what is not a

508 The tale itself stresses very thoroughly the inverted meanings of “wise” and “simple”, which is why the parentheses appear as a late explanation, probably put there by the redaction as a help to the readers. 509 Cf. Band 1978: 309. 510 The Yiddish meaning of hakham evokes associations to tale #4. In tale #4, non-Jewish kings were labeled “wise” even though their secular kind of wisdom was infertile. Secular wisdom is also proven infertile when it is positioned within a Jew. Yet, a difference exists in the response to Jewish and non-Jewish secular wisdom. Whereas the non-Jewish kings were killed in a helllike scenery because their secular wisdom prevented Jews from being Jewish, the secular wise Jew in this tale will be saved from a helllike scenery by another Jew, most likely because the commitment to Judaism by all Jews is a necessity.

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simple question—i.e., “What is this?”—to which the answer is that the mighty God saved the people from bondage in Egypt. The fact that God protects is what the listeSner/reader witnesses at the end of Nahman’s tale where the simple one’s faith in the baxal shem is what saves the Jewishness of the wise one. Finally, “the one who knows not how to ask” in the Haggadah has to be told the entire story of how the people were saved. One cannot ask questions when one does not understand. The wise one in Nahman’s tale, though he is called a son of understanding in the Hebrew version,511 does not understand; but by the end of the tale, he is ready to listen. If the Haggadah is an intertext for the ninth tale, Nahman is playing with and is inverting the meaning of the designations and illustrates that nothing in this world, including such designations, is what it seems.512 Kaplan touches upon something similar in his commentary to the word tam when he writes: the goal of wisdom and knowledge is to realize one’s lack of knowledge and understanding.513 This is obvious, since God is ultimately beyond all understanding. The highest perception of God is seen as Nothingness (Ayin), since the human mind cannot perceive or understand or grasp anything at all at this level. However, the level of Nothingness is also the level of God’s ultimate simplicity. In this deeper sense, then, simplicity is also much higher than wisdom (Kaplan 1983: 162).

The wise one in Nahman’s tale is very much a representative of this world, cf. his various professions and his denial of what he has not seen. He considers himself wise and so he is, according to worldly standards. However, within a religious framework he is the ignoramus, the simpleton of the tale, who has not even recognized the higher layers of reality where his entire heritage lies dormant. But I am advancing too quickly. What the listener/reader knows at this point in the tale is that the simplicity of the simple one should not be confused with foolishness. The fathers, who link their sons to the Jewish tradition, encounter decline. They therefore encourage their sons to provide for themselves. Since the fathers represent the Jewish tradition and since they encounter

Cf. p. . In this respect I am opposing Roskies, who sees a direct inspiration in the description of the simple one from the tam in the Haggadah for Pesach; cf. Roskies 2002: 87. 513 This is based on Sihot HaRan #3. 511

512

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decline, it could indicate that it is the Jewish tradition or traditional Judaism that has encountered decline. Furthermore, when the friendship between the sons is an implicit reference to their common responsibility to save the Jewish line of succession, the fathers’ encouragement to them to provide for themselves could be seen as encouragement to nd new ways to save Judaism. The future of Judaism will therefore depend on the choices made by these two children. 11:—5:-, 6:—3:- The simple one studied to become a shoemaker. The wise one, who was a son of understanding, did not want to engage in a simple craft like this, and so he decided to venture into the world to see what to do. As he was walking around in the market he saw a big carriage with four horses in harness coming in a rush. He asked the merchants: “From where do you come?” They answered him: “From Warsaw!” “Whereto are you traveling?” “To Warsaw!” He asked them: “You wouldn’t need a helper, would you?” They saw that he was a son of understanding and that he urged them. They liked him and so they took him along. He traveled with them, and he served them well along the road. When they came to Warsaw, and since he was a son of understanding, he thought to himself: Since I’m already in Warsaw, why should I stay with them? Maybe there is a better place. I will go and see if I can nd it. He walked around in the market and asked the people, who had brought him, if they knew a better place than theirs. They replied that they were honest people and that it was good for him to stay with them; however, they knew that their commerce included traveling over great distances. He noticed how the shop clerks in the market were walking around with their elegant hats, shoes, and clothes. Wise and sharp as he was, he liked it and liked the thought of working at home in one place. He therefore went and thanked the people who had brought him there and told them that it was not good for him to stay with them. Upon this he went and apprenticed himself to a rich man. According to the order of servants one initially has to be an apprentice servant and work hard for a little money before one can reach the level of head servant. The rich man ordered him to work hard. He was sent to lords to carry merchandise like servants carrying packages of clothes on their shoulders. Sometimes he had to climb to the upper stories with the merchandise. The work was difcult for him. At the market he saw some merchants traveling on top of a carriage. As he heard that they were going to Lagorna he asked if he could come along, and they took him there. From Lagorna he went to Italy, and from Italy he went to Spain. The acquaintance with many countries made him wiser, and so he decided to consider the practical purposes. With the help of his philosophy he thought about what to do. He was eager to learn the great and ne craft of a goldsmith; and thanks to his sharpness, wisdom,

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and philosophy, he learned the craft within only a quarter of a year and became a greater expert than the craftsman who had taught him. Discontent with the craft he had learned, since it might not always be considered an important craft, he apprenticed himself to be a gem-cutter, and thanks to his intelligence, he learned this craft as well within only a quarter of a year. However, he realized that this craft was no more important than the craft of a goldsmith, so he decided to learn a craft that would be important to the world. His intelligence and philosophy made him choose medicine. Within only a quarter of a year he learned Latin, its writing and philosophy, and so he became a great doctor and philosopher. However, the world and every single person in it seemed like nothing to him, so he decided to be practical and take a wife. But he understood that he would have to return to his home city so that everyone who knew him would realize to what greatness he had come. On the road home he suffered greatly from loneliness and from the lack of lodging, since he did not nd any lodging to his liking.

From this passage it becomes obvious that the wise one has ambitions. Shoemaking does not constitute an option, and the wise one does not feel that his small hometown can provide him with an answer as to what to do for a living. He decides to venture into the world. Given the fact that the wise one is a fast learner and that his father encouraged him to support himself, one cannot blame him for seeking out his fortune elsewhere. However, in Warsaw negativity is being attached to the wise one. He follows his fascination with the dandy dresses of shop clerks and apprentices himself to a shop-owner instead of staying with the good and honest people who brought him there. Warsaw, Lagorna, and Spain may have negativity attached to their names as well. Warsaw had a population around 70,000, of whom 12,000 were Jews. These Jews were affected by the cosmopolitan life, and since the wise one appears in this city as a Jew, the cosmopolitan life threatens to affect the wise one’s Jewishness as well. At least this could be one reason for Nahman to mention the city by name. The apprenticeship includes hard and difcult work, which appears as the reason for the wise one to leave for Southern Europe. Lagorna, also known as Livorno in Tuscany, had a population of 5,000 Jews. From Italy he leaves for Spain—where no Jews, except for the Marranos, had lived since the expulsion in 1492.514 In other words, the journey of the wise one becomes an image that refers to a decline in the presence of Judaism and a withdrawal from his hometown culture.

514

These numbers are taken from Kaplan 1983: 164n–166n.

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Within this foreign culture he learns different crafts, and his learning skills are stressed several times. There is nothing odious associated with the craft of a goldsmith or a gem-cutter or with the education and profession of a doctor; on the contrary, these professions demand precision and are concerned with the most precious materials or the most precious commodity of all, human life.515 However, it becomes obvious that the wise one chose and changed his professions according to one repellent premise: i.e., that the profession should make him important in the eyes of others. But when he nally nds a profession that will always be important to the world, i.e., medicine, he realizes that the world is not important to him. Spurred by his need for approval and attachment he decides to return to his hometown. 6: —12:-, 4: —6:- The simple one learned the craft of shoemaking, but since he was a simple one he had to learn for a long time before he mastered it, and then he did not even master it completely. He had a wife and he earned his living by his craft. Because of his lack of mastery his livelihood was meager and reduced to a minimum. He did not even have time to sit down and eat because his lack of mastery forced him to work more on his craft. So, while he was working, while piercing with the awl and inserting and drawing the thick thread in the manner of a shoemaker, he ate a slice of bread. For him it was customary always to be very happy and joyful. He believed that he had all the kinds of food, drinks, and clothes, and he used to say to his wife: “My wife, give me something to eat!” and so she gave him a slice of bread to eat. Then he would say: “Give me the broth with the kasha!” And she would give him another slice of bread to eat. Then he praised her and said: “How wonderful and very good this broth is!” Then he ordered her to pass him the meat and other kinds of food like this. Whenever he asked for something to eat, she gave him a slice of bread. He enjoyed it very much and praised this food very much for being well prepared and ne as if he had really been eating such food. Eating the bread, he did indeed feel the taste of every specic kind of food he asked for, since he was so simpleminded and so very joyful. He ordered on: “My wife, give me a beer to drink!” She gave him water, and he praised it: “How ne this beer is! Give me mead!” She gave him water. He praised this as well. “Give me wine!” It went on like this, and she would give him water and he enjoyed it and praised it, as if he had

515

Cf. Kaplan 1983: 167n.

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really been drinking such drinks. The same with clothes. He and his wife shared a pelt and he used to say, when he was in need of putting on the pelt to the market: “My wife, give me the pelt!” He gave it to him. When he was in need of putting on a sheepskin coat to mingle with people he used to say: “My wife, give me my sheepskin coat!” She gave him the pelt. He enjoyed it and praised it: “How beautiful this sheepskin coat is!” When he was in need of putting on a kaftan to go to the synagogue, he ordered: “My wife, give me my kaftan!” She gave him the pelt. He praised it: “How beautiful and comfortable this kaftan is!” And when he was in need of putting on a jacket, she gave him the pelt as well. He praised it and enjoyed it as well. “How beautiful and comfortable this jacket is!” It went on like this. He was full of joy and gladness. When he nished a shoe—and it would probably have three ends since he did not master his craft completely—he took the shoe in his hand, praised it, and enjoyed it very much. He used to say: “My wife, how beautiful and marvelous this shoe is; how sweet it is! How come this shoe is made of honey and sugar?” She would ask him: “If this is so, why do other shoemakers get three guldens for each pair of shoes, whereas you only get half a thaler?” He answered her: “What does this matter to me! That is his business and this is my business. Furthermore, why do we talk about others? Why don’t we start thinking about how much I earn on this shoe! The skin is this much, the pitch and the threads are this much, and the other things are . . . and soles are this much. Right now, I earn ten groschen, so why should I care about a prot like this!” And so he was always full of joy and gladness. The world found its passion in mocking him. They enjoyed his company, because through him they had someone to joke about to their heart’s content and because he seemed like a crazy one. People came to him and began intentionally to speak with him in order to joke about him. The very same simple one said: “Don’t joke!” and they always replied: “No joking!” He listened to them and began talking with them. He did not want to immerse into wise thoughts because this was a kind of joke as well, because he was a simple man. When he realized that their intention was to joke, he said: “What will happen if you are wiser than me? Wouldn’t you still be fools? What am I good for? If you are wiser than me, you will still be fools!”

The simple one is presented as the absolute contrast to the wise one. When it comes to his craft, he is more or less incompetent. He is a slow learner; his livelihood is meager and far from the extravaganza of the wise one. However, he is blessed with the company of a wife and a vivid imagination, and he is constantly happy. Whereas the wise one went restlessly from country to country, from profession to profession, the simple one is not only able to nd delight in the daily bread, in water, in a simple pelt, and in his unsuccessful attempts to produce shoes, but

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his praise516 and imagination help him turn the nutrition, the pelt, and the shoemaking into life-conrming parts of his life. The fact that praise is involved in his positive and, as a skeptic would say, illusive approach to everyday life, may be worth noticing. In Sefer haZohar it says: . . . the manna descended . . . And all the sons of the Faith went out, gathered it, and praised the Holy Name for it. The manna diffused the scents of all the spices of the Garden of Eden, through which it had passed in descending. Each one found in the manna the taste he most desired; and as he ate he blessed the Supernal Holy King for His goodness, and was himself blessed with understanding of the Supernal Wisdom (Sefer haZohar II, 62b).

The manna descended to the faithful ones, which is just one out of many examples in the Jewish tradition of how God provides for the faithful.517 The tale does not say that the simple one blessed God; however, he praises the things in front of him, and within a Hasidic framework, where God is in everything and everything is inside God, this praising should sufce for him to be considered among the faithful. Gathering the manna is like gathering the divine gifts inherent in this world, which could be supported by the text that says that his livelihood was “reduced to a minimum”. The Hebrew as well as the Yiddish version uses the word “ ”. The word tsimtsum could indicate that he had contracted his livelihood to the divine essence, and in this way provided for himself and his wife by living off the divine gifts/sparks.518 Furthermore, if Sefer haZohar II, 62b constitutes an intertext, his praising may give a hint of a future state where the simple one in return will be blessed with wisdom, because it says that the faithful “was himself blessed with understanding of the Supernal Wisdom”. Another interesting issue at stake here is the role of the imagination. Nahman altered his view on the imagination in the year of 1809 in which this tale was told. He said: “medammeh [imagination] is the main locus of faith.”519 All a Hasid needs is prophecy/a zaddik which/who can

516 Steinsaltz suggests that the simple one’s profession as a shoemaker contains a reference to Enoch. According to Midrash, “Enoch began as a simple shoemaker who used to praise God with every stitch he made and eventually attained the exalted rank of Angel of the Divine Countenance” (Steinsaltz: 139). 517 Cf., e.g., Deut. 8,3–6. 518 Cf. p. . 519 Quoted from Green 1992 (1979): 342, where Green explains most lucidly about Nahman’s view on imagination.

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purify his imagination from the delement of sin. Once this purication has been obtained, the imaginative faculty can host the faith with which one can reach an understanding of what the intellect cannot.520 In other words, the concept of imagination may provide a hint as well of a future state where the simple one reaches a level which supercedes the wise one’s level of wisdom. His wife, on the one hand, assists him in his daily imaginings; on the other hand, she does counter his (positive) illusions by pointing to his meager prot, which includes the recognition that other shoemakers make better shoes and a better living than he. His wife’s reasoning is relative, whereas his delight in the process and in the outcome of the shoemaking remains intact because he does not compare his life with that of others. The comparative approach of his wife implicates that one grants the immanent world, as one sees it, signicance in an absolute way, which is exactly what the wise one does.521 This is probably why the simple one instructs his wife to think differently. The nonrelative joy points to the relationship between man and God, where God can remain the absolute authority as God should be. Given the importance of faith and imagination, the indirect predictions of the true wisdom—which one can reach through faith—and the instruction of his wife not to let the immanent world, as man sees it, be a measuring stick for one’s level of success, the listener/reader might better understand why the simple one can tell the people, who mock him, that they will always be fools compared to him. It should be mentioned here that Mark’s description of worldly folly vs. conscious acts of folly might apply to this tale.522 Mark’s conception seems to depend on Weiss’s concept of paradoxical faith as reected in jokes523 also mentioned by Wiskind-Elper.524

Cf.    ,"  . Cf. Steinsaltz: 140 as well. 522 Cf. Mark: xv–xvi. Mark’s description is based on his analysis of tale #6. As I mentioned in my analysis of tale #6, I am not convinced that Mark’s description applies to tale #6. However, I am convinced that Mark has provided scholarship with an important tool to understand other of Nahman’s presentations of folly, especially those in tale #7, and now also here in tale #9. 523 Cf.  1974: 127–128. 524 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 37. 520 521

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11: —6: -, 6: —5: - At this time there was a tumult because the wise one was about to come to this place in grandeur and great wisdom. The simple one also ran to greet him with great joy, and he said to his wife: “Quick, give me my jacket! I will go to greet my friend and see him!” She gave him the pelt, and he ran to greet him. The wise one was traveling in carriages in grand style. The simple one came to greet him and asked in complete love: “My brother, how are you doing? Blessed be God who has brought you! And I am blessed to see you!” The entire world was nothing to the wise one, and certainly someone, who seemed like a fool, was nothing. In spite of this, though, and because of the mutual love from their youth, he remained close to him and traveled with him into the city. The two house-owners, the fathers of these two sons, had died, while the wise one was traveling around in the different countries. They left behind their houses. The simple one who had been on the spot to enter his father’s house had inherited it, whereas the wise one who had been in the different countries had not been there to receive the house. The house of the wise one was ruined and deserted and nothing remained for him, and the wise one did not have a place to enter upon arrival. He went to an inn and he suffered there because the inn was not to his liking. The simple one found himself a new task. He ran all the time from his house to the wise one with love and happiness, and he saw that he suffered because of the inn. So the simple one said to the wise one: “My brother, come to my house and stay with me! I will gather all my belongings together, and so my entire house—everything in front of you—shall be at your disposal!” That seemed forthright in the eyes of the wise one, and so he entered the simple one’s house and stayed with him. But the wise one was always suffering since he assumed that, according to his name, he was a wise, distinguished man, a craftsman, and a very great doctor. Once, a minister came and commanded him to make him a golden ring. He made him the most wonderful ring. In it he made engravings in the most wonderful ways. He engraved as well the most wonderful tree in it. The minister came, but the ring did not please him at all. The wise one suffered greatly because he knew that had the ring with the tree been in Spain it would have been considered important and very wonderful. Later, an important minister came and brought along an expensive and precious stone, which came from far away, and he also brought along a precious stone with an engraving. He commanded him to engrave this engraving on the other stone. He made exactly this engraving, only did he rene one thing, about which no one except he would understand. The minister came to pick up the precious stone and he liked it. But the wise one suffered greatly because of the renement he had made: “If only they could understand my wisdom. At present they are not ready for my renement.” He suffered as well because of his medical skills. When a sick person

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came, and when he gave him some medicine, which he knew very well was bound to save the life of the sick person, since the medicine was the very best, the sick person died. The entire world said that this one died because of him, and because of this he suffered greatly. Sometimes he gave some medicine to a sick person, upon which he was cured. Then the entire world said: “That may happen!” He was always suffering. Once, he was in need of clothing and called upon a tailor. He worked hard with the tailor until the tailor learned to make the clothing according to the wise one’s liking and his knowledge about such things. The tailor intended to make the clothing according to his liking, but when it came to the at hanging appendage he increased it and it did not come out beautifully. The wise one made many excuses because he knew: “Everyone thinks this is beautiful, because nobody knows what is. But had I been in Spain with this at hanging appendage, I would have been ridiculed intensely!” In this way he was always suffering. The simple one ran and came all the time to the wise one in happiness. He found him in grief and full of suffering, and so he asked him: “How come a wise and rich man like you is always suffering? Why? Look! I am always full of happiness!” In the eyes of the wise one he was ridiculous and seemed like a fool. The simple one said to him: “Look! People, who make fun of me, are fools, since they, if they are wiser than me, will still be fools. How much more so a wise man like you? But what is the point if you are wiser than me?” The simple one answered the question himself: “Who will make sure that you will reach my level?” The wise one answered: “It may be that I will reach your level if I lose my intelligence, God forbid, or if I become sick, God forbid, and become a fool. But look! Who am I? Am I a fool? But that you should reach my level is not possible in any way, as it is not possible that you should be wise like me!” The simple one answered: “For God, blessed be He, everything is possible, and it could be that one day I will reach your level!” The wise one laughed at him a lot.

Once again the simple one expresses his joy at the prospect of seeing his childhood friend for whom he cares very much. Seeing his friend again is special to the simple one, which is reected when he imagines his pelt turned into a jacket, which previously has been described as a ne piece of clothing for mingling.525 His hopes for and his expectations of a reunion are countered by the wise one’s contempt for the world and for what he considers the simple one’s foolishness. Another contrast is presented in the fact that the wise one has lost his father’s house, whereas the simple one did show up in order to overtake

525

Cf. 11–7:-, 7–5:-.

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his father’s house after his father’s death. The fathers did encourage their sons to make their own living, and one cannot really blame the wise one for traveling abroad. Furthermore, it should be remembered that it was hard to reach relatives, especially abroad, in case of emergency back in 1809. Therefore, one cannot judge the wise one for not having attended his father’s funeral or taken care of the house that now stands in ruins. This is why I agree to follow Steinsaltz’s suggestion of understanding the houses as symbols of the Jewish tradition.526 The house of the simple one implicitly refers to prosperity and intactness for the Jewish tradition, whereas the lacking house of the wise one refers to the absence of Jewish tradition. The wise one only behaves according to what he has learned abroad. Foreign knowledge and cosmopolitan manners stand in opposition to the hometown culture where tradition, which used to bind the inhabitants and the wise one together in, e.g., the heder, now lies as a dividing line between them. Still, the loyalty and enthusiasm of the simple one are able to embrace the wise one, as the simple one invites him to cross the threshold of his father’s house and live as a guest in what used to be his own tradition. The hospitality of the simple one comes to signify the eternal bond between Jews and their religious tradition and past, even though the wise one does not understand the hospitality of the simple one as such. The different skills, which the wise one has acquired on his journey, are proven useless and unappreciated, and so the wise one reasons that the world is not ready for his wisdom. When it comes to his medical praxis, some of the patients die, while some are cured. Now, healing relates to life and death, and within a religious framework there is only one master of life and death, i.e., God. It does not even cross the wise one’s mind that he is up against powers that far supercede his own mundane skills. His imposture prevents him from understanding the causality of the world, and so he interprets every death at his hands as his incompetence and becomes furthermore disappointed when he does not receive recognition for those who were cured “by him”. His imposture is endless as it is seen in the case of the Spanish piece of clothing where the wise one considers himself so omnipotent in his craftsmanship that he is to blame for not controlling the hands of the tailor whom he had given instructions. His approach to life causes his misery, which

526

Cf. Steinsaltz: 136.

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the simple one has realized. The simple one therefore decides to help his friend by suggesting that he learns from his happiness. The simple one’s suggestion is met with the most contemptible statement announced by the wise one. The wise one excludes that he should ever be able to approach life with his happiness because he connects the simple one’s happiness with what he considers his foolishness. He reckons that of course craziness or illness could make him a fool and thereby allow him to walk around happily like a fool, but at present his wisdom prevents him from doing so. It is interesting that he is aware in this contemptible statement that his wisdom is what prevents him from being happy. What he does not understand, though, is that this mundane wisdom is infertile. To make the statement as despicable as possible the wise one furthermore emphasizes that the simple one will never be able to reach his level of wisdom. Humiliated like this, the simple one reveals his strength for the rst time in the tale. The strength lies in his faith. He knows that God is the only one who can give him wisdom. He cannot travel around the world and obtain it himself. At the same time Nahman reveals his strength as a storyteller. In the presentation of the simple one above, his daily imaginings could be misconceived as illusions; however, the end of this passage reveals the simple one’s acknowledgement of the true master of the universe. By portraying the simple one in this way, Nahman succeeds in stressing that even a simple man may not be what he seems. His simplicity may conceal a profound acceptance of the divine causality in this world and that true wisdom lies dormant within this apparent simplicity. 12: —12: -, 8: —7: - The world called these two sons by the nicknames “the wise one” and “the simple one”. Even though there are some wise ones and some simple ones in this world, this case was very remarkable since they both came from the same place and had studied together. It had made the wise one very distinguished and the other one extremely simple. In the hall of records they wrote down the family names of everyone, but in this case they wrote down the nicknames “the wise one” and “the simple one”. Once the king arrived to the hall of records. He found that the two sons had been recorded as the wise one and the simple one. He wondered about the two nicknames “the wise one” and “the simple one”. The king wanted to see them. The king thought to himself: “If I suddenly request from them to appear before me, they will be very frightened. The wise one will not know how to argue at all, and the simple one may go crazy from fear.” So the king decided to send a wise one to the wise one, and

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A king, whom most commentators interpret as God,527 is presented in this passage. He is keeping himself updated on his subjects, which reects an interest in what is going on in his kingdom. He is furthermore concerned not to frighten the wise one and the simple one, and so he adapts his discourse to the level of its recipients. This adaptation of a message, translated allegorically by Steinsaltz and Kaplan as Scripture or as “the ultimate, irreducible essence of the Bible”,528 could indicate that interpretations in Jewish tradition are there to make sure that everyone, no matter his/her level of understanding, can feel addressed by Scripture. This would parallel Nahman’s discursive turn to telling tales as a genre of communication because a tale is accessible to everyone, but understandable at multiple levels.

527 Cf. Steinsaltz: 141; Band 1978: 141; Kaplan 1983: 178; Wiskind-Elper: 37. Kook does not engage in an allegorical interpretation of the king. 528 Cf. Steinsaltz: 142; Kaplan 1983: 179.

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2: —12: -, 1: —8: - The simple one said as soon as he had received the letter: “How come I don’t know what is written in it? Please, read it to me!” [He] answered him: “I can tell you by heart what is written in it! It is written that the king wants you to come to him.” He asked promptly: “This is no joke?” He answered him: “Surely, this is no joke!” Upon this, he was lled with joy, he ran and said to his wife: “My wife, the king has sent for me!” She asked him: “Because of what? And why?” He did not have time to answer her at all, and he hurried off in joy. He traveled together with the messenger. He entered and sat down in the carriage and found the clothes there. He became increasingly happier. Meanwhile, the king was informed about the governor that he had acted incorrectly, so the king removed the governor and thought it wise to let a simple one be governor. A simple one would govern the country in a truthful and straightforward way, since he would not know any kind of shrewdness or tactics. The king therefore decreed that the simple one should be made governor. The king announced his order that the simple one, for whom he had sent, should be made governor, that he would have to travel through the district capital, that people should stand at the city gates, and that they should immediately detain and present him with the prospects of him becoming governor. And so they did. They stood at the city gates and immediately, as he passed by, they detained him and told him that he had been made governor. The simple one asked: “This is no joke?” “Surely, this is no joke!” The simple one was immediately made governor with authority and glory. Now that his luck had risen and “luck makes one wiser”, he gained a little understanding. However, he did not make use of his wisdom. He behaved according to his initial simplicity and governed the country with simplicity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness. Falsehood was not to be found in him. Governing a country does not presuppose an encompassing intelligence or wisdom, only straightforwardness and simplicity are required. Once, when two convicts appeared before him, he said according to his simplicity and truthfulness with no cunning or fraud at all: “You are innocent and you are guilty!” Everything was led according to the truth. The people of the country loved him very much. He had advisors who favored the truth. Because of this love, there was one who gave him a piece of advice: “It is unavoidable that you will have to appear before the king! Is it not so that the king has already sent for you once? And is it not so that a governor will have to appear before the king? Even though you are a very honest man and no falsehood can be found in your way of governing the country, it is customary for the king to bend things in another direction, to talk about different kinds of wisdom and manners of speaking. It would be becoming and according to the ways of the country for you to be able to answer the king, and therefore it would be good if you would let me teach you something about wisdom and manners of speaking!” The

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chapter four simple one liked what he said and thought to himself: “What is it to me, if I learned about wisdom and manners of speaking?” He remembered that his friend, the wise one, had told him that he in no way would be able to reach his level. However, now he had already reached his level of wisdom. (Even though he already knew about wisdom, he did not use the wisdom at all; he just governed the country according to his initial simplicity). After a while the king sent for the governor, the simple one, and he came to him. At the beginning, the king talked to the simple one about the governing of the country, and the king approved of his way very much indeed, since he had realized that he governed it in a very straightforward and truthful way without any falsehood or fraud. After this, the king began to talk about wisdom and manners of speaking, and the simple one answered him appropriately, and it more and more pleased the king who said: “I realize that he is a wise man, but in spite of this he governs with simplicity!” It pleased the king so very much that he appointed the simple one minister over all ministerial affairs. The king ordered a special place to be his, he ordered nice and magnicent walls to be built around this place as it was proper, and he gave him a document that contained his appointment as a minister. And so they built him everything at this place according to the king’s orders, and the simple one went and received the appointed greatness.

The simple one accepts the invitation from the king with the same uncomplicated joy and happiness with which he approaches life in general. An act of fraud by the governor makes the king dene simplicity as the characteristic needed for a person to govern a country.529 Since the simple one is one of the few who represents  

, i.e., simplicity, the king appoints him governor.530 The appointment causes the simple one’s luck to rise, and luck makes one wiser as it is explained in the tale through a quotation from Shabbat 156a.531 However, even though

529

Simple persons, however, can be tactical, so it may be more likely that it is the meaning of innocence or maybe naïveté which lies inherent in the word  

in this passage. 530 Steinsaltz sees the appointment of the simple one to governor as a step forward from simple zaddik to zaddik as the leader of a community. In the latter sense of the word the simple one grows intellectually and becomes “capable of ruling men and of placing his wisdom in the service of the king—both essential attributes of a zaddik” (Steinsaltz: 142). I am more likely to look at the simple one in a more literal sense and thereby support Kaplan who writes that “[t]his story is unique insofar that it can be understood in its most simple sense from the beginning to the end” (Kaplan 1983: 160n). 531 In the Yiddish version, Shabbat 156a is explained in Yiddish in a parenthesis; cf. 17: -, as to mean that  , meaning luck or good fortune, makes one wiser. However, in Shabbat 156a it is not a matter of luck that is being discussed. It is

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the simple one becomes wise, and even wiser after he has been taught about wisdom, he governs the country only with simplicity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness. The simple one has made simplicity his platform, his point of departure. It is within this simplicity that the dormant true wisdom can be arisen. When the king and the simple one meet, the king is convinced by his truthful nature and impressed how the simple one sets aside his wisdom when he governs. The simple one is therefore appointed minister over all ministerial affairs and given a document. The letter, which he rst received, was signed by the governor and handed over to him by a messenger. This time the simple one receives something in writing directly from the king. This could be a hint, just like in the seventh tale, at the difference between the two tablets carved by Moses and the two tablets carved by God to be given directly to Moses. These two kinds of royal messages may refer to the written Torah vs. the primordial Torah and the differences between them, which according to Magid was a seminal aspect to Nahman in his attempt to restablish access to the primordial Torah.532 The reversed order is explained in view of the fact that the biblical “fall” of the Torah must be mended by a collective striving to replace the canonical Torah with the primordial Torah. The next passage in this tale continues to elaborate on this theme. 1:—3: -, 1:—2: - The wise one, as he received the king’s letter, said to the wise messenger: “Wait and stay for the night! Then we can talk and think it over!” In the evening, he prepared the messenger a great banquet, and in the middle of the banquet the wise one showed off with his wisdom and philosophy. He said: “What is this that the king sends for someone as lowly as me? And what am I, since the king sends for me? Why does a ruling king of grandeur send for someone like me who is low and despised compared

whether Israel is under inuence from the planetary constellations or not; cf. that 

can mean “sign of the Zodiac”. It is written: “R. Hanina said: The planetary inuence gives wisdom, the planetary inuence gives wealth, and Israel stands under planetary inuence. R. Johanan maintained: Israel is immune from planetary inuence”. The meaning of the saying   from Shabbat 156a may have been different when Nahman lived, or maybe Nahman is making a pun on the connotations of the word  . In tale #3 the son, who could not walk, experiences a change of fortune, because he comes under the inuence of the stars by eating grass. This inuence brings him to enhance his knowledge of how the world is affected by the struggle between good and evil forces. 532 Cf. Magid 2002: 33.

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chapter four to such a great king? How shall I understand this? If I say that he does so because of my wisdom, what will I be, compared to the king who is surrounded by wise men and who is certainly a very wise man himself ? Why does he send for me?” The wise one wondered very much about this and said to the wise messenger: “Do you know what I should say? According to my knowledge, the matter is bound to be evident and clear. There is no king in the world at all and the entire world is mistaken by this nonsense when they expect a king to exist! How come the entire world is mistaken and supports the idea of one man who is supposed to be king? Certainly there is no king in the world at all!” The wise messenger replied: “Didn’t I bring you a letter from the king?” The wise one asked him: “Did you really receive the letter directly from the king’s hand?” The wise messenger answered him: “No, one man gave me the letter in the name of the king!” The wise one said: “Do you see with your own eyes that it is true that there is no king at all?” The messenger replied: “I shall ask you one thing! Are you not from the royal city? And did you not grow up there? Tell me: Did you not see the king?” The wise one answered him: “No! Don’t you see that it is evident and clear that there is no king at all? Even you have never seen the king!” The wise messenger asked him: “If this is so, who rules the country?” The wise one answered: “I shall give you a clear explanation. You can ask me this since I am an expert on this. I have been wandering around in different countries and I have been in the state of Italy. Italy is governed by seventy councillors. They are appointed to govern for a certain period of time and the responsibility of governing is shared by every member of the state!” These words began to enter the ears of the wise messenger until he agreed and inferred that certainly there was no king in the world at all. The wise one said: “Stay until the morning, and I will make it even more clear to you that there is no king in the world at all!” The wise one arose in the morning and woke up his friend, the wise messenger. “I will show you that it is clear that the entire world is mistaken and that no king exists at all. Everyone is greatly mistaken!” They went to the market and saw a soldier. They got hold of him and asked him: “For whom do you work?” He answered: “For the king!” They asked him: “Have you ever seen the king?” The wise one said: “Do you see how they are mistaken?” They walked to the ofcer of the soldier and they immersed into the matter and nally asked him: “For whom do you work?” “For the king!” “Have you seen the king?” “No!” The wise one said: “Now you see with your own eyes that the case is evident. Everyone is mistaken, and there is no king in the world at all!” They agreed upon the fact that there was no king at all. The wise one said: “Come, let us travel all over the world and I shall show you how the entire world is completely mistaken. They walked and traveled in the world, and wherever they came they found that the world was mistaken and they used the king as an example for this: “As it is true that there is [no] king, this is true!” They traveled until they ran out of what they had brought along. They sold one of their horses and a little

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bit later they sold the other one and nally they had sold everything and they had to walk on foot. They kept on investigating how the world was mistaken and they became wandering beggars. Nobody respected them and they received no attention at all, since nobody was surprised to see beggars like them. It went on like this and they walked until they came to the city, in which the minister lived—the simple one who used to be the friend of the wise one.

The worldly inability to understand the written Torah is presented here, if the letter from the king is to be understood as the written Torah. The wise one does not understand “the written Torah” because his secular wisdom makes him blind to its divinely sanctioned content. This resembles how the maskilim refused to recognize that God should have deputized Moses to dictate the Torah. According to them, the Torah reected man’s experiences of his/her religious afliation. Subsequently, the canonical Torah, despite its normative function, did not qualify to being treated as a divinely authored text or as proof of God’s existence. It is the same argument the wise one is now using. The letter, since one does not know if it was really written by the king, cannot prove the existence of the king. The wise one expresses clear signs of insecurity,533 since he needs a night and the presence of another wise one to talk to about the king’s invitation. Later, his reasoning reects a mild degree of paranoia. His focus on the wisdom of the king and his court gives away his fear of being inferior and prevents him from understanding an invitation as an invitation. The passage is yet another example of how the wise one measures his worth with that of others. To avoid admitting that others might be wiser than he is, he chooses to state that the potential threat, the king, does not exist, and that the belief of the world in this king points to the general ignorance of the entire population. His arguments in the following description, where the wise one and the wise messenger travel through the world, are grotesque and would not hold water within the framework of a rationalist. The skeptic has granted his own skepticism absolute status and now commits himself to ght for the internal survival of his rationalist paradigm, which, according to him, represents the only truth in the world. A new kind of “religion” is being invented. His paradigm includes the modern phenomenon of parliamentarism, cf. the ruling methods in Italy, mixed up with the

533

Cf. 11:—5:-, 6:—3:- and Kaplan 1983: 167n.

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number seventy, which could hint at the Talmudic idea of seventy gentile nations in Sukkah 55b where each of these nations is compared to a bullock, i.e., a castrated ox. Given the intertextual comparison of these nations with castrated oxen, parliamentarism signies an infertile way of governing. The infertility of parliamentarism stands in opposition to the world’s belief in what seems to be the theocratic rule of the king. Nahman thereby says that the world will receive fertility if it adheres to its belief in God. But the wise messenger does not listen to Nahman. He listens to the wise one. When nally convinced that the king does not exist, the wise messenger joins forces with the wise one, and together they venture into the world in order to convince it/nd further proof that the king does not exist. They easily “verify” their conviction, and this “verication” is based upon statements of, e.g., two employees of the king, a soldier and an ofcer, who have not seen the king either. The wise ones’ quest for proving the king’s lack of existence subsequently forms the argument for the infertile concept of secular democracy, since it brings about their social declivity, as if the declivity itself was God’s way of telling them that they were wrong. As absolute nobodies they arrive in the city in which the simple one has risen to the position of minister of all ministerial affairs. If we follow the line of argumentation and the total reversal of roles, this should mean that God has rewarded the simple one’s trusting approach to life. 6:—1:-, 3:—2:- In this city there was a real baxal shem who was very important. He did wondrous things, and even among the ministers the baxal shem was considered important and famous. The two wise ones came to this city. They walked around and ended up in front of the house of the baxal shem. They saw some carriages standing there—forty, maybe fty—with sick people in them. The wise one expected that a doctor would live there, and he wanted to enter the house since he was a great doctor too. He wanted to make his acquaintance. The wise one asked: “Who lives there?” And some answered him: “The baxal shem!” His mouth lled with laughter and he said to his friend: “This is the most wonderful lie and nonsense. It is even a greater mistake than the one with the king! My friend, I shall tell you about this lie and about how many in the world who are mistaken because of it!” In the middle of this they became hungry and found that they still had three or four groschen and went into a public kitchen where one could eat for three or four groschen. They ordered some food and they gave it to them. While eating they told stories and joked about how the baxal shem was a lie and a mistake. The owner of the public kitchen

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listened to their talk and it annoyed him very much, since the baxal shem was considered important there. The owner said to them: “Eat what is in front of you and then get out of here!” After a while the son of the baxal shem came there and they were still joking about the baxal shem right in front of the baxal shem’s son. The owner of the public kitchen rebuked them for joking about the baxal shem right in front of his son, and so the owner beat them up, wounded them very badly, and nally drove them away from his house. They became very frustrated and wanted to sue the one who had beaten them up. They decided to go to their landlord, with whom they had left their luggage, and they took counsel from him on how to sue this one. They told him that the owner of the public kitchen had beaten them very badly. The landlord asked: “Why?” They told him that they had talked about the baxal shem. He replied: “Of course it is not proper to beat up somebody, but you did not behave correctly at all when you talked about the baxal shem because the baxal shem is very important here!” They realized that there was nothing to do and that also the landlord was mistaken. They left him and went to a clerk who was a gentile. They told him the story about how [the owner of the public kitchen] had beaten them. The gentile clerk asked: “For what?” They answered him that they had been talking about the baxal shem. Then the gentile clerk beat them very badly, wounded them, and drove them from his house. They went from one to another, from one governor to another even higher governor, until they nally came to the minister—the simple one.

A baxal shem means “a master of the name”, designating a type of person who possesses secret knowledge about the Tetragrammaton and other names of God and who knows how to produce miracles by magical application of these names.534 The situation in the ninth

534 Cf. Scholem 1972a. Scholem further explains that the healing baxaley shem are rst mentioned by Hai Gaon around the year 1000 CE. A baxal shem in his mentioning connotes someone who can be in two places at the same time. In medieval German Hasidic tradition baxaley shem connoted liturgical poets. Spanish kabbalists in the thirteenth century onward used the designation baxaley shemot for magicians as opposed to ba’aley serot and theoretical kabbalists. In this period a baxal shem was also connoted with someone who wrote amulets based on the divine names. In Germany and Poland in the sixteenth century baxaley shem connoted rabbis and scholars of the Talmud and Kabbalah. In this area in the seventeenth and eighteenth century the often itinerant ba’aley shem connoted nonscholars who healed the sick and the mentally disturbed by using prayers, amulets, incantations, and segullot, i.e., ‘remedies’ concocted from animal, vegetable, and mineral matter. With respect to Nahman’s tale #9, it makes sense to extract from Scholem’s explanation the supernatural mobility, the healing and magical powers and the use of amulets. Furthermore, the designation ba’al shem may refer to the Ba’al Shem Tov. He was known to apply magic and to master the divine names;

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tale in this passage is that a baxal shem has gained a good reputation in the ministerial city, not only among Jews but also among gentiles. His existence as well as his healing powers are not doubted; on the contrary, people come to him to be cured. The wise one, as he sees the many people who seek cure at the baxal shem’s house, wants to make the baxal shem’s acquaintance before he is aware that the curing person is a baxal shem who bases his cures on his belief in God. The wish for making his acquaintance seems like another attempt by the wise one to be recognized by others, in this case by someone who could be a peer, cf. their supposed common education as doctors. But when the wise one nds out that the curing person is someone who cures on religious premises, he loses all interest in the baxal shem except for one, i.e., to mock the baxal shem and everyone who believes in him. The wise one even claims that the belief in the baxal shem is an even greater lie than the belief in the king’s existence.535 Nahman does not elaborate on this in the text, but logically the secular reasoning must be that if people mistakenly believe in God, who does not exist, it is even more stupid to believe in a man who is convinced that he heals because of his belief in God, who still does not exist.536 This positions the baxal shem as a contrast to the wise one who was convinced that healing sick people solely depended on his own skills. After having enraged the kitchen owner and after being beaten up by the kitchen owner, a gentile clerk, and several others for mocking the baxal shem, even in front of the baxal shem’s son, they decide to sue the people who beat them up. However, it is hard for them to receive advice on how to do so, since the entire city seems to stand united in their appreciation of the baxal shem. Even the gentile clerk appreciates the baxal shem’s presence, which represents a stark contrast to the fallen

cf. BeShT’s letter to his brother-in-law, R. Gershon of Kutov; cf. Lamm: 547–555. See also Moshe Idel: Messianic Mystics, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1998: 213–220; Rachel Elior: “Der Ba’al Shem Tov zwischen Magie und Mystik”, in Grözinger (ed.): Die Geschichten vom Baxal Schem Tov, Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbadeb, 1997: xxxvi. Finally, it may be just another name for zaddik, since many of the zaddikim around 1800 did offer healing to their Hasidim through prayers and amulets; cf. Idel 1995: 68, 75–76, 78, 198, 338. 535 The wise one denies the wonderworking of the baxal shem, which Steinsaltz sees as Nahman taking issue with rationalist philosophers, including Maimonides, who dismissed the belief in wonderworkers as mere superstition; cf. Steinsaltz: 144. 536 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 188n as well.

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son of Judaism, the wise one.537 The decision to sue the different people leads the wise one and the wise messenger to the house of the simple one, who has now become minister over all ministerial affairs. 2:—6:-, 1:—3:- There, in front of the minister’s house, soldiers, or rather guards, were standing, and they announced to the minister that someone needed to see him, and he commanded that he be sent in. The wise one appeared before the minister, and as soon as he came, the minister recognized him as the wise one, his friend. But the wise one did not recognize him because he was surrounded by such grandeur. The minister immediately began to say to him: “Do you see where my simplicity has led me? To this grandeur! And where has your wisdom led you?” The wise one answered: “Since you are my friend, the simple one, we can talk about this later. But now let me sue all those who have beaten me!” The simple one asked him: “Why?” He answered him: “Because I talked about the baxal shem, that he was a liar and a big fraud!” The simple one, the minister, said: “You still hold on to your wisdom! Look! You said that you could be above my level in everything and that I could not reach your level. But I see that it is more difcult for you to reach my level of simplicity!” However, since he knew this one from before he was great, he ordered that he be given clothes, and he invited him to eat with him. While eating they began to talk together. The wise one attempted to convince him about his opinion that no king existed at all. The simple one, the minister, rebuked him: “Didn’t I see the king for myself ?” The wise one answered the simple one in a laughter: “Do you really know that this was the king? Do you know him, his father, and his ancestors who were kings? How do you know that this was the king? He has deceived you with this lie!” The simple one was very annoyed indeed about how he denied the existence of the king. Suddenly, someone came and said: “Azazel has sent for you!” The simple one was very shocked indeed. He ran and told his wife in great fear how this one had sent for him. His wife suggested that they sent for the baxal shem, and so he sent for him. The baxal shem came and gave [the simple one] protecting amulets and he told him: “Don’t be afraid of anything at all!” and he had a great faith in this. The wise one and the simple one sat for a while, and so the wise one asked him: “What were you afraid of ?” He answered him: “Because of Azazel who has sent for us!” The wise one laughed at him: “Do you

537 Nahman is in several cases known to have advocated for a universal redemption, which presupposed the conversion of gentiles.

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chapter four believe that the Devil exists?” The simple one answered him: “Who else should have sent for us?” The wise one replied: “Certainly, it must have been my brother who wants to see me. He sent for me in this disguise!” The simple one asked: “If this is so, how did he pass all the guards?” He answered him: “He must have bribed them! Like frauds and liars they will say that they haven’t seen him!” In the middle of this, someone returned and said like before that the Devil had sent for them. The simple one was not shocked, and he had no fear at all because of the baxal shem’s protection. The simple one said to the wise one: “You are what you say!” The wise one said: “I shall announce to you that I have a brother who is angry at me and he made this fraud to make me afraid!” And so he asked the one who had come for them: “What appearance does this one have who has sent for us? What kind of face does he have? What kind of hair does he have?” He answered him so and so. The wise one said: “You see!” Just give me some soldiers to protect me so that nobody will harm me!” The simple one gave him the soldiers. The wise one and the wise messenger went away together with the one who had come for them. The soldiers returned and the simple one, the minister, asked them: “Where are the two wise ones?” They answered him: “We don’t know how they disappeared!”

The reversal of roles and this second reunion between the two childhood friends are characterized by the simple one’s loyalty and the wise one’s lack of ability to see through worldly grandeur. However, the loyalty of the simple one is not an uncritical one. The rst time, when he approached the wise one with criticism, was when he suggested that the wise one be inspired by the happiness of the simple one. The suggestion resulted in the wise one mocking the simple one for never being able to reach his level of wisdom. This time the simple one approaches the wise one with criticism and tries to force him to face the fact that simplicity has led the simple one to grandeur, whereas the wisdom of the wise one has led to declivity. Yet, the wise one ignores the criticism and goes on to present his conception of reality where there is no room for God or a baxal shem. However, the simple one is annoyed about the wise one’s denial of the king, but certainly also about how the wise one tries to ridicule the simple one’s ability to judge for himself whether the king exists or not. Of course it is true that any rationalist cannot prove that the world and everything in it exist, but this is where life becomes a matter of belief—otherwise man cannot live. The wise one has qua his skepticism made himself unqualied for living. There is nothing fertile in his approach to life, and the tale has already told the

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listener/reader this in the passage where democratic rule as part of his rationalistic paradigm was likened to a castrated ox.538 The atmosphere changes when a messenger of Azazel enters and announces that Azazel has sent for the wise one and the wise messenger. Azazel is a representative of Sitra haRa and another name for the Devil. The simple one is shocked, terried, because he is fully aware of the threat that Azazel constitutes. The simple one has a rm belief in the king, i.e., God, and knows that God’s tool, Yetser haRa, lies in wait as a consequence of this belief.539 The simple one runs to ask his wife for advice. It may appear strange to some that he consults a woman; however, this is the second time where the listener/reader is informed that his wife represents a true partner for the simple one. Previously, in his daily imaginings, she assisted the simple one in his attempt to nd delight in a simple pelt, in simple bread and water. In this passage, she comes up with the suggestion that they send for the baxal shem. This proves to be a very wise suggestion. In this tale, which is primarily about the infertility of rationalism and the importance of simplicity, Nahman inserts his emphasis on how a good wife constitutes a blessing for any man. Once the baxal shem arrives, he gives the simple one protecting amulets,540 and instructs him not to be afraid.541 It is interesting that so far the simple one has been able to approach God (the king) from within his own simplicity. However, when it comes to protecting himself against evil, he seems unable to do so alone. For protection against evil he is in need of the baxal shem to inscribe divine names on such amulets. The simple one has faith in the act of the baxal shem, and the aid of the baxal shem enables him to calm down and confront the wise one who

Cf. 1:—3: -, 1:—2: -. Roskies shares the notion that “on rarer occasions [the Devil] can be the rod of God’s wrath”; cf. Roskies 2002: 80. 540 Amulets are known throughout Jewish tradition. In the Talmud the main point about amulets is that an amulet does not need approval as long as the maker of the amulet has been approved; cf. Shabbat 61a–b. Pesachim 111b stresses, maybe in relation to this approval of the maker, how important it is for the amulet-maker to have knowledge about the different kinds of demons. On his deathbed, R. Eliezer wore an amulet around his neck; cf. Sanhedrin 68a, n10 in Soncino Classics Collection (CD-Rom). 541 The instruction not to be afraid can be found as well in the song written by Nahman:      , where it says: “    ,  :  , ”. 538 539

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now denounces the existence of Azazel as well. When one denounces the existence of evil, one automatically denounces the existence of God.542 Evil in Jewish mysticism as well as in Judaism in general is an instrument for God to force humans back to a God-fearing behavior.543 But when one does not even recognize the existence of evil, the encounter with evil cannot be understood as a smiting message from God.544 The wise one in his ignorance thinks that his brother is playing a trick on him out of old anger. However, the listener/reader knows that he is the only child of a wealthy house-owner, cf. the introducing lines of the tale, and that he therefore has no brother. This could indicate that the ignorance of the wise one has now developed to a full-scale self-deception; or it could indicate that Nahman juxtaposes the wise one and the Devil through the word “brother”, because of his secular approach to life. In order to prepare himself for a meeting with this so-called brother, the wise one asks for two protecting soldiers. There is a parallel here. The simple one receives protection from the baxal shem because he understands that Azazel functions as God’s correcting instrument, whereas the wise one receives protection from two mundane soldiers against his “brother”. However, the protection from the soldiers proves futile as they lose track of the wise one and the wise messenger. Evil has fetched the two wise comrades. The soldiers are not entangled in their rationalism, and since evil is a tool of God, the act is fair and cannot include an abduction of the soldiers to hell. 2:—2:-, 2:—1:- Azazel had seized the two wise ones and had brought them to the mire and clay. There, the Devil was sitting on a chair in the middle of the mire and had sent the wise ones into the mire. The mire was thick and sticky like real clue, like potter’s clay, and they were completely unable to move in the mire. 542 See Kirsten Nielsen: Satan—the Prodigal Son? A Family Problem in the Bible, Shefeld Academic Press, Shefeld 1998 for a thorough discussion of the nature of and the language used about evil in relation to God. 543 Steinsaltz presents a similar understanding: “the devil, too, is subject to the divine law that governs the universe, and serves as an instrument of God’s will. One of the functions of the devil is to act as a warning” (Steinsaltz: 146). 544 This is properly one of the reasons why Nahman returned to the Lurianic concept of tikkun. Evil has to be confronted in order to restablish its link to its original wellspring in the divine world; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 184. If evil is ignored, God’s inuence is ignored as well.

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The two wise ones shouted to the Devil and his men: “Villains! Why do you torture us? Is there a Devil in the world? Are you villains torturing us for no reason (since they still did not believe in the Devil. Instead they said that villains were torturing them for no reason)?” The two wise ones lay in the thick mire and pondered: “What is this. There is nothing like this. Only reckless people, with whom we once quarrelled, can be torturing us like this. They were tortured and tormented very much for several years. Once, the simple one, the minister, passed by the house of the baxal shem and was reminded about his friend, the wise one. He entered the house of the baxal shem and bowed to the baxal shem as one bows for a minister. [The simple one] asked him if he could see the wise one and if [the baxal shem] could bring him up from there. He asked the baxal shem if he remembered the wise one, for whom the Devil had sent; whom the Devil had carried away from here; and whom nobody had seen since that day. The baxal shem answered him: “Yes!” The simple one asked him to show him this place and to bring him out from there. The baxal shem said to him: “Of course I can show you his place and bring him out of there. But no one should go but you and I!” So they went together. The baxal shem knew what to do and they arrived there. They saw that [the wise ones] were stuck in the mire and clay. As the wise one saw the minister, he shouted to him: “My brother, see how they beat and torment me, these reckless people, for no reason!” The minister rebuked him: “Still you hold on to your wisdom and you don’t believe in anything! You believe that these creatures are humans? Don’t you see that this is the baxal shem whose existence you denied! He is the one who can get you out (and he will show you the truth)!” The simple one asked of the baxal shem that he carry them out and that he show them that this was the Devil’s work and not that of humans. The baxal shem did what he did. They found themselves standing on the dry ground, and there was no mire at all. The demons were turned into dust, and thus the wise one realized and was forced to admit everything—that the king existed and that a real baxal shem was there.545

The realm of clay and mire is where the two wise ones are brought. The question is what kind of realm it is. It could be Gehinnom, since the Devil is the one who brings them there, and since the wise one is guilty of many of those sins which destine one for Gehinnom.546 Gehinnom is

545

“[T]hat a real baxal shem was there” is only rendered in the Yiddish version. “The best of doctors are destined for Gehenna” (Kiddushin 82a); “Whosoever is arrogant falls into Gehenna” (Baba Bathra 78b; cf. Avodah Zarah 18b); and “Whosoever departs from the words of the Torah falls into Gehenna (Baba Bathra 79a). Furthermore, if one transgresses the will of God, Gehenna will await; cf. Eiruvin 19a. By rejecting Judaism, the wise one is close to qualifying as a heathen; cf. Shabbat 104a, 149b. 546

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mostly considered a place for a limited period of punishment,547 which is the case here as well, cf. that the simple one and the baxal shem deliver the two wise ones from there. And nally, Gehinnom is a place whereto righteous people descend in order to deliver others, mostly righteous men though,548 cf. again that the simple one is able to descend together with the baxal shem. However, clay and mire are not mentioned in relation to Gehinnom.549 In the Talmud, Mika 4,6 is interpreted as if God admits having wronged sinners by creating in them the evil impulse. This is commented upon by R. Hama, who said in the name of R. Hanina: . . . Behold as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are ye in My hand, O house of Israel; . . . And I will take away the stony heart out of your esh, and I will give you a heart of esh. R. Papa said: We learn it from here: And I will put My spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes (Berachoth 32a; cf. also Sukkah 52b).

God is responsible for creating the evil impulse and is willing to amend this by forming the evil person as if he had been made of clay and to replace his heart of stone with a heart of esh. This should bring the sinner to return to the will of God and thereby become good as opposed to evil. It may be worth mentioning that “a heart of esh” is denitely a concept known to present-day Bratslavers who pronounce the name of Bratslav “[breslav]” though they write Breslov. They say [breslav] to be able to make the pun “lev-ba-sar”, i.e., “a heart in the esh”. I am not aware if Nahman and his disciples made this pun as well,550 but if they did, it would be obvious for them to transpose signicance from Berachoth 32a onto the tale’s mentioning of clay. In Sefer haZohar I, 74b mire constitutes God’s dumping lot for the wicked who stray from the straight path.551 Within the tale it is the God-denouncing person who ends up in the mire while it acquires two

547

Cf. Shabbat 33b; Eiruvin 18b–19a; Baba Metzia 58b. Cf. Pesachim 118a. 549 Gehinnom is usually described as the night, as a realm of shades, and as a place of re; cf. Yevamoth 109b; Baba Bathra 79a; Kiddushin 40a; Baba Metzia 85a. 550 “Lev-ba-sar” is mentioned once in Likkutey MoHaRaN as a reference to Ezekiel 36,26; cf.   ,"  . 551 Mire and the silence of God are known to reect the trouble that a God-fearing person faces; cf. Ps. 69.14–15; Job 30.19–20. However, since the wise one is neither asking God for help like David nor resembles the gure of Job, I do not think that these texts have relevance here. 548

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God-fearing persons to deliver the denouncer. By implicitly referring to the limited period of punishment, to deliverance, and to the potter’s clay where God admits that he created the evil impulse, the baxal shem and the simple one can challenge God to have him deliver the wise one, since the intertext has provided them with an argument, for which God must bend. One reason why Nahman may have twisted the tale in this direction could be that the world-to-come cannot be realized before everyone has accepted God’s supremacy. Another explanation could be that God needs the wise one to be puried in order to make God’s name holy, cf. Ezekiel 36,26 where a heart of stone is replaced by a heart of esh to make God’s name holy.552 One who does have a “heart of esh” is the simple one. He recalls his friend, the wise one, one day where he passes by the house of the baxal shem. The simple one treats the baxal shem with the proper respect, cf. the bowing, when he approaches him to ask for his help to deliver his friend from the mire, as opposed to the wise one’s jokes about the baxal shem. The respect is immediately repaid through the baxal shem’s willingness to help. The baxal shem then comes with an interesting remark. He says that only he and the simple one can go there. As a comment to this, Kaplan writes that only the greatest zaddikim can go to this mire553 and supports his comment by referring to Sefer haZohar III, 220b. In the zoharic passage it says: For all men go down to Sheol, but they come up again at once, save those sinners who never harboured thoughts of repentance, and who go down and do not come up. Even the completely righteous go down there,

552

Kook interprets the fact that the wise one is stuck in the mud as an imagery indicating that his philosophy is being dragged down into the mire. According to her, Nahman reveals the rationalistic philosophy as a dead end; cf. : 198. Kaplan sees the mire as symbolic of purgatory and of the disbelief which traps them and makes them unable to move; cf. Kaplan 1983: 193n. According to Steinsaltz the mire is symbolic of their cleverness. The cleverness traps the wise one and makes him unable to move, to exist in this world; cf. Steinsaltz: 147. He is being punished for not recognizing the heresy which his paradigmatic belief in rationality has led to. Furthermore, the tragedy of the tale, which the wise one personies, is that the wise one, by not believing, loses his bonds of belonging, loses his mobility, loses his ability to partake in this world. He is nally left miserable in the mire as someone who has never been vitalised by the divine gifts which lie at the feet of everyone who can receive them by just believing in their mere existence. As Steinsaltz writes: “There is no possible answer to the question of how one knows that what one perceives is really what it appears to be. The simple man has no way of explaining that seeing the king is an experience that excludes the possibility of doubt” (Steinsaltz: 145). It is all a matter of faith. 553 Kaplan 1983: 194n.

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chapter four but they only go down in order to bring up certain sinners from there, to wit, those who thought of repenting in this world, but were not able to do so in time before they departed from it. The righteous go down and bring these up.

This passage actually contradicts the tale of Nahman. To my knowledge the wise one did not think of repenting while he was in this world, and in that respect I do not agree with Kaplan to consider this passage an intertext. However, the simple one tries to bring up a sinner, who has not even thought of repentance. Instead I believe that not a text but the ritual of Tikkun haNeshamot—i.e., the rectication of souls, through the repentance of the sinners—transposes signicance onto the tale. The ritual was instigated in 1809 when this tale was told, and Nahman considered it crucial to the process of redemption.554 The help, offered by the two righteous persons,555 which can save the wise one, takes the form of “a painful experience which will force him once again to look at the world, to distinguish between it and his own inner thoughts. It is the devil who brings this about” (Steinsaltz: 146). This is where Steinsaltz argues for the Devil functioning as a tool of God. In this world, the wise one suffered from lack of condence, loneliness, lack of approval, bitterness. He was beaten up—even by a gentile who was offended by his jokes about the baxal shem. He experienced poverty and declivity. None of these experiences brought him to realize God’s existence or the power of those who believe in God. This is the reason why God had to activate Azazel. He is God’s last recourse, and thankfully, seen from the perspective of the one who hopes for redemption, it worked. The success is expressed by the exclamation of the wise one. He shouts “My brother” as he sees the simple one.556 Earlier, the wise one addressed the Devil as such, but here by the end of the tale he has come to recognize his bond with the representative of Jewish faith. From this bond it follows that the wise one and 554

Cf. Travis: 155–192. Steinsaltz interprets the simple one as a zaddik. He writes: “The simple man and the Ba’al Shem must together . . . extricate the clever man and his companion by faith and by miracle” (Steinsaltz: 147). Steinsaltz thereby states that the simple man as a zaddik represents faith, whereas the baxal shem represents miracle. This is an allegorical reading, to which I am not sure Nahman would have agreed. There are several zaddikim in Nahman’s tales who perform miracles and who simultaneously represent faith, e.g., tale #5. Nevertheless, it is one suggestion that could be argued for, given the context where the simple one seems to represent faith alone. 556 When the wise one returned to his hometown, the simple one greeted him by addressing him “My brother”. 555

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the simple one have a common responsibility to ght for the future of Judaism based on the implicit meaning of the initial childlessness of their fathers and how their family lines were endangered by both of them having only one son.557 When the baxal shem has revealed the true identity of the tormenting demons and the work of the Devil, when he has uplifted the wise one from the mire, when he has turned the demons into dust and the mire to dry ground, the wise one realizes and admits that God (the king) exists. According to the Yiddish version, the wise one’s recognition also includes the recognition of the power that is passed over to the ones who truly believe in God—in this case the baxal shem. What the baxal shem does is really a matter of uplifting someone who seems impossible to uplift. In Bratslav Hasidism, it is only the Zaddik haDor, who can do so. And the simple message of this tale seems to be that the modern, rationalistic world is in need of such a Zaddik haDor to save Judaism from choosing the path of rationalistic modernity.558 However, the simple one, who has been characterized by faith throughout the tale, was the one who approached the baxal shem/the Zaddik haDor and thereby enabled the activation of the Zaddik haDor who then subsequently performed the redemptive act of restoring a fallen Jewish soul to Judaism. Recapitulation The fathers, representing traditional Judaism, encounter decline and encourage their only sons to provide for themselves, which becomes an encouragement to save Judaism. The wise son chooses the path of secular wisdom and culture, whereas the simple son chooses the path of faith. The wise one sets out on a journey that depicts the increasing decline of Judaism and the estrangement to his own religious tradition. This secular choice leads to loneliness, isolation, dissatisfaction, restlessness, misery, and social decline, because the secular world-view ascribes the immanent world the role of measuring stick, leaving every value to be relative and thereby insignicant. In contrast, the path of faith leads the simple one to personal attachments, nonrelative happiness, delight in small things, divine sustenance, 557

Cf. Roskies 2002: 80 for a similar opinion. Certain sins could only be redeemed by a Zaddik haDor, when he turned the words of the heretics into Torah again; cf. Liebes 1993: 131. 558

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a cleansed imaginative faculty, supernal wisdom, access to the primordial Torah, and social elevation. All this is granted by God because the simple one commits to the Jewish tradition and ascribes God the role as measuring stick, which secures the fertile and meaningful outcome of every decision and act. Once the king enters the tale as God, the narrative events seem to reect God’s attempts to make the wise one return to Judaism. However, when the king/God invites the wise one, the wise one denies the existence of the king/God with arguments resembling those of the maskilim, who denied the divine origin of Torah. When the wise one is presented for a baxal shem, who works miracles based on the power of God, he denies the possibility of God’s ability to perform such miracles through a human being. The wise one gradually removes himself from the source of life despite the attempts of the king/God and of the baxal shem to make the wise one return to Judaism through persuasion. God therefore has to take recourse to evil. God sends a messenger to warn the wise one that Azazel is about to send for him, but the wise one remains deaf and blind to the warning. He even denies the existence of the Devil. The Devil is therefore authorized to take the wise one to a helllike scenery, which he cannot recognize as the place of the Devil. The wise one still believes that incarnations of evil and their acts are human manifestations of anger. The hellike scenery constitutes an imagery that bespeaks only a limited period of punishment to be followed by the wise one’s deliverance, because God is to blame for having created the evil impulse in man. Those who have faith, i.e., the zaddikim, are given the ability to deliver sinning souls from punishment, because God wants to replace the stony hearts of sinners with hearts of esh with the purpose of making God’s name holy. Accordingly, the fulllment of God’s wish requires the rectication of the fallen Jewish souls to Judaism. It is the simple one, in whom faith has been the breeding ground for supernal wisdom and insights into God’s will, who approaches the baxal shem/the Zaddik haDor, who then completes the mission of rectifying the fallen Jewish soul of the wise one. The ninth tale therefore becomes a clear call for Bratslav Hasidism as the unique way to save Judaism, since the alternative is presented as the dead end of a rationalistic paradigm, which will arouse God’s punishment. Simplicity of faith among the Hasidim can cause the activation of the Zaddik haDor, who can then work out the miracles necessitated for the survival of Judaism.

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4.10 The Tenth Tale The Burgher and the Pauper Introduction The tenth tale559 is the title “      ” in the bilingual version—i.e., the tenth tale about a burgher and a pauper. The Hebrew text begins:      ,      . , i.e., “A tale. Once upon a time there was a burgher who was overwhelmingly rich.” With a similar meaning the Yiddish text begins:    

         (     )       . The parenthesis in the Yiddish states that “burgher” should be

understood as a great merchant. Steinsaltz refers to the tenth tale as “The Merchant and the Pauper”.560 Band refers to it as “The Burgher and the Pauper,”561 and so does Kaplan.562 Finally, Wiskind-Elper refers to it as “Burgher and Poor Man”.563 The burgher’s initial wealth, which is mentioned in the rst sentence in the Hebrew and Yiddish version, bespeaks him a promising future. However, his future, as well as the future of the other characters in the tale, depends on the relationship between the burgher’s family and the pauper’s family. The destinies of both families are intertwined, which is why I choose to let the title reect the juxtaposition of the burgher and the pauper, just like all other commentators have done. Summary A burgher and a pauper live next to each other, and they are both childless. The burgher supports the pauper’s family, but one day he has a dream, in which his wealth is passed on to the pauper. One day when

559 Tale #10 was told during spring 1809, encouraged by someone who told Nahman about something written in golden letters; cf. Hayyey MoHaRaN #59–60. In this tale there is a more or less wicked man who receives a letter of appointment with golden letters, once he is elevated from pauper to emperor. If this piece of information has any relevance as an overall and initial comment by Nathan Sternhartz, it should be to stress that the tale is set in a world where a man can rise to emperor and make his own rules instead of adhering to the rules of God. 560 Cf. Steinsaltz: 17. 561 Cf. Band 1978: 163. 562 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 197. 563 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 27.

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the pauper’s wife visits the burgher, she informs him that she too had a dream, in which she was very rich; however, her riches were carried away to the burgher, who had become a pauper. Time passes, and one day the pauper’s wife is taken hostage by a general. Her husband, the pauper, does nothing except express his sorrow that he has neither children, nor riches, nor a wife. However, the burgher decides to come to her rescue. Once he has rescued her, they ee from the general. They hide for fourteen days in seven different places of water. In each place the pauper’s wife swears an oath to God that whatever good may come to her shall belong to the burgher, and she takes the seven places of water as witnesses. The burgher eventually nds the roads that lead to their respective homes, where the burgher returns the pauper’s wife unharmed and untouched to the pauper. As a reward to the burgher and the pauper’s wife for not having touched each other while they were hiding, both couples are blessed with a child. The pauper’s wife gives birth to a daughter of superhuman beauty, whereas the burgher begets a son. The pauper’s wife remembers her oaths not to withhold anything from the burgher, and so they arrange for a match between the children. Because of the beauty of the pauper’s daughter, many important people are interested in arranging for a match with the pauper between his daughter and their male children. However, the pauper does not have the proper rank and so they decide to elevate him, until he nally becomes emperor over the entire world. In this position he forgets about the marriage arrangement with the burgher, though his wife constantly reminds him of it. In order to silence his wife, the emperor commands the burgher’s son to be killed. But thankfully, the empress intervenes and arranges for his escape into exile. The son nds an oasis in a desert where he ends up living. Before he escaped from the emperor, the burgher’s son received a letter from the emperor’s daughter saying that they were destined for each other, because their lives had been intertwined. Now, while living in the desert he hides this letter in a certain tree; but a tempest occurs and fells all the trees, so it becomes impossible for the burgher’s son to nd the tree and the letter again. Very desolate, he leaves the desert. He has given up hope of ever marrying the emperor’s daughter, so he tries to convince three different kings to go and marry the daughter by telling them what message this letter contained. They all thank him for his information, but since they are afraid to bring back the emperor’s

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daughter to their country while the burgher’s son is still there, they all exile him. The three different kings appear before the emperor’s daughter, claiming that they are her lost childhood friend. This makes the emperor’s daughter suspicious, and so she remains undecided. Unfortunately, she is also undecided when the burgher’s son arrives to convince her that he is the one. She demands to see the original letter. The burgher’s son, who knows that the letter is lost in the pile of felled trees in the desert, gives up once again and returns to his oasis in the desert. In the country of the emperor, a murderer decides to kidnap the emperor’s daughter and sell her for a fortune. He captures her, undresses her and redresses her in man’s clothes, and forces her to escape with him away from the emperor’s soldiers. The murderer and the emperor’s daughter arrive at the desert where the murderer gets lost; however, the emperor’s daughter nds her way to the oasis, where the burgher’s son is living—but because she is dressed in man’s clothes, he does not recognize her. At the emperor’s palace, the empress gets furious at the emperor and tells him so many ugly things that he decides to get rid of her too. So, he exiles her. He engages in wars but loses them. He blames the generals for the lost wars, and so he exiles them too. Finally, the people in his country decide that they have had enough, so they exile the emperor and call upon the empress to return to rule the country. Exiled as he is, the emperor ends up in the oasis where his daughter and the burgher’s son are staying. After a while the burgher’s son and the emperor reveal their identities to each other. The emperor repents his sinful behavior, and the burgher’s son forgives him. The emperor’s daughter, however, does not reveal her true identity. Instead she nds the letter, which she once sent to the burgher’s son. She returns it to him. But at this point he has given up on ever being able to marry the emperor’s daughter, so instead he suggests that the emperor’s daughter, who is still dressed as a man, return and marry her. All three of them return, and the emperor’s daughter reveals herself to her mother and arranges for the marriage with the burgher’s son. The empress is unwilling to have the emperor return to his throne, but this is how the emperor’s daughter wants it. However, the emperor, who was supposed to have come with them, has gone, and so the emperor’s daughter and the burgher’s son become rulers.

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Scholarly comments on the tale Steinsaltz sees the tale as reecting the basic theme of redemption and the processes that lead to it with an emphasis on the personality of the Messiah. The tale also depicts “the relationships between the Jewish people as a whole (Knesset Israel, the collective soul of Israel identied with the Shekhinah) and the rst and nal redeemers” (Steinsaltz: 37). The tale reects the “vast drama that involves, on the human level, stages of purication and increasing commitment and, on the divine level, revelation and concealment” (Steinsaltz: 38).564 Band follows the interpretation of Steinsaltz, which he holds in high esteem, and agrees with Steinsaltz and Bratslav commentaries that the tale reects redemption and the development of the soul of the Messiah.565 He adds that similarities with the rst and the second tale can be found. Band states, that despite the forceful gure of the pauper’s/emperor’s daughter, whom he considers Knesset Israel as well as Shekhinah,566 he has decided to focus on the burgher’s son who apparently develops from being a representative of Moses to being the Messiah.567 However, this dynamic concept of how the Messiah develops from the efforts of the representative of the people is pushed aside. Instead Band states that the Messiah gure is attempting “to bring the nal redemption” (Band 1978: 313) about together with Shekhinah,568 even though

564 Steinsaltz’s commentary is very detailed, and I will discuss many of his comments in my analysis. I agree with Steinsaltz in most cases. However, I am not convinced that he is correct in identifying Shekhinah with Knesset Israel, and in interpreting Knesset Israel as the collective soul of Israel. As my previous analyses of the rst nine tales have shown, Nahman tends to differentiate between the actual people of Israel and their potentiality as the ideal construct Knesset Israel. It is true that Shekhinah incorporates parts of Knesset Israel when its potentiality is actualized, but until then, Shekhinah attempts to make the people of Israel actualize their potentiality as Knesset Israel. I am furthermore not convinced that the soul of the Messiah should be present in the character of the burgher’s son, since his character traits resemble those of the potential Knesset Israel much more than those of the Messiah. However, if Steinsaltz is hinting at the messianic era that will develop from the actual people of Israel to the actualized potentiality of Knesset Israel, I can agree that the soul of the Messiah emerges in the burgher’s son. 565 Cf. Band 1978: 312. 566 Cf. Band 1978: 312. 567 Cf. Band 1978: 165. 568 Band’s initial dynamic understanding is, as far as I see it, not compatible with the static conception that Mashiah ben David exists all along. Mashiah ben David is supposed to emerge from the successful work of Mashiah ben Yosef, which is why it does not make sense to have the Davidic Messiah perform the work of Mashiah ben Yosef.

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he notes that it is the hesitance and resignation of the burgher’s son that constitute the main obstacles for the union between him and the emperor’s daughter.569 Kaplan presents on the overall level the tenth tale as a description of redemption and the coming of the Messiah and points to its resemblance with the rst and the second tale. The burgher is taken to represent a patriarch, maybe Abraham, rich in money as well as in spirit.570 The pauper is understood as a gentile, poor in spirit.571 The pauper’s wife is taken to represent Ruth, whose gentile essence is elevated by Abraham and who herself becomes a proselyte once she immerses into the mikveh.572 The oaths, given by the pauper’s wife to the burgher, represent the commitment of the spiritual essence of the gentiles to “help the Israelites reach their goal” (Kaplan 1983: 202n). The burgher’s son is taken to be the Messiah, while the pauper’s daughter represents Shekhinah.573 When the pauper is elevated to emperor it reects the dominion of the gentile nations, poor in spirit.574 The letter the pauper’s/emperor’s daughter sends to the burgher’s son, before he is exiled, represents the signs of the Messiah.575 The wooing kings are previous but unsuccessful Zaddikey haDor.576 The murderer, who abducts the emperor’s daughter, represents the forces of evil that try to capture the holy.577 When the burgher’s son, the Messiah, and the emperor’s daughter, Shekhinah, meet in the desert, they still do not recognize each other because there is still hatred in the world.578 Only when the representatives of the Messiah, of Shekhinah, and of the gentile nations are reconciled can the redemption come about.579 However, it is Shekhinah who nds the letter because she is the one who does everything she

569

This does not make sense, unless Band had added that it is the behaviour of the people that prevented the burgher’s son from entering the union. But had Band added this, it would have forced him to interpret the burgher’s son as the potential Knesset Israel, which he does not. 570 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 197n. 571 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 198n. 572 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 201n. 573 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 204n. 574 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 206n. 575 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 208n. 576 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 213n. 577 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 216n. 578 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 222n. 579 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 223n, 225n.

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can to further the nal redemption.580 The emperor, who represents the gentile nations, has to return with the Messiah and Shekhinah because the gentiles will also be rectied in the Messianic age, though they will lose their elevated position in the world.581 Wiskind-Elper agrees with the Bratslav tradition that “the burgher and the pauper” “speaks of the secret of the future Redemption, and of the secret of drawing down the Messiah’s soul . . . From the union of the burgher’s son and the poor man’s daughter, we learn, the Messiah is born” (Wiskind-Elper: 27–28). She has a few more comments that I shall return to in my analysis. Analysis 6:—1:-, 4:—1:- Once upon a time there was a burgher who was overwhelmingly rich. He engaged in many kinds of commerce and foreign trade, and his promissory notes and letters were sent all over the world. Everything went well for him. Downstairs from him there was a pauper who was immensely poor and the opposite of the rich burgher in every respect. Both of them were childless, and this they had in common. Once, a dream came to the burgher, in which people came and made packages, and so he asked them: “What are you doing?” They answered him: “We are carrying everything to the pauper!” He was very disturbed by the fact that they would carry all of his riches from his house to the pauper. However, it was impossible to direct his anger at them, since they were very many. They made packages with everything he had—his merchandises, riches, and possessions—and carried it off to the pauper’s house. Nothing remained in his own house except for the bare walls. He was very disturbed indeed. He woke up and realized that it was just a dream. But even though he knew that it was just a dream, and thanked God that everything was still

580

Cf. Kaplan 1983: 226n. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 228n. The interpretation of the pauper as a gentile depends on Kaplan’s purely allegorical translation of the pauper and his wife. However, the text actually indicates that the pauper’s family is Jewish. The pauper’s wife is described as a God-fearing woman; cf. 11—10:-, 8:-. The pauper’s daughter is sent to a heder, a Jewish school; cf. 11: -, 6: -. When the pauper’s wife swears her oaths, she swears them in the name of God; cf. 7: -, 5: -, which would be a strange thing for a gentile to do. There is therefore no textual support for the pauper’s family being gentile. 581

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in his possession, his heart pounded. He was very disturbed by the dream, and he could not get it out of his mind. Before this, the burgher used to take care of the pauper and his wife and give them what he could. Now, after the dream, he gave them more than before, but whenever the pauper or his wife came to his house, his face changed and he was frightened by them because of the dream which he remembered. The pauper and his wife used to come to him and go in and out of his house.

The successful burgher and the unsuccessful pauper both suffer from childlessness. Childlessness, so far in the tales of Nahman, has two connotations. Childlessness can point to the threatened continuation of the family and to hope about to be extinguished. In the opening of the tenth tale it is too soon to tell if childlessness connotes the threatened family lines or hope about to be extinguished. What one can say from a narrative point of view is that childlessness ties the burgher and the pauper together, despite their obvious differences. The burgher, who is rich and engaged in commerce all over the world, takes care of the pauper and his wife. He gives them what he can, and he lets them come and go in his house as they please. The reason for this care is not explained, but it could be caused either by their common problem or by the burgher’s attempt to live up to the social obligations that come with being rich.582 In any case, he and his richness do not connote anything negative. In the dream the transferral of the burgher’s riches was caused by the act of many people, which made it impossible for the burgher to direct his anger at anyone in particular; but when he wakes up from his dream, he cannot help fearing to lose everything. Therefore, whenever the pauper and his wife come to his house, he behaves ambiguously. On the one hand, the pauper and his wife incarnate the threat of his dream. On the other hand—maybe because he does not direct his anger at anyone in particular, or maybe to avoid the realization of the dream on account of his lack of generosity—he gives them more than before. On the narrative level the opening of the tenth tale does not seem to have a special religious meaning. Two things strike me though: the many, at whom he cannot direct his anger, and the phrase that nothing was left except for the bare walls. In this way the burgher is described

582 On the “tithe of the poor”; cf., e.g., Eiruvin 29a; Rosh haShana 12b; Yoma 9a; Yevamoth 86a.

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as a righteous man who does not blame anyone without reason. The bare walls could substantiate his righteousness, since the emptiness of his house, which lies in the expression ‘bare walls’, in the Talmud connotes a house free of sin.583 An empty house furthermore helps a praying man to concentrate on God.584 12:—6:-, 7:—5:- Once the pauper’s wife came to the burgher. He gave her something, but his appearance changed, he was frightened and astonished. The pauper’s wife asked him: “I beg your pardon, but, please, tell me why, whenever we come to you, your face changes so much?” He told her everything, about his dream and about how his heart from this day began to pound very much. She replied: “Did you have this dream on that specic night?” He answered her: “Yes! What about it?” She answered him: “On that night I too had a dream about how rich I was, about how people came into my house and how they had made packages. I asked them where they were carrying them, and they answered: ‘to the poor man, the burgher, who was now called the pauper!’ Why are you worried about the dream? I had a dream too, didn’t I?” He became even more frightened and astonished now that he had heard her dream and now that it seemed that they would carry his riches and possessions to the pauper, and the poverty of the pauper to him. He was frightened very much indeed.

The dream of the pauper’s wife constitutes a parallel to the dream of the burgher, only with the roles being inverted. The pauper’s wife has become the rich one, while the burgher has become the pauper. In reality the pauper’s wife has no riches, but in the dream she sees how her riches are being carried to the burgher. If it is possible, cf. what I claimed in the previous passage—that an empty house signies an owner free of sin with the ability to concentrate on God—the now empty house of the pauper’s wife establishes a positive impression of her as a righteous woman. This righteous woman is furthermore perceptive, concerned, and alert with respect to the physical and mental well-being of the burgher.585

583

Cf. Taxanith 15a. Cf. Taxanith 16b. 585 According to Steinsaltz, the pauper’s wife embodies the positive aspects of the poor—modesty, innocence, and loyalty to values and relationships under changing circumstances. On the allegorical level, she represents the simple people of Israel. The adventures that befall her echo the events of Jewish history. He likens the pauper’s wife to Israel in its simplicity and poverty; cf. Steinsaltz: 37–39. 584

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The burgher chooses to interpret her dream in the most pessimistic way, as if her poverty should be transferred to him. In this way he lets her dream conrm his fears and probably sees it as a conrmed prediction also of his own dream coming true. In line with the burgher’s pessimistic interpretation of the dream, Kaplan suggests that the burgher’s dream constitutes a parallel to the dream of Abraham,586 in which he dreamt that his children would be exiled. In Genesis Rabbah on Gen. 15 this is taken to mean that Abraham visions how “[P]ower and wealth in the spiritual realm would be taken from him and given to the gentile world”.587 However, nothing in this tale conrms that the pauper and his wife should be interpreted as gentiles. On the contrary, she is described as a God-fearing woman; they send their daughter to a heder, i.e., a Jewish school, and later, the pauper’s wife swears her oaths in the name of God.588 Instead I suggest that the second dream be seen as a continuation of the rst dream, whereby passing on riches becomes something positive. In this way, the dreams would indicate that the riches would tie them together. First the burgher would pass his riches on to the pauper’s wife, upon which the pauper’s wife would pass her newly gained riches back to the burgher. By seeing the dreams as two consecutive sequences the riches are suddenly predicting a tie between the two families which on the narrative level could substitute the initial tie between them—i.e., their childlessness. I agree that loss and impoverishment are denitely messages involved in his dream. However, together with the dream of the pauper’s wife, his dream conveys that riches and elevation shall follow a period of loss. There is therefore reason for optimism, though it is only the pauper’s wife who sees this. 2: —13:-, 2: —8:- One day, when the burgher’s wife was traveling in a carriage, she brought her friends along, including the pauper’s wife. On this trip a general suddenly passed by together with his soldiers, so they moved aside for him. The soldiers passed but saw that women were traveling, and so the general commanded that one of the traveling women should be brought out of the carriage. They came, pulled the pauper’s wife out, abducted her in the general’s carriage, and drove away with her. It was impossible

586 587 588

Cf. Gen. 15. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 198n. Cf. pp. ; ;   .

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chapter four to bring her back because it was a military man, a general with all of his soldiers, who drove her away from there and took her to his country. She was a God-fearing woman who did not want to obey him at all, and so she cried a lot. They begged her and tried to persuade her, but she remained an even more God-fearing woman. When the women returned home from their trip, the pauper’s wife was missing. The pauper mourned incessantly and cried bitterly over his wife. Once the burgher paid a visit to the pauper’s house. He heard how he cried bitterly. He entered and asked: “Why are you crying so bitterly?” He answered him: “How can I not cry? What is left for me? There are those who have riches or children. I don’t have anything at all! My wife has even been taken away from me! What is left for me?” The heart of the burgher was touched by the pauper, and his compassion was aroused because of the pauper and the great grief that he saw inside him. He did something rash. It was really something crazy. He went and asked in which country the general was living, and so he traveled to this country. He did a very rash thing; he went to the general’s house, which was surrounded by guards. He sensed a growing terror, was astonished and walked in such a great fear that he did not notice the guards. The guards were also very frightened and astonished by suddenly seeing a human being at their place. They asked in fear: “How did he get here?” Because of the fear, the guards allowed him to pass, and so he passed them and entered the general’s house where she was lying. He woke her up and said to her: “Come on!” She looked at him with fear. He said to her: “Come with me immediately!” They then passed by all the guards until they were outside. But all of a sudden he was frightened and remembered what he had done. He understood that now there would certainly be a great tumult in the general’s house. And so there was.

A group of unprotected women is traveling. The pauper’s wife is included in this group headed by the burgher’s wife. The unprotected group of women encounters a group of male soldiers headed by a general. The general makes use of his force and commands that one woman shall be taken from this group. The burgher’s wife as head of this group would make her the most obvious woman to take. However, the woman, whom the general’s soldiers choose to abduct, proves to be the pauper’s wife. The illogical course of events indicates that something beyond human logic is taking place. In captivity, within the house of the general, more characteristics of the pauper’s wife are presented. She is God-fearing, she does not obey a fallacious master, and she cries. By the term “God-fearing”, the listener/reader can be sure that here we have one of the heroines of this tale. Her disobedience proves that she is faithful to her husband,

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which is to be considered a virtue. And nally, the tears of a woman connote this passage in Sefer haZohar: Tradition tells us that the virtuous Leah prayed with many tears that she might be the portion of Jacob and not of the wicked Esau. Hence we have learnt that whoever prays with tears before the Almighty can procure the cancellation of any chastisement that has been decreed against him; for so Leah, though she had been assigned by divine decree to Esau, yet by her prayer succeeded in procuring the preference for Jacob and saved herself from being given to Esau (Sefer haZohar I, 223a).

The tears of the pauper’s wife furthermore hint at an interpretation of the abduction, since Shekhinah sheds tears because of exile.589 The abduction could establish an intertextual realm of imagery within which the religious theme of the tenth tale will emerge as liberation from exile.590 The tears of the crying pauper’s wife thus repeats the connotations of the two dreams read together, where riches and elevation would follow from a period of loss. This period of loss is now hinted at as a period of exile. When the group of women returns without the pauper’s wife, and when the pauper is informed of her abduction, he mourns and cries. When the burgher—this time entering the pauper’s house and bearing the observing and concerning characteristics of the pauper’s wife, which refer to their mutual tie—asks the pauper why he cries, the answer is that he has nothing. He has neither children, nor riches, nor a wife. The pauper seems primarily concerned about not having anything, which establishes the rst negative impression of him. By contrast, the burgher seems sensitive at a higher level. As mentioned, he is observant and concerned, he is touched by the burgher’s mourning, he is compassionate, he grieves, and most importantly, he is decisive. He makes a rash and crazy decision to travel to the country of the general.591 This is the decision the pauper should have made, had 589

Cf. Sefer haZohar I, 203a through a quotation of Lam. 1.2. Steinsaltz sees the abduction of the pauper’s wife as a parallel to the rst captivity of the Jewish people, i.e., the exile in Egypt; cf. Steinsaltz: 38. 591 Steinsaltz explains the decision in this way: “The burgher (who represents the historical Moses) feels obliged to save the woman—that is, the children of Israel” from the Egyptian exile” (Steinsaltz: 38). Band also sees several veiled comparisons between the tale and the recount of the Egyptian bondage, where the burgher is taken to represent Moses; cf. Band 1978: 165. Kaplan considers the burgher a representative of “the spiritual nature and merit of the Patriarchs, most notably, of Abraham” (Kaplan 1983: 197n). 590

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he really loved his wife. However, it is the sensitivity and decisiveness of the burgher that makes him the hero who initiates a development toward her liberation by deciding to travel. The burgher arrives in the general’s country and is faced with guards surrounding the general’s house. Guards surrounding someone’s property has an ominous connotation in the tales of Nahman. In the rst tale soldiers were standing around the palace of the Evil One. In the sixth tale the protagonist had to penetrate several protective layers of evil to reach God in the center. In this tenth tale, there is a God-fearing woman inside the general’s house. It could be a visualisation of good trapped within evil,592 which adds a mystical aspect to the liberation of what seems to connote the exile of the pauper’s wife. Liberating good from the connes of evil is, in its mystical context, a matter of liberating the divine sparks, which again is a matter of tikkun. The burgher has to pass the fortication of the evil general’s house. To his luck, the guards are struck with fear when they see him. Seeing a human being at their place frightens them, as if their place was not human at all. This could support the notion of conceiving of the general as a representative of evil, with evil being incompatible with the positive, humane characteristics of the burgher. The fear is what enables the burgher to liberate the God-fearing pauper’s wife, just like fear of God is a prerequisite to approaching the divine within the serotic system.593 As if the soldiers of evil were part of something divine, they allow the fearing burgher to pass, and inside the general’s house the God-fearing woman lies. He wakes her up and tells her to come with him. Waking someone up could connote waking someone up from a spiritual slumber, which is highly loaded in Jewish mysticism because a wake-up call like that can initiate a process of liberation from exile/raising the divine sparks. His decisive nature and his fear thus pacify evil, and he succeeds in liberating her. 8: —2: -, 4: —2: - The burgher went and hid together with the pauper’s wife in a cistern with rainwater until the tumult had ceased. They stayed there in the cistern for two days. The pauper’s wife saw his growing spiritual devotion for her and the grief he suffered because of her. She swore in the name of God

592 Kaplan also sees this as a matter of liberating “the holy essence” trapped within the realm of evil; cf. Kaplan 1983: 200n. 593 Cf. Sefer haZohar I,7b.

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that she would not deny him any of the good fortune which might come to her—and it was possible for her to have a good fortune, greatness, and success. If he wanted to take all her success and greatness for himself, she would remain as she was. She would not deny him anything. But how did one nd any witnesses? So, she took the cistern as a witness. After the two days he went out together with her and walked away from there, further and further away. He realized then that they were looking for him at this place. He went a little bit further and then concealed himself with her in a mikveh. Again she sensed his growing spiritual devotion for her and the grief he suffered because of her, and so she swore the same oath once more and took the mikveh as a witness. They stayed there for about two days. Then they went out and walked away from there. It happened like this several times. He concealed himself with her in other such places, or rather in seven places of water: a cistern, a mikveh, a pond, a spring, rivers, streams and seas. In every place in which they concealed themselves, she sensed his spiritual devotion and his grief for her. She swore to him and took every place as a witness. They went and concealed themselves in these places of concealment until they came to the sea. When they came to the sea, and since he was a great merchant, he recognized the roads along the sea, he found a way to get to his country. When he reached his house together with the pauper’s wife, he returned her to the pauper. There was a great happiness.

The burgher and the pauper’s wife have to hide until the tumult has ceased. Together they hide in seven different places of water: a cistern with rainwater, a mikveh, a pond, a spring, a river, a stream, and nally by the sea. Besides these heavily loaded images, it is important to notice the development in the tale. At the beginning of the tale, the burgher and the pauper’s wife only talked together. Then the burgher saves the pauper’s wife from the stronghold of evil, and now they spend two weeks together, two days in each of the seven places. They grow so fond of each other that Nahman in the next passage has to emphasize that they did not have sexual relations with each other. The burgher feels devoted to the pauper’s wife, and he feels and suffers her grief. She feels how concerned he is about her, and so she decides that whatever good should come to her shall be his—even if he wants it for himself and would leave her be, she would not deny him anything. She swears an oath in each place in the name of God that this will be so, and she takes the different places of water as witnesses. The oaths, which the pauper’s wife swears, hint, according to Steinsaltz, at the eternal covenant between God and Israel, and between redeemer and redeemed.594 Her oaths testify to her love for him. Of course, and with 594

Cf. Steinsaltz: 38.

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respect for Nahman’s upcoming emphasis, it is a matter of spiritual love, and recess to imagery can help the listener/reader understand the meaning of this love. The number seven may implicitly refer to the seven lower serot, and the living water in these places could refer to the shefa.595 WiskindElper considers the seven places of water reections of a seroticlike harmony between male and female.596 Activating connotations to the harmony between male and female among the seven lower serot would point to the ideal behavior of Israel, which would allow Shekhinah to be united with Tifxeret. This union would bestow upon Israel shefa, signalling blessings for its fertility and prosperity. Such a union and such a harmony activate the blessings which only follow from the covenant, when Israel lives according to the commandments. Maybe the oaths of the pauper’s wife should be understood as Israel’s commitments to the covenant. However, according to Wiskind-Elper, the places also constitute the enigmatic and secret path traced and retraced by the protagonists in the tenth tale. Such places of water have constituted “places of meeting: places where separate destinies intersect (Isac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah)”.597 I think it is worthwhile to listen to Wiskind-Elper’s encouragement to look at the biblical meetings along with the allusion to the activation of the shefa. The servant of Isac nds Rebekah by a well,598 after which he brings her home to Isac who makes her his wife in his mother’s tent.599 One could say that Isac in this way places Rebekah in the line of matriarchs. When Isac and Rebekah are in the land of Gerar, Isac and his seed are blessed by God.600 Upon this, “Isaac dug again the wells of water, which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham”.601 By digging the wells of water, Isac proves that he walks in the footsteps of his father. The wells come to evoke the tradition; and along with the blessing, tradition and divine law merge together and become premises for the future blessings which God will bestow on the seed of the patriarchs. 595 596 597 598 599 600 601

Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf.

Steinsaltz: 38 as well. Wiskind-Elper: 189. Wiskind-Elper: 189. Gen. 24.15–25. Gen. 24.67. Gen. 26.2–5. Gen. 21.31, 26.18.

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One generation later, Jacob leaves Beersheva, the place where his grandfather Abraham and his father Isac dug a well.602 Upon his way, Jacob is blessed.603 Later, Jacob meets Rachel by a well and kisses her.604 This kiss initiates twenty years of hard work, during which God stays with him and gives him twelve sons, who will father the twelve tribes of Israel. During the Egyptian bondage, Moses has to ee from the land of Egypt, in which the Israelites are kept as slaves.605 Moses ees to a well in Midian, where he saves the daughters of the Midian priest. In gratitude the priest gives Moses his daughter Zipporah, who bears Moses a son, Gershom. God hears the travails of Israel in the Egyptian exile, after which God appears before Moses and appoints him to bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt.606 By placing these three fathers of Judaism and Moses together and using them to interpret Nahman’s seven places of water as important meeting points in Jewish history, Wiskind-Elper—without making the analysis above—suggests that one can see how the blessings on Israel and the liberation from exile are reactivated in Nahman’s tale. In the three biblical narratives the leaders of Israel walk from well to well, they are blessed with their female companion by a well, and in between these meetings, Israel is blessed with fertility and led from exile to prosperity. Wiskind-Elper furthermore points to Likkutey MoHaRaN #14.5, 17.8, 56.7 for Nahman’s opinion on the necessity of ritual immersion into water to reach spiritual purity.607 If one allows these connotations to intersect, it signies that the burgher and the pauper’s wife are puried by the water. Spiritually, they have become united through this purifying experience, and through the spiritual union the burgher and the pauper’s wife will incarnate the future blessings of the seed of Israel. They become destined to bring forth Israel from exile, which, because of the connotations to the seven lower serot, should be interpreted in its mystical sense as

602

Cf. Cf. 604 Cf. 605 Cf. 606 Cf. 607 Cf. places of 603

Gen. 28.10. Gen. 28.13–15. Gen. 29.10–12. Ex. 2.15–22. Ex. 2.23–3.10. Wiskind-Elper: 281n152. Kaplan understands the places of water also as purication; cf. Kaplan 1983: 202n.

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liberation of the divine sparks. Nahman has outlined the plot for the remaining part of the tale. But the idyllic scenery is interrupted. The burgher is an honest man, who knows, when he realizes that he can nd his way home once they have reached the sea, that he will have to return the pauper’s wife to her husband. Despite their spiritual union, they will now be forced to be physically separated. 4: —9: -, 2: —5: - Because the burgher had done such a thing, and because he had stood through the temptation with her (i.e., that he had feared for her but had not touched her), he was remembered (by God)608 and had a son within the same year. Because the pauper’s wife stood through the temptation with the general and also with the burgher she was rewarded as well and gave birth to a daughter. She had the most beautiful appearance ever seen among mankind. No such beauty exists among humans. The entire world said: “If only she grows up!” (because it is difcult for such a wonder to grow up) because it was an extraordinary beauty and splendor that had never been seen in the world before. The entire world came and entered the house to see her, and the world wondered about her growing beauty, and out of affection the world gave her so many presents that the pauper became rich. It occurred to the burgher that he should arrange for a match with the pauper with respect to his daughter and her growing beauty, which was such a marvel. He said to himself: “Maybe this is what the dream tried to show, when his possessions were sent to the pauper, and the pauper’s possessions were sent to him. They should be brought together and united through the match.” Once, when the pauper’s wife visited him, he said to her that it was his wish to be brought together with her and that the dream in this way could come true. She answered him: “I have been thinking about this too, but I did not have the boldness to speak about the idea that I be brought together with you. However, if you want, of course, I will be prepared to do so and I will not deny you anything, since I already swore that all my good fortune and all my success shall not be denied you!” The son and the daughter studied in a heder together, they studied languages and other issues according to their customs. People came to see the daughter and her growing marvel, and they gave her presents until the pauper became rich. Ministers came to see her. She pleased them very much, and her beauty was a great marvel in their eyes, since her beauty

608 The words within the two parentheses only appear in the Yiddish version; cf. 12–11: -.

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was not human at all. Because of the growing marvel of her beauty, the ministers came upon the idea to make a match with the pauper—and one minister, who had a son, wanted to have him marry her. However, it was not becoming for them to arrange a marriage with someone like the pauper, and therefore they were forced to make an effort to elevate the pauper. They elevated him by making him work for the emperor. At rst he was made a lieutenant, and afterward he rose higher and higher. Since they elevated him to these ranks so quickly, he rose higher and higher very quickly, until he became a general. The ministers strove to arrange a marriage with him. However, there were many suitors, since many ministers had engaged in elevating him, and it was furthermore impossible for him to arrange for a marriage because they had already spoken to the burgher about a match. The pauper who had been made general became more and more successful. The emperor sent him to war, and he was always successful. The emperor appointed him higher and higher, and he was very successful. When the emperor passed away, the inhabitants of this country agreed to make the pauper emperor. All the ministers gathered, and all of them agreed that he should become emperor. And so the pauper was made emperor. He engaged in wars and was very successful. He conquered countries; he waged war against them and conquered even more until these countries agreed to surrender to him in good faith. They realized his great success and that the beauty of the world and the good fortune of the world were in his hands. Because of this, all kings gathered and agreed that he should become emperor over the entire world, and they gave him a document written in golden letters.

The rightful behavior of the burgher and the pauper’s wife, i.e., their abstinence from touching each other, is rewarded by God. Their previous childlessness is replaced by fertility as promised in the three biblical narratives, and so the burgher begets a son, while the pauper’s wife conceives a daughter of superhuman beauty. Here, one should not forget Nahman’s general emphasis on sexual purity as a prerequisite for redemption.609 The burgher conceives the idea that a marriage should be arranged for between his son and the pauper’s daughter. And it furthermore strikes him that the dream that he had about his riches being passed on to the pauper’s and the pauper’s newly gained riches being returned back to him, was really a prediction of such a marriage. The pauper’s wife, who once swore that all good that came to her should be his,

609 Cf. the practice and concept of haTikkun haKelali, see Liebes 1993 in general; Wolfson 2002: 127–128; Deutsch: 198–199.

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and whom he asks, is more than willing to agree to this marriage; and by repeating her oath Nahman once more emphasizes how faithful a woman this pauper’s wife is. Several allusions to Nahman’s second tale are presented. A marriage arrangement is made for the children of two parents who were both previously childless. The son and the daughter studied in the same heder, indicating that they are predestined to be brought together. In this tenth tale the son as well as the daughter is skilled in languages, and so was the emperor’s daughter in the second tale. Allusions are, however, also given to the fth tale with respect to the daughter, since the king’s daughter in that tale is of considerable beauty too, is procient in languages, and receives gifts from the important people who come to witness her beauty. In the second tale I interpreted the male son as a representative of the potential Knesset Israel, whereas the emperor’s daughter was interpreted as Shekhinah. In the fth tale I interpreted the female child as Shekhinah as well as her alter ego, Lilith, whereas the son, who nally consisted entirely of precious stones, was interpreted as the potential and later actualized Mashiah ben David. However, there are some differences too. In the second tale the king and the emperor were reluctant to keep their promise about arranging for a marriage between their children; in this tale the burgher and the pauper’s wife are more than willing to commit to such a promise. But of course, as will be apparent in the next passage, the pauper is not willing to keep the promise of marriage, to which he had agreed. It is too soon to come up with a nal interpretation of the different characters, but what can be said is that God is involved since he blesses the childless parents with children.610 Judaism is pointed at by the use of the word “heder”. The son and the daughter are predestined for each other because of their parents’ common history, which involves their sexual purity—which again could point forward to the process of redemption. The language skills of both children can be used to elevate the kelippot, which is a tool required in the process of redemption.611 The daughter has qua her beauty, the ability to attract importance and gifts to her parents’ house, which could indicate her role as Shekhinah, since Shekhinah bestows

610 611

Cf., e.g., Gen. 16.1; 1. Sam. 1; Jer. 15.7; Hos. 9.12. Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #3: 88–115; Liebes 1993: 138.

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blessings on those, among whom she lives.612 However, the fact that the pauper is elevated to emperor could indicate that the process of redemption is seriously threatened, despite the platonic union of the burgher and the pauper’s wife and the arranged marriage between their children. That Israel adheres to the covenant is a premise for redemption, but the text indicates that this is not so. A negative character has come to power and draws his power from someone with the attributes of Shekhinah. This negative character is furthermore about to threaten the predestined bond between the children—a bond that connotes the covenant. This exploitation and neglect of the needs of Shekhinah signal that the sins of Israel are the main obstacle for redemption.613 Part of the attention and importance that the daughter attracts to her parents’ house is the interest of different ministers to arrange a marriage between her and their respective sons. The pauper, however, does not have the proper rank, and so the ministers decide to elevate him. He rises from pauper through lieutenant and general to emperor over the entire world. The pauper’s daughter has now become the emperor’s daughter, maybe as another intertextual hint to the listener/reader to see the similarities with the second tale. During his rise, the ex-pauper is aware that he has already committed to a marriage arrangement with the burgher, but as the listener/reader will see in the next passage, he shall try to avoid it. His rise is ominous, also because of the previously negative connotations that were attached to him, cf. that the abduction of his wife only made him sorry for not having anything, and that he did not engage in liberating his wife. In his high position he is successful and has total dominion over the world, all thanks to his daughter’s beauty, but one could fear that his negativity will increase along with his rise.

612 “When Israel sinned and burned incense to other gods in the Holy Land, the Shekinah was driven from its place, and other gods were associated with it, and so other nations obtained dominion and the prophets died out, and all the higher grades ceased to rule, and dominion was not withdrawn from other nations, because they drew the Shekinah to themselves. Hence in the time of the second Temple the rule of the other nations did not cease, and even less so in the period of the Exile, when the Shekinah found herself among other nations where other chieftains exercise dominion, deriving their sustenance from the Shekinah, which has consorted with them” (Sefer haZohar I, 84b). 613 Kaplan suggests that the involvement of the gentile nations is needed to initiate the process of redemption even though he nds no support for this in the tale; cf. Kaplan 1983: 223n; 225n.

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11:—5: -, 6:—3: - The emperor now refused to arrange for a marriage with the burgher, because it was not becoming for an emperor to arrange for a marriage with a burgher. But his wife, the empress, did not remove herself from the burgher at all. The emperor then realized that it was impossible for him to arrange for any marriage other than the one with the burgher, especially because his wife encouraged him very much. However, he thought about a plot against the burgher, about how to impoverish him. He engaged in conspiracies that would appear as if they and whatever harm they caused did not come from him. The emperor was denitely capable of doing this, and the conspiracies harmed and impoverished the burgher until the burgher was totally impoverished and poor. The empress continued to encourage him [to remember the marriage agreement], and so the emperor realized that as long as the burgher’s son existed, it would be impossible to arrange for any other marriage. The emperor tried to get rid of the burgher’s son and made conspiracies to get rid of him. He made false accusations against him and sent judges against him. The judges understood that it was the emperor’s wish to have him removed from this world, and so they sentenced him to be put in a sack and thrown into the sea. The heart of the empress was aching very much because of this, but even for an empress it is impossible to do anything against the emperor. But what did she do? She went to those in charge of throwing him into the sea. She went to them, fell down before their feet and begged them that for her sake they should release the burgher’s son. “Why does he have to die?” She implored them very much to take another prisoner, who had been sentenced to death, and send him into the sea and leave the burgher’s son. Her pleas persuaded them, and they swore to her that they would leave him. And so they did. They took someone else and sent him into the sea and let the burgher’s son live. They said to him: “Go, go!” The burgher’s son walked away, since he was already a knowledgeable boy.

The emperor, alias the ex-pauper, does not keep his promise to arrange for a marriage, while the emperor’s wife (ex-pauper’s wife) remains as faithful as ever to the burgher and tries to persuade her husband to keep the promise. The emperor uses the middle-class status of the burgher as an excuse for not keeping the promise. He seems to have forgotten that the burgher did not hesitate to suggest a marriage for their children, before the pauper had risen to greatness—not to mention all the gifts the pauper and his wife received while they were still poor. The nature of the ex-pauper/emperor has become clear, and as

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Steinsaltz formulates it, he remains poor in spirit.614 Steinsaltz interprets the pauper in this way: “Having attained external wealth, the pauper loses interest in true salvation and tries to discourage contact between Knesset Israel and the Messiah” (Steinsaltz: 39). I am not convinced that the daughter should be interpreted as Knesset Israel and the son as the Messiah.615 However, I agree with Steinsaltz that the emperor at this point is interested in nothing but wealth, and in relation to this, the emperor becomes the antagonist who can sabotage the intended union of the children, which has redemptive connotations. The antagonist plans a plot against the burgher with the intention of making him poor. The emperor succeeds in this plot and the roles of the pauper and burgher are completely reversed,616 which hints once more at a period of loss, cf. the consecutive dreams. During this sabotage, the empress constantly reminds the emperor about the original marriage arrangement. Her faithfulness is conceived of as a threat by the emperor, and so he decides to get rid of the burgher’s son as a way to silence her. Judges obey his wish of having the son convicted, and they are thus enrolled in the corruption of the emperor’s rule and testify to corruption in the world in general. The son is sentenced to be put in a sack and subsequently thrown into the sea.617 At this point, the empress can no longer obey her husband. Publicly she cannot go against the emperor; however, she can try to inuence the wardens responsible for carrying out the sentence. As a protagonist, she appeals to the wardens and makes them swear to let the burgher’s son go, and they keep their word. The burgher once saved her, and now she saves the burgher’s son from death, though she cannot prevent him from being forced into exile. There is, however, a slight hope since

614

Cf. Steinsaltz: 37. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 204n. As long as the time is not right, the soul of the Messiah lies dormant and needs activation to initiate the Messianic age. In that respect my notion about a potential Knesset Israel and the activated Knesset Israel is close to Kaplan’s idea about the dormant soul of the Messiah and the real Messiah. 616 Steinsaltz explains “that in certain generations the base are raised up both materially and spiritually, while the spiritually great are cast down” (Steinsaltz: 37). 617 The emperor does not know his Talmud, since he would then remember not to put something to be disposed of into a sack and then throw it into the sea, lest someone nds the sack; cf. Pesachim 28a, 28a n14 in Soncino Classics Collection (CD-Rom). 615

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the wardens are not as cruel-hearted as the emperor. They are open to the good-hearted plan of the empress and, as shall be apparent later, the citizens of the country are actually interested in righteousness. Anyway, the son is released, and knowledgeable as he is, he knows that he will have to leave the country of the emperor, and so he walks away. Another exile has begun. 8:—11:-, 4:—6:- Prior to this, the empress called upon her daughter and told her: “My daughter, you shall know that this is the burgher’s son and that he shall be your husband!” She told her the entire story about what had happened to her and about how the burgher had risked his life for her, how he stayed together with her in the seven places. “I swore to him in the name of God that I would not deny him any of my good fortune, and I took the seven places: the cistern, the mikveh, etc., as witnesses. And now look! You are my everything, my good fortune, my success, and surely you shall be his. This son shall be your husband. But your father, because of his rudeness, will kill him for no reason. I have already tried to save him. I made sure that he was let free. Because of this, you shall know that he shall be your husband. Do not wish for being with anyone else in the entire world!” She embraced her mother’s words because she, too, was a God-fearing girl, and so she answered her that she would certainly make this happen. The daughter went and wrote to the burgher’s son, who was in prison, that she bound herself to him and that he should be her husband. She sent him something that looked like a map and drew upon it all the places in which her mother and his father had hid together. She wrote that the cistern and the six other places were their witnesses, and so she drew a cistern, a mikveh, etc. upon the map. She warned him to guard this letter very much which she had signed below.

The empress calls upon her daughter to make known to her the original marriage arrangement between her and the burgher’s son. The mother tells her the story about how she was saved by the burgher by hiding in the seven places of water. By telling the daughter this story, the mother makes her story the story of the daughter. First of all, the daughter represents the good, which has come to the empress, and the mother swore to God and took the seven places of water as witnesses that she would not deny the burgher any of the good that should come to her. Second, the children’s existence and the planned marriage are the outcome of the story about the mother and the burgher. Finally, the mother instructs her daughter to commit herself to the realization of the oaths, which the mother once swore, by saying “Do not wish

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for . . . !”—a way of motherly speaking that any daughter will embrace with seriousness, unless of course the daughter wants to revolt. But the daughter does not want to revolt. The daughter obeys her mother, as any good daughter should do, cf. “Honor your father and your mother; that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God gives you”,618 and she is furthermore described as a God-fearing girl. The fact that she obeys, read together with her fear of God and a possible reference to Ex. 20.12, could activate connotations to the prosperous life and the freedom, which God will give Israel as long as Israel keeps the commandments and follow the tradition of their ancestors. The daughter here inherits the commitment of her mother and is made conscious of her role. The daughter acts immediately according to the instructions of her mother. She writes a letter to the burgher’s son, who is in prison at this moment in the narrative. She makes the implications of her mother’s story known to him, so that he is made conscious of his role as well. The son is now committed to make the oaths come true, and she informs him that the seven places of water are witnesses to these oaths. He is instructed to guard the letter, which contains a map with the seven places of water and her signature. According to Band, the letter, only intended for the eyes of the burgher’s son, is seen to represent Torah.619 The map, drawn in this letter, is taken by Kaplan to reect the signs of the Messiah by which the Israelites will be able to recognize him, and to reect instructions on how to elevate the souls trapped within the kelippot.620 Steinsaltz considers the letter a pledge. He writes: The pledge the daughter grants him, the sign by which she will recognize him, is the memory of the rst salvation [of her mother]; the nal salvation reects and completes the rst. [The burgher’s son] possesses the only copy of this written pledge, . . . and thus he alone can learn the secrets of her soul and the means to bring about her redemption (Steinsaltz: 39).

Wiskind-Elper sees the letter as a sign of the bond between the burgher’s son and the emperor’s daughter,621 even though the letter might also represent something typical of fairy tales and myths, wherein the hero is given directions or even maps to nd a treasure. And if the emperor’s

618 619 620 621

Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf.

Ex. 20.12. Band 1978: 165. Kaplan 1983: 208n–209n. Wiskind-Elper: 81, 86.

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daughter connotes Shekhinah and all the bliss promised to Israel, what better connotation could be chosen than a treasure map. This connotation would of course imply that the burgher’s son is encouraged to look for this place, maybe in order to nd her. The connotations of the letter may not be mutually exclusive. Torah, as Band suggests, contains the divine commandments on how to live in order to remain in the presence of Shekhinah. Fullled commandment may be the signs that activate the Messiah, though Kaplan presents them in the reverse that the God-abiding people will be able to recognize the Messiah through these signs. Liberating Shekhinah from her spiritual exile would parallel the burgher’s liberation of the pauper’s wife, as Steinsaltz suggests, and this second liberation would equal the return of the people to life in the presence of Shekhinah. The bond between Israel and Shekhinah, as Wiskind-Elper suggests, is testied in Torah and depends on the fulllment of the commandments. And nally, nding the “treasure” equals the beginning of the Messianic era. 17:—8:, 2:—4:- After this, it happened as mentioned before that those in charge sent someone else, whereas the burgher’s son was free to go and so he walked away. He walked and walked until he came to the sea. He embarked on a ship and set out at sea. A great storm arose, which brought him to a shore where there was a desert. Because of the strength of the storm the ship was broken. Only the people on board were saved, and so they went to the dry land. There was a desert there, so every man went for himself to look for food to sustain his soul. It was unusual for ships to come there, as it was a desert, so nobody was there to guide the ships to their original destinations. They walked in the desert looking for food, and they spread separately here and there. The burgher’s son walked in the desert; he walked so far that he removed himself from the shore. He wanted to return but was unable to do so. The more he wanted to return, the further he removed himself until he realized that it was impossible to return. So he just walked on. He walked there in the desert. He had a bow in his hand that could save him against the dangerous animals that were in the desert. He found something to eat and walked on until he nally came out of the desert. He came to a place that used to be inhabited which however now was devoid of people. There was water and trees with fruit all over, so he ate the fruit and drank the water. He decided to settle there for the rest of his life because it was difcult for him to return to the settled places. And who knew if someone else would arrive to this place, or if this place could be replaced if he did go? He therefore decided to settle at this place for the rest of his life because it was good for him. There was fruit to eat and water to drink. Sometimes

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he would go out and shoot a rabbit or a gazelle with his bow, so that he would have meat to eat. He would catch some sh for himself, since there were very good sh in the water. He liked the idea of living there for the rest of his life.

The intervention of the empress enables the son to ee into exile, where exile actually means life, compared to the death he would most likely have suffered if he had stayed in the country of the emperor. Exile is not the ultimate good; however, it is denitely better than living under the dominance of evil. The positive connotations of this exile are continued in the following. The run into exile is split into three parts. In the rst, he walks away from the domain of the emperor. In the second, he embarks on a ship, and a great tempest causes him to shipwreck on a shore next to a desert. In the third, he arrives at an oasis with water and fruit trees, with animals to hunt and sh to catch. One could interpret the movement into exile as a contraction away from evil. The storm, which sends the burgher’s son across the sea and into the desert, could be interpreted as divine intervention622 which enables him to entirely separate himself from the world dominated by evil. The oasis could be seen as God’s way of taking care of him while hiding him at the same time. The son decides to spend the rest of his life in an Edenic place where he can provide for himself, thanks to the bounty of food and water.623 It is indeed positive that he separates himself from evil in this way; however, one cannot help thinking that it is a rather apathetic response to the wickedness of the world. If all people just leaned back and hoped for someone else to ght against wickedness, evil would soon gain total control. Thankfully, there is still the empress, who secures the survival of the burgher’s son; and there is still the emperor’s daughter who commits herself to fullling the oaths of her mother. Besides portraying a reversal of gender roles, which evokes connotations to the second tale,624 the

622 Cf. Steinsaltz: 40; Wiskind-Elper: 192 as well as the intervening function of a storm/a storm wind in tales #1 and 2. 623 One of the few places in the world that used to be inhabited, from which people were driven away, is the Garden of Eden. According to Steinsaltz, the refuge of the burgher’s son reects “the kabbalistic idea that the soul of the Messiah resides in the Garden of Eden until the time comes for him to appear” (Steinsaltz: 40). Kaplan also interprets this place as the Garden of Eden; cf. Kaplan 1983: 210n. 624 Band is aware of something similar. Band describes the emperor’s daughter as aggressive in her attempt to transcend the state of exile. Band also understands the burgher’s son probably as the Messiah, though a rather hesitant one; whereas the

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passivity of the male protagonist may signal that he as well as his father represents the potential Knesset Israel. Knesset Israel is an ideal representation, and as long as evil exists among the Jews, the ideal representation cannot be actualized, cf. my designation “potential” Knesset Israel. His father belongs more or less to the past, but it seems that the burgher’s son as the potential Knesset Israel is forced to stay in this Edenic place and to remain potential, until Israel refrains from sinning. At this point one can say that there are two male protagonists who are very much alike. There are also two active female protagonists who are very much alike. Father and son, and mother and daughter come from two separate generations. The male protagonists are active, when it is within reach to be united with their respective companions; however, when evil gains the upper hand, they become passive. This passivity testies to the roles of the two men as representatives of the same potential Knesset Israel, maybe coming from two different generations.625 The empress and her daughter may represent Shekhinah in two different generations. The burgher’s son and the empress’s daughter inherit the problems, the love, and the destiny of their parent. The question is if the new generation can solve the problems, realize the love, and reach the destiny, which their parents almost did. 9:—1:-, 4:—3:- The emperor thought, now that he had judged the burgher’s son and now that he had got rid of him (or rather the emperor hoped that the sentence had already been fullled and that he did not exist anymore), that he could arrange for the marriage of his daughter. They began to talk to her about matches with this king and that king, etc. He built her a court as was appropriate, and she settled there. She took for herself daughters of the ministers to be her friends, and they settled there. She used to play on musical instruments. Anyone who talked to her about matches was told that she had no wish to do so, that is to marry, unless the suitor came to her in person.

burgher is seen to represent Moses (Band 1978: 165). Kaplan suggests that, just like in tale #2, the later cross-dressing of the emperor’s daughter in this tale indicates that Shekhinah can take decisions and be active; cf. Kaplan 1983: 227n. 625 Even though I disagree with Steinsaltz on the interpretation of the burgher’s son as the Messiah, Steinsaltz sees a bond between the father and the son, which makes them representatives of the same kind of redeeming gure. He interprets the burgher to be Moses and the son to be the Messiah; cf. Steinsaltz: 39.

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She was very procient in the art of poetry, and she made a place for ne arts, so that her suitor could come to this place, stand in front of her and recite poetry; poems of passion in the way a passionate lover speaks words of affection to his beloved. Kings arrived to arrange for a marriage, and they ascended to this place and everyone recited his poem. To some she sent her answer through her friends in an affectionate poem; and to those who pleased her more, she raised her voice in an affectionate poem and answered them herself. To those she liked even better she appeared before them face to face, showed them her face and answered them in an affectionate poem. To all of them she nished in this way: “However, the waters have not passed over you!” Nobody understood her intention, and when she showed her face, they fell down because of her great beauty. They became somewhat weak, somewhat crazy from love-sickness and from her great beauty, which was very extraordinary indeed. But even though they became crazy and weak, kings were still arriving to arrange for a marriage with her, and to all of them she answered in this very same way.

The emperor, who enjoys the power that stems from the attention given to his daughter, is ready to offer his daughter to different kings. When the emperor was still a pauper, his daughter attracted the attention of different ministers. The sons of the ministers were considered suitable matches for the daughter. Now that the pauper has become emperor, only kings sufce, which testify to his vanity and power interests. The emperor builds a court for his daughter, in which she can live together with her friends who are all daughters of ministers.626 The court is built not out of consideration for her wishes, but because it was appropriate. The negativity of the emperor is once more stressed. Within her court, or within what could be considered her connes, she plays on musical instruments. As mentioned before musical skills are considered tools to elevate the divine sparks trapped within the connes of evil.627 If the emperor’s daughter represents Shekhinah, two images are being invoked. Shekhinah is trapped within evil, and she is engaging in tikkun.

626 This parallels tale #2 where the unmarried king builds a palace for the emperor’s daughter and the eleven daughters of the nobility. These eleven daughters plus the emperor’s daughter represented according to my understanding the twelve tribes of Israel; however, in tale #10 nothing indicates that the daughters of the ministers are placed in the tale to symbolize the twelve tribes of Israel. Kaplan notes the same reoccurrence of the “daughters of noblemen” from tale #2. He suggests that they represent the souls of the righteous. This might be, but in this tale they have no function. 627 Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #3: 88–115; Liebes 1993: 138.

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Within her connes, the emperor’s daughter is being wooed, but at least she is able to formulate certain conditions for the suitors who want to marry her. They have to ascend to her place, they have to meet her in person, and they have to recite a poem of passion for her. If she is Shekhinah and the suitors have to ascend to her place, it would mean that they should have fear of God, since fear of God is the prerequisite to enter through the gate to the serotic system, i.e., Shekhinah. The suitors need musical skills to be able to recite the poem, and since musical skills are the requirement to elevate the kelippot, the suitors would not only have fear of God but also the ability to help in the process of tikkun. The poem has to be a poem of passion, the kind of poem through which the lover can speak. If love is a characteristic in a person who has fear of God and who has the ability to engage in tikkun, then it is most likely that the required love could be love of God. On the one hand, the wooing could be that Shekhinah is gathering a group of people to help her proceed on the road toward redemption. On the other hand, the suitors could be seen as threats to the intended union with the burgher’s son. Of course they are threats, but people with love and fear of God and with the ability to engage in tikkun are usually not likely to be totally rejected by Shekhinah. On the contrary. But just because Shekhinah appreciates their characteristics does not mean that she considers them her intended. That the suitors should not be conceived of as either black or white also becomes clear from her reaction after she has listened to their poems. Some she answers with an affectionate poem. Some she appears before face to face. However, her affectionate response does not mean that she chooses them as her intended, which is clear from her enigmatic way of nishing her response, i.e., “However, the waters have not passed over you!” Wiskind-Elper takes this sentence to mean: “You have not endured a trial of faith!”628 Actually, I think Wiskind-Elper is mistaken on this point, since it does take faith to have fear and love of God and to have the ability to engage in tikkun. Steinsaltz is in line with my understanding. He writes: The theme of the many suitors wooing the apparently abandoned princess is a relic of numerous folk tales, but here it is invested with symbolic signicance and assoc iations. The great men of all generations have sought to approach the Shekhinah, but with limited success (Steinsaltz: 40).

628

Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 191.

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The emperor’s daughter is indeed wooed by many great men, who are important for the process of redemption. But the suitors will never qualify, since they are not part of the original marriage arrangement between her and the burgher’s son. 16:—9:-, 8:—5:- The burgher’s son stayed at that place and made it a place for him to stay, and so he stayed. He also knew how to play on musical instruments and was procient in the art of poetry. He selected trees suitable for making musical instruments, and so he made himself musical instruments. From animal sinews he made strings. He used to play and make songs for himself. He then took the letter that the emperor’s daughter had sent to him and made a song and then played it. He remembered everything that had happened to him; how his father was a burgher, and how he had now ended up here. He went and took the letter and made for himself a sign on a tree and made a place there in which he hid the letter. He dwelled there for a while. Once there was a strong tempest that broke all the trees there, and so he could not recognize the tree in which he had hid the letter. As long as the trees were still standing there, he had a sign by which he could recognize it; but now that the trees were felled, the tree was mixed with the other numerous trees, so he could not recognize the tree. It was impossible, so he cleaved all the trees in order to nd the letter, and there were very many. He cried and was so very desolate because of this. He realized that if he stayed there he would go crazy out of sorrow. He decided that he was forced to leave this place, come what may, because, if he did not, he would be in great danger because of his sorrow. He put meat and fruit into his sack and walked away. He made signs for himself at this place which he left and he then walked until he came to a settled place. There he asked: “What country is this?” And people answered him. He then asked if they had heard about the emperor in this place, and they conrmed. He then asked if they had heard about the beautiful daughter in this place, and they conrmed but said that it was impossible to arrange for a marriage with her.

The burgher’s son is skilled in music and the art of poetry. He is thus able to engage in tikkun, and he is described as likely to pass the poetry test of the emperor’s daughter if only he could get the chance. In his Edenic oasis in the middle of the desert he makes musical instruments and plays on them while composing songs. The songs are inspired by the letter, which he received from the emperor’s daughter while he was in prison, as if he were calling out for her from his exile. After having recalled everything which happened to him, he decides to hide the letter in a tree, on which he made a sign so as to be able

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to recognize it. But as if God wants to force the burgher’s son to move on,629 a tempest occurs and fells all the trees in the area, including the tree, inside which he had concealed the letter. He then cleaves the trees, hoping to be able to nd the letter, but to no avail. This is some imagery! One tree could represent the serotic system, but many trees could also represent the people who have faith, the righteous, who in the third tale and in Ps. 1 are likened to trees. If one follows the idea, it would mean that one of the righteous contains the key to a union with the Shekhinah, but a tempest comes and destroys the “army” of zaddikim. If this is reality, one certainly understands why the burgher’s son cries and becomes desolate. This is a major setback in the process of redemption, and facing such a destruction one can easily go crazy. Be it so or be it as it is on the narrative level that the burgher’s son has lost the letter, through which he and the emperor’s daughter could effectuate the oaths of the pauper’s wife to the burgher, the burgher’s son has to leave the Edenic place. The burgher’s son arrives at a settled place. People inform him where he is, and when asked about the emperor’s daughter, they tell him it is impossible to arrange for a marriage with her. The entire passage conveys a very pessimistic atmosphere, except for one piece of information: It was a tempest that destroyed the trees. Wiskind-Elper, Steinsaltz, and I agreed that a storm should be seen as a response from God—or at least as something that obeys the will of God.630 The destruction of the trees may reect God’s will to activate the burgher’s son, maybe God’s attempt to force Israel to help along in the process of redemption, through which Israel can activate its potential as Knesset Israel. 16:—16:-, 9: 9:- The burgher’s son decided, since it was impossible for him to go to the place [of the beautiful daughter], that he would walk to the king of this country and pour out his heart to him, about how he was her bridegroom and how she would not want to marry anyone else because of him. Since it was impossible for him to go there, he revealed to him all the signs, that is, the seven kinds of water. The king could then go there and marry her. The king gave him money in return. The king realized that these were words of truth since it was impossible to fabricate such 629 Kaplan interprets this incident in a similar way when he writes that the storm moves the burgher’s son from complacency and forces him to move toward the reunion with the emperor’s daughter; cf. Kaplan 1983: 212n. 630 Cf., e.g., Ps. 11, 18, 48, 50, 83; Ez. 1; Nah. 1; Zak. 9; Job 38, 40.

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a story. He liked the idea, but he thought to himself that if he brought her back to this place and if the burgher’s son was here, nothing good would come out of it for him. Therefore, he decided to send him two hundred miles away. It made the burgher’s son very angry that the king had sent him away, given the good things he had done for the king. So he went to another king and told him everything. He revealed to him all the signs and even added one more sign to this second king. He commanded him to hurry and that he should travel immediately, since he might then be able to come before his colleague. But the second king thought in the same way as the rst one, and so he too sent the burgher’s son two hundred miles away. It made the burgher’s son very angry, so he went to a third king and revealed to him yet more signicant signs. The rst king went immediately and traveled to the place of the emperor’s daughter. He recited a poem for her, in which he included, according to the art of poetry, all the seven places that were witnesses. However, it happened that he did not recite these places in the right order in the poem, because he stuck too much to the art of poetry. This is how he came to this place and recited the poem. When the emperor’s daughter heard the places mentioned, she considered it a marvel, and it seemed to her that it had to be him, the friend from her childhood. Only did it trouble her that he did not recite them in the right order. Nevertheless, she thought to herself that the rhyme of this specic art of poetry had caused him to put it in this order, so she agreed to herself that this was he. She wrote to him that she was already engaged to him. Joy and tumult arose, since she had now found the friend of her youth, and they prepared for the wedding. The second king arrived in the middle of this after having hurried to get there. They told him that she had already been engaged, but he did not pay attention and said that nevertheless he had something to say to her that would denitely impress her. He went and recited his poem in which he arranged the places in the right order and furthermore gave her one additional sign. She asked him: “How did the rst king know?” It did not seem good for him to tell the truth, and so he answered that he did not know. It pleased her very much but she was confused as well, because the rst king had also told about the places, and how should anyone come to know about these signs. But, nevertheless, it seemed to her that the second king was the friend from her childhood since she had witnessed how he had recited them in the right order. The rst king had mentioned these places maybe just because of the specic art of poetry. She remained undecided. The burgher’s son became very upset when the second king sent him away as well; so he walked to a third king and told him everything. He gave the king even more signicant signs. He poured out his heart to the third king, about how he had a letter on which the [seven] places were drawn and about how he should draw all these places on a piece of paper and then bring it to her. The third king also thought to himself that it

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chapter four would not be good for him if he brought her back while the burgher’s son was still there. So he sent the burgher’s son even more than two hundred miles away. The third king hurried to get there. When he came, they told him that two kings were already there, but he answered: “Nevertheless!” because he had something that would denitely impress her. Nobody in the world knew why she should prefer these three to the other suitors. The third king came to her and recited his poem including the even more signicant signs, and he showed her a letter with the places drawn upon it. She was very alarmed, but she could not do anything, because the rst one appeared to be the one, the second appeared so too. She therefore said that she did not believe it until they brought her the hand-written letter.

The son, who has realized that he has no possibility of going to the court of the emperor’s daughter himself, gives up; he resigns from the future promised to him through the letter of the emperor’s daughter. However, he considers her future, and knowing that she would not marry any other man but him, he decides to disguise one king after another as him by giving them information about the letter. This could be considered a willingness to sacrice on the part of the burgher’s son; however, it could also be taken as a clear sign of apathy. In the second tale the emperor’s daughter agreed to marry a merchant and a king who built palaces, from whom she escaped. However, they were more or less innocent, whereas these kings have all expelled the burgher’s son despite the good he did for them. They have all contributed to the grief of the burgher’s son, which is why it can only provide the listener/reader with hope that the emperor’s daughter will be able to see through their disguise. One should also ask oneself, if this is part of a plan of the burgher’s son, or if God is arranging that the tale now proceeds toward the union between the emperor’s daughter and the burgher’s son. Kaplan interprets the three kings to be false messiahs, after which Kaplan ends in conict with his own interpretation of the burgher’s son as the soul of the Messiah, when he writes that it “does not seem likely that the Messiah would give his secrets to charlatans”.631 To avoid the interpretive conict he also suggests that the three kings could be three Zaddikey haDor: R. Shimeon bar Yohai, R. Isac Luria, and the Baxal Shem Tov. Kaplan writes that they “did not consciously cast the Messiah away, but they had so much to accomplish that they delayed

631

Cf. Kaplan 1983: 213n.

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his coming in their generations” (Kaplan 1983: 213n).632 I am not convinced by Kaplan’s argument. The three kings were worried that they could not keep the emperor’s daughter for themselves, and so they expelled the burgher’s son two hundred miles or even more away, at a time where the burgher’s son was really in need of a place to stay. The three kings caused him anguish, and I do not see how they and their selshness can be perceived as something positive. My best suggestion is that they represent selsh rulers in a world that has not yet realized the need for the rules of God, and that their way of behaving conveys Nahman’s portrayal of the present world where humans set up rules for themselves just like the emperor does. 3:—16:-, 9:—1:- After all this, the burgher’s son thought to himself: “For how long will they send me further and further away?” Therefore he decided to walk to her, since he might impress her. He walked until he came there. He said that he had something, etc., and so he came to her and recited his poem and gave her so many signicant signs; he reminded her of how they had studied together in the same heder, etc. He told her everything; about how he had sent the kings, how he had hid the letter in a tree, and about what had happened to him. But she did not pay any attention to this. The rst kings had given her reasons for not having the letter at hand. Furthermore, it was denitely impossible to recognize him now that so much time had passed. And nally she did not want to pay any more attention to the signs at all before they had brought her the letter. She had thought that the rst one was denitely the one, the same about the second, etc., so she refused. The burgher’s son decided to turn around and return to his place in the desert and live out his days in this place. He walked until he came to the desert. Many years passed while all of this happened. The burgher’s son decided that he would stay in the desert and live out the rest of his life there. According to his values of how a man should live in this world, he was convinced that it was good to live out one’s life in the desert. So he stayed there, ate the fruit there, etc.

In his most desperate situation after having been expelled three times by the three kings—or actually four times, if one remembers how the emperor forced him to go into exile as well—the burgher’s son decides

632 Kaplan continues: “Perhaps they rectied the world so much that the Messiah did not have to come in their times” (Kaplan 1983: 213n). This suggestion hardly ts in with the negative portrayal of the three kings.

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to try to impress the emperor’s daughter by reciting a poem himself. By doing this, he gets the opportunity to present to her all the different signs including telling her about the time they spent together in the heder. He furthermore told her his entire story. The emperor’s daughter, however, does not recognize him, and she is so disillusioned by the claims of the different suitors that each and every one of them should represent her true intended. She therefore refuses to deal with the wooing until one of the suitors brings her the original letter. The burgher’s son gives up and resigns once more and decides to return to his oasis in the desert to spend the rest of his life there. According to Steinsaltz, the suitors constitute the theme of great men of all generations searching to approach the Shekhinah, but with limited success. Steinsaltz points to a Talmudic text as a parallel, unfortunately without saying which one. However, I assume he has in mind the one about the four men entering Pardes: Our Rabbis taught: Four men entered the “Garden”, namely, Ben {Azzai and Ben Zoma, Aher, and R. Akiba. R. Akiba said to them: When ye arrive at the stones of pure marble, say not, water, water! For it is said: He that speaketh falsehood shall not be established before mine eyes. Ben {Azzai cast a look and died. Of him Scripture says: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. Ben Zoma looked and became demented. Of him Scripture says: Hast thou found honey? Eat so much as is sufcient for thee, lest thou be lled therewith, and vomit it. Aher mutilated the shoots. R. Akiba departed unhurt (Chagigah 14b).

Ben Azzai dies because he sees God, Ben Zoma is stricken with madness from gazing at God, Aher became a heretic, but R. Akiva, who had the right qualications, survived seeing God.633 But then, and this is where I thank Steinsaltz for his splendid observation, one did proceed to the nal meeting but was, however, rejected by the one who seems to be Shekhinah. Steinsaltz continues and explains that the episode with the suitors is an allegorical account of the various Messianic gures in Jewish history. But when it comes to the burgher’s son being rejected, Steinsaltz writes that “Nachman seems to imply that the true Messiah has indeed come once, only to be rejected. To whom was he referring? Who among the false messiahs was the true one?” (Steinsaltz: 41). Now,

633 Kaplan mentions Chagigah 14b though only to explain how the emperor’s daughter had to cover her face in general to avoid having those who saw her fall; cf. Kaplan 1983: 211n.

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one could fall pray to the pitfalls of allegorical guessing, but in this case Steinsaltz does not. Instead he points to the especially Kabbalistic notion that the Redemption will come not as the result of a single act or move of the Messiah but through a dialectic process in which the Shekhinah, Knesset Israel—in this story, the daughter—must . . . activate her redeemer . . . The mother’s route is through purication and commitment, while the daughter is drawn into degradation and isolation; this is what the Kabbalah describes as the “descent necessary for the ultimate ascent”, a dialectic that describes both cosmic processes and the cycles of the human soul (Steinsaltz: 41).

Here, Steinsaltz could have been clearer; he could have pointed out that it is exactly the lack of human purication and commitment that prevents this dialectic from elevating the Shekhinah from her lowly position. Human purication and commitment are lacking, and this is why the true Messiah has not yet been accepted, according to Steinsaltz; or, the ideal union between Shekhinah and Knesset Israel has not yet taken place, according to my reading. Liebes notes how Nahman tried to accomplish what his precursor, the #xal Shem Tov, had not accomplished because of the sexual sins that prevented the coming of the Messiah.634 15:—4:-, 8:—1:- At sea there was a murderer. The murderer had heard that such a beautiful girl existed in the world, so he thought about seizing her. Not that he really needed her, now that he was castrated, but he felt like seizing her in order to sell her to some king and then demand a fortune for her. He began to arrange for it. The murderer was an outlaw and so he made a rule for himself: “If it works, it works; if not, so what! What do I have to lose?” Like all murderers he was an outlaw. The murderer went and bought a lot of merchandise in an immense variety. He also made birds out of gold. They were made with such skillfulness that they really seemed to be alive. He also made golden stalks and ears of corn upon which the birds were placed. In itself it was an invention that the birds were standing on the ears of corn, without the stalks breaking, now that the birds were rather large. He also made devices so that it seemed that the birds were singing. One was clicking with its tongue, one was twittering, and one was singing. Everything was based on devices and human beings standing there in the room onboard

634

Cf. Liebes 1993: 128–129.

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chapter four the ship behind the birds. These human beings caused this, though it seemed that the birds were singing by themselves, however, everything was done with articial strings. The murderer traveled with the entire merchandise to the country in which the emperor’s daughter was living. He came to the city where she was living and cast anchor with his ship at sea. He pretended to be a great merchant. People came in and out to buy his expensive merchandise. He stayed there for quite some time, for a quarter of a year or more, and people carried the beautiful merchandise they had bought from him. The emperor’s daughter also wanted to buy merchandise from him, so she sent for him to bring the merchandise to her place. He sent the message back to her that he did not have to bring merchandise to the house of the emperor’s daughter, even if she was an emperor’s daughter; and whoever wanted merchandise had to come to him. Nobody could force a merchant to do so, so the emperor’s daughter thought to herself that she would go to him. When she walked to the market she used to cover her face so that nobody would look at her, because human beings could fall because of her beauty. So the emperor’s daughter covered her face and took her friends with her, and a guard walked behind her. She came to the murderer, who pretended that he was a merchant, and she bought some merchandise from him. As she was walking away, the merchant said to her: “If you come again, I shall show you things more beautiful than these. They are really wonderful!” She returned to her house. Later, she went again to buy things there. The murderer stayed there for some time, and so the emperor’s daughter got used to him and went in and out of his place. Once, when she came to him, he went and opened the room for her in which the birds of gold were, and she saw how wonderful an invention this was. The others, including the guard, wanted to enter as well. But the merchant said: “No, no, this is for nobody to see except for you, the emperor’s daughter! I don’t want anybody else at all!” She then entered on her own. He went to the room as well and locked the door. He acted rudely. He took a sack and put the captured one into the sack. He took off her clothing and dressed a boatsman with it. He covered his face, pushed him outside and told him: “Go!” This boatsman did not know at all what was happening to him. As soon as he came outside with his face covered and without the guard noticing that it was a he, they began to walk together with him at once, because it seemed to them that this was the emperor’s daughter. The boatsman was escorted by the guard, who did not know who he was. When he came to the room in which the emperor’s daughter used to sit, and when they uncovered his face and saw that he was a boatsman, there was a great tumult. They slapped the boatsman in his face so badly again and again, but he was not guilty because he understood nothing. The murderer took the emperor’s daughter and knew that they would denitely chase him. Therefore he walked away from the ship and hid with her in a cistern with rainwater until the tumult had ceased. He commanded the boatsmen onboard the ship to cut the anchor off immediately

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and escape, since they would denitely be pursued. However, the ship would certainly not be shot at because of the emperor’s daughter whom they expected to be on board. “They will only pursue you, so escape at once! If they catch you, they’ll catch you, so what?” He spoke in the way of murderers who only pay attention to themselves. And so there was a tumult. They pursued them, but did not nd her there. The murderer concealed himself with her in the cistern with rainwater and they lay there. He frightened her so that she would not scream, so that no human beings should hear her. He said to her: “I gave my soul for seizing you. Now that you are in my hands, and if I returned and if I lost you, my life would be worth nothing to me at all. Therefore, if you let out one scream, I shall strangle you at once. And so happen to me, whatever may happen to me, because I myself am worth nothing.” The emperor’s daughter feared for her life and was afraid to scream because of the murderer’s terrorization.

The castrated murderer and outlaw, who makes his own rules, represents the opposite of fertility, life, Torah, and the ruling of God. This murderer has disguised himself as a merchant and has made some golden articial birds on stalks of corn, which seem alive and able to sing thanks to human manipulations of the strings attached to these birds. The articial birds and the concept of something that seems to be alive point back to the primary connotations of the murderer, i.e., death and this worldly illusion, which also seem to characterize the present state of the world. Mankind is unable to differentiate between life that has its origin in God and life that connotes human illusions concerning man’s independence from God. The castrated murderer’s plan is to tempt the emperor’s daughter to enter his realm of illusions and thereby capture her, which evokes connotations to her mother when she was abducted by the evil general. When the murderer puts her into a sack, connotations are evoked to the burgher’s son, when he was about to be drowned in such a sack. Her life is threatened, but the threat is transformed to divine mourning because a sack evokes connotation to Shekhinah, who is dressed in sackcloth when she is sent into exile and thereby removed from her beloved.635 In Sefer haZohar I,182a, her beloved is Tif xeret; however, the 635 “[W]hen the Temple was destroyed and the Shekinah went into exile into strange lands, then ‘behold, their Erelim cry without, the angels of peace weep bitterly’, for all wept and mourned for the Shekinah that was exiled from her place, and in the degree that she became altered from what she was, to the same degree her Master withdrew his light and became altered from what he was, as it is written: ‘The sun was darkened in his going forth’. Hence: ‘so marred was his visage’. According to another interpretation, the words, ‘so marred was his visage unlike that of a man’ are illustrated

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distance between her and Tif xeret signals at the same time the distance between Israel and God. It follows from the intersection of these intraand intertextual connotations that Israel’s illusive approach to life causes the disappearance of God’s presence. After having undressed the representative of Shekhinah and abducted her, the murderer sends off his ship only to let it be shot at, since he as evil incarnate is totally indifferent to the death of others. Concerning the castrated state of the murderer, Steinsaltz suggest that he be identied with Satan in his role as the Angel of Death, cf. his designation “murderer”. As the personication of evil he has no creative power. The only reason that he abducts the daughter is to exploit her beauty by selling her for a high price—which shows, according to Steinsaltz, that evil is essentially parasitic.636 Kaplan is of a similar opinion.637 However, the castrated state of the murderer may need to be explained more clearly. The major point in Jewish mysticism concerning sexual imagery is that only through the covenant can the people of Israel receive shefa, the divine uids causing fertility as a reward from God to the people for adhering to the covenant. However, the bounty of sexual imagery in, e.g., Sefer haZohar exhibits several examples of the threatening state where Shekhinah is being held hostage by Samael and even forced to have intercourse with evil.638 In the tenth tale it is stressed twice that there was no sexual act between the parties, neither between the burgher and the pauper’s wife nor between the emperor’s daughter and the murderer, cf. that his castrated state prevented him from using her. In my opinion this emphasis ends up conrming that the listener/reader should think of the meaning of this sexual imagery, and then it becomes irrelevant if the sexual acts took place or not. The consequence of letting the murderer undress the emperor’s daughter and furthermore to stay with her in a cistern with water, which once connoted the attainment of sexual purity, seems to be that by exposing the sex of the emperor’s daughter, evil impregnates her—or rather the people whom she reects—and causes the power of evil to increase. This power manifests itself as a lack of fertility in this world, because in such situations shefa cannot ow unhindered to mankind. by the verse: ‘I clothe heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering’ [Is. 50.3]” (Sefer haZohar I,182a). Cf. also Sefer haZohar I,210a. 636 Cf. Steinsaltz: 41. 637 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 217n. Kaplan denies the sexual connotation by emphasizing that the “forces of evil are sterile”—which is why the murderer is referred to as a eunuch, which is Kaplan’s rendering of castrated; cf. Kaplan 1983: 217n. 638 Cf. Sefer haZohar I,84b.

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3:—15:-, 4:—1:- The murderer left the place with her and walked with her in the city. They then walked and came to a different place. He knew that they were searching for them in this place as well, so he concealed himself and her once again but in a mikveh. They left the place and he concealed himself and her in yet another place, until he had concealed himself and her in all the seven places, in which the burgher had concealed himself together with her mother. These were the seven witnesses, seven kinds of water, i.e., a cistern, a mikveh, a spring, etc. They walked until they came to the sea. He searched every place to nd a small shing boat to cross the sea with her, and he found a boat. He took the emperor’s daughter. He did not really need her, now that he was castrated, but he wanted to sell her to some king. He feared that she would be taken away from him, so he went and dressed her in boatsman’s clothes so that she looked like a man. He crossed the sea with her. A tempest came and tossed the boat to the shore and splintered it. It was the same shore they came to, next to which was the desert where the burgher’s son was staying. When they came there, the bandit [i.e., the murderer], who was an expert in roads, knew that this was a deserted place and that ships would not reach this place. He therefore had no reason to fear for anyone and so he released her. They walked in separate places in search for food, and so the emperor’s daughter removed herself from the bandit. The bandit walked in his direction and realized that she was no longer with him. He called out for her, but she decided not to answer him. She said: “Since his plan is to sell me, why should I answer him. If he returns and nds me, I shall answer him that I did not hear him!” and so she walked from there. The bandit looked for her here and there, but he did not nd her. Wild animals probably ended up eating him. The emperor’s daughter walked here and there and found herself something to eat. She walked until she reached the place in which the burgher’s son was dwelling. Her hair had already grown out, but she was still dressed like a man in boatsman’s clothes. They did not recognize each other. As soon as she arrived, he became happy that another human being had come. He asked “him”: “How did you come here?” She answered him: “I was together with some merchant at sea!” She asked him: “How did you come here?” He answered her: “Also with some merchant!” Then the two of them dwelled there.

Maybe to pollute the cleansing water, which puried the burgher and the pauper’s wife and resulted in fertility, cf. the children being born, and maybe to mock the chastity of the burgher and the pauper’s wife, he retraces the entire route, which the burgher and the pauper’s wife once took when they hid in the seven places of water. By the sea, the last of the seven places of water, and from where the burgher found

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his way back together with the pauper’s wife, the murderer decides to cross the sea with her in a small shing boat. However, this place is also the place, from where the potential Knesset Israel, the burgher’s son, removed himself from evil within the world of the emperor. Though an obvious abduction of the emperor’s daughter is being described, it might at the same time point forward to a removal of evil incarnate from this world. Fearing that somebody should take the emperor’s daughter away from him, whereby he would lose his sustenance, the murderer decides to dress her in man’s clothes before they cross the sea. At sea, a tempest occurs and causes the boat to be shipwrecked on the shore of the desert, in which the burgher’s son lives. It is appropriate once more to emphasize that God is responsible for a storm just like he is for all other weather phenomena.639 On the shore at the other side of the sea where they search for food, and just like in the case of the burgher’s son, the search for food enables the protagonist, the emperor’s daughter, to separate and escape from the antagonist. The murderer is most likely confronted with the death, which he himself represents, once he is out in the wilderness and vulnerable to the attacks of wild animals. Just as the storm could represent the response of God, so might the animals. The situation has changed and she can begin her ascent. As Steinsaltz says: “The daughter has reached the depths of her degradation: she can descend no more, and thus evil can no longer exert power over her” (Steinsaltz: 42). The condition of the world has severed her from her receptive female position in the serotic system. This may be indicated through her male appearance as it was in the second tale, and it may be her male appearance that enables her upcoming activity. I am here in line with Kaplan.640 She traces the tracks of the burgher’s son and nally meets him. Unfortunately, the burgher’s son and the emperor’s daughter do not recognize each other. The lack of recognition may signal that the time is not right for a union. If she is Shekhinah and if he is the potential Knesset

639

Cf., e.g., Ps. 78.21–27. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 227n. The phenomenon of cross-dressing is known from Nahman’s tale #2, where the emperor’s daughter dressed like a man at the point of the tale where she turned from being characterized as Shekhinah to representing Lilith. In tale #10, however, I have not noticed any demonic traits attached to the emperor’s daughter. 640

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Israel, their dwelling together only refers to the fact that Shekhinah walks with her children into exile.641 The premise for a real union between them would require a change in the behavior of the people, which would then cause the activation of the potentiality of Knesset Israel. In Sefer haZohar it says: “for three things Israel are kept in captivity: because they pay scant respect to the Shekinah in their exile, because they turn their faces away from the Shekinah, and because they dele themselves in the presence of the Shekinah” (Sefer haZohar III,75b). The murderer did not pay respect to Shekhinah when he undressed her; the friends and the guard turned their faces away from her, when they let her visit the room of the murderer alone; and the murderer deled his soul, once he seized the emperor’s daughter against her will. The zoharic intertext intersects with the narrative and offers these explanations, according to which the actual Israel has to repent before a union becomes possible. 5:—3:-, 2:—5:- The empress, after the emperor’s daughter had been taken away from the emperor, had mourned and hit her head against the wall over the loss of her daughter. She rebuked the emperor for the situation, that because of his cruelty he had lost the burgher’s son and now their daughter. She said: “Hasn’t she been our success? We have lost her! I have nothing left now!” She rebuked him very much. Surely, he felt a great grief too over the loss of his daughter, and furthermore the empress rebuked him and was very angry with him. They quarrelled and were angry with each other. She said terrible things to him, until he became so very angry with her that he said that she would be exiled. He appointed judges who passed the verdict that she be exiled. Upon this the emperor engaged in war. He was not successful, and so he blamed some general for this: “Since you have acted in this way, the war has been lost.” He exiled him. The emperor then engaged in another war but was not successful and so he exiled another general. In this way he exiled several generals and the inhabitants of the country realized that he was doing strange things. First he exiled the empress, then he exiled the generals. They thought to themselves: “It is possible to do the opposite, to send for the empress and to exile him and let the empress rule the country!” And so they did. They exiled the emperor and brought back the empress, and she ruled the country. She immediately

641 Cf. “For whenever Israel is in exile the Shekhinah accompanies them” (Sefer haZohar I,120b); cf. as well Sefer haZohar I,134a, 211a, 225a; II,216b; III,90b, 114b.

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chapter four sent for the burgher and his wife to return and she invited [the burgher] to enter her palace.

The empress is in distress because she has lost her daughter. In Sefer haZohar it says: [N]ow that Israel is in exile, the Shekinah is on high, but still her might surrounds Israel so as to shield them, even when they are in a strange land. For the Shekinah is both here below and on high. The Shekinah on high abides in the twelve holy chariots and the twelve supernal Hayyoth; the lower Shekinah is among the twelve holy tribes, and thus the upper Shekinah and the lower Shekinah are intertwined, and both operate together and simultaneously. Now, when Israel is in exile, the upper Shekinah is not complete because the lower Shekinah is not complete, and that is what is meant by the Shekinah being in exile when Israel is in exile (Sefer haZohar I, 159b).

By allowing this zoharic passage to signify the mother and daughter as the upper and lower Shekhinah here in the nal part of the tale, I think the listener/reader may nd some help. The exile is what spurs the mother to act as she does in this passage, while Shekhinah is following Israel into exile. The mother confronts the emperor. The emperor is the actual and initial reason for the exile of both the burgher’s son and the empress. In the previous passage I claimed that it is the actual Israel that causes the potential Knesset Israel to go into exile. Accordingly, one could argue that the emperor represents the actual Israel and that it is his behavior that needs to change before a union between Shekhinah and Knesset Israel can take place. In the confrontation between the empress and the emperor, the empress blames him for the loss of their daughter. The accusations, despite the fact that he is actually capable of admitting that he feels sorry over the loss too, lead the emperor to exile his wife. His destructive character traits increase and he engages in wars, but now that his wife and his daughter have gone, his luck has left him as well, because everyone draws sustenance from Shekhinah. The emperor is unable to admit his responsibility for the defeats, which he suffers, when he engages in war. Instead, he blames various generals, whom he all exiles. Thankfully, the inhabitants of the country react to the injustice of the emperor. I indicated that the emperor might represent Israel;642 however, the inhabitants of his country may

642

Kaplan is convinced that the pauper/emperor represents the gentile nations; cf.

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represent the people of Israel at the point where they realize the need for justice. They begin to act—or rather react—to the behavior of their leader. They dismiss everything the emperor represents, and instead they choose everything the empress represents. Accordingly, they exile the emperor and bring back the empress from her exile to put her in charge of the people. If the empress personies the upper Shekhinah and if the inhabitants represent the people of Israel revolting against the wicked leadership of one man, then hope has been established and a step forward has been taken toward the activation of the potentiality of Knesset Israel. Upon return, the empress immediately sends for the burgher and his wife. Here it is obvious that she respects the marriage between them and that the bond between all three of them lies on a spiritual level, since there is room for the burgher’s wife as well. However, the empress invites only him to enter her palace, which signies that Shekhinah and Knesset Israel are brought closer together, since the burgher and the

Kaplan 1983: 198n; 206n. The narrative fact that the reunion between the emperor’s daughter and the burgher’s son cannot take place before these two and the emperor have been reconciled indicates, according to Kaplan, the universalistic notion of Nahman that the Messiah must be reconciled with the gentile nations before redemption can occur; cf. Kaplan 1983: 225n. The gentiles will even be rectied in the Messianic age; cf. Kaplan 1983: 228n. Kaplan argues for this by pointing to the fact that Ruth, a parallel to the emperor’s daughter, was the descendant of Moab who was the son of Lot, a gentile; cf. Kaplan 1983: 197n; 198n; 200n; 201n; 204n; 229n. But just because a gentile man fathered someone, whose descendant became crucial to the survival of Judaism and the birth of King David, does not prove that the pauper/emperor represents a gentile—and in that case the emperor’s daughter should be interpreted as the Messiah. Furthermore, as already mentioned twice, the parents’ gentile identity nds no substantiation in the text. Wiskind-Elper presents a similar understanding without showing her reader how the text substantiates her understanding. According to Wiskind-Elper, “[T]hree separate yet vitally linked narratives [are] evoked in numerous allusions” and constitute a biblical prototype for the tale (Wiskind-Elper: 28). “The three represent the gradual renement of a single theme; each is an intrigue of concealed identity, leading eventually to recognition, and its far-reaching implications. Lot is completely oblivious to his daughter’s deeds [Gen. 19], Judah mistakes his daughter-in-law Tamar for a harlot (Gen. 38), Boaz nds Ruth in the darkness of the threshing-oor. The messianic thread weaving together the three narratives is revealed in the genealogy concluding the book of Ruth: the lines of descent running from Moav, son of Lot, and from Perez, son of Tamar and Judah, converge in the union of Ruth the Moabite and Boaz, of the family of Perez—leading to the birth of King David, the messianic king” (WiskindElper: 232n59). I agree that this line of descent is very important in Tanakh. Still, Wiskind-Elper has not proved that something in this tale by Nahman substantiates that this should be hinted at.

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pauper’s/emperor’s wife at the beginning of the tale seemed to represent the potential Knesset Israel and Shekhinah in a generation prior to that of their children. 5:—5:-, 5:—2:- The emperor, who had been exiled, asked those who escorted him to release him: “Despite this, I was your emperor, and I denitely did you some good! Please, have mercy with me! Let me go, since I will denitely not return to the country anymore. You have nothing to fear! Let me go and I will then at least be free for the rest of my life!” They released him, and so he walked and walked. While walking, several years passed, and the emperor kept on walking till he came to the sea. The wind made his ship arrive at the desert from where he arrived to the place where the burgher’s son and his beautiful daughter in man’s clothes were staying. They did not recognize each other because the emperor’s hair had grown, since so many years had already passed. Their hair had grown too. They asked him: “Where do you come from?” He answered them: “I went with a merchant etc.!” They answered him likewise, and so they sat there together, ate and drank. They played on musical instruments, since all of them were able to play. The burgher’s son was the strong one among them, since he had been there longer. He brought them meat and they ate. They burned trees more valuable there than gold was in an inhabited place. The burgher’s son convinced them that this was a good place to spend the rest of their lives. Compared to the good things human beings have in inhabited places around the world, it was good for them to stay and spend the rest of their lives there. They asked the burgher’s son: “What is so good here, that you say that it is better for you here?”

The emperor, as he is sent into exile, succeeds in convincing the guards to release him. The emperor argues that he will denitely not return to his former country anymore. He claims that he has done something good for the inhabitants. He appeals to the mercy of the guards, and so they release him. As we shall see by the end of the tale it is not quite clear if the emperor returns or not. But one thing is certain. He did not do any good for the inhabitants. It was the presence of his daughter that brought prosperity, if any, to the inhabitants. The guards show mercy, and since they belong to the group of inhabitants that might represent Israel, their mercy may help further the union between Shekhinah and the potential Knesset Israel. In exile the emperor repeats the journey of the burgher’s son, who also went into exile, as well as the journey of his own daughter. When the burgher’s son walked and crossed the sea, he removed himself from

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evil. When the daughter was abducted by the murderer, evil incarnate was removed from the country. Now that the emperor is walking and crossing the sea, evil within what I believe is Israel is removing itself from the general people of Israel. This indicates the purication of the people and nds support in an upcoming change in the characteristics of the emperor. The emperor’s daughter and the burgher’s son still have not recognized each other, and there is no mutual recognition, once the emperor sits down with the two young ones to eat, drink, and play on musical instruments. The connotations of musical skills imply that now all of them, the emperor as well, are able to elevate the divine sparks and thus engage in tikkun. The burgher’s son provides food for the emperor and his daughter. Their livelihood is satisfactory—actually so good that the burgher’s son tries to convince them that they should live out their lives in this place. According to Steinsaltz, the burgher’s son reaches a state of apathy and relinquished hope of changing the outer world, once he sits in the desert trying to convince the emperor and his daughter that a life in this place of refuge will sufce. Steinsaltz considers his apathy a necessary stage in his development, since he cannot actualize his Messianic identity alone. The major role in the process of redemption is that of Shekhinah, and “the contribution of the common folk, the life and deeds of each individual Jew, is an essential factor” (Steinsaltz: 43). Wiskind-Elper also comments on the apathy and dispair of the burgher’s son. She labels it “romantic Sehnsucht” and “unbearable Weltschmerz”.643 She continues and writes: Nostalgia—for the lost Edenic world . . . marks the romantic soul. For this reason, every moment of intuitive communication with the natural world carries with it inconsolable sorrow, for the moment cannot last . . . Emblems in Reb Nahman’s works—of the map nowhere to be found . . .—echo this feeling of hiatus and disconnection. Shelly wrote that the romantic “looks before and after, and pines for what is not”; indeed, he is the burgher’s son, estranged from his beloved, who builds musical instruments to sing his melancholy memories and muse upon what is no more (Wiskind-Elper: 86).

I agree with Wiskind-Elper that the romantic “Zeitgeist” seems to have inuenced Nahman in several ways, which leads to certain romantic

643

Wiskind-Elper: 36, 81.

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traits.644 However, I am not certain if it is wise to identify these romantic traits found in the tales of Nahman with the romantic period and romanticism. What seems romantic in the tales of Nahman is submitted to the fundamental aim, which is to bring about a redemption that will alter the world. Only in the literary period of “Sturm und Drang” and the very rst few years of the romantic period does one nd authors who actually thought that the world could be changed.645 Later, the radical idealism transformed into mere “Weltschmerz” without considering this pain a spur to change the world. As far as I see it, Nahman strove with all of his soul to transcend the pain. Moments of resignation could of course appear and did so, but the fact that he worked so hard to transcend this worldly pain provides a strong argument against calling the thoughts of Nahman romantic. Instead I should like to support Steinsaltz’s notion of the needed intervention of the people of Israel. No matter if the burgher’s son is the Messiah, as Steinsaltz claims, or the potential Knesset Israel, as I claim, both characters depend on the behavior of the people. The representative of the people, the emperor, has been exiled because of his cruelty; however, it seems that he has changed during his years in exile. The remaining part of the tale will show if this is really so. 14:—5:-, 9:—5:- The burgher’s son answered them and told them what had happened to him; how he had been the burgher’s son and what had happened before he had arrived here. Even though he used to be a burgher’s son who had all sorts of good things, this was entirely good for him. He convinced them that it was good to live the rest of their lives in this place. The emperor asked him: “Have you heard about this emperor?” He replied that he had heard about him. The emperor then asked him if he had heard about the beautiful emperor’s daughter, and he answered him that he had heard about her too. The burgher’s son began to say angrily: “He is a murderer”, as if he were gnashing his teeth over him. “Why is he a murderer?” The burgher’s son answered him: “Because of his rudeness and cruelty I came here!” He asked him: “How?” The burgher’s son thought to himself that here there was nobody to fear, so

644 The focus on the zaddik parallels the cult of the genius; a three-partite view on world history parallels the timewise separation between primordial times, the state after shevirat hakelim, redemption; the fairy tale genre; a focus on inner torments often reected in the description of nature; etc. 645 Novalis would be the best example.

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he told him everything that had happened to him. He asked him: “If the emperor were in your hands, would you then take revenge on him?” He replied: “No! No, on the contrary”, since he was a merciful one, “I would take care of him like I am caring for you now!” The emperor began to sigh and moan: “How terrible and bitter this emperor’s old age is, because I heard that his beautiful daughter has been lost and that he has been exiled!” The burgher’s son said again: “Because of his rudeness and strivings he lost himself as well as his daughter, and I was sent here—all because of him!” The emperor asked the burgher’s son again: “If he were in your hands, would you take revenge on him?” He replied: “No! No, on the contrary, I would take fully care of him as I am caring for you now!” Then the emperor announced to him that he himself was this emperor and what had happened to him. The burgher’s son fell around his neck, hugged him and kissed him. The beautiful emperor’s daughter, who was still in the disguise of a man, heard everything they were talking about.

The emperor and his daughter are apparently puzzled by his attempt to convince them to stay with him in the desert, which is why they ask him to explain his enthusiasm for the desert. The burgher’s son reveals his entire past and his anger at the emperor for exiling him. The emperor asks twice if the burgher’s son wants to take revenge on him, the burgher’s son surprisingly answers that he will not take revenge on him and that he would take care of him in the same way as he is taking care of the emperor and his daughter. The emperor moans over his own terrible destiny and decides to announce his true identity. After the announcement, the burgher’s son, very surprisingly, embraces, hugs, and kisses the emperor. The emperor repents, while the burgher’s son is showing mercy. Actually, this repentance may be what causes the union between the emperor’s daughter and the burgher’s son, since repentance can cause the actualisation of the potentiality of Knesset Israel. However, the emperor’s daughter, still disguised as a man, remains in the background. She does not act upon hearing their conversation, she does not even comment on it, and she certainly does not reveal her true identity. The time is still not ripe. 14:—1:-, 7:—10:- The burgher’s son used to go for a walk every day to make signs on three trees, since there were thousands of trees and he was still searching for the letter. He made signs on three trees, so that the next day he would not have to check these three trees again. He did this every day hoping

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They hurried to bring him back. They searched for him, but they could not nd him anywhere. Her daughter told her that he was here as well. The wedding took place and there was complete happiness. The couple received the empress’s kingdom and they ruled over the entire world. Amen and amen!

The daily routine of checking trees to see if the letter should be hidden there only brings the burgher’s son sorrow and desolation. He has tears in his eyes because he cannot nd the letter. Tears can cause God to change the situation of a weeping person,646 and since the emperor’s daughter as Shekhinah represents the presence of God, she now takes action. But she does not take action alone. The burgher, who has repented his sins, takes action as well; and so all three of them engage in the search for the letter and everything it bespeaks. The tears of the potential Knesset Israel and the repentance of the one who seems to represent the sinful people are what makes the difference. The emperor’s daughter nds the letter in no time, as if it has been waiting for the tears and the repentance. She now has all the proofs she needs that the burgher’s son is her intended, but she still decides to keep her identity secret, for fear that the burgher’s son should fall like everyone else does when they see her true appearance. She therefore gives him the letter,647 just announcing that she found it, which makes him fall and faint anyway. But he soon recovers and regains his strength. He once more reacts with apathy. He gives up hope of nding the emperor’s daughter, now that he actually has the letter. He therefore hands over the letter to the emperor’s daughter, who is still dressed like a man, and asks her to go and marry the emperor’s daughter. Having the insider’s knowledge about who is who, the emperor’s daughter asks the burgher’s son to come with her and receive half of everything she is about to receive. In fairy tales the wooing part will receive half of the kingdom by marrying a royal person; and he in the world-to-come Israel will be elevated to this worldly ruler because of the divine presence in the people.648

646

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,223a. Kaplan notes that there is a similarity here with tales #1 and 2. In tale #1, she informs the second to the kingdom where she can be found by writing with her tears on a handkerchief, and in tale #2 she plans the end of her adventures in a way where she can be certain to be reunited with her true intended. Accordingly, Kaplan writes that the “Divine Presence always does everything possible to hasten the redemption”; cf. Kaplan 1983: 226n. 648 Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar II,105a, 172b. 647

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In the following Nahman emphasizes that the emperor’s daughter is Shekhinah. He says: “he (the emperor) would have no reason to be afraid anymore, because now luck would return . . .” Luck depends on Shekhinah, who sustains the world wherever she is. If she returns, the emperor will be able to return too, which only makes sense if he represents Israel. Shekhinah will not return to Israel without the people of Israel. But most importantly, the one who follows her is the burgher’s son, the potential Knesset Israel. If he succeeds in marrying the emperor’s daughter, the oaths of her mother will be fullled, connoting the covenant. When Israel adheres to the commandments, shefa will ow and Israel will be blessed with subsequent fertility and prosperity. At this point in the tale there is only one obstacle left, i.e., the angry wife of the emperor, the one I earlier suggested could represent Shekhinah in an earlier generation or the upper Shekhinah. When mother and daughter stand face to face, the daughter reveals her true identity to her. She furthermore reveals that she and the burgher’s son have nally been united. Now she will be able to live according to the oaths that the mother once swore and thereby bestow new life on the covenant. The daughter also informs her mother that the emperor is there. Her mother is still angry with her husband, whom she blames for everything. However, the daughter, who is certainly more forgiving than the mother, has decided that the union between her and the burgher’s son can only take place if the emperor is restored to his throne, and so the mother is forced to accept it. This too indicates that the emperor represents Israel. Israel has to repent its sins, but once this is done, the nation will be ready for elevation. However, they cannot nd the emperor, but it seems to be sufcient that the daughter knows that he is among them, and so the wedding nally takes place. Since the emperor cannot be found, the emperor’s daughter and the burgher’s son are established on the throne with authority to rule over the entire world. Had the emperor been found and had he been restored to the throne, it would most likely have signaled that a representative of Israel had been put in charge. But the fact that Shekhinah and Knesset Israel, as I interpret the young protagonists, have sovereign power over the entire world, indicates that the Messianic era has begun. Recapitulation The burgher and the pauper are both childless. However, two consecutive dreams predict that childlessness as a common denominator shall be

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replaced by an exchange of riches, though they will have to go through a period of loss and exile at rst. The pauper’s wife is captured by a general; however, her tears and faithfulness save her against the attempts of this evil representative to approach her. During her capture, her husband, the pauper, is revealed as someone only interested in possession. He does nothing to liberate his wife. However, the burgher, who shares the positive traits of the pauper’s wife, awakens the good woman and liberates her from within the connes of evil. It is his awakening call that causes the rst liberation of good from within evil in this tale, evoking connotations to the process of tikkun. The burgher and the pauper’s wife ee together to seven places of water. A purely platonic love between the burgher and the pauper’s wife makes her swear that she will not withhold any of the good, which should come to her, from the burgher. First of all, these places of water connote how the three patriarchs and Moses committed themselves to the covenant between God and Israel in return for future blessings. Secondly, they connote the seven lower serot and the free ow of shefa, indicating blessings and subsequent fertility. Finally, because they immerse in running water, purity with respect to the covenant and to sexuality create a promise of further blessings and subsequent fertility for the burgher and the pauper’s wife. The connotations read together furthermore hint at them being responsible for the liberation of Israel from exile, which however, must be preceded by adherence to the commandments and the liberation of the divine sparks. The promise of blessings and subsequent fertility for the burgher and the pauper’s wife comes true when the burgher begets a son with his wife while the pauper’s wife bears her husband a daughter of superhuman beauty. Superhuman beauty is a characteristic of Shekhinah, and the daughter should be interpreted as such. The burgher suggests a match between their children, and the pauper’s wife remembers that she swore not to withhold any of the good, which should come to her, from the burgher. Her oaths become a repetition of the covenant between God and Israel. However, the pauper, who gradually becomes elevated to emperor because he draws sustenance from his daughter, the representative of Shekhinah, is unwilling to complete the match between the two children. He is interested in his own power, and he rules over judges who present verdicts in his interests. This world is full of sin; and this worldly sin as the obstacle for the liberation of Israel from exile is reected in the character of the ex-pauper, the emperor. The level of sin increases when the emperor decides to exile the

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burgher’s son to avoid the match between the two children. The expauper’s wife, who is now empress, introduces the daughter to the oaths, which she once swore in the seven places of water, and makes it clear to her that the fulllment of these oaths connoting the covenant depends on the marriage between her and the burgher’s son. This helps the listener/reader to see the son as the potential Knesset Israel who will be actualized once they have married. The daughter, the representative of God’s divine presence, writes a letter to the burgher’s son and draws a map of the seven places of water to initiate him in the importance of their union. The burgher’s son receives this letter just before he is exiled. However, once he has found an Edenic place to stay, a tempest fells the tree in which he has concealed the letter, which signies a setback in the redemptive process. He cannot nd the letter after this catastrophe and is subsequently overcome by apathy and resignation. Alone within the connes set by her sinful father, the father is trying to force her to marry a number of suitors. The daughter pretends to be willing to nd a partner, but turns the wooing process into a music and poetry contest. Each suitor will under no circumstances be able to win the contest since they do not share the information she passed on to the burgher’s son in the letter. But their recitation of music and poetry assists her in elevating the divine sparks trapped within evil, and this is how she engages herself and them in the process of tikkun. However, the state of the world is worsened. A murderer, representing death and this-worldly illusion, abducts Shekhinah. But by using her cunning, the emperor’s daughter succeeds in escaping and in leaving the evil representative to be killed. She nds the burgher’s son, the potential Knesset Israel, but he cannot recognize her because she is dressed in male clothing and because his potentiality has not yet been actualized. The lack of actualisation is caused by the increased amount of sins, reected in the emperor, who now exiles the empress along with several innocent representatives of the state. The degree of injustice is what nally awakens the people. They decide to exile the one who incarnates the sins of Israel, i.e., the emperor, and to bring back the empress to have her rule instead. The emperor happens to ee to the place where the burgher’s son and his own daughter are staying. The emperor has become wiser during exile and repents his sins, once he has recognized the burgher’s son, probably indicating his recognition of the necessity of the covenant between God and Israel. The emperor’s daughter is still in disguise and does not give away her identity. However, she nds the lost letter, the

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marker of Torah, the Messianic era, liberation and covenant, and hands it over to the burgher’s son for a second time. The burgher’s son/the potential Knesset Israel, still overcome by apathy, has lost faith in ever being united with Shekhinah. It is therefore Shekhinah who has to tempt him into following her to the empire of her father, by saying to him that she, still dressed like a man, will share everything with him. They invite the emperor as well, now that he has repented his sins. It is as if it is the emperor’s repentance that leads to their common return to the empire. The burgher’s son agrees, and so united the representative of Israel, Shekhinah, and the potential Knesset Israel return to the empire where Shekhinah and Knesset Israel are both elevated to rulers, indicating the beginning of the Messianic era.

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chapter four 4.11 The Eleventh Tale The King’s Son and the Maid’s Son Who Were Switched

Introduction The eleventh tale649 is named “      ” in the bilingual version—i.e., the king’s son and the maid’s son who were switched. The Hebrew text begins “   ,   

  ”; i.e., a tale about a king who had a maid in his house. With a similar meaning the Yiddish text begins: “      

         . ”. All commentators refer to the title in the bilingual version.650 Band calls it “The King’s Son and the Maidservant’s Son Who Were Switched”.651 Steinsaltz calls it “The King’s Son and the Son of the Maid”.652 Kaplan sums up the content of the title and calls it “The Exchanged Children”.653 So does Wiskind-Elper, who calls it “The Two Sons who were Reversed”.654 A maid in the king’s house gives birth to a son at the same time as the queen does, and the switch does not incriminate the maid. The maid’s role is minimal in the tale and subsequently there is no reason to choose a title referring to the initial sentences. Instead focus should

649 Tale #11 was told on a Saturday evening, on 14 October 1809, the day where the Treaty of Schönbrun was signed, giving Napoleon control over Austria’s share of Poland, including the Warsaw area, bringing Napoleon’s inuence closer to Nahman’s domain. Ever since Nahman encountered the troops of Napoleon on his journey to the Holy Land, he often inquired about Napoleon. During this journey, Nahman met with various Turks who made obstacles for him and for Jews in general, who lived in the Ottoman Empire. The Turks declared war on France in September 1798. Turkey as a common enemy could be one of many reasons for Nahman’s fascination with Napoleon; cf. Kaplan 1985: 28–53. By coincidence, on the evening of 14 October, Nahman was informed that Napoleon used to be a plain servant, and so Nahman replied: “Who knows what sort of soul he has? It could be it was exchanged, because in the Chamber of Exchanges the souls are sometimes changed”. Upon this, he told tale #11 about the king’s son and the maid’s son who were switched; cf. Hayyey MoHaRaN #61; Kaplan 1983: 231; Wiskind-Elper: 30. Someone with particular interest in historical circumstances might be able to nd references in tale #11 to the rise of Napoleon. However, it is my impression that as soon as Nahman uttered the words “the Chamber of Exchanges”, his mind was already deeply immersed in thoughts about the fate of the souls. 650 Cf.  1975: 172; : 81 in their Hebrew commentary to the tale. 651 Cf. Band 1978: 189. 652 Cf. Steinsaltz: 44. 653 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 231. 654 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 29.

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be directed at the relationship between the two sons, which remains a central theme throughout the tale. The plot of the tale is to restore these two persons to their intended positions. By restoring the king’s son to a position as heir to the throne and by restoring the maid’s son to a position as servant of this heir, the switch can be rectied. I shall therefore refer to the eleventh tale as “The King’s Son and the Maid’s Son who were Switched”. Summary Within a royal household, a queen and a maid each give birth at the same time to a son. The midwife decides to see what will happen if she switches the sons, and so she switches them. The midwife reveals to someone that she has switched the sons. Soon, the entire world knows about the switch, except for those characters affected by it. However, one day the real maid’s son, whom everybody expects to be the king’s son, comes to know about the switch and decides to harass the king’s real son and the latter’s foster-father to such an extent that they will leave the country. When the maid’s real son is made king after the old king’s death, the king’s real son is exiled. Depressed from being exiled, the king’s real son decides to become a drunk and to visit brothels. The new king, who is really the maid’s son, begins to repent his deed but engages in work to keep the thoughts of repentance at a distance. The king’s real son also begins to repent his way of life, though it takes a recurring dream to convince him to accept a job as an animal driver. One day, two animals run away into a thick forest, and the king’s real son pursues them. He decides, once deep within the forest, to remain there. Inside the forest, the king’s real son is afraid of the wild animals. He therefore spends the nights in a tree. One day he sees another human being lying underneath the tree. The other human being had come there because he was chasing his horse. They become friends and promise each other always to stick together. At dawn they hear a clamorous laughing voice spreading all over the forest and causing the trees to rock and tremble. At this point, they descend from the tree and begin chasing their respective animals and get lost from one another. The king’s real son nds a bag with bread and takes it with him. He meets a forest man who is no human being at all. The king’s real son condes in the forest man, telling him that he has come to this part of the forest because he was chasing animals. The forest man tells him: “You have to stop chasing your sins! These creatures are not animals at

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all. Your sins have led you astray to this place! Stop it! You have already received your punishment, so stop chasing them! Come with me and come to what you deserve!”655 The king’s real son follows the forest man. They meet the friend, who is starving so much that he agrees to sell himself to the king’s real son as an eternal slave for some bread. Upon this, all three of them walk together. They pass by snakes and scorpions and nally arrive safely at the house of the forest man, which oats in the air. The forest man takes care of them by giving them something to eat and drink, and then he leaves just before daybreak. The friend regrets that he sold himself as a slave to the king’s real son for a piece of bread, and when asked why he regrets it, the friend reveals his identity as the maid’s son who had caused the real king’s son to be expelled. To rectify his sin he had decided to abdicate the throne. The king’s real son realizes who his friend is, but decides not to say anything and wait to see how to behave toward him. At night the forest man explains that the clamorous laughing voice that can be heard just before dawn is really a matter of the day laughing at the night. The following night they hear the scary voices of wild animals and fowls. But the more they listen, the more wonderful and beautiful the voices become, until they all dissolve into the most wonderfully chanted melody. The forest man explains that this is the way of the sun to make a garment for the moon and for the wild animals and fowls to perform a melody in honor of the moon that shines for them at night. The forest man takes the king’s real son and his friend to an inhabited place. Before departing, the forest man gives the king’s real son an instrument that can play the melody of the wild animals and fowls if it is placed on the back of an animal or a fowl. The instrument will furthermore guide the king’s real son to understand how to behave toward his slave. The forest man then tells them to go to “the crazy country and the wise kingdom” and that the king’s real son will nd his greatness there. When the king’s real son and his friend arrive at this country they are not allowed to enter because the king has died and the name of the country has changed to “the wise country and the crazy kingdom”. Only the one who can restore to the country its original name will be

655

Cf. 14–8: -, 9–4: -.

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allowed to enter and will furthermore be made king. A human being, riding on a horse, approaches them and is not allowed to enter the country either. The king’s real son places the instrument on the back of this human being’s horse, and so it begins to play the wonderful melody. The human being buys the instrument and in return he gives the king’s real son the ability to differentiate one thing from another. With his newly gained ability to differentiate one thing from another, the king’s real son understands how to restore to the country its original name. He approaches the ministers of the country who inform him about the premises of the test, which will reveal if he is capable of restoring to the country its original name. The test implies that the king’s real son will have to enter the most marvelous garden. Once inside, different instruments will begin to chase him and drive him out of the garden. The king’s real son enters the garden and sees that a drawing of a human being is standing next to the garden. The drawing reects a king, during whose reign there was peace. After him wars had followed. The king’s real son understands that he will not be chased by the instruments if he stands next to this drawing. Furthermore, if he moves the drawing to the center of the garden and places it in front of himself, every human being will be able to enter the garden. The king’s real son acts according to this, and subsequently he can leave the garden unharmed. The ministers give him an additional test. They need him to explain the meaning of a certain chair with wooden animals and fowls standing around it. Next to the chair there are different pieces of furniture. Roads emerge from this chair in all directions, on which wild animals made of metal threaten to swallow passers-by. The king’s real son walks to the chair. He notices that the chair is made of the same wood as the instrument given to him by the forest man. He also notices that a rose has fallen from the top of the chair. The king’s real son understands that he just has to place the rose on the top of the chair, upon which the chair will gain the power of the instrument. He understands that it is just a matter of moving everything back to its intended place. When the king’s real son has put everything in its intended place, everything begins to play the very wonderful melody. In this way the king’s real son answers the nal question of the ministers and is subsequently made king. It is only at this point that he himself realizes that he is truly the king’s real son.

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Scholarly comments on the tale Kook extracts the theological consequences for the believing reader with references to and with respect for the text, which—despite her lack of a typical academic approach—makes it a highly convincing reading of the eleventh tale. According to her, the eleventh tale conveys the message that man is situated in an eternal struggle between the internal forces of good and evil. This struggle is reected in the plot as well as on the theological level of the tale.656 Kook quotes Likkutey MoHaRaN where Nahman explains how the perplexity of man arose.657 When man ate from the Tree of Knowledge, good and evil were mixed and the world entered a state of confusion. The world will only return to its intended state, when the generations have untangled the ingredients of the present day mixture of life.658 Kook sees this mixture or entanglement reected in the eleventh tale in the exchange of the two sons. The entanglement is double; there is a national and a personal aspect to it. The national aspect is the reversal of the intended roles of the nations. Israel is enslaved and in exile. The personal aspect of the entanglement is reected in Jews not striving for the good. Israel as one nation and the Jews as a group of individuals end up under the dominion of “sinful Greece” as wanderers in pain.659 The test of the king’s son and the maid’s son parallel the test of the soul and the body. The soul is a part of the divine above, whereas the body is part of matter. Man was created with the purpose of letting the body serve the soul as a servant serves his master. The body should set aside its passions and surrender entirely to the will of the

Cf. : 97. Kook does not mention from which part of Likkutey MoHaRaN the quotation is taken. However, she points to the perplexity and confusion of the protagonist. For some time analysts have understood Nahman as a forerunner of modernity and especially of Franz Kafka. Here one could mention Schwartz’s article from 1982. Also obvious to mention is Karl Erich Grözinger: Kafka and Kabbalah, Continuum International Publishing Group, New York, 1994. Wiskind-Elper mentions the parallels in WiskindElper: 17; 169. However, Kook rejects this notion by emphasizing that man, according to Kafka, is subjugated to a fate, which is blind, and tormented by nightmares, which are not. Nahman, on the other hand, deals with existing reasons for fear and nightmares and always outlines a way out, a way toward a safe haven under God’s protection. Man does not get lost unless he is sinful, and even if this is so, the world always offers ways of tikkun, repentance and guidance to the lost one; cf. : 97. 658 Cf. : 97. 659 Cf. : 98. 656 657

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soul, which again reects the will of God. The nal aim is to splinter the body to such an extent that the body is transformed to soul and that the body, therefore, cannot do anything but perform the will of God out of love of God. If man succeeds in merging his bodily and spiritual urges, evil will be transformed and lead to a step forward in man’s service of God.660 Thanks to the sin of expelling the king’s real son from his intended place, the real maid’s son becomes aware of his intended position. One should remember how Kook interpreted the maid’s son as the body and the king’s son as the soul. The body has to come to realize its role as servant for the soul. This is why the real maid’s son has to nd the king’s son and help him nd his intended way. The body and what might appear as a representative of evil has become a helper for the spirit in the overall tikkun of the individual man.661 The eleventh tale is, according to Dan, unique in that it has an ending and in that it emphasizes how presents shall be used in comparison with the thirteenth tale, in which the listener/reader never hears how they were used.662 There are enough referents at the end of the eleventh tale to indicate a Lurianic context. The harmony that is achieved thanks to the niggun refers to the sixth beggar in the thirteenth tale. The rose is Shekhinah. When the rose is restored to its position on top of the chair it connotes tikkun of this worldly reality and the return of Shekhinah to the serotic system. The lion probably represents judgment. The roads connote the channels for the shefa, and once they are rectied they connote the free ow of the shefa.663 Dan states that Nahman is bolder in this tale than in the rst and the thirteenth. The king’s real son is depicted not only at the peak of his achievements, but also at the point where he has sunken into delement, where he behaves as if he were a maid’s son and not a king’s son, and where the depths of sin and despair dominate. The nuanced description, along with the fact that this tale is nished and has an ending, at which the king’s real son consolidates his own identity and the identity of the maid’s son, leads

Cf. : 98–99. Cf. : 102. 662 Cf.  1975: 175. One has to add that it is not unique that tale #11 has an ending. Eleven out of thirteen tales have an end! 663 Cf.  1975: 177–178. 660 661

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Dan to suggest that the tale describes the process of recognizing one’s true identity, which is only a matter of individual tikkun. The Kabbalistic symbols that point to the process of tikkun are only part of the plot. The essence of the description of the fall and rise of the king’s real son is autobiographic and not Messianic. It reects Nahman’s inner conict concerning his identity. Being the great grandson of the #xal Shem Tov, expectations were imposed upon him. However, reality revealed him as someone who had fallen from his position, who had only a small community of followers, and who was persecuted. He had inner doubts concerning these expectations reected in his teachings about the true zaddik and his Messianic purpose. He had thoughts about heresy and philosophy, he knew about sexual passions, and he was accused of sins. However, through the tale he convinces himself that he can take upon himself the task of redemption. The king’s real son should therefore be interpreted as Nahman himself, according to Dan.664 Steinsaltz is aware that the eleventh tale can be read in many ways, but he chooses to present one more or less coherent reading based on Kabbalistic and Hasidic symbolism.665 Steinsaltz’s understanding of the eleventh tale is more or less similar to that of Kook,666 which becomes clear when he chooses to understand the overall message to be concerned with man possessing an animal soul and a divine soul.

664 Cf.  1975: 178. I do not understand why the consolidation of individual identities rules out a tikkun on the collective level, when it is obvious in the tale that the whole world benets from the rectication he performs. The universal consequence of the protagonist’s rectications indicate, as far as I see it, a Messianic meaning. 665 Unfortunately, Steinsaltz hardly ever supports his reading by providing his reader with references, whether they are references to religious or academic texts, or as in this case, to mystical symbols. 666 It is difcult to nd out who is inspired by whom or if Kook and Steinsaltz independently have reached a similar understanding. Kook’s commentaries were published in 1977, though she had them ready in 1973 when she was killed. Green mentions her commentaries as published in 1973; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 386. Kook only refers to writings of Nahman and later Bratslavers. In Steinsaltz 1979, he mentions different interpretations of the symbolism of the tale without providing his reader with any names; cf. Steinsaltz: 60. His book does not contain a bibliography. If one consults Green’s presentation of Steinsaltz’s work, it is explained how Steinsaltz’s commentaries to the different tales rst appeared in stencil and then later as essays; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 368n1, though Green leaves out a reference to these essays in his bibliography. Band’s reference to Steinsaltz is to three essays; one appeared in 1974 and two in 1977. In other words, I cannot conclude who came rst, though the tentative and sensitive close reading of Yehudit Kook seems more like pioneer work to me than Steinsaltz’s more nished formulations.

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The animal soul gives life to the body, whereas the divine soul yearns toward the divine.667 The tale portrays the inner struggle for a correct relationship between the two souls, through sufferings of regret and repentance. Divine and animal are drawn into the mysterious forest of the soul’s confusion, and a way out of this confusion is found. The concluding section describes the divine soul’s way toward a higher solution of the world’s problems (Steinsaltz: 60–61).

In his introduction to the eleventh tale Band states that the “trials of the son and his feats of exorcism and repair have naturally led Bratslav exegetes to explain this story as an allegory of the process of tikkun”.668 Band’s own understanding appears to be more psychological. He sees the tale as “a study in the discovery or rediscovery of self ” (Band 1978: 315) and emphasizes that the fantastic is employed to externalise psychological states as steps in the restoration of the prince’s sense of identity.669 According to Band, one could expect a happy ending when the maid’s son abdicates the throne because he has realized that it is not rightly his, and when the king’s son has realized his true princehood. However, as Band notices, only when the king’s real son “earned this position by exorcising the bewitched garden and repairing the royal chamber, does he accept his own identity as king” (Band 1978: 315). Band nishes his commentary by writing that the true prince’s superior wisdom is not so much a matter of birth as a divine gift, a reward for his rejection of the dissolute life and his payment . . . for his sins . . . The courage needed to undertake the two trials was born of his condence in his newly gained power of reasoning. Repentance, thus, leads to wisdom which, in turn, leads to courage; these three qualities make him t to be king (Band 1978: 316).

Kaplan writes that the eleventh tale “speaks of the World of Rectication and the renement of the souls and sparks of holiness that have fallen into the realm of the unclean”.670 I shall return to Kaplan’s comments on the details of the tale when relevant.

667

Cf. Steinsaltz: 60. Cf. Band 1978: 191, see also 316. 669 Cf. Band 1978: 316. Band’s overall interpretation of the tale as concerned with the psychological quest of discovering or rediscovering of self is denitely one aspect of the tale, but I do not believe that his interpretation would be able to stand alone. 670 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 231. 668

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Wiskind-Elper sees the eleventh tale as the most complete portrait in Sippurey Maxasiyot of the Messiah in his struggle to fulll his divine appointment.671 The tale “revolves around the notion of disguises. Here, though, the protagonist’s true nature is concealed—both from the world and from himself—and this double blindness, we learn, bespeaks a fundamental truth that dictates the course of history” (Wiskind-Elper: 29–30). Disguises are seen as a part of reality where the quest of each individual becomes a matter of removing these disguises. This tale, however, is particularly concerned about removing the disguises covering the redeemer’s soul.672 Concerning the reversal of intended positions of masters and servants, Wiskind-Elper points to Eccl. 10,7 and Is. 49,23 as two intertextual passages and to the reversed roles of Isac and Ismael, Jacob and Esau, Ephraim and Manasseh, David and Saul as possible inspirations.673 Roskies categorizes this tale as belonging to the group of tales in Sippurey Maxasiyot where evil is set in motion, in this case by the maidservants, because the generation is approaching the eleventh hour before the nal redemption. This is Roskies’s only comment on the tale.674 Analysis 12:—1:-, 8:—1:- Once there was a king who had a maid in his house who waited on the queen. (Nobody was allowed to cook for the king or to get close to him, so this maid attended this king with minor services). The time came for the queen to give birth, and simultaneously time came for the maid to give birth too. The midwife went and switched the children to see what would come out of it and how it would inuence them. She switched the children and placed the king’s son next to the maid and the maid’s son next to the queen. The sons grew up. The “king’s son” (the one who grew up in the presence of the king, since people expected him to be the king’s son)

671

Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 31. Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 30. 673 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 30. 674 Cf. Roskies 2002: 79. It is important to stress that in this tale, evil is set in motion by the midwife, not by the maidservant. It is true that the maid’s son performs acts of evil, but they were initiated by the midwife. 672

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grew taller and taller, he learned to walk and became a grown and very important person.675 The “maid’s son” (the king’s son who grew up in the presence of the maid) grew up in his home. The two sons studied together in the same heder. The king’s real son, who was called the maid’s son, was by nature attracted to royal manners, though he grew up in the house of a servant. His opposite, the maid’s son, who was called the king’s son, was by nature attracted to manners which were not royal, though he grew up in the house of a king. However, he was forced to behave with the royal manners by which he was brought up.

In the rst passage two hierarchies are outlines. One hierarchy is the one that exists within the household of the king. The king is placed on top of the hierarchy at a distance from ordinary people. Only the queen and the queen’s maid can get close to him. The maid serves the queen as well as the king. This hierarchy adheres to the expectations one might have to a royal hierarchy, though it is noteworthy that nobody can get close to the king. It seems that the king has taken measures of precaution and security so that nobody can harm him. The other hierarchy relates to the situation immediately after the birth of the sons. This hierarchy is turned upside down by a midwife who takes advantage of the simultaneous birth of the royal son and the maid’s son to switch them. She is able to do so because security measures have not been taken in the nursing room, which is contrary to the security measures the king has taken for himself. The exchange causes the disorder of the hierarchy, where the king’s real son is forced to grow up as a maid’s son and the real maid’s son is forced to grow up as a king’s son. The disorder of this second hierarchy is on the narrative level considered a problem. It is explained that the king’s son in the disguise of a maid’s son is attracted to royal manners and that the maid’s son in the disguise of a king’s son by nature is attracted to something else than royal manners. Both sons are uncomfortable, and at this point in the tale neither of them knows why. They lack an understanding of their natural strivings, and this lack constitutes the rst problem of the tale.

675 Band translates this sentence in this way: “And ‘the king’s son’ (the one who was reared by the king, because they thought he was the king’s son) was elevated from rank to rank until he became an important person”; cf. Band 1978: 193. Band’s translation is also possible, as I see it.

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The midwife deserves some attention. She does not belong to the regular staff of the royal household. The simultaneous birth of the two sons requires her presence. The only reason mentioned for her act is that she wants to see what will come out of the switch and how it will inuence the children. The nursing room has been turned into the midwife’s private, experimental laboratory where she gives no consideration to anyone but herself and her whims. Her selshness is supported in the next passage where she is described as self-assertive. An interesting phenomenon is that the midwife and the maid constitute two opposites. In Jewish mysticism “maid” connotes Lilith676 and her strivings to usurp the power over Shekhinah.677 This is not the case here. The maid in this tale conforms to her intended role as a servant and does not gain anything from the switch. She is just as much a victim as are the royal parents. The midwife, by contrast, does not conform to her intended role as a midwife, as someone who has the responsibility for the child during birth. She does not accept her intended role, and this is one of the reasons that the hierarchy between the sons is turned upside down. In Jewish tradition, Lilith does not always accept her intended role as maidservant. And she denitely did not accept her intended role as Adam’s rst wife.678 Furthermore, there are a few places where Lilith or Sitra haRa is associated with childbirth, where the overall impression is that Lilith constitutes a threat to the newborn child.679 This gives me reason to assume that the midwife in Nahman’s tale could reect traits of Lilith when she does not accept her intended role as maidservant. In line with Kook’s understanding of the king’s son and the maid’s son as representatives of soul and body, Steinsaltz interprets the king’s son to represent the divine soul, whereas the maid’s son represents the animal soul. The king represents God. The king’s son is considered the divine offspring in humans, and the maid’s son is intentionally born and placed within the royal household because the animal soul is

676 677 678

Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar II,96a. Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar I,122a–b. Cf. Louis Ginzberg: The Legends of the Jews, Philadelphia, 1946–1947, Vol. I:

65. 679 Cf. in Nidah 24b where Lilith is associated with abortion. In the Alphabet of Ben Sira, Lilith attacks infants—male infants on their rst night and female infants until they are twenty days old. In Sefer haZohar III,249a–b it takes an act of evil to deliver the child/to make the shefa ow from Shekhinah. Later, Lilith goes through the world and kills infants; cf. Sefer haZohar I,19b.

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related in some way with the Divine . . . The two children are dependent on each other, and the one cannot exist without the other. The divine soul needs the animal soul in order to live, and the animal soul needs the divine soul in order to nd direction. However, normal relations depend on the king’s son being the ruler—a natural state which is disturbed by the unfortunate exchange (Steinsaltz: 61–62).

Even though it is too soon at this point in the tale to determine the meaning of the different characters, I am willing to go along with Kook’s and Steinsaltz’s interpretation of the characters because of some literary support I nd in the text. One could have expected Nahman to present a clear-cut dualism between the queen and the maid and between the king’s son and the maid’s son, which could then have led the listener/reader to expect a tale about good versus evil. This, however, is not the case. Already in the rst passage, a harmonious relationship exists between the queen and the maid. A similar relationship exists between the king’s son and the maid’s son, who are capable of studying together despite their individual problems. This advocates for some kind of relation between the two sons, who, furthermore, are victimized by the same switch. Steinsaltz then claims that the switch does not reect a singular, specic event. It is a “‘mistake’ that occurs at every man’s birth: the animal soul is placed in an advantageous position relative to the divine soul”. Steinsaltz then continues to describe how the animal soul in its elevated state actually “tends to return to his own nature”; since “the animal part of man is neither ‘evil’ nor ‘dark’.” The king’s true son is just as uncomfortable in his role as the maid’s true son.680 In their exchanged positions, the divine and animal souls can only live together as long as they are unaware of their true identity. At the beginning of the tale the strivings of the two souls, toward servant- and kingship, are unconscious. Steinsaltz is here claiming something about the exchange of souls and their natural tendency to return to their intended position, where it would have been helpful with a reference. It is true that one could interpret the entire tale to convey this message, but at this point in the tale this claim should not be considered more than a hunch. One additional question should be asked about the role of the king who might be God. The king is distant and unreachable for the people (the queen and the maid make an exception). This distance provides the

680

Cf. Steinsaltz: 62.

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necessary protection for the king, but the distance also conveys a general difference between the king and his people. This could signify the king as the ruler in the world of Ayin, where God as the most transcendent aspect and with the most transcendent thoughts by essence is different from mankind, which he has created. The nursery could be considered some kind of vacuum in which God decides to create. The world, where the remaining part of the tale takes place, could be considered the world of Yesh. The dichotomy between these two worlds originated according to Lurianic Kabbalah as a consequence of tsimtsum and shevirat hakelim, where evil gained power to distort the intended plans of God and the intended relationship between bodily and spiritual forces, and where it became incumbent upon man to assist God in the process of tikkun, of rectifying things to their intended position.681 Finally, the information that the two sons studied in the same heder ties the tale to a Jewish context. It furthermore points to the development of the plot, since the happy endings in Nahman’s other tales, where two children have studied together in the same heder, have more or less depended on the establishment of a harmonious union between the two students.682 8:—13:-, 3:—9:- The midwife, who was self-assertive and light-living683 like women are, went and revealed the secret to someone that she had switched the sons. This someone had a friend who also had a friend, and the secret was revealed from one person to his friend and then very soon to the entire world, until the entire world gossiped about how the king’s son had been switched. However, one was not allowed to talk about this and reveal it to the king, since they were certainly not allowed to let the king know about

681 Cf. Scholem 1974 (1946): 244–286; Matt 1994: 13–15; Matt’s text samples from Luria and Vital in Matt 1994: 94–95, 149, 195–196, 214; Idel 1998: 164–175. 682 Cf. tales #2, 9, and 10. 683 Band translates this sentence: “And the midwife (since ‘women are frivolous’) told someone the secret of how she exchanged the sons”; cf. Band 1978: 193. In the Hebrew it says: “      ,       , "   ”; cf. -: 9—10. In the Yiddish it says: “)       .   

      .          (             ”; cf. 1:—13:-. In my opinion Band is

blurring the negative conception of women by making a summary of the words that are actually being used, putting them in parentheses and furthermore putting this summary within quotation marks. Negative and positive expressions should be rendered as such and should not be blurred.

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it, because what could the king do about it? There was no rectication to the matter; one is not supposed to believe what might be a lie; and one could not redo the switch. Therefore it was denitely forbidden for anyone to reveal this to the king. The people gossiped about this only among themselves. One day someone went and revealed the secret to the [assumed] king’s son, about what people said about him. [This someone continued:] “But you cannot look into the matter, since it would be beneath your dignity. You cannot look into the matter at all! But I shall announce this to you, since there might be a conspiracy against the throne and the conspiracy might be strengthened because of this, since they would say that they would appoint the king’s son king”, that is the one whom they believed to be the king’s real son. “Because of this, you will have to consider how to get rid of this son!” (These words came from the person who had revealed the secret to the maid’s son, who was called the king’s son). The [assumed] king’s son went and caused evil things to happen to the other son’s father (who was his own biological father), and he always succeeded in causing evil things to happen to the other son’s father. He always caused evil things to happen to him, one evil after the other, so that the father would be forced to move together with his son. Nevertheless, as long as the king lived, [the assumed king’s son] did not have much inuence. Later, when the king grew old and eventually died, the [assumed] king’s son took over the throne. He then did even more evil things to the father of the other son, one evil after the other. He did it in a very shrewd way, in a way so that the world would not understand that he was the one who did the evil things to him, since the masses would nd it unpleasant. He used to conceal the matter and constantly cause him harm. The father of the other son understood that he was the one who had caused him harm because of the aforementioned matter. So he told his son (that is the king’s real son who seemed to be this father’s son because of the switch) everything about the matter. He said to him that he felt great compassion for him no matter where his soul came from. “If you are my son, of course I will feel compassion for you. If you are the king’s real son, I will certainly feel an even greater compassion for you, since he will try to get rid of you completely. God forbid! This is why you will be forced to move from here. It was really an evil matter in his eyes. The [new] king succeeded in harming him with one evil after the other, and so the son decided to move. His father gave him a lot of money, and so he left. The son was deeply mortied at being exiled from his country for no reason. He thought to himself: “Why and because of what did I end up being exiled? If I am the king’s son, this should certainly not happen to me! If I am not the king’s son, it should not happen to me that I should have to escape for no reason! What is my sin?” It caused him a lot of harm, and so he began to drink and went to a brothel. He wanted to spend the rest of his life there, to get drunk and behave according to his heart’s desire, because he had been exiled for no reason.

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The general statement about women being light-living and self-assertive is really puzzling given the narrative fact that the queen and the maid actually conform to their intended roles within the household of the male monarch. If the listener/reader is supposed to take this statement as a general opinion that reects the truth, then I have no other explanation than this: The women within the king’s household are not ordinary women. Maybe Steinsaltz is too absolute when he claims that the king represents God.684 It may be that the king only reects a certain male aspect of God and that the queen should be interpreted as a feminine aspect with another assistant aspect close to her. Lilith was intended to be Shekhinah’s maid,685 which she is when the people refrain from sin, so the maid could reect Lilith in her intended positive role. That would still leave room for the midwife to be the evil Lilith, which I have already indicated in the analysis of the previous passage. This understanding nds further support in this current passage when it is said that the midwife gossips. Lilith is known to gossip,686 and it is this gossip that eventually leads to the confrontation between the two sons.687 It is interesting that the midwife and every blabbermouth try to prevent the king from knowing about the switch. This could reect a strategy of the evil representative, since the king, if he knew, of course would do everything within his power to return the sons to their intended positions. The midwife and the blabbermouths claim that the king cannot rectify the matter, though this remains an unsubstantiated narrative claim. The midwife as an evil representative gains power by convincing people that the king is incompetent in this case. Nevertheless, one cannot deny that the midwife actually initiates a gossiping process, which refers to the truth, i.e., that the two sons were actually switched. The gossip initiates the entire process of rectication, and as such she serves as a tool in the service of the good. This would not contradict that she should reect traits of the evil Lilith, since evil sometimes is seen as the necessary means to alter a situation. Someone informs the king’s false son about the switch, i.e., that he is really not the king’s son; and this someone furthermore suggests

684

Cf. Steinsaltz: 61. Cf. Sefer haZohar II,108b. 686 Cf. how Lilith is associated with the strange woman from Prov. 5 and 7 in, e.g., Sefer haZohar II,242b–244b. 687 Cf. Steinsaltz: 62–64 as well. 685

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that he be rid of the king’s real son. While revealing the truth to the king’s false son, this someone atters him by speaking about dignity. One could consider this attery as an example of temptation. If this someone succeeds in preventing the king’s false son from looking into the matter, the tempting forces, be it Lilith or another representative of Sitra haRa, can continue to stay in power. The king’s false son becomes guilty of sin, once he accepts the advice to get rid of the king’s real son. So far, he has been unaware of the switch. He has been victimized by the switch, cf. his nonroyal strivings, and is now victimized by the attering and tempting words of the cunning informer. There is something very demonic about the blabbermouths; and there is something very human about the king’s false son, who accepts the attery and who decides to ght for his wrongly gained position in order to remain in what appears to be a position of power. Nobody or no religious world-view is there to guide him to act otherwise. The king’s false son tries to uphold his apparent power position by hurting the foster father of the king’s real son, who is really his own biological father. By causing evil things to happen to his biological father, the king’s false son hopes that it can bring the king’s real son to move away and thereby remove him further away from his original position. Once the king is dead, the king’s false son, who now becomes king, begins to act with the same kind of cunning as the midwife and the last blabbermouth, as if the absence of the king’s real son causes evil to increase within the maid’s real son. The foster father, however, has not been corrupted. On the contrary, he is able to understand one thing from another. He understands that the evils that torment his house are stemming from the king’s false son, who has now become king. The foster father is not only characterized by this understanding, he is furthermore characterized by compassion, which enables him to love his foster son, whether he is his son or the king’s son. The foster father believes in God, cf. the exclamation: “God forbid!” The foster father advises the son, real or unreal, to move out of range from the evil acts of the new king. Finally, the foster father gives his son a lot of money to help him save his life. The foster father has not been susceptible to evil’s attempt to obtain power through gossip; on the contrary, he has remained an honest and responsible man. The listener/reader has to ask why this is so, and the only difference I see between who is affected by gossip and who is not, is that the foster father believes in God. The king’s false son has nobody or no religious

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world-view to guide him to act otherwise, and so he is corrupted. Human beings need a belief as guidance, which is what I see as the main message in this passage. The king’s real son ees into exile. He is not certain as to whose son he is. But no matter what the answer is, it is unfair that he is forced to leave everything, which is why he asks: “What is my sin?” Is it possible to commit a sin, when one is not aware of it? The lack of understanding leads to confusion,688 and confusion leads the son into sin, i.e., drinking and whoring. Fall follows upon fall, as Kook says,689 and so the sin, which he does not understand, is followed by a consciously sinful behavior. 4: —9:-, 3: —3:- The [new] king had rmly taken over the throne. When he heard that some people were gossiping and talking about the switch, he punished them and took revenge on them. He ruled the country with authority and strength. One day, when the king went hunting together with his ministers, they came to a beautiful place with a river lled with water. They stayed there to rest and travel around. The king lay down and it came to his mind what he had done and how he had exiled the other son for no reason. “Where does your soul come from?690 If [the other son] were the king’s son, it would be sufcient that he had been switched. There would be no reason to exile him, because what is his sin?” The king thought about this and repented the sin and the great injustice he had done. He did not know how to advise his soul to do something about it or if it was possible to talk about the matter with anybody and ask for his advice. He became very sad and was very worried. He told his ministers to return. Now that he was overcome with fear he did not feel like traveling around. They returned to their homes. When the king returned to his home, he certainly had things to attend to, and so he engaged in work and the matter left his mind.

688 According to Steinsaltz, the drunkenness and exile are “symptoms of a condition in which the soul yearns for something pure and exalted but cannot cope with the realities of the human existence”, Steinsaltz: 64. 689 Cf. : 99–100. 690 Band translates this important sentence in this way: “For it’s either/or!”; cf. Band 1978: 195. In the Hebrew it says: “-

”; cf. -: 4. In the Yiddish it says: “ 

”; cf. -: 5. I do not understand why Band translates the expression like this.

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The king’s false son committed his rst sin, when he accepted the idea of getting rid of the king’s real son by actively hurting his father. In this passage, the listener/reader is informed about how the previous king’s false son tries to maintain the illusion about his right to the position as king through further acts of evil. He tries to control the gossip by punishing those who threaten to reveal the switch and thereby his illegitimate kingship. Evil has intensied the corruption of the false king’s son. Evil is successful, because the king’s false son is only concerned about maintaining power. The previous king’s false son does, however, have a conscience.691 He is not entirely evil; he is only human. At a beautiful place in nature, as if beauty and nature cause the activation of this son’s conscience, he begins to wonder about the origin of his own soul692 and the injustice he has done to the king’s real son. The false king’s son is suddenly concerned about something other than power, i.e., his soul. The thoughts about his own soul lead to thoughts about the king’s real son and the lack of justice in his own acts. That thoughts about the origin of his own soul is followed by thoughts about the king’s real son supports Kook’s understanding of the two sons reecting body and soul. However, once again he comes to realize that he has nobody or nothing to advise him. Without guidance, he is lost; he becomes sad and worried, and he is nally overcome with fear. At this point, he sees no way out of the despair, and so he immerses himself in work to be able to forget about the issue. 5: —4: -, 4: —4: - The son who had been exiled and who was the king’s real son did what he did and spent his money. Once, he went out to travel alone and lay down. The things that had happened to him crossed his mind. He thought: “What is it that God is doing to me? If I am the king’s son, I certainly do not deserve this. And if I am not the king’s son, it is not fair that I should be on the run and in exile. On the contrary, if this is so that God, blessed be He, can do something like this, can switch a

691 Steinsaltz does not see this as a matter of conscience. He writes that the repentance of the false king is unavoidable since “[U]ltimately matter seeks only comfort and does not aspire to kingship; in the depths of its being it wishes to be led toward the sublime”; cf. Steinsaltz: 64–65. This relates to Steinsaltz’s interpretation of the king’s real son and the king’s false son as spiritual and animal souls in the same human being. 692 This depends on the plausibility of my translation. As stated in a previous footnote, Band has another translation; cf. Band 1978: 195.

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chapter four king’s son and let things like this happen to him, if this is so, is it then possible to rectify what I have done? Is it then proper for me to behave like I have done?” He began to repent and to regret very much the bad things he had done. Afterward he returned to his place and returned to his drunkenness, but because he had already begun to regret, thoughts of regret and repentance made him confused whenever he drank. Once he lay down and dreamt that at a certain place on a certain day there was a market and that he would go there and take the rst protable work he came at random to, even if the work was beneath his dignity. He woke up. This dream crossed his mind a lot. Sometimes, a thing would leave his mind, but the content of this dream crossed his mind many times. But, nevertheless, it was hard for him to do this, and so he drank even more. He dreamt the same dream again and again, and it confused him a lot. Once someone said in the dream: “If you want to have pity on yourself, do as you do!” And so he was forced to fulll the dream.

The king’s real son, who has turned to drinking and whoring, has an experience parallel to the one of the king’s false son. He lies down somewhere in nature and considers what has happened to him, as if nature causes the activation of the self-scrutinizing thoughts. However, there is a difference between the thoughts of the king’s real and the king’s false son. The king’s real son draws God into the self-scrutiny and ends up in a totally religious argumentation. According to my reading, it goes: Under no circumstances has the king’s real son been deserving of being exiled. However, God has most likely caused the exile to befall him, and instead of perceiving of the exile as the intended will of God, he has perceived of the expulsion as the ultimate injustice—thereby claiming that God is unjust. By feeling sorry for himself he has committed several sins, cf. drinking, whoring, and indirectly blaming God for being unjust, which is why he asks how he can rectify his self-pity and his indirect accusations against the justice of God. This is an important passage. Earlier, it became clear that the foster father was not corrupted by the gossip because he had faith in God. In the previous passage, the king’s false son had nobody or no religious world-view to advise him, and so he fell into despair. In this current passage, the king’s real son turns to thoughts about God to understand his situation. Thoughts about God alone seem to be what brings the king’s real son to repent. The king’s real son has the correct thoughts about God, but he has nobody to guide him and so he returns to drinking. Still, the thoughts about God have initiated the process that will eventually lead to the solution. By having begun to repent, confusion and dreams appear as

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helpers. At the beginning, the confusion and dreams only led him to drink more, but eventually the dream makes it clear to him that he has to accept whatever work he comes at random to, even if this work is beneath his dignity, since the alternative would be to remain in a miserable state of self-pity.693 2: —6: -, 1: —4: - He went and gave the money, which he had left, to the hostel. He also left his ne clothes to the hostel. He put on some simple clothes, like that of a merchant, and then drove to the market. He arrived there, got up early, and went to the market. He met a merchant who said to him: “Do you wish to earn some money for some kind of work?” He answered: “Yes!” He said to him: “I need to transport some animals. You can earn your money with me!” He did not need time to think it over because of the dream, so he answered him at once: “Yes!” The merchant hired him immediately, and he began to serve him at once. He ordered him around like a master orders a servant around. [The king’s real son] began to consider what to do, since it certainly was not proper work for him. He was a gentle human being and now he had to transport animals and was forced to walk on foot together with the animals; however, he could not change his mind. The merchant ordered him around like a master does, and so he asked the merchant: “How can I walk alone together with the animals?” He answered him: “There will be other shepherds of mine for the transport, so go with them!” He handed over the animals that were about to be transported. They were transported beyond the town. There they gathered together with the rest of the shepherds who were to transport the animals. They walked together and transported the animals, while the merchant rode on a horse next to them.694 The merchant rode with cruelty, and he was especially cruel toward [the exiled one], so he became very afraid indeed of the merchant, who looked at him with a erce cruelty directed at him. [The king’s real son] became very frightened that the merchant would beat him

693 According to Steinsaltz, the king’s son begins his ascent from the depths thanks to the intervention of the recurring dream, which tells him to abandon his sinful way of life. Steinsaltz sees this sinful way of life as a sort of pursuit after his own animality. The drunkenness provides him with temporary pleasures. Once his pursuit after animality has become concrete as he engages himself as an animal driver, it becomes clear to him that this pursuit will only cause him misery; cf. Steinsaltz: 65. 694 Band translates it: “And the merchant rode them cruelly”; cf. Band 1978: 197. In the Hebrew it says: “      ”; cf. : - 1. In the Yiddish it says: “      .         ”; cf. : - 2–3.

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chapter four with his stick and cause him to die immediately. (Because of his gentleness, the [real] king’s son was frightened and imagined this). [The king’s real son] walked together with the animals, while the merchant was next to them. They arrived at a certain place and took the bag, in which the bread of the shepherds was, and the merchant gave them bread to eat, and they also gave him some bread to eat. After this, they walked inside a very thick forest and two of the animals, which the son was supposed to look after for the merchant, got lost. The merchant became angry with him, and so the son went after them to catch them.

The king’s real son leaves his money and ne clothes at the hostel, where he has been staying. On the one hand, the act of leaving everything behind opens up something new, which should be considered positive in relation to his drinking and whoring. His ne clothes, on the other hand, may refer to his initial and real identity as the king’s real son, since it is surprising that a maid’s son should be able to afford ne clothes and that his father, the maid’s husband, should be able to give him money prior to his exile. Given the thoughts he had about God, it is therefore possible that the act of leaving everything behind not only refers to giving up drinking and whoring, but also that it refers to some kind of acceptance of how his life has developed. The king’s real son considered if God had caused his life to develop like this, and therefore, the act of leaving everything behind could be an acceptance of his fall, his descent to being a nobody in this world. The king’s real son dresses up like a simple merchant and accepts a job as an animal driver. The merchant, who owns the animals, orders the king’s real son around and makes him feel like a servant, which he actually is at present. I remember once hearing that there was nothing exceptionally severe about the work Cinderella was asked to do. Lots of girls used to serve in the houses of rich people and were asked to obey the whims of their employers. Similarly with the work of the king’s real son, many people used to work and still work as animal drivers, and this work enables them to earn an honest living. Denitely, Nahman’s fellow Hasidim were not rich. They had to work hard to provide for their families. I believe that the whining of the king’s real son serves only to emphasize that this is not his intended position. It is true that he left his previous identity as the king’s real and unjustly exiled son at the hostel together with the ne clothes and the money, but that does not exclude the possibility that he has a natural striving toward something else, something greater than driving animals. His whining echoes the discomfort found in the two sons when they as children grew up in the

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wrong places. This is why I believe that Kook is right to stress that this tale is about leading everything to its intended place.695 The merchant acts cruelly toward the king’s real son, and the king’s real son fears for his life; but as it says within the parenthesis, this is only something the king’s real son imagines. As it becomes obvious later in the tale, characters whom the king’s real son fears prove to be helpers in the process, and I see no reason why this merchant should not be perceived of as such. The merchant provides the king’s real son with a job, with money, and by the end of this passage he also provides him with food. When two of the animals, which the king’s real son is supposed to look after, disappear into the thick forest and get lost, the merchant becomes angry with him. But anyone who has read the Bible knows that the shepherd’s sole responsibility is to look after the animals, and in this respect the king’s real son has failed, so the anger of the merchant is legitimate.696 It is only when the king’s real son decides to follow the animals in order to catch them that he lives up to the responsibility of being a shepherd. If the image of the shepherd is to be taken seriously with its connotations, one may think of the parallel between God-king-people and owner-shepherd-animals.697 The image of the king’s real son as an animal driver may be Nahman’s way of emphasizing how important it is for a zaddik to take care of his ock. This is a necessary step toward being a responsible zaddik and learning to perform tikkun on behalf of the ock/the adherents.

Cf. : 101–102. Steinsaltz is of a different opinion. He interprets the cruel merchant to be a symbol of evil who punishes the king’s son by forcing him to cling to his previous mode of life, from which all sorts of pleasure and attraction have disappeared; cf. Steinsaltz: 65. Steinsaltz can claim this because he takes the two animals to symbolize his animal soul; but I think that it is too simplied, since the merchant is actually the one who helps the king’s real son to move on. 697 Shepherds are forced to recompense lost, injured, or dead animals to the owner; cf. Ex. 22.9–14. In Ez. 34 God will punish the bad leader, here addressed like bad shepherds, for having failed their responsibility toward the people, here mentioned as sheep, as well as to God, here speaking as the owner. For more on this imagery; cf. Kirsten Nielsen: “Shepherd, Lamb, and Blood. Imagery in the Old Testament—Use and Reuse” in Studia Theologica—Scandinavian Journal of Theology, Vol. 46, Academic Press, Copenhagen, 1992: 121–132. 695

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12: —2: -, 7: —2: - The animals ran further and further away, and he chased them. Because the forest was so thick, they could no longer see each other, once the son had entered the forest. Immediately, he disappeared from the eyes of his friends. He walked and chased the animals that were running away. He chased them for a long time until they arrived at the middle of the thick forest. He thought to himself: “Whether I choose this or that, I will die! If I return without the animals, I will die at the hand of the merchant!” This was what he imagined because he feared that the merchant would kill him if he returned without the animals. “If I stay here, I will be killed as well by the wild animals in the forest! So why should I return to the merchant? How can I come to him without the animals?” He was very much afraid of him. He walked and chased the animals for a little longer, and they ran away. Meanwhile night fell, and he had never tried to be forced to spend the night alone in the middle of a thick forest. He heard the voice of an animal growling in its particular way and so he decided to ascend a certain tree and spend the night there. He then heard an animal voice roaring in its particular way. In the morning he looked and saw that the [two] animals were standing right there close to him, and so he descended the tree and went to catch them, but then again they ran away from there. He followed them for a while, but they ran further away. The animals found some grass, and so they stood there looking and eating. He went to catch them but they ran away. And it went on like this that he went after them and they ed, until he came to a very thick part of the forest. There were some animals there, which did not fear human beings at all because they were so far away from any inhabited place. Once again night fell and he heard the growling voice of a wild animal, which made him very much afraid. Suddenly, he saw a very big tree standing there, and he ascended it. While ascending, he saw a human being lying there and he was frightened, but, nevertheless, he was consoled by the fact that another human being was there.

The king’s real son chases the animals like a shepherd should do. While chasing them, he considers his position and decides that it is better for him to chase the animals than it would be to return to the merchant without the animals. Once again, his fear of the merchant is mentioned. The king’s real son believes that the merchant would kill him if he returned without the animals, but also once again, and this time not within a parenthesis, it is said that this was what he imagined. Imagined or grounded in reality, the fear of the merchant brings the king’s real son into the thicket of the forests. The fear of the merchant is replaced by the fear of the wild animals in the forest. The king’s real son is forced to spend the night in

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the forest, which he has never done before. The growling of one wild animal makes the king’s real son ascend a certain tree, and from this tree he hears another wild animal roaring. Nobody in the tales of Nahman can ascend a certain tree without forcing the listener/reader to consider if it should be an implicit reference to the serotic system. Fear is the gate to the serotic system,698 and since fear dominates the description of the king’s real son in this passage, it might be possible that the king’s real son has reached the entrance to the serotic system. The listener/reader knows that fear of the merchant made the king’s real son adhere to his responsibility as a shepherd, which is why this scene could indicate a step forward toward the intended ascent of the king’s real son.699 In the morning, when he wakes up, he sees that the two lost animals stand right below him. The king’s real son descends the tree to catch them, as is his responsibility as a shepherd. However, the two animals ee and take him further into the thicket of the forest, where the wild animals do not even fear human beings because they are not used to them. That the protagonist is being dragged further and further into the forest is seen by Kook to indicate that the protagonist is falling prey to his bestial nature.700 Steinsaltz, on the other hand, perceives of the forest in a much more positive way when he claims that it refers to the

698

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,7b. Kook seems to be of a similar opinion when she writes that man’s confrontation with fear of being lost and entangled can lead man to repentance; cf. : 101. 700 Kook points to the stage in the tale where the king’s real son is called   . Kook interprets this to refer to the animals under his responsibility as well as to the bestial nature of any human being. Kook sees this man of animals as being inferior to a servant, since a servant at least works for a human being, while a shepherd works for the animals. In this tale it is even the animals that take the lead and force him to follow after them. Kook sees his pursuit after the animals as man sinking down into the world of matter because their “guidance” cuts the king’s son off from the human community. Darkness falls upon the forest and reects the inability to see the human world. The bestial pleasures and drives of his previous life, like the drunkenness, are revealed as nothing but suffering and despair. Kook inserts a quotation from Likkutey Etsot where Nahman comments on how man runs after his sins instead of listening to his heart and instead of understanding that he has already received the punishment for his sins. Had man done so, he would have achieved the time and peace of mind to focus on his own tikkun; cf. : 99–100. Kook interprets the pursuit of the animals together with the upcoming forest man, who tells the king’s real son to stop pursuing his sins. But had it been directly related to the general pursuit of animals/sins, the forest man would have appeared earlier in the tale. I do not see any reason why the initial pursuit of the animals should not be considered positive. As indicated above, living up to the responsibility of protecting some animals can indeed be perceived as a positive and necessary step in the ascent of the king’s real son. 699

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“well-known kabbalistic symbol . . . ‘the world of the angels’—a higher realm of existence.”701 My interpretation of the forest lies in between. I do not consider the forest a higher realm of existence. Neither do I think that the text indicates that the king’s real son is falling prey to his bestial nature. By chasing the animals, the king’s real son is living up to his responsibility, which is why I should say that the forest provides a room in which the king’s real son learns about his responsibility. Furthermore, if the king’s false son, whom he meets the second night, represents the body, including its bestial nature, as Kook believes,702 then the forest also provides him with a room in which he learns about himself and his own bodily drives. The forest provides the room in which the king’s real son (the soul according to Kook) and the king’s false son (the body according to Kook) can begin to build up a new and healthy relationship.703 4: —12: -, 2: —7: - They asked each other: “Who are you?” “A human being! Who are you?” “A human being!” “How did you get here?” [The king’s real son] did not want to tell him what had happened to him and so he answered him: “I came because of some animals I was supposed to look after, but I lost two of them, so this is how I came here!” [The king’s real son] then asked the human being whom he found by the tree: “How did you get here?” He answered him: “I came here by horse. I rode on a horse and stood off to take a break, but then the horse walked away and got lost in the middle of the forest. I had to chase it to catch it, but it ran further away, until I came here!” They agreed that they would stick together and they said to each other that even if they came to an inhabited place, they would stick together. The two of them spent the night there and heard the growling voice of a wild animal growling in its particular way and they were very frightened. When morning broke, a very clamorous laughing voice was heard, spreading its laughter all over the forest. The laughter was so very clamorous indeed that the tree trembled and rocked. It was very terrorizing and frightening indeed. [The king’s real son] said to the other one: “I am not afraid of this anymore, since I have already spent several nights here. Every night, just before dawn, a laughing voice like this is

701 Unfortunately, Steinsaltz does not mention where “the world of the angels” occurs. One could, however, mention, e.g., Sefer haZohar III,22b. 702 Cf. : 98–100. 703 Cf. Steinsaltz: 66 as well.

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heard, which causes all the trees to shake and rock!” [The other one] trembled very much and said to his friend: “It seems that this is the place of the demons, since one would not hear a laughing voice like this in an inhabited place, because where in the entire world could one hear a laughing voice like this?” Soon after, morning broke, and they looked and saw that the animals were standing there, even the horse of the other one was there. They descended and began to chase them, one after the animals, the other after the horse. The animals were running further away from there and so he chased them. The other chased the horse, but the horse escaped, and so without knowing they moved away and got lost from each other.

The king’s real son and the other human being engage in a dialogue typical of Nahman’s characters who do not want to reveal their entire story.704 The king’s real son and the other human being realize that they have their human identity in common. This may be Nahman’s way of conveying that soul and body or the divine and animal soul are both parts of what is to be considered human. In this way Nahman adds a nuance to what otherwise could have become a rigidly dualistic conception of soul and body/divine and animal soul. The king’s real son has been chasing two animals, most likely cattle, whereas the other human being has been chasing his horse. A horse has several connotations. A horse is a strong, swift animal used to get from one place to another, i.e., it is related to direction. Strength, mobility, and direction are abilities that the king’s real son could use. However, along with these positive connotations, horses have negative connotations, especially in the Bible. Steinsaltz and Wiskind-Elper mention the biblical verse: “I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth (Eccles. 10:7)”.705 Eccles. 10.7 refers to the same kind of hierarchical disorder, which characterizes this tale, where the king’s real son has been brought up as a maid’s son and furthermore has been exiled by the usurping son of a maid, a son who is associated with a horse.706 Horses in the Bible connote occasional military strength of the nations or the nonbelievers707 ignoring that true and lasting safety comes from God, cf: “The horse is prepared for the day of battle;

704 Cf., e.g., tale #10 where the emperor and the burgher’s son meet in the desert, the room of their exile. 705 Cf. Steinsaltz: 66; Wiskind-Elper: 30. 706 Steinsaltz takes the pursuit of the maid’s son after his horse to be symbolic of the sin and the punishment of the usurper king; cf. Steinsaltz: 66. 707 Cf. Is. 43.17; Jer. 8.6, 51.21; Zech. 9.10, 12.4.

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but safety comes from the Lord” (Prov. 21.31), as has become obvious throughout the history of Israel.708 It is as if these biblical intertexts help the tale convey one important message: The king’s real son is in need of the abilities, which the human being with the horse represents, and the king’s real son is furthermore in need of the horse to ride on as is proper for a king. However, if the other human being, who is really a maid’s son, usurps power and mounts the horse, a hierarchical disorder will be created and subsequently call upon divine punishment. Therefore, it is important that the other human being submits to the king’s real son and accepts his position as a servant to avoid the inevitable divine punishment. The rst step toward the servant’s submission is their agreement to stick together forever.709 The mysterious, clamorous laughing voice causes the trees and the other human being to tremble and rock from fear. The king’s real son informs his newly gained friend that this clamorous laughing voice is heard every morning just before daybreak, and so the experience of the king’s real son becomes a help to the other human being. The way of dealing with fear could be an indication of the king’s real son taking control of the situation, as a coming king should do. In such a situation a servant can benet from the king’s control and insight. However, the servant does not accept the explanation of his master completely, maybe because he has not submitted himself yet, and so he convinces himself that the forest with all its peculiar and terrorizing sounds is a place of demons. In the morning, when they wake up in the tree, they both see their animals standing beneath it. They descend, and each one begins to chase his animal. If Steinsaltz710 and Kook711 are correct that the animals of the king’s real son represent punishment or bestiality, and if my

708

Cf. Ex. 15.1, 15.19, 15.21; Amos 2.15; Sam. 10.18. Kook writes that the other human being, who is really the king’s false son, to a certain extent represents the evil forces of man. However, he repents his previous acts, and this repentance initiates the process of his personal tikkun. The fact that there is hope even for the symbol of evil forces leads Kook to conclude that man, no matter the degree of his fall, can rise and that there is no evil that is purely evil; cf. : 101. 710 Cf. Steinsaltz: 65. 711 Kook refers to Nathan Sternhartz, who understood the pursuit after the animals as the necessary sacrice of man. Man’s spirit and bestial nature are mixed together, which is why man must make atonement to his bestial nature and why the king’s son has to chase the animals. Only in this way can the divine sparks be elevated from the bestial nature; cf. : 106–107. 709

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interpretation of the connotations associated with horses is correct—i.e., a servant chasing military strength, mobility, and direction, though it is only intended for a king who knows nevertheless that true safety only comes from God—then this new pursuit could be considered a setback. As if to visualise this setback, the king’s real son and the other human being get lost from each other, and they remove themselves from the bond they had just agreed to. 2: —4: -, 2: —2: - (The king’s [real] son, who had been chasing the animals,) found a bag with bread, which was certainly very important in the wilderness. He put the bag on his shoulder and walked after the animals. While walking, he met another human being. At rst, he was struck with terror, but, nevertheless, he was somewhat consoled to nd another human being there. The human being asked him: “How did you get here?” He asked the human being in return: “How did you get here?” He answered him: “I, my father and my father’s fathers grew up here! But you! How did you get here, because no human being from an inhabited place has ever come here at all!” [The king’s real son] was struck with terror because he understood that this was no human being at all, now that he said that his father’s fathers had grown up here and that no human being from an inhabited place had ever come here. This is why he was certain that this was no human being at all. Nevertheless, he did not harm the [real] king’s son. The forest man moved close to the king’s real son and said to him: “What are you doing here?” [The king’s real son] answered him that he was chasing his animals. The forest man said to him: “You have to stop chasing your sins! These creatures are not animals at all. Your sins have led you astray to this place! Stop it! You have already received your punishment, so stop chasing them! Come with me and come to what you deserve!” [The king’s real son] went with him but was afraid to talk to him or ask him, because this man could open his mouth and swallow him. But he went with him.

After the setback, where the king’s real son has moved in his own direction away from his newly gained friend to pursue his two animals, he nds a bag with bread. The bag with bread can provide him with food. As the listener/reader will see in the next passage, the bread furthermore becomes the tool by which the king’s real son succeeds in buying the maid’s son as a servant. In this way, the forest can be said not only to ensure his sustenance, but also to help him move toward his intended position in the proper hierarchy. The forest also enables the meeting with the mysterious forest man.

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At rst, the meeting causes the king’s real son to be confused over the identity of the forest man. He does not know if he is human or not. He is struck with fear as he nds out that the forest man himself admits a differentiation between human beings and his own family-line. The fear of the king’s real son diminishes when he realizes that the forest man does not intend to hurt him. When the forest man approaches the king’s real son, the latter condes in the former and tells him about how he got to this part of the forest because he was chasing animals. The response of the forest man is certainly enigmatic. It goes: “You have to stop chasing your sins! These creatures are not animals at all. Your sins have led you astray to this place! Stop it! You have already received your punishment, so stop chasing them! Come with me and come to what you deserve!” Here, the forest man appears as a merciful angel who releases the king’s real son from his torments.712 The forest man explains that the animals are to be considered his sins. He furthermore explains that the forest is not a place intended for him, cf. the formulation “Your sins have led you astray to this place!” He commands him to stop punishing himself by chasing his sins. Concerning this command, it is not clear if it is wrong to punish oneself by chasing one’s sins in general, or if it means that he has been sufciently punished. Actually, the question is at what point the king’s real son has punished himself sufciently? Was it like the king’s false son said and like the king’s real son indicated when the latter was suffering from self-pity that just by being a victim from the switch had he suffered sufciently? Was he punished sufciently when he abused himself by drinking and whoring and thereby aficting himself with sufferings? Or is it here after three days

712 Kook considers it a matter of providence that the king’s real son meets the forest man; cf. : 101. According to Kook, the forest man represents the divine forces that appear to help man, once man has decided to perform tikkun. The forest man contains the traits of a zaddik, who can guide a man to ascent from his fall by teaching him to differentiate between the different forces in life; cf., e.g., the bodily and spiritual forces; cf. : 102. Steinsaltz, on the other hand, understands the forest man as belonging to the class of angelic beings “to which the king’s true son is by nature closely related”. The forest man helps the king’s true son to nd himself, to release him from his pursuit of the animals, and to reveal to him its signicance; cf. Steinsaltz: 66. Finally, Wiskind-Elper considers the forest man a psychopomp (i.e., soul guide) who appears to guide the protagonist into the realm of the fantastic at a critical juncture in his life. Once trust is established between the protagonist and the psychopomp, the protagonist can enter a higher plane of reality and fulll his role as a fairy-tale prince; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 129–131.

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in the forest that he has sufciently punished himself ? In any case, the forest man releases him from his self-punishment and then offers him two things: He offers him guidance, cf. the phrase: “Come with me”, and he offers him direction toward his intended position, cf. “Come to what you deserve”. Guidance is what the king’s real son has been missing. The king’s real son has been able to think thoughts about God, but he has had nobody to help him nd the right track and so he has gone astray several times. Direction is also something the king’s real son needs. He has been chasing the animals instead of leading them; he took a job as an animal driver, where he was supposed to follow the direction, which the merchant had pointed out to him, instead of nding it himself; and he took a job below his intended position. The question is, however, if his originally intended position as the king’s son in his home country is the same as what he deserves? The listener/reader will have to wait for the answer. The king’s real son, who is still afraid of communicating with the forest man, and who is afraid that the forest man should swallow him like demons usually threaten to do,713 decides, nevertheless, to follow the forest man. The king’s real son accepts to be guided and directed. 15: —2: -, 9: —3: - While walking, [the king’s real son] met his friend who was chasing the horse, and as soon as he saw him, he gestured to him: “Know that this is not a human being at all! Do not have anything to do with him, because this is not a human being at all!” He walked to him at once and whispered in his ears that this was not a human being at all. His friend looked at him and saw that he had a bag with bread on his shoulder. He began to beg: “My brother, it has been days since I have eaten. Give me some bread!” He answered him: “Here in the wilderness nothing can help you. My life comes rst and I need the bread for myself !” He began to beg him and deplore him: “I will give you what I can give you!” [The king’s real son] answered him: “What will you give me? What else can you give me but bread in the wilderness?” His friend answered him: “I will give myself to you! I will sell myself to you for bread!” [The king’s real son] thought to himself: “To buy a human being—just by giving him bread!” And so he bought him and made him a slave for all

713 The formulation “open his mouth and swallow him” is used by Nahman in tales #3 and 8, when a demonic character appears.

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chapter four eternity. The friend swore one oath after the other in front of him that he would remain his slave for all eternity, even when they came to an inhabited place. [The king’s real son] gave him some bread, or rather they ate together from the bag until the bread was eaten. Together they walked after the forest man, and the slave walked after [the king’s real son]. [The king’s real son] was relieved from things to a certain extent. When he had to lift something or do something else, he ordered his slave to lift it for him or do what he desired. They walked after the forest man and came to a place where there were snakes and scorpions. He became very much afraid, and because of the fear he asked the forest man: “How do we pass this?” He answered him: “Should this be impossible, how will you then enter my house?” And so [the king’s real son] saw his house oating in the air. “How will you enter my house?” And they walked with the forest man who made them pass safely, and so they entered his house. [The forest man] gave them something to eat and to drink, and then he left.

The maid’s son, who still has not revealed his true identity to the king’s real son, is still chasing the horse, which connotes military strength, mobility, and direction, according to my understanding. Given these connotations, his pursuit is negative. The maid’s son is supposed to serve the king’s real son and not pursue the abilities, through which the king’s real son could achieve his intended position. He has to be stopped. When the real king’s son meets the maid’s son, the latter sees the bag with bread and is driven by his physical urge for food. Accordingly, he agrees to sell himself as an eternal slave to the king’s real son. To seal the bargain, the king’s real son witnesses how his friend swears one oath after another. Given the fact that the maid’s son is driven by a physical urge like hunger, whereas the king’s real son is concerned about life without even having touched the bread yet; given the thoughts about God of the king’s real son; and given the horse including its connotations, I should say that Kook and Steinsaltz are convincing when they see the two characters as soul and body/man’s divine and animal soul. Soul and body/man’s divine and animal soul are destined to be brought together.714 They were born at the same time, in the same house, and

714 Kook writes that the meeting between the man of the animals and the man of the horse constitutes the turning point of the tale because this is where they both realize their defeat in their previous pursuit, and nally the king’s real son gains control over the real maid’s son. This is a step toward placing themselves in their intended position; cf. : 101–102.

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born by two women who lived so closely together in a “correct relationship” where the queen was queen and the maid was maid. The bond between their mothers point to the intended relationship between the sons. The two sons were furthermore brought to this world by a midwife who simultaneously made them suffer from her need to assert herself. They studied in the same heder. They had thoughts of repentance at the same time, though it was only the king’s real son who had the ability to let these thoughts include thoughts about God. Thoughts about God lie according to Hasidism within the capacity of the soul or divine soul715 and not within the body. I think that these narrative facts make Kook’s and Steinsaltz’s understandings very plausible.716 When the king’s real son and his friend have established the proper relationship, they share the bread. Subsequently, they walk, according to rank, after the forest man. The friend performs his duty as a servant, which is a relief for the king’s real son. But once they encounter snakes and scorpions, the servant is unable to assist his master. The king’s real son has to act himself, which he does by asking the forest man for guidance. The forest man makes it clear to them that they cannot enter his house unless they pass the snakes and scorpions. His answer sounds rebuking, as if he is encouraging the king’s real son to believe. The house of the forest man oats in the air, where entering of course is an even more difcult task than passing poisonous and ominous animals. It is stated in the text that it is the forest man who enables them to pass safely and to enter the oating house.717 This could indicate that the forest man not only verbally but also through

715

Cf. Lamm 1999: 55–66. According to Kook, this point in the tale, where the two sons nally agree to a relationship, which reects the intended hierarchical order, anticipates the nal test where the king’s son has to arrange everything in its intended place; cf. : 101–102. 717 Wiskind-Elper refers to a possible parallel between the forest man and the lowly mule driver in Sefer haZohar I,5a–7a. He says to R. Eleazar and R. Abba: “‘Do not ask who I am, but let us go together and study Torah’. They arrive at his dwelling place which is a ‘tower, ying in the air, great and beautiful’”; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 276n108. Wiskind-Elper is correct in seeing this parallel between the zoharic tower ying in the air and the house of the forest man. The parallel could be Nahman’s way of indicating to his listener/reader that the forest man should be thought of as someone highly positive, very wise, and probably also righteous and working for God. But it should be mentioned that the journey of R. Eleazar and R. Abba does not begin before Sefer haZohar I,5b (the quotation is taken from Sefer haZohar I,6a) and that, as far as I understand, the mule driver only mentions his mansion as “a mighty and imposing tower suspended in the air”; they never enter his mansion because he has left it. 716

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action is encouraging the king’s real son to believe in the forest man’s abilities as a guide and provider, cf. that the forest man also gives them something to eat and drink. 14: —15: , 9: —1: - The king’s real son made use of his slave whenever he needed it. It made the slave angry that he had sold himself for one hour where he needed some bread to eat. Now they had something to eat, and in just one hour he had become a slave for all eternity. The king’s real son asked him: “From what greatness did you come, since you moan for having reached this stage?” He answered him and told him how he had been king, and how people had been gossiping about how he had been switched (the human being who had been chasing the horse was actually the king who in reality was the maid’s son), and how he had exiled his friend. Once it had crossed his mind that it was not good what he had done, and so he had repented. Thoughts of repentance had constantly overcome him because of the evil deed and the great harm he had done against his friend. Once he had dreamt that his rectication would be that he should be expelled from the throne and walk to the place, to which his eyes would lead him. In this way he could rectify his sin. He did not want to do this, but these dreams constantly confused him, so much that he did it. It made the thoughts leave his mind as he did it. He was expelled from the throne, and so he went as he did until he came to the forest. So now he had become a slave. The king’s real son heard all of this but kept silent. He said [to himself]: “I will see and decide how to behave toward him.”

The forest man provides the king’s real son and his servant with something to eat and drink, which makes the servant realize that he could have kept his liberty, had he only waited an hour until they had reached the house of the forest man. His anger is also aroused because the king’s real son actually uses him as a servant. One question, however, which the servant has not asked himself, is whether or not the forest man would have taken him and the king’s real son to his house, had they not obtained the proper relationship themselves. This could convey a message about striving toward an internal constituency where the soul leads the body, before one can be led by a guiding gure like the forest man. The king’s real son notices the anger of the servant, and so he asks him from what greatness he came, since he moans over his fall. Encouraged by this question, the servant tells his entire story about how he had repented and realized that what he had done was wrong and how a dream informed him about how to rectify his misdeeds.

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The word in the Hebrew and Yiddish texts for “rectication” is  , which signies that it is possible also for a body/animal soul to perform tikkun. The abdication, which the dream prescribes, seems to imply that the body/animal soul shall refrain from striving after power. It has to acknowledge its intended place as a servant for the soul/divine soul. It should not try to decide on which direction to take because it is the eyes that should lead the body. I do not know exactly where the concept of the leading eyes comes from. However, one biblical psalm intersects and explains that the eyes of a servant and a royal person are intended to look in different directions for guidance. To you lift I up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until he shall be gracious to us (Ps. 123,1–2).

If Nahman had these verses in mind, it would mean that the rectication of the maid’s son is accomplished if only he would follow his master, i.e., the king’s son, whereas the king’s real son would have to look for guidance in God. 2:—14: -, 2:—9: - At night the forest man returned and gave them something to eat and drink. They rested there for the night. Before dawn they heard the very clamorous laughing voice that caused the trees to tremble and shake. The slave enticed his master, the king’s real son, to ask the forest man what it was. [The king’s real son] asked him: “What is this clamorous laughing voice that is heard just before dawn?” [The forest man] answered him: “The laughter reects how day laughs at night; when night asks the day: ‘How come when you come I have no name?’ It is the day that sends out the clamorous laughter. Upon this, day breaks and its voice is the laughter!” [The king’s real son] wondered about this, because it was really wondrous that day laughs at night. At dawn the forest man went away again, and they ate and drank there. At night he returned, and they ate, drank, and rested for the night. At night they heard the voice of a wild animal as if the wild animals and fowls roared and growled in one strange voice. The lion was roaring, the young lion was growling in a different voice, the fowls twittered and rattled in their voices, and thus they all growled with their voices. At rst they were very much shaken and did not bend their ears toward the voice out of fear. Later on, they did bend their ears and heard that it was the most wonderful and beautiful sound of a chanted melody. They bent their ears even further and heard that it was the voice of the most wonderfully chanted melody which was so wonderfully delightful and very marvelous

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chapter four to listen to. All the delights of the world were to be totally disregarded as nothing718 compared to the delights and marvels of this melody. They talked together and agreed to stay there, because they had something to eat and drink and they could enjoy this wonderful delight which in comparison nullied719 all the delights of the world. The slave enticed his master, the king’s real son, to ask the forest man what [kind of melody] this was. [The king’s real son] asked him and [the forest man] answered him that this was the way of the sun to make a garment for the moon. All the wild animals of the forest saw that the moon performs many good deeds for them. They mainly rule at night, and sometimes they need to enter an inhabited place, and it would be impossible at day, since they mainly rule at night. This is where the moon performs a good deed for them; that is, she shines for them. Therefore, they agreed to make a new melody in honor of the moon, and [this melody] is the chanting voice that you can hear. As they heard that it was this kind of melody, they bent their ears further and heard how very wonderful and pleasant this melody was. The forest man said to them: “Why is this something new to you? I have an instrument that I received from my forefathers, which they inherited from their fathers’ fathers. It is an instrument made by leaves and such colors that if one places this instrument on an animal or a fowl, it immediately begins to play this melody. Upon this, the laughter returned and day came. The forest man went away, and the king’s real son went to search for this instrument. He looked for it in every room but did not nd it. He was afraid to walk further away from there. They, that is the master and the slave, were afraid to ask the forest man to take them to an inhabited place. But later, the forest man came and said to them that he would take them to an inhabited place, and so he took them to an inhabited place. [The forest man] took the instrument and gave it to the king’s real son and said to him: “I will give you this instrument, and you will know how to behave toward this man, [your slave]!” They asked him: “Whereto should we go?” He said to them that they should ask for the directions to the country known by this name: ‘The crazy country and the wise kingdom’.720 They asked him: “In which direction should we begin to ask for this country?” He pointed with his hand in a certain direction. The forest man said to the king’s real son: “Go there, to this country! There you will reach your greatness!”

In the Hebrew:   (noun). In the Hebrew:   and Yiddish:  (nouns). 720 This translation is according to the Yiddish text. In the Hebrew text it says: “The crazy country and the wise king”. 718 719

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During the night the king’s real son and the maid’s son enjoy the presence of the forest man. The forest man continues to provide them with something to eat and drink and with shelter. Before dawn, while the three of them are together, they hear the clamorous laughing voice. The listener/reader knows that the king’s real son has got used to the laughing voice, but the maid’s son is curious to understand the voice and so he entices his master to ask the forest man for an explanation. Steinsaltz convincingly notices that the maid’s son, a representative of the animal soul, is not capable of speaking directly to the forest man, a representative of the angelic world. The animal soul always has to ask the divine soul to establish contact.721 This is seen as part of the new, healthy relationship that has been established, the servant offers his skills and talents for the benet of the other. The divine soul tends, by nature, to be quietistic and passive, while the animal soul has the powers of curiosity and inquiry which lead to action and achievement (Steinsaltz: 67).

The rst achievement is thanks to the servant’s enticement. Master and servant together come to understand how the clamorous laughter reects how day laughs at night at daybreak. Still, it is obvious from the reaction of the king’s real son that this understanding is not complete. No answer is given to the mysterious question of the night: “How come when you come I have no name?” But according to Kaplan, Nahman explained, after having told the tale, that the moon is like a lamp, whose light, when day comes, cannot be seen. This is taken from Chullin 60, and the mysterious question is then interpreted to indicate that the substitute for the real thing will disappear when the real thing emerges.722 This could point to the conception that the divine reections in this world will be replaced by the divine itself, once the divine comes. At sunrise the forest man always has to leave. The listener/reader does not hear what he does while he is away. One can exclude the possibility that he should exist only at night, since the king’s real son met the forest man during the day. When he met him, the forest man helped him, guided him, and provided for him. As it shall become clear, he leaves every morning, as if he had some profession or obligation to attend to. At this point, it only makes sense to understand this obligation as one of help and guidance.

721 722

Cf. Steinsaltz: 66–67. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 256n.

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The following night, when the forest man has returned, they hear the frightening voices of the growling and roaring animals. As these voices persist, they bend their ears to listen more carefully to the voices that have so far frightened them. Suddenly, the voices dissolve into the most wonderful and beautiful chanted melody, which nullies all the delights previously known to them. Because of this melody and the way they are taken care of by the forest man, the king’s real son and the servant agree to stay in the house of the forest man. Before I proceed, it is worth mentioning that the verb “nullify” in the sentence “this wonderful delight which in comparison nullied all the delights of the world” and the noun “nothing” in the sentence “the delights of the world were to be totally disregarded as nothing” are both derived from the root . In Hasidism, it evokes associations to the concept “Bittul haYesh”, which could be rendered “nullifying the existence according to how man perceives of it”. Together the king’s real son and the servant have advanced in their capacity to understand.723 The opposite of Yesh is Ayin, where Ayin represents existence according to the transcendent insight of God. So far in the tale the scope has been for the king’s real son and the maid’s son to establish a relationship that reects the intended hierarchy. This has now been achieved. It is therefore likely that the focus of the tale has now changed to be concerned with not personal matters, since they have been solved, but worldly matters. The act of Bittul haYesh has worldwide consequences because it is one of the most important steps in the process of tikkun. The tale may be changing from the personal to the universal at this point where they have become able to perceive of the beauty in the voices of the animals.724

723 Wiskind-Elper also perceives this as a change in perception. She mentions the forest music as an example of how “it is not the sounds of the forest that have changed, but the characters’ perception of that chorus of voices” (Wiskind-Elper: 128). WiskindElper suggests that the phenomenon of externalisation of the psychological process and existential situation of the hero could be inuenced by the “Zeitgeist” of the German romantic period; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 127, see as well Wiskind-Elper: 90. 724 Kook has a similar understanding of the shift from the personal to the universal, even though her understanding is not related to Bittul haYesh. Kook writes that according to Nahman the melody is the rst and last step in this process of ascent. When evil reigns, the melody cannot be heard, only diffuse and scary voices can be perceived. But when day gains control over night, when good defeats evil, and when the king’s real son has made the maid’s son his servant, because he has realized that the spirit shall rule over the body, the human soul over the animal soul, the voices are transformed to one wonderful melody. However, the melody is still at a distance and listening is a rather passive act. The melody is used actively only when the king’s real

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The forest man explains about the melody “that this was the way of the sun to make a garment for the moon”. However, from the continuing explanation it becomes obvious that the melody stems from all the wild animals singing to the moon’s honor in gratitude for the light it shines for them at night. The explanation of the forest man refers to two things. The relationship between the sun and the moon refers to Sefer haZohar I,20a, where it says that the moon receives the light from the sun, since it does not have a light of her own. This gift of light is the foundation of the longing in the moon for the sun. Sun is another name for Tifxeret, and moon is another name for Shekhinah. Their mutual love is the foundation of the world, since this love causes shefa to ow to the world and to mankind.725 The singing of the animals could resemble the singing of the rose of Sharon, cf. Sefer haZohar III,107a, where something in this world draws shefa down toward itself by recognizing the dependency on the supernal world. The sun and the song of the wild animals appear to me to be two different things; however, the consequence is one and the same, i.e., the ow of shefa.726 In general, shefa ows when man recognizes the authority of God. Man’s ability to perceive the world is limited, unless he willingly nullies his own mind in order to make room for the way, in which God intended man to think and act. The scary voices of the animals are nullied and replaced by the utmost beauty, and the listener/reader has, along

son receives the instrument which has to be placed on some kind of animal in order to play. If this is done, others can listen to the melody and be reminded why they have been placed in this world. In this way the king’s real son can initiate their process of tikkun; cf. : 103–104. Steinsaltz also notices the shift from the personal to the universal. He writes that after having come to understand and appreciate the meaning of the laughter, the music, and the instrument, the king’s son has to leave the forest. Steinsaltz interprets this as a necessary step, since man “cannot dwell indenitely in this world of private mysticism and must emerge, after the rehabilitation of his soul, into social reality . . . after the state of the soul has been put right, one must correct the world.” (Steinsaltz: 68–69). 725 Despite her understanding of the song as a means to draw down mercy to mankind; cf. the next footnote, Wiskind-Elper understands the light of the sun as the dangerous overdose of light and enlightenment. She claims this by pointing to the calendar of the gentile nations, which follows the sun. The sun is thus revealed as a destructive force, whereas the Jewish calendar follows the moon, where the moon provides the necessary lter for the Jews to receive the fertility of the light; cf. WiskindElper: 100. I do not see how this makes sense with respect to this tale. 726 According to Wiskind-Elper and similar to my understanding, the song of the animals, the birds, etc. draws down mercy to Shekhinah; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 98. It is a song for the moon, implying the elevation of Israel and the beginning of the messianic age; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 283n185.

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with the king’s real son and his servant, come to understand that this tale is about bringing everything to its intended place. Such an understanding is not to be considered a nal goal. Rather, it is the departing point for new movement toward new goals. The forest man, as if he knew this, breaks the idyllic atmosphere by mentioning an instrument that can play the same melody. The instrument just has to be placed on an animal or a fowl. While telling this, day breaks and interrupts, and so the forest man has to leave. The king’s real son and the servant are lled with two wishes: to nd this instrument and to reach an inhabited place. When the forest man returns, as if he could read their minds, he takes them to an inhabited place and even gives the instrument to the king’s real son.727 The forest man explains that the instrument will make him understand how to behave toward the maid’s son. The listener/reader knows from before that the king’s real son would not reveal his true identity to him before he knew how to behave toward the maid’s son. This could be signalling an upcoming revelation of his intended identity. The forest man also gives him direction for the last time. He tells him to go to “the crazy country and the wise kingdom”, which in the Hebrew is “the crazy country and the wise king”. The listener/reader is of course puzzled as to the meaning of this country’s name, but at this point, it is more important that the forest man explains that in this country the king’s real son will reach his greatness. The forest man told him at the beginning of their acquaintance that the king’s real son should come with him and come to what he deserves. In this way, it becomes clear that the king’s real son deserves greatness and is about to proceed toward it. 13:—2:-, 9:—2:- They went. As they were walking, they really wanted to nd an animal, tame or wild, to try if [the instrument] could play, but they did not see any animal. Later, as they got closer to an inhabited place, they found an animal, and so they placed the instrument on it and it began to play.

727 According to Kook, the instrument has to be placed on an animal before the ne melody can emerge. This reects man’s rule over the animals, just like the king’s son has to rule over the maid’s son. When everything returns to its intended place, the king’s real son is ready to proceed to the kingdom which shall be his; cf. : 106–107.

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They walked until they came to this country. There was a wall around this country and it was impossible to enter except through one gate. It was necessary to follow the wall for some miles until they came to the gate, through which one could enter the country. They walked along the wall until they came to the gate. But by the gate they would not let them enter, because the king had died. The king’s son still remained, but the king had commanded: “Not until someone called the country ‘the crazy country and the wise kingdom’!” At present it was called the opposite, i.e., “the wise country and the crazy kingdom”. Whoever was able to return to [the country] its original name; that is to call the country by its rst name again which was “the crazy country and the wise kingdom”, he should be king. This was the reason why nobody was allowed to enter the country, since nobody could return to it its name. That was why nobody was allowed to enter. They said to him: “Can you return to the country its rst name?” He could certainly not do that and thereby make himself enter. So they were unable to enter. The slave enticed [the king’s real son] to return to their home, but he did not want to return, since the forest man had said to him that he should go to this country and there he would reach his greatness. At the same time another human being came riding on a horse. He wanted to enter, but he was not allowed to enter either for the same reason. [The king’s real son] saw that the horse of this human being was standing there, and so he took the instrument and placed it on the horse. It began to play the very wonderful melody. The human being with the horse asked if he could buy this instrument, but [the king’s real son] did not want to sell it. [The king’s real son] answered him: “What could you give me for such a wonderful instrument?” The human being with the horse said to him: “What could you do with such an instrument except for make a comedy and receive a coin for it? I, however, know one thing that is better than this instrument. Or rather, I know of one thing, which I received from my father’s fathers, by which I can differentiate one thing from another. Or rather, this thing, of which I know and which I received from my father’s fathers, enables me to differentiate one thing from another. It means that if someone says something about a maiden, I will be able, thanks to what I received, to differentiate one thing from another. Until now I have not revealed this to anyone in the world. But I will teach you this, if you give me this instrument!” The king’s son thought to himself that it would really be wonderful to be able to differentiate one thing from another, and so he gave him the instrument while the human being with the horse went and taught him to differentiate one thing from another.

After they have tested the instrument by placing it on an animal, and after they have arrived at the gate of the country, they are refused entrance unless the king’s real son restores to the country its original name. If he succeeds in this kind of restoration, he will be made king.

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Restoring things to their intended position or identity resembles the process of tikkun. However, the king’s real son does not feel capable of such restoration. The maid’s son suggests that they go home, as if he is trying to tempt him in a moment of weakness, cf. as well that nobody knows where home is. But the king’s real son becomes stubborn and remembers that his greatness is supposed to lie within these walls. As if the stubbornness of the king’s real son is being rewarded, another human being comes riding on a horse in an attempt to enter the country as well. The king’s real son places the instrument on the horse of the human being, upon which the instrument begins to play the beautiful melody, and subsequently the human being convinces the king’s real son to sell it to him. According to Steinsaltz, the instrument is related to his personal tikkun, which he has achieved already. The king’s son is brought to this insight, thanks to the human being on the horse,728 who in exchange for the instrument offers him a new tool in his process toward his intended position—i.e., the ability to comprehend one thing from another.729 The human being on the horse has received this ability from his ancestors. This ability depends on knowledge that has been passed on from generation to generation. He furthermore mentions a maiden but never nishes completing the sentence that relates to her. Here, the listener/reader might think of Kabbalah, where “kabbalah” as a name refers to the tradition that has been received. The maiden could refer to “the beautiful virgin who has no eyes”,730 which is another name for Shekhinah.731 The ability to differentiate one thing from another could include mystical knowledge about Shekhinah. The king’s real son accepts the exchange and is taught by the human being on the horse to differentiate one thing from another. 728

Cf. Steinsaltz: 70. This ability is interpreted by Steinsaltz to be Torah in its broadest sense, since “the Torah seeks to change nature and improve it, even struggle against it” (Steinsaltz: 70). 730 She is described in this beautiful passage, where it would certainly be helpful to have the ability to differentiate one thing from another!: “Which serpent is it that ies in the air whilst an ant lies undisturbed between its teeth? What is it that begins in union and ends in separation? Which eagle is it whose nest is in a tree that does not yet exist, and whose young ones are plundered by creatures who have not yet been created, and in a place which is not? What are those which when they ascend descend, and when they descend ascend? And what is it two of which are one and one of which is three? And who is the beautiful virgin who has no eyes and whose body is concealed and yet revealed-revealed in the morning and concealed during the day, and who is adorned with ornaments which do not exist?” (Sefer haZohar II,95). 731 Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar I,28a. 729

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10:—1:-, 6:—10:- The king’s real son, who had learned to differentiate one thing from another, walked next to the gate of the country, and understood that he could return to it its rst name now that he could differentiate one thing from another. He understood that he was able to. However, he still did not know how and through what he could do it, though he knew from being able to differentiate one thing from another that he had the ability. He thought to himself that he would command them to let him enter to return to the country its rst name. What could he lose? He said to the [guards] that they should let him enter and let him return to the country its rst name. They let him enter and told the ministers that there was a man who wanted to return to the country its rst name. They brought him to the ministers of the country. The ministers said to him: “You know that we are not crazy, God forbid! Only was the late king indeed extraordinarily wise with the result that we in comparison were regarded as crazy ones. This is why the country was called ‘the crazy country and the wise kingdom’. The king passed away. The king’s son remained and he was also wise; however, compared with us he was not a wise one at all. This is why the country came to be called the opposite: “the wise country and the crazy kingdom”.732 The king commanded that if there were anyone as wise as he was, he would be able to return to the country its rst name. This one should be made king. The king commanded his son to leave the country if such a man could be found. Such a man should be made king. That means that if a wise man could be found, who was so very exceptional when it came to wisdom that everyone compared to him would be crazy ones, he should be made king, because this man could return to the country its rst name. Because in this way the country could be called “the crazy country and the wise kingdom”733 when everybody was crazy compared to him. Therefore you should know what you are going into. The test will be, if you are the wise one, [to enter] the garden of the late king, who was a very wise man. The garden is very wonderful indeed. In it grow instruments of different metals, some of silver, some of gold. The garden is wonderful and marvelous. However, nobody can enter it, because when a human being enters it, the instruments begin to chase him, and they chase him so that he screams, and it is impossible for him to know which one is chasing him. They chase him like this until they have driven him out of the garden. By this we shall see if you are the wise one; that is if you can enter this garden!” He asked them if the man who entered would be beaten. They said to him that the essence was that they would chase him and that he would

732 733

In the Hebrew it is “crazy king”, while in the Yiddish it is “crazy kingdom”. See previous footnote.

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chapter four not know at all which one of them was chasing him. He would run away in very great panic because this is what they had been told by the human beings who had entered there.

With his newly gained ability to differentiate one thing from another the king’s real son knows that he can restore to the country its original name, and so he approaches the gate of the country. It is not a matter of him knowing what exact knowledge is required; rather he knows that he has the ability. Knowing that he has the ability and nothing to lose, he commands the guards by the gate to let him enter, and furthermore tells them that he intends to restore to the country its original name. The king’s real son has certainly changed. He is self-condent and not at all like the desolate and apathetic person who drank, whored, and tormented himself with thoughts of self-pity. He has entered a healthy relationship with the maid’s son, which reects the intended hierarchy (probably between soul and body). The forest man released him from his sins. He taught him about the relationship between day and night (probably about the dynamic relationship between Tif xeret and Shekhinah). He taught him about the link between the moon and the animals (probably Shekhinah and this world). He taught him how to use the instrument and to cause the melody of the animals in honor of the moon to be played (probably to establish the same kind of link between Shekhinah and the world as the animals did). The man on the horse taught him to move from personal tikkun to universal tikkun, and for this purpose the man on the horse gave him the ability to differentiate one thing from another (probably by passing on to him ancestral Kabbalistic knowledge about the mystical meaning of the Shekhinah). It may be that an awareness of his worth and mission in this world has come along with the ability to differentiate. He is now convincing as a protagonist. Condent and convincing as he is, the guards let him in without any argument. They even announce his arrival and intention of restoring to the country its original name and lead him to the ministers. In this way they actually assist him in his mission.734 The ministers represent the country. The ministers are wise, most likely because they respect the wish of the late king not to appoint

734 Cf. the role of a custos liminis, who will only let the competent one pass a threshold, just like the three huge men in the desert in tale #1.

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anyone king except the one who can restore to the country its original name. This is why the late king’s son has not been appointed king; he is crazy compared to the wisdom of the ministers; and subsequently his own father has commanded him to leave the kingdom, once a wise person has been found who can restore to the country its original name. The listener/reader is thereby given an explanation of the country’s current name: “the wise country and the crazy king(dom)”. The explanation of the country’s original name is also given. The one who shall be made king has to be so wise that everyone else in the country compared to him will be crazy ones. That situation would justify the name: “the crazy country and the wise king(dom). Steinsaltz describes his understanding of the history of this country. According to him, it reects the process of creation. God created the world, but God withdrew and willed it to man, who is inadequate. The elders of the country realize their inadequacy and desire to return the country to its original status, and thus they seek a human ruler who can perform this task of restoration. God, who created this world, “left certain inherent aws in the kingdom, so that men would be able to correct them and restore the world to perfection” (Steinsaltz: 70). I agree with Steinsaltz that restoring to the country its original name is a matter of returning the country to its initially intended state. Such a restoration reects the essence of tikkun and a Lurianic perception of the process of creation. The withdrawal of God refers to tsimtsum, upon which shevirat hakelim occurs and causes the world and mankind to be imperfect. After this disaster it becomes incumbent upon man to strive toward God’s intended will with him or her, strive toward perfecting the world, where perfection of course can only be a matter of reecting God’s will. It is therefore not surprising that it requires an extreme amount of wisdom—or rather an ability to differentiate between what God intended and what man wants. As long as man follows his own will, he extends the duration of his own imperfection. The king’s real son has confronted his sins, he has been released from them, he has come to understand the link between the Godhead and the world, and nally he has been given the ability to differentiate. This is why he is a likely candidate to succeed in restoring to the country its original name. The wisdom of the potential king will be measured according to the following test: The potential king has to enter the late king’s garden and thereby endure the attacking, terrifying, panic-causing instruments made of gold and silver. When the late king was alive, the garden used

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to be the most wonderful and marvelous place. However, ever since his death everyone who has entered the garden has come running out of the garden in great fear of these thrashing instruments. According to Steinsaltz, the garden represents Pardes as well as the Garden of Eden. “Pardes is a dangerous place, and no man may nd his way in it so long as he tries to grasp things as they appear to be.” However, the king’s son comes to understand the esoteric symbols of the garden.735 I agree with Steinsaltz that the dangers of the garden evoke associations to Pardes, though I do not nd support for the garden being the Garden of Eden.736 In Chagigah 14b, where the four men enter Pardes, i.e., the garden, R. Akiva warns them in advance not to speak of things as they appear to be. The outcome of their visit to the garden is that one dies, another is stricken with madness, and a third becomes a heretic, whereas R. Akiva survives because he has the right qualications. Here, in the eleventh tale, the king’s real son has learned to differentiate, most likely also between what the world appears to be and what the world really is according to divine insight. This is why the king’s real son has the right qualications and why he is likely to be the one who can enter the garden and return from there unhurt. The king’s real son is ready to enter. 735

Cf. Steinsaltz: 70–71. Kook has a different understanding of the garden. She perceives it as a symbol of repentance. However, it is difcult to enter this garden because demonic forces, according to her, try to draw man toward the “thicket of the forest” where they provide him with all sorts of excuses for not entering the path toward repentance. But if man has the will to repent and the stubbornness to pursue repentance, the rst important step has been taken. Despite my enthusiasm for Kook, I am somewhat skeptical toward her understanding of the garden as a symbol of repentance that is hard to enter because of demonic forces from the forest. In : 102 she said herself that the forest man should be understood as a zaddik, who appears to assist man once he has decided to perform tikkun. She is furthermore very positive toward how the relationship between the king’s real son and the maid’s son develops in the forest; cf. : 101–102. Kook could of course have the two animals in mind when she mentions demonic forces; however, she is the one who claims that sins and evils are means in the process toward repentance; cf. : 102. Kook furthermore brings an additional interpretation of the garden as a symbol of the Sabbath; cf. : 105–106. She writes that the Sabbath is a matter of differentiation and critical self-evaluation. It is furthermore a symbol of peace where man is not hunted down by his previous sins. The Sabbath is a time where man works for God. Belief will provide the ability to enter the Garden of Eden. Even though all of this may be true about the Sabbath, I do not nd support for this interpretation. The ability to differentiate, to evaluate oneself, to have peace of mind, and to be at ease with oneself despite previous sins, and to realize the necessity of working for God—are skills and characteristics that the king’s real son gained outside the garden. This is why I am not convinced that the garden should be interpreted as the Sabbath. 736

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14:—10:-, 10:—7:- The king’s real son walked to the garden and saw that there was a wall around it with an open gate with no guards, since there was denitely no need to guard this garden. He walked next to the garden and looked and saw that a human being was standing next to the garden; or rather a drawing of a man was there. He looked and saw that above the human being there was something like a tablet upon which was written that this was the king who ruled some hundred years ago, and in the days of this king there was peace, but after this king there were wars upon wars. But there was peace in the days of this king. [The king’s real son] considered, now that he could differentiate one thing from another, that everything depended on this human being and that when someone entered the garden and was chased after, there would be no need to run away at all. Just by standing next to this human being one could be saved. But more than that! If one took this human being and placed it in front of oneself in the middle of the garden, every human being would be able to enter the garden in peace. [The king’s real son] went and entered the garden, and they immediately began to chase him, but he walked and stood next to this human being who stood by the entrance to the garden, and in this way he was able to leave the garden without being hurt at all. The others, who had entered the garden and who had been chased after, had run away in very great panic and had been beaten and injured; however, he left the garden in peace and tranquillity because he had stood next to the human being. The ministers saw and wondered how he could leave [the garden] in peace. [The king’s real son] commanded that they should take this human being and place him in the middle of the garden, and so it was done. All the ministers could pass into the middle of the garden. They could enter and leave in peace without being hurt at all. The ministers said to him: “Even though we have seen this from you, there is one thing that prevents us from giving you the kingdom. We will test you in one other thing. It is so that the chair of the late king is very tall. Next to this chair all kinds of wooden animals and fowls are standing. In front of the chair there is a bed, and next to the bed there is a table, and on the table there is a menorah. From this chair emerge paved roads. These roads are built up like walls, and they emerge from the chair in all directions. No human being knows the meaning of the chair with these roads. At a distance away from where these roads spread there is a golden lion. Whenever a human being approaches this lion, it opens its mouth to swallow him. From this lion a road extends further, and the same goes for the roads that emerge from the chair. That means that the second road, which emerges from the chair in another direction, is like this in that it extends and continues for a while until there is another kind of wild animal; it may be a young lion made of some kind of metal. It is impossible to approach this one for the same reason. From there another

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chapter four road extends like the other roads. These roads spread and lead everywhere in the country. No human being knows the meaning of the chair with all of these roads. Therefore, you shall be tested according to this: Can you nd the meaning of the chair with all of these roads?” They showed him the chair.

Just like a wall surrounded the country, so the garden is surrounded by a wall. The listener/reader knows from the sixth tale, that the divine protects itself with layers of defense, “[f ]or, as the nut has a shell surrounding and protecting the kernel inside, so it is with everything sacred” (Sefer haZohar II,233b). This may indicate once again that only the one with the proper qualications is supposed to enter. A drawing of the late king is standing next to the entrance of the garden. On a tablet on this drawing it says that in the late king’s days there was peace and that wars upon wars have followed ever since his death. The ability of the king’s real son to differentiate enables him to understand that peace, which is associated with this king, will spread to the one who stands next to the drawing. Furthermore, if the drawing is placed in the middle of the garden, the instruments will be at ease and let everyone enter and leave the garden in peace. At rst, the king’s real son places himself next to the drawing, presumably inside the entrance to the garden, and is left unhurt by the attacking instruments. Upon this, he commands the ministers to place the drawing in the middle of the garden, which they do. The ministers can enter and leave the garden unhurt as well. Kook understands the act of placing oneself in the shadow of the previous king as a matter of believing in the necessity and worth of tradition, including believing in God.737 If the king of this country represents God, as Steinsaltz indicates,738 the act of placing oneself next to the drawing should reect one’s belief in God. If the king represents an actual king who has brought peace to the country, then the act of placing oneself next to the drawing would indicate the willingness to look for guidance in the history and tradition during this king’s reign. The wisdom, which supercedes the wisdom of the current ministers, is the kind of wisdom that lies in the tradition, in the religion, and in God’s transcendent way of knowing the world’s intended state and position. By standing next to the drawing, the king’s real son not only accepts

737 738

Cf. : 104–105. Cf. Steinsaltz: 70.

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the late king’s wisdom, he also understands that a coming rule should be led by this wisdom. The king’s real son has passed the test. However, suddenly the ministers require that the king’s real son pass another test. He has to explain the meaning of a chair, which is surrounded by different pieces of furniture, and from which roads emerge. On these roads wild animals made of metal are placed, which threaten to swallow passers-by. When the ministers have explained the second test to the king’s real son, they lead him to the chair. 10:—14:-, 4:—10:- [The king’s real son] saw that [the chair] was very tall. He walked next to the chair and looked and considered if this chair was made by the wood from the instrument the forest man had given him. He looked and saw that a rose was missing from the top of the chair. If this chair had this rose it could be proven that it was this instrument that had the power to play whenever it was placed on an animal, wild or tame, or on a fowl. He looked further and saw that the rose, which was missing from the top of the chair, was positioned on the chair. One would need to take it from there and place it on top, and in that way the chair would gain the power of the instrument. The late king had done all of these things with his wisdom. No human being had understood the meaning of the king’s doings, and they would have to wait until an exceptionally wise man came who understood the matter and who was able to concentrate and decide how to arrange all the things in the proper order. [The king’s real son] understood that the bed needed to be moved a little from the place where it stood, that the table needed to be moved a little, that their places had to be changed a little, that the menorah had to be moved a little from its place, that the fowls and the wild animals needed to change their places, and that one fowl should be taken from its place and be placed at another place, and so on. The late king had done all this with his craftiness and wisdom, in a way that no human being understood until a wise man came who could decide how to arrange things in the proper order. The lion that stood where the road extended needed to be placed here, and so on. [The king’s real son] ordered to have everything arranged in the right order, so he took the rose from beneath and inserted it on top, and he arranged everything in its proper order. Suddenly, everything began to play the very wonderful melody, and all the things did what they were intended to do, and so they gave him the kingdom. The king’s real son said, now that he had been made king, to the real maid’s son: “Now I understand that I am the king’s real son and you are the real maid’s son.”

The chair is tall; it is made of the same wood as the instrument capable of playing the animals’ melody; and it is missing a rose on top. Thanks

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to his ability to differentiate one thing from another, the king’s real son is able to understand that the wood of the chair shares its identity with the wood of the instrument, and that the rose, which is positioned on the seat of the chair, is not supposed to be separated from the top of the chair. This leads the king’s real son to conclude that the rose, if it is returned to its intended position on top of the chair, will restore to the chair its intended power to play the animals’ melody. The instrument was able to play the animals’ melody. In that respect the instrument parallels the voices of the animals singing to the honor of the moon. Moon and rose are two different appellations for one and the same, i.e., Shekhinah, though the rose connotes Shekhinah when she incorporates the actualized Knesset Israel.739 I wrote that the animals drew down shefa and the presence of Shekhinah by singing to her honor. Now, if Shekhinah is reected in the rose, the meaning seems to be that of course Shekhinah needs to be there—on top (most likely in her intended place in the serotic system)—in order to receive the melody. So by placing the rose in its intended place, the king’s real son is restoring Shekhinah to her intended place in the serotic system, which is possible because the potential Knesset Israel has actualized itself, which again has as its consequence that Shekhinah protects and nurtures mankind. Steinsaltz is of a similar understanding. According to him, the seat of the former king, the creatures, and the roads emerging from the throne reect the primordial landscape where God sat on the throne and sent shefa to the world through various channels. However, now God has withdrawn, the animals have become ferocious beasts of prey, and the roads have been blocked. The rose, which has fallen from the chair, represents the fallen Shekhinah, including Knesset Israel. Shekhinah and Knesset Israel must be restored to their intended places.740

739 “R. Simeon discoursed on the verse: ‘I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys’ (Song of Songs 2.1). ‘How beloved’, he said, ‘is the Community of Israel to the Holy One, blessed be He, so that He continually praises Her and She continually praises Him, having many chants and hymns in store for the King. The Community of Israel is called the rose of Sharon because she owers beautifully in the Garden of Eden, and the lily of the valleys because she desires to be watered from the deep stream, the source of rivers, as it is said, “Sharon is like an Arabah” (dry land). She is also called the lily of the valleys because she is at the lowest point of all. At rst she is a rose with yellowish leaves, afterwards a lily with two colours, white and red, a lily with six leaves, a lily which changes from one colour to another. When she seeks to unite with the King she is called “rose”, but after she has joined him with her kisses she is called “lily” ” (Sefer haZohar III,107a). 740 Cf. Steinsaltz: 72.

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The same concerns the furniture and the creatures. The king’s real son commands the different pieces of furniture and the different creatures to be moved just a little. The movement is of course directed toward the intended position of all of these things and creatures. When this is done, he himself places the rose on top of the chair, and suddenly everything, not only the chair, begins to play the wonderful animals’ melody and to act according to its intended purpose. According to Steinsaltz, when the king’s son engages in the restoration, it becomes obvious “that nothing has to be moved very far. Shifting things just a little into their correct places is all that is required to reintroduce harmony” (Steinsaltz: 72). Steinsaltz continues by writing that these minor changes, required to restore things to their intended position, are symbolic of the mitsvot. Performing the mitsvot properly and at the right time will perfect the world and bring about redemption.741 I am not sure if the rearrangement reects the performance of the mitsvot; it might as well be a matter of humans understanding that God has a purpose with the creation of mankind, which is why humans should strive toward seeing life from the divine perspective. As long as mankind sees the world as it is and thereby does not have the ability to see the world from the divine perspective, the mitsvot help us perform the will of God. But the king’s real son is not acting according to the mitsvot, he is acting according to a divine insight—which is why this tale conveys the encouragement to strive toward transcendent understanding, not of the canonical Torah, but of God’s will. The tale strives at being Scripture in the mystical sense of the term. The test, however, was to nd the meaning of the chair. There is no direct explanation of it in the text. However, the text most strongly indicates that the chair is in need of someone as wise and crafty as the king’s real son. Steinsaltz and Wiskind-Elper interpret the chair to be God’s throne.742 However, if the late king is interpreted to be God, and since God created the world and then withdrew, then it does not mean that God left the throne. The late king commanded that nobody should rule except the one who could rule with exceptional wisdom. This is why the chair refers to the throne of the Messiah. The Bratslavers talk about ‘the empty chair’ by which they refer to the expectation of the

741 742

Cf. Steinsaltz: 72. Steinsaltz: 72; Wiskind-Elper: 262n113.

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coming of the Messiah.743 Furthermore, it is only when the king’s real son has restored everything to its intended position that he understands that he is truly the king’s real son. Now, David was king in an ideal kingdom like the one during the wise man’s reign. The nal redeemer is called Mashiah ben David; i.e., the Messiah, son of David. This is why, by the end of the tale, the king’s real son, according to my understanding, reects the Messiah, and why the chair should be conceived of as the throne of the Messiah. The king’s real son has certainly left his old identity—be it as heir to the throne of a concrete country or as someone victimized by evil’s need to assert itself. The king’s real son has undergone a major internal change and so has the world. Recapitulation A midwife, who does not respect her intended role as a helper during childbirth, turns the hierarchical order upside down when she switches a king’s son and a maid’s son who are born in the same place at the same time. It seems that the king’s real son represents the soul and that the maid’s real son represents the body. Soul and body are both creations reecting God’s wish to create, but the interference of the midwife, who can be interpreted as Lilith or another representative of Yetser haRa, has distorted creation. God wanted the soul to guide the body, but as it is in this world, and especially when the maid’s real son is made king, the body rules over the soul. The distorted order brings sufferings to all parties affected by the switch. The sufferings increase as the two sons grow up, because the representative of Lilith initiates gossip with the purpose of keeping the two sons in their distorted positions. The maid’s real son exiles the king’s real son, indicating an increased distance between body and soul, and

743 On the Bratslavers’ website it says: “Shortly before Rosh Hashanah 5569 (late summer 1808), one of Rebbe Nachman’s followers from the town of Teplik brought the Rebbe an exquisitely hand-crafted chair. During the Cossack raids against the Jews in the Ukraine in the early 1920s, the chair was dismantled and cut into small pieces. In 1936 it was brought to Jerusalem. In 1959 the chair was restored by craftsmen from the Israel Museum. In 1984 the chair was renished by Katriel’s of Jerusalem and placed on display in the Breslov synagogue in the Meah Shearim section of Jerusalem, where it remains today”; cf. http://www.breslov.org/thechair.html; see as well Moshe Mykoff: The Empty Chair: Finding Hope and Joy: Timeless Wisdom from a Hasidic Master, Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, 1996.

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so both sons live in states of misery. The only one who is able to see through the distortion is the maid’s husband, who allows himself to be guided by God. The maid’s real son has thoughts of repentance but no soul to guide him, and so he returns to defending his illegitimate position of power. The king’s real son has thoughts of repentance too and turns to God for guidance, and divine guidance appears in the form of a recurring dream instructing him to accept a lowly position as animal driver. As an animal driver, the king’s real son/the soul ends up in a forest and learns about his responsibility for the ones in need of his guidance. The maid’s real son/the body recognizes through a dream that his tikkun depends on him accepting to be guided by the king’s real son/the soul, while the king’s real son/the soul has to be guided by God. The maid’s real son abdicates and meets with the king’s real son in the forest. They restore the correct relationship between them, and thus from this point the soul guides the body, and tikkun on the personal level has been achieved. Tikkun on the personal level leads to the appearance of a forest man, who represents divine guidance. Inside the forest, this guide explains to the soul, who then teaches the body, that a clamorous laughing voice conveys that divine reections in this world will be replaced by the divine itself, once the divine comes to dominate. A wonderful melody teaches them that Bittul haYesh is an important step in the process of tikkun. Man’s ability to perceive of this world is limited, unless he accepts to be guided by God’s will, because this is how God originally intended man to behave before evil switched the hierarchical order of body and soul. After having explained all of this to the king’s real son/the soul, the forest man reveals to him that the king’s real son deserves greatness and that he will be able to achieve this greatness in “the crazy country and the wise kingdom”, connoting a country ruled by divine insight. At the gate to this country, the king’s real son/the soul meets a man on a horse who teaches the son to differentiate one thing from another by means of Kabbalah. The country’s name has changed to the reverse, and so it becomes the quest of the king’s real son to restore the country’s name to its original order. He does so inside a magical garden, equivalent to Pardes, by not being tempted to conceive of things, as they appear to be; by being guided by God’s will as it is described in history and tradition; and by realizing that the future rule should depend on insight into the divine perspective. The king’s real son solves an additional quest, in which he brings Israel to actualize its

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potentiality as Knesset Israel, and in which he restores Shekhinah to her intended position in the serotic system, from where the divine presence can protect and nurture mankind. When this second quest is solved the king’s real son realizes his own identity as the one who is entitled to place himself in the throne of Mashiah ben David, which signals the beginning of the Messianic era.

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4.12 The Twelfth Tale The Master of Prayer Introduction The twelfth tale744 is according to the title “     ” in the bilingual version—i.e., “the twelfth tale about a master of prayer”, which corresponds to the initial sentence in the Hebrew and Yiddish texts. In the Hebrew it says: “  -      . ”, and in the Yiddish it says: “          ”, both meaning: “Once upon a time there was a master of prayer.” All English-writing commentators agree on the English translation “The Master of Prayer”.745 Roskies notes that a baal-tle (the Yiddish pronunciation) can be anyone who leads a congregation in prayer. No professional training is required for such a leader, but his piety, his faith, must be beyond reproach. He leads the ritual of prayer, but he is not a leader compared to the congregation. Anyone can emerge as baal-tle and humble himself before God to make the prayers efcacious—as long as there is a quorum of ten! A need for a quorum and the qualities of piety and faith in the character of the master of prayer are important aspects in the twelfth tale, and Roskies should be given credit for having noticed these implications of the title.746 However, the master of prayer in this specic tale is also a leader type, a true master of prayer, and the character therefore deviates to a certain extent from standard expectations. With this in mind I choose the complex title “The Master of Prayer”.

744 Tale #12 was told on 6 January 1810. The immediate occasion for this tale was the torn kaftan of Rabbi Yosef, the cantor in Bratslav. Rabbi Nahman is supposed to have said to Rabbi Yosef: “Aren’t you the prayer leader? All the blessings are drawn down through prayer. Why don’t you have a decent kaftan?” (Hayyey MoHaRaN #62). Nahman then told the tale about the master of prayer. See as well Hayyey MoHaRaN #59. 745 Cf. : 119; Steinsaltz: 73; Band 1978: 211; Kaplan 1983: 278; Roskies 2002: 89. Wiskind-Elper keeps it in the innite as “Master of Prayer” as the only one; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 31–32 746 Cf. Roskies 2002: 92–93.

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Summary The master of prayer has a sole purpose in life and that is to constantly engage in the service of God. For this purpose he has secluded himself outside a settled area. As part of the service of God, the master of prayer commits to attract followers and bring them closer to God, and therefore, he now and then goes into the settled area. He is successful in attracting followers. These followers subsequently try to bring more people to engage in the service of God. The master of prayer actually becomes so successful that the inhabitants in the settled area want to capture him, since they fear that they will lose their family members to him. However, because of his ever-changing disguises, they cannot capture him. The pious life of the master of prayer and his followers is contrasted by the idolatrous behavior of the inhabitants in a rich country, the country of wealth, where money is worshipped. In this country, people are given rank according to their fortune. Those who have no fortune are considered animals, whereas the most well-off are considered gods. To guard themselves against theft and murder, the inhabitants decide to establish rituals, wherein they sacrice animals, i.e., human beings with no fortune. It is considered positive to be sacriced, since one shall be incorporated in a god and later reincarnated as a rich man. The master of prayer is concerned about the situation in the country of wealth. He therefore sends some of his followers to bring these inhabitants to repent their idolatry, but to no avail. Fearing that the inhabitants will go further astray, the master of prayer decides to visit the country himself to make them repent their errors, but the inhabitants do not listen to him either. An approaching warrior, who wants to conquer countries in order to make them submit to him, is, however, what makes the inhabitants in the country of wealth open up to assistance from without. Their own idea is to ask an immensely rich country, where all inhabitants are gods, to come to their rescue and defeat this warrior. Coinciding with this, the master of prayer decides to try again to make the inhabitants repent their errors. He explains to them that the so-called gods in the immensely rich country are human beings and therefore not able to defeat the warrior, and that instead of worshipping money they should worship God. When speaking about the warrior, the master of prayer says: “Is this not the warrior?” This enigmatic sentence and the verbal attacks of the master of prayer on their religion and on the inability

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of the so-called gods to come to their rescue provoke the inhabitants to capture the master of prayer. Upon his capture, the ministers of the country interrogate him to acquire more information about the warrior. The master of prayer explains that this warrior may be the same warrior as the one with whom he served a certain king. This king used to have a sketched hand. This hand, including its ngers and lines, was like a complete map of the world, reecting the micro-macrocosmic geography as well as micro-macrocosmic history of the past, the present and the future. The master of prayer explains how he saw in this hand that these inhabitants, including the so-called gods from the immensely rich country, would be defeated. Frightened by this prophecy, the inhabitants ask the master of prayer to tell them the location of this king, because they hope that this king will be able to help them nd money. Of course, the master of prayer is disappointed that they still ask for money; however now that he does not know where this king is, he agrees to tell them a story about this king. The master of prayer relates how he once advised this king to marry off his daughter to a warrior who had done so much for the country, and the king agreed to this. In due time the daughter gave birth to a child of superhuman beauty, with golden hair, with a face like the sun, with eyes like the planets, and with a perfect wisdom. Six people constituted the court of the king: a bard, a wise man, the warrior who had married the queen’s daughter, a dear and faithful friend, a treasure-keeper, and the master of prayer. These six people were very skillful; however, their skills were enhanced thanks to the king. The king showed the warrior a way, which led to a powerful sword with which everything could be defeated. One day, while the members of the court were away, a tempest occurred. The tempest turned the world upside down; it changed everything to its opposite, and nally it snatched the child of the queen’s daughter. In their pursuit of the child, the royal family was dispersed, and they lost track of each other. The court members were scattered all over as well. After having heard the story, the inhabitants in the country of wealth keep the master of prayer for intelligence reasons during the siege by the warrior. The master of prayer convinces the inhabitants to let him investigate if this is really the king’s warrior, and they allow him to do so. The master of prayer engages in a dialogue with one of the warrior’s guards, who tells him how the tempest had left the world without a king. The world therefore decided to choose a king who personied

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the purpose in life; however, it came to a disagreement about what the purpose in life was, and so the world was divided in different factions, where each of them chose a different virtue as the purpose in life. The virtues chosen were: honor, murder (sic!), food, procreation, speech, happiness, wisdom, growing of limbs, and prayer. If somebody personied such a “virtue”, he was appointed king. The warrior’s guard belongs to the faction of those who consider the growing of limbs a virtue, and they had appointed the warrior their king. The master of prayer and the warrior meet and immediately recognize each other. They are happy to see each other, but sad that they have still not been reunited with the king, his family, and the court members. They discuss the situation in the country of wealth. The warrior explains how he had heard the king say that one who had fallen into the passion for money could only be redeemed, if one walked on the way of the sword. On his way back the master of prayer meets the faction of prayer that appoints him king over them. Meanwhile, messengers from the country of wealth meet the king’s treasure-keeper and make him their king. The messengers ask their newly appointed king to return with them to their country, hoping that he, with his access to a divine amount of money, can save them from the warrior. When the treasure-keeper hears about the warrior, he considers if this could be the king’s warrior, and he goes to meet him. The treasure-keeper and the warrior are reunited. After their meeting the treasure-keeper convinces the inhabitants in the country of wealth to come with him and the warrior (in disguise) to the way of the sword, since this place is the only thing that can save them from being defeated by the warrior. The inhabitants of the country of wealth, dressed up in their gold and silver jewelry, the treasure-keeper, and the warrior are joined by the master of prayer. Before leaving, the master of prayer orders his faction of prayer to pray that God will make them successful and make them nd the king, his family, and the other court members. On their way, the treasure-keeper, the warrior, and the master of prayer meet and are joined by the remaining members of the court, the king’s family, and nally the king. At this point the ten of them can restablish the “holy gathering”. During their dispersal they had become rulers over the different faction, which is why they can authorize the master of prayer to enter into the midst of the different factions to make them repent their faulty convictions about the purposes in life. Simultaneously, the warrior addresses the king concerning the appar-

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ently irredeemable inhabitants from the country of wealth. The king responds by instructing him to take representatives from this country to the area of the sword. In the area of the sword, the warrior makes the representatives from the country of wealth realize their sin. The warrior and the representatives return to the country of wealth with a remedy that can bring the remaining part of the country to realize its sin. Upon this, the master of prayer is called upon, and he restores them and puries them. The king is installed as king over the entire world. From then on, the entire world only engages in Torah, prayer, repentance, and good deeds. Scholarly comments on the tale According to Kook, the main purpose of the twelfth tale is to stress the merit of prayer. Man is by nature likely to succumb to doubts and bewilderment leading to fallacy when he is cut off from the divine source of life. The prevalent confusion of the world leads man to fall into sin. It is not that man does not pursue ideals or purposes in life. The problem is that man considers purposes and ideals goals in themselves with the consequence that God is ignored as the only absolute authority in the world. To counter this kind of heresy or idolatry, man needs prayer because only through prayer can man enter a relationship with God. With reference to this perception, Kook mentions Nathan Sternhartz’s understanding of how each purpose of each faction has a double meaning. A purpose is considered good when it is directed toward God, whereas it is considered bad if it is severed from its intended divine context.747 Man will remain entangled in his own drives and urges as long as he does not allow himself to be led by the master of prayer. The master of prayer is capable of opening the heart of each individual to make him engage in the service of God and to reveal to him the divine aspect of each quality in life. Only God can provide a safe haven from the arbitrariness of man’s choice. However, to arrive in this safe haven, man would have to scrutinize himself and be willing to repent his previous erring.748 Due to shevirat hakelim, the cosmic catastrophe according to the Lurianic myth, man is by nature likely to succumb to doubts and

747 748

Cf. : 149. Cf. : 150.

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bewilderment, which eventually will lead to fallacy. Inspired by Nathan Sternhartz’s understanding of the tale, Kook sees shevirat hakelim present in the tale as the tempest where the population is cut off from its king, which parallels how creation was severed from its divine source. Bringing the population back to its king, that is, bringing creation back to its divine source, is reected in the doings of the master of prayer. This rectication is a matter of tikkun, says Kook.749 According to Steinsaltz, a “single motif informs the whole tale—the redemption of the world in messianic times” (Steinsaltz: 103). The master of prayer, whom Steinsaltz interprets to be a Zaddik haDor, guides “his followers on the path to spiritual perfection—prescribing individual remedies for different souls, generally based on their previous way of life” (Steinsaltz: 104–105). The country of wealth is by Steinsaltz considered Nahman’s clear warning to his contemporaries about the dangers of abandoning traditional values in favor of [the] materialism . . . of contemporary society. However, Nachman is concerned here with more than social criticism. The master of prayer knows that such a society will inexorably move in direction of dehumanization and idolatry (Steinsaltz: 105).

The dispersal of the king and his court “can be seen as a mystical allegory of the entire history of the world, from Creation through Redemption” (Steinsaltz: 106–107). The king is God; the king’s daughter is Shekhinah; the warrior is a perfect zaddik and simultaneously a symbolic representation of Mashiah ben Yosef; the child is Mashiah ben David.750 The remaining members of the king’s court strive toward a reunion. Thanks to the memory of their wondrous companionship, they are nourished in their fallen states. Steinsaltz sees here a parallel to the concept of a “residue of a now-vanished closeness to God” (Steinsaltz: 108) which he mentions as central to Nahman’s theology. The tempest, which Steinsaltz considers always to be a symbol of the power of evil is understood as representing shevirat hakelim.751

Cf. : 151–152. Cf. Steinsaltz: 107. 751 Tales #1, 2, and 10 describe tempests as well, where they actually enable the protagonists to further the process of redemption. I therefore disagree with Steinsaltz, when he claims that a tempest should always be considered a symbol of the power of evil. However, I agree that here in tale #12 the tempest causes something that resembles shevirat hakelim, and the tempest should therefore be considered negative. 749 750

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The factions are, according to Steinsaltz, basic human types; each is characterized by an attribute that is possessed in perfect form by one of the king’s counselors or a member of his family. What Nachman is attacking so ferociously in this section is not the actual activity of searching but the way that this quest can be perverted and debased. The “kings” who so degrade it are manifestations of human folly in its extreme (Steinsaltz: 108–109)

The process of ‘raising the sparks of holiness’ even from within human vices—not by suppressing one’s evil inclination, but by redirecting it from the base to the divine—is the process the different counselors have to undertake. However, separately, the counselors can do nothing more than eliminate the worst abuses and excesses. “The complete reform of mankind can come about only when all members of the royal court and the counselors are reunited, and the divine inuence pervades all levels of existence”.752 The nal ascent to the way of the sword may include an intertextual reference to Is. 31, but may also implicitly refer to the Kabbalistic concept of stern and destroying judgment (Din) as present in the re and the snatching lion. The kitchen represents the place where Din is transformed to constructive force. [F]ire consumes evil, but it also extracts and prepares nourishment for the world, turning bitter into sweet. In this it is assisted by the birds, who represent human souls. It is here that hell re is moderated, that the inhabitants of the country of wealth are purged of their depravity . . . When this happens, the primal harmony of the world is restored (Steinsaltz: 112).

According to Band, “the opening description of the Master of Prayer . . . invites comparison with the role of the zadik in Hasidism and Rabbi Nahman’s relentless obsession with his mission” (Band 1978: 317). The autobiographical echo can only be heard at the beginning of the tale, after which the “lengthy cosmic epic . . . dramatizes some of the basic phases of the Lurianic myth of the world” (Band 1978: 317). After having paraphrased the tale, Band concludes with respect to the message of the tale: that mankind cannot properly perceive the truth unless aided by a gure such as the Master of Prayer who, though portrayed as a human being, is one of the original Holy Community . . . Primarily preoccupied with the process of tikkun (remedy, redemption), the story deals at length with the contact between the upper and lower worlds (Band 1978: 318–319). 752

Cf. Steinsaltz: 110–111.

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Kaplan presents no overall understanding of the tale, but notes that the king, the queen, the queen’s daughter, her child, and the six court members relate “to the Ten Seroth . . ., as well as the Ten Commandments. The ten characters are also the ten people of a minyan, who are led by the baal tellah” (Kaplan 1983: 278n). I shall return to Kaplan’s comments when relevant.753 According to Wiskind-Elper, “The Master of Prayer” explores: the dilemma of accepting the sovereignty of a transcendent, unknowable God . . . In this story, the difculty of adopting a religion with an invisible king is mitigated by the gure of the master of prayer himself; this prototype of a Hasidic rebbe puries each one, helps him repent, and makes these disciples into a community of God’s faithful (Wiskind-Elper: 176).

Wiskind-Elper takes the twelfth tale to be the clearest instance of how the cataclysm of the breaking of the vessels (shevirat hakelim) affected “human ability to interpret and occasion events, to discern the divine manifest in the lower world of deeds” (Wiskind-Elper: 139). WiskindElper explains how shevirat hakelim is reected in Nahman’s tale as the tempest, which causes the world to be turned upside down, and then elaborates upon it: The people whom the master of prayer strives to enlighten, with their delusions, fanaticism, and iniquity, know only this ruined, upside-down world left in the wake of the storm. Ignorant of any higher order, their internal confusion and unfocused desires drive them from one idol to another—wealth, fame, beauty, power. This moral deformation, clearly, is the effect of the kelippot set loose in the world like evil spirits from Pandora’s box. The vices that capture each people are not inherently evil, but rather a distortion, an exaggeration ad absurdum of positive tendencies. The master of prayer, then, devotes his life to reordering the chaos, striving to nd and teach a new reading of the map, to lead each person out of the dusty wind that still stings his eyes (Wiskind-Elper: 140).754

753 The symbolic potential of the ten characters constitute what I see as the most difcult aspect of this tale. I agree with Kaplan that associations are evoked to the ten serot and to the minyan, but one cannot translate each of the ten characters to correspond precisely to one specic serah or commandment. 754 Wiskind-Elper is here in line with Yehudit Kook, though she does not include Kook’s book in her bibliography. The coinciding reading and wording could be derived from the fact that Wiskind-Elper, just like Kook, has had Nathan Sternhartz’s interpretation from Likkutey Halakhot, Oreh Hayyim, Tellah 4.2 in mind, to which Wiskind-Elper refers on page 46.

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Each of the six members of the king’s court (the master of prayer, the warrior, the treasure-keeper, the wise man, the bard, the dear and faithful friend) and the child correspond, according to Wiskind-Elper, with one of the seven lower serot, while the antithesis of each gure’s dominant attribute is reected in the immorality of each of the sects. The upper three serot, according to the Lurianic paradigm, remained intact, though damaged through the inux of the divine light. Thus the king, queen, and queen’s daughter of the tale cast themselves into voluntary exile . . . The master of prayer nds himself in this world where the kelippot seem to reign, and he sets out to lead it to its restitution. Thus the tale ranges from the legendary cataclysm (shevirah) to the realization of a prophetic vision (Is. 31)—idols of gold and silver are cast away, sinners repent, and the throne, king, and kingdom are restored. (Wiskind-Elper: 46).

Roskies considers the tempest a symbol of shevirah and the following efforts of the royal court members a matter of tikkun.755 The master of prayer reects someone who empowers others by virtue of his own self-negation . . . Out there in the world of power and greed, his message of piety and purgation meeting with universal scorn, he must prove his mastery, reveal his hidden knowledge, and reunite the cosmic forces that have been torn apart . . . a baal-tle cannot pray alone. He needs a quorum. Without the others, without the profane, his prayers are nothing. Without them, even his intense piety will not bring the words on the page alive before God. He is much like the storyteller, then, who carries the divine spark but who operates here on earth with standard phrases, xed plots, and cannot be effective unless there are at least nine other people present to answer: Amen (Roskies: 93).

Analysis 7: —1: -, 8: —1: - Once upon a time there was a master of prayer who was constantly engaged in prayer, songs, and praises to God, blessed be He. He used to sit outside a settled area. Now and then he entered the settled area to visit someone from among the ordinary people such as the poor ones. He used to talk to the heart of such a person about the purpose of the entire world, or rather that there is truly no purpose except for engaging in the service of God every single day of one’s life and for spending all

755

Cf. Roskies 2002: 89–90.

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chapter four days in prayer to God, blessed be He, in songs and praises. He spoke so much with this one about kindling issues that these issues entered his ears, upon which he was lled with the wish of joining him. As soon as he was lled with the wish to be with him, the master of prayer took him and led him to his place outside the settled area. This place was by a river; there were trees, some with fruit. He used to eat the fruit. He did not care about clothing at all. As mentioned before, he used to enter the settled area to entice the human beings to engage in the work of God, blessed be He, to walk in His way, and to engage in prayers. He took whomever he had persuaded and led him to his place outside the settled area. There they only engaged in prayers, songs and praises to God, blessed be He, in confessions, fasting, self-mortication, repentance, etc. He wrote compositions on these prayers, songs, praises, and confessions and gave them to them. They were constantly engaged in this. There were among these people, whom he had brought there, some who obtained the capability to bring other human beings closer to the service of God, blessed be He. The master of prayer would give these people authority to enter the settled area and engage in the process of bringing human beings closer to God, blessed be He. The master of prayer engaged constantly in this issue. He always brought human beings closer to him; he took them away from the settled area. The matter made an impression in the world, and it became known that suddenly people ran away from their country and nobody knew where they were. And it happened that suddenly somebody lost a son or a son-in-law, and nobody knew where they were, until they realized that there was a master of prayer who went and enticed human beings to engage in the service of God, blessed be He. However, they could not recognize him or capture him, since the master of prayer acted wisely. He appeared differently to each person; he wore a different disguise in front of each person. To one person he would appear as a poor man, to another as a merchant, to yet another as someone else. In those cases where he began to talk to human beings but saw that he could not inuence their attitude, he played tricks with them until they did not understand anything about his good intention at all, as if there were not any intention at all; i.e., as if he had no intention of bringing them closer to God, blessed be He. Nobody could understand his intention at all, even though the entire essence really was to talk to human beings about coming closer to God, blessed be He, because this was his sole intention. Only when he realized that he could not inuence someone, did he confuse him, distort things, and play tricks with him, until this one could not understand his good intention at all. The master of prayer engaged in this issue until it made an impression and the matter became known to the world. People were looking for him to capture him, but they could not, as mentioned before. The master of prayer used to sit together with his people outside the settled area and engage in prayer, songs, and praises to God, blessed be He, in confessions, fasting, self-mortication, and repentance. The master of prayer

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also knew how to supply everyone with what he needed. If he understood that one of his people, according to this one’s temperament, needed to serve God by being dressed in golden clothing, in golden brocade, he would supply him with one. And vice versa. Sometimes, if a rich man had approached him, after which he had led him away from the settled area, and he realized that this rich man needed to dress in torn and dirty clothing, he would lead him to dress in this way. He would know everyone’s need for supply and would supply him accordingly. To those people, who had come close to God, blessed be He, fasting or immense self-mortication was more precious than all the pleasures in the world, since they derived such a pleasure from the immense self-mortication or fasting that it was greater than all the pleasures in the world.

To be able to serve God constantly, the master of prayer has secluded himself from the secular world. According to Nahman, there is a clear correlation between seclusion and the service of God. In Likkutey MoHaRaN Nahman states that God created the entire world for Israel, so that Israel should carry out God’s will. By carrying out God’s will Israel would subsequently be able to return to God and be encompassed in God, who constitutes the sole reality.756 However, becoming encompassed in one’s divine source is possible only through bitul (self-negation) . . . And the only way to attain bitul is through hitbodedut. By secluding himself and speaking at length with his Master, through this a person merits negating all his physical desires and bad character traits to the point where he merits negating all his corporeality and is encompassed in his Source . . . [H]itbodedut should take place in a special place—i.e., away from the city, on a secluded road, in a place not frequented by people. For a place frequented during the day by people who chase after this world, even if at present they are not there, nonetheless disturbs the hitbodedut and he is unable to attain bitul and be encompassed in God (Likkutey MoHaRaN #52.3).

It seems that the master of prayer has removed himself from the worldliness, represented in the tale by the settled area, which prevents him as well as anybody else from being close to God. Seclusion is his rst means to live up to the purpose of creation, i.e., to carry out the will of God. Another three means for engaging in the service of God are mentioned. They are prayers, songs, and praises. These prayers, songs, and praises are all directed to God and become a verbal bridge between

756

Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #52.1–2.

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God as sole reality and Israel as creation who is supposed to return to God by crossing this bridge. A fth means for engaging in the service of God for the master of prayer is his occasional visits to the settled area, where he removes susceptible human beings from the worldliness of the settlement and brings them to return to God. He does so by kindling their heart—i.e., the locus of Yetser haTov,757 the good urge—and by directing his words toward their ears. Some may have a fat heart or heavy ears and thereby not be intended to understand his words, return and be healed.758 However, some will be kindled by his words and will realize the necessity to form a community of God-serving people, who perform the will of God and thereby initiate the process where the entire world returns to its source. This process equals the process toward redemption. The community of God-serving people lives in seclusion together with the master of prayer in an Edenlike place with a river, with fruit trees—i.e., plenty of drink and food. By serving God in this place, it is as if these devout men have come to pretaste the world-to-come, which will be accessible to the entire world, once it has returned to its source. It is highly plausible that Nahman is already here outlining the plot of the tale, i.e., the process toward redemption. In the settled area people are frightened by the success of the charismatic leader of the God-serving community, who is able to entice their sons and sons-in-law to leave worldliness behind. The settled area considers the master of prayer a threat and intends to capture him. They are, however, unable to do so. The reason for his ability to escape them is also seen in his ability to attract so many new followers: his appearance constantly changes. On the one hand, this change in appearance makes it impossible for his pursuers to recognize him. On the other hand, his change in appearance includes an ability to adjust to the person he approaches. If a person is too immersed in worldliness, it will seem to this one as if the master of prayer is playing a trick on him. However, if the master of prayer senses that a person is susceptible to words about God, he will speak to the individual on the premises of this individual, who will then come to understand the necessity of serving God. Once within the community of God-serving

757 758

Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #83. Cf. Is. 6.10.

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people, the master of prayer will continue to adjust to the individual members. He will know how to supply the member with what this member needs in order to serve God in his particular way. Clothing is given as an example of such a need.759 The success of the master of prayer is not only to be measured according to the growing number of members. An additional sign of success is that the members are elevated so much that the master of prayer can pass on his mission to them and let them venture into the settled area in order to gain new followers for the community of Godserving people. The passing on of the mission hints at another actual practice in Bratslav, referred to by the image of the mirror.760 It relates to the master/disciple relationship, in which the zaddik through selfannihilation creates a vacuum within himself for the divine light. When the disciple stands face to face with the zaddik, the disciple will come to recognize his own incompleteness, which will convince him to engage in self-annihilation in order to become a receptor for the divine light in the zaddik, which the zaddik has received from God. Eventually, the disciple will be able to enter the world where he will reect the zaddik’s light and thus contribute to the process of universal redemption. The opening passage of the twelfth tale continues with implicit references to the actual circle around R. Nahman. The master of prayer brings his followers to appreciate prayers, songs and praises, most likely because these means of expression shall serve the followers as the same verbal bridge, across which he himself has been able to reach the divine source. Furthermore, the followers engage in confession, fasting, selfmortication, and repentance. Confession of sin is a way to acknowledge the sovereignty of God and break the power of the forces that deny Godliness. If a man sins, Shekhinah is drawn down into worldliness; however, if the sins are confessed, not in thought, but in words before a talmid khakham, then the Shekhinah is restored to the serotic system.761 According to Rapoport-Albert, confession of sin actually constituted a part of the initiation ceremony for Nahman’s new disciples from 1800 to 1802. Nahman would give absolution of his followers’ sins, which

759 As mentioned previously, the immediate occasion for this tale was the torn kaftan of Rabbi Yosef, the cantor in Bratslav; cf. Hayyey MoHaRaN #62. 760 See Chapter 2.1 for Green’s lucid explanation of the metaphor of the mirror based on Likkutey MoHaRaN #153 in Green 1992 (1979): 157–158. 761 Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #4.3–5.

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would abolish the impact of those sins on the metaphysical world of the serot, and enable the followers to attain, already in this world, a state like that of the world-to-come.762 This tale was told in 1810, and if Rapoport-Albert is correct, this practice of confession in front of Nahman took no longer place. However, theologically I see no reason why confession as part of hitbodedut or in front of someone entrusted by Nahman still could not take place in 1810; otherwise it would not make sense to mention it in this tale as part of a description of an ideal God-serving community. If this is the case, confession would be another argument for my reading that this community achieves a pretaste of the world-to-come and engages in the process of redemption. In the tale fasting is mentioned as a means. In his homiletic writings Nahman advocates for fasting as a means to subordinate matter, the physicality of man, so that form and intellect may gain strength and ascend toward the divine source.763 In another place, Nahman juxtaposes fasting and self-mortication as means to break the body (but not the lack of spiritual perception in the soul).764 Finally, the tale mentions repentance, i.e.,  , returning to God. Complete repentance would indicate the advent of the world-to-come. On the personal level, repentance signies that state of mind and actions where one repents the sins committed. One must, however, constantly engage in repentance, since man gains a new understanding of the extent of his sins whenever his perception expands.765 When it comes down to the point, repentance is really a matter of understanding the imperfection of man and subsequently making oneself nothing, so that a vacuum is created for Godliness instead. In other words, the rituals/ritualistic acts current in the circle around Nahman transpose signicance onto the emphasis of the master of prayer of prayers, songs, praises, confessions, fasting, self-mortication, and repentance. These rituals/ritualistic acts constitute a way to return to the divine source, to pretaste the worldto-come, and to assist God in the process of universal redemption. 762 Cf. Rapoport-Albert 1973: 65–96 and Chapter 2.1. According to RapoportAlbert’s article, confession of sin as part of an initiation ceremony may have taken place since 1792, though most sources indicate the year of 1800. Under all circumstances confession of sin was formalized in 1800 when it became obligatory for new disciples. In 1802, however, Nahman decided to discontinue the practice of confession, though it may have continued in some modied form or been entrusted to some of his leading followers. 763 Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #37.3. 764 Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #109. 765 Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #6.3.

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14: —8: -, 7: —9: - Once upon at time there was a country of great wealth where everybody was rich. However, their ways of behavior were very strange and different. Everything at their place was conducted according to wealth. The worth and rank of everyone depended on his wealth. Whoever had so and so many thousands, had one rank; and whoever had so and so much money, had another rank. The order of their ranks depended on the money of each one of them. Whoever had a certain sum of so and so many thousands would be king. They also had banners. Whoever had so and so much money would be under one banner, and his rank would be reected in the banner; and whoever had so and so much money would be under a different banner, and his rank would be reected in the banner as would his value and amount of money. It was agreed upon among them how much money it would take to come under one banner and to achieve a certain rank, and how much money it would take to come under a different banner and to achieve another rank. The status and the rank of every single one of them were according to money as it had been agreed upon among them. They had furthermore agreed that the one with this and this amount of money would be an ordinary person. Had he less than that, he would be an animal or a bird or something similar. Some were even considered evil animals or birds; that is, if somebody only had so and so little, he would be called a human lion or a name of another wild animal or bird. In this way and according to his money he was nothing but an animal or a bird, since the essence was money. The rank and status of every one of them were entirely according to money.

In stark contrast to the ideals in the community of the master of prayer,766 the country of wealth assigns rank and status to each individual according to the amount of money that s/he has. Accordingly, the richest person is king; and the one with a small amount of money is considered an animal or bird and evil in case the amount of money is very small. People are divided into groups according to their wealth. The God-given natural difference between humans and animals is ignored.767 In that respect, the country of wealth is guilty of sin. Another sin is their ignorance of God’s purpose with mankind. Man was set in this world to serve God as they do in the community of the master of prayer. Mankind was not set in the world by God to let money become the governing purpose in life. When money is elevated to such an absolute position, the country becomes guilty of idolatry.

766 767

The contrast is noted by Roskies as well; cf. Roskies 2002: 89. Cf. Gen. 1.26–28; 2.19–20.

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13: —15: -, 8: —8: - People in the world heard about this country, and so the master of prayer moaned because of this. He said: “Who knows how far they can go astray because of this?” There were some people from among the followers of the master of prayer who did not question his opinion at all. They went to this country to bring them back on the right track, since they felt great compassion for those who had gone astray like this because of a passion for money. The master of prayer had particularly said that they might go astray further and further. This is why these people went to this country. Maybe they would be able to bring them back on the right track. They went there and came to the country. They entered and approached one of them; most likely they approached someone who was low in rank with a small amount of money and who was therefore called an animal. They began to speak to him as they used to; that is, as if they really had no purpose at all, though the essence of the purpose was solely to engage in the service of God. He did not listen to them at all, because the notion there that the essence was money had already been rooted in him. Therefore one of the followers of the master of prayer spoke to somebody else, but he did not listen either. The follower of the master of prayer talked a lot with him. The man he talked to answered: “I have no more time to speak to you!” “Why?” did they ask. He answered: “That is because we are all preparing right now to move from this country to another country, since we have realized that the essential purpose is nothing but money. This is why we have decided to go to a country in which we can make money. In this country there is dust from which we can make gold and silver. This is why we have to go to this country now!”

The country of wealth gives rise to the concern of the master of prayer for the future of these inhabitants. He fears that they will ‘go further and further astray’; that is, move further away from God. The master of prayer is, thanks to his prayers, songs and praises, in direct contact with God and is aware that sinful behavior will cause God’s punishment. This insight is most likely the reason for his concern, as it is the reason for the compassion of his followers with these inhabitants. Concern and compassion relate to the attribute of mercy, Hesed, which can soften the attribute of stern judgment, Din.768 Stern judgment would eradicate the one it strikes; and God did not create mankind to eradicate it.769 Therefore, it is in God’s interest that these inhabitants repent, i.e., return to God, because God needs mankind to serve God. Therefore, when

768 769

Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar II,137a; III,20a. Cf. Gen. 9.11.

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the followers set out to make the inhabitants return to the right track, the followers engage in the service of God, which is the sole governing purpose in the community of the master of prayer. The followers are tactical in approaching one of the low-ranking inhabitants. Because of his lack of money and his subsequent low rank, the pecuniary faith of his fellow inhabitants has forced him to be considered an animal. He is obviously victimized by the pecuniary doctrine and ought to be susceptible to words about repentance. This is, however, not the case. He is so indoctrinated that he cannot see the disadvantage of his own belief. He is even unwilling to continue the conversation, because the prospect of making money in a different country would enable the entire country to live up to its purpose in life, i.e., being rich. 18:—13: -, 8:—9: - They also decided that they wanted stars and constellations among them. Whoever had a certain amount of money, as had been agreed upon, would be a star. He who had this amount of money would have the power of this star because the star breeds gold. The dust, from which gold is made, is under the star that breeds the golden ore at this place. This ore is an extension of the stars, and when someone has this amount of money, he has the power of this star, and in this way he is a star himself. Similarly with the constellations. The one who had a certain amount of money, as had been agreed upon, would be a constellation. In this way they also appointed angels according to someone’s amount of money. Finally, they agreed that they should have gods. Whoever had an immense amount of money, at least many thousands, as had been agreed upon, would be a god. God causes him to have so much money, and so he himself should be a god. And so it all came to happen. They said as well that it was not appropriate for them to breathe air of the world or to intermingle with other people in this world, because that would dele them, since the people of the world were unclean compared to themselves. So they decided to search for the highest mountains in the world and to settle there to be raised above the air of the world. They sent out people to search for the high mountains. They walked, searched and found some very high mountains, and so the entire country went and settled there on top of the mountains; that is, from this country different groups of people settled on different mountains. They made a great stronghold around the mountain with deep trenches around it to such an extent that it was absolutely impossible for any human to approach them. There was only one path, which led to the mountain and which was hidden in such a way that another human being could not come to them under any circumstances. On each mountain they made strongholds

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chapter four like this. They placed guards at a distance from the mountain, so that no stranger would approach them. So they sat there on the mountains and behaved according to their custom—that is, according to their amount of money. Since money was the essential thing at their place, and since a lot of money would make them gods, they were afraid of murder and theft now that everyone would kill and steal to become a god through the money he stole. So they said that the rich man who was a god should guard them against theft and murder. Therefore they decided on rituals and sacrices where they sacriced and prayed to such gods. They even made human sacrices. They sacriced themselves to these gods so that they would be incorporated in the god and subsequently be reincarnated as rich men, since the essence of their religion was money. They had rituals, sacrices, and incense through which they honored the gods. Naturally and despite everything, the country was full of murder and theft, since whoever did not believe in the rituals would murder and steal to achieve money. The essential thing in their place was money; with money one could buy anything such as food and clothing; and the purpose of human life could be obtained through money (this supposition according to their knowledge was faulty and due to bewilderment), which is why money was their religion. They made an effort never to lack any money, since money was the essential thing in their religion and among their gods. To counter such a lack, they engaged in increasing the amount of money by bringing in money from other places. They exported merchandise to sell it in other countries in order to earn money and bring more money into the country. There was of course a strict ban on charity according to their religion, because it would leave less abundance to the gods, since the essence was that the god should have money. That would damage and leave less to the god, which is why charity was certainly banned in their place. They also had nancial supervisors who watched over every single one of them to see if he had the amount of money which he said he had. Every single one of them had to show his wealth all the time, so that he could keep the rank which he had been given according to his amount of money. Sometimes an animal was appointed to be a man or a man was appointed to be an animal; that is if somebody lost money, he would change from man to animal and vice versa. If somebody earned money he would change from animal to man and similarly with all the other rank-holders. (Once, someone was denounced as king because he had lost his money). They had sketches and portraits of the gods. Everyone had these sketches, and they hugged them and kissed them because this was their kind of worship and religion.

The unwillingness in the country of wealth to accept the God-given natural difference between humans and animals, which was described earlier, grows in this passage to include an unwillingness to respect the

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God-given difference between humans and luminaries, between humans and angels, and worst of all between humans and God.770 They also ignore that Israel is the chosen people when they claim that they are elevated above other peoples. The peoples of the world are unclean according to the wealthy inhabitants, which is why they decide to settle on top of some fortied and guarded mountains where they avoid the danger of being deled by the remaining members of mankind. The evil connotation of these inhabitants is aided by the description of how they fortify themselves within trenches and surrounding guards, since such a description in Nahman’s other tales indicates that evil has gained power.771 Within this stronghold of evil, the world as God intended it to be is rejected. The sarcastic parody of this country is furthermore reected in the argumentation as to why certain rich people can be considered masters over the stars, since this argumentation goes against Nahman’s perception of how the star can mediate the divine inux and thereby effect those people under the stars.772 The parody is directed toward the bourgeoisie by mentioning trade, the efforts of the nancial supervisors to secure a “just” hierarchy, where nobody is granted a status he is not deserving of, and the possibility of the rise and fall of each inhabitant. The ultimate example of this country’s idolatry derives from the fear of the inhabitants that fellow inhabitants will kill and steal to obtain more money than they already have. Because of this fear, the inhabitants decide to appoint the richest people gods. It follows from this appointment that these so-called gods shall protect the inhabitants against murder and theft. To make the “gods” live up to their responsibility a cult is established, where sacrices, rituals, and incense are offered

770 It is a sin not to accept the God-given hierarchy in the world. In Sefer haZohar it says: “For there is not a member in the human body but has its counterpart in the world as a whole. For as man’s body consists of members and parts of various ranks all acting and reacting upon each other so as to form one organism, so does the world at large consist of a hierarchy of created things, which when they properly act and react upon each other together form literally one organic body. Thus the whole is organised on the scheme of the Torah, which also consists of sections and divisions which t into one another and, when properly arranged together, form one organic body” (Sefer haZohar I,134b). 771 Cf. tales #1, 6, and 10. 772 Cf. Likkutey MoHaRaN #31.4, 31.17. See as well tale #3.

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to honor them. The sacrices are dened as human sacrices. These human sacrices grant the victims the opportunity to be incorporated in the gods and later to be reincarnated as rich people. The prayers, the songs, and the praises of the master of prayer and his community establish a verbal bridge, along which they can reach contact with the divine source. The offerings of the wealthy people forge a link not to God, but to their idols.773 Sketched images are made of these idols, which are subsequently hugged, kissed, and worshipped.774 However, no matter how radical they become in their worship, it does not help. These gods are unable to save their subjects for two reasons. First, someone “makes a god, his carved image; he falls down to it, and worships it, and prays to it, and says, Save me, for you are my god!” (Is. 44.17). However, the listener/reader knows that sooner or later this idolater comes to realize that this is “a god who cannot save” (Is. 45.20). Second, these gods do not save, since the cult and the attempts of the nancial supervisors to secure “justice” are subjected to the overall and all-pervasive ideology, where money is the only purpose in life. The supervisors and the newly established cult are obstacles for every inhabitant to fulll his/her purpose in life, i.e., being rich. The means toward getting rich are irrelevant. The goal of being rich is the only thing that matters, because the pecuniary religion does not include any regulating ethics legitimized by the religion itself. This country will eventually by its own religion be led to decline. Evil will be warded off by evil unless the inhabitants repent and return to God. 15:—1:-, 8:—1:- The followers of the master of prayer returned to their own place and told the master of prayer of the enormous errors and stupidity of this country, about how they were very much bewildered by their passion for money, and about how they wanted to move to another country and appoint stars and constellations. The master of prayer answered them by saying that he feared that they might go even further astray. When he

773

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,84b. Wiskind-Elper notes a parallel between the hugging and kissing of icons and Sanhedrin 63b; cf. Wiskind-Elper 233n75. Hugging and kissing of icons are described in this Talmudic tractate as part of an aggadah (it continues into 64a), but Nahman may just as well have had the halakhic material in 63a in mind. The benet of such an intertextual reference would most likely be to stress the punishment that will await them unless they return to God. 774

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heard that they appointed themselves gods, the master of prayer said that he had feared this and had worried about this from the beginning. He felt a great compassion for them, and so he decided to go there himself. Maybe he could make them repent their errors. The master of prayer went there and came to the guards who were standing around the mountain. Obviously, these guards were men below rank, which is why they were ordered to stand and breathe air of this world. People who had rank because of their money were not supposed to mingle with people of the world or breathe air of the world, lest they be deled. They were not supposed to speak with people of the world at all, lest the breath of their mouth would dele them. However, even the guards had the aforementioned sketches, and they hugged them and kissed them all the time, since the essence of their religion was money as well. The master of prayer approached one of the guards and began to speak to him about how the essential purpose in life was the service of God, Torah, prayer, and good deeds alone; about how money led to stupidity; and about how it could not be associated with a purpose at all. But the guard did not listen to him at all, because he had immersed himself for such a long time in the thought that the sole essence of life was money. The master of prayer went to a second guard and talked to him about the same, but he did not listen to him either. He went in this way to all of the guards, but they did not listen to him at all. The master of prayer decided to enter the city on the mountain. When he arrived, they were astounded and so they asked him: “How did you manage to enter?” Nobody had ever been able to enter their place. He answered them: “Since I have already entered, this is how it is. Why do you ask?” And so he began to speak to someone about the purpose in life. However, this one did not listen at all; and so it was with the second and with everybody, because they were immersed in their stupidity. People in the city were puzzled by the man who had come to them and who talked to them about these things, about the opposite of their religion. They sensed that maybe this man was the master of prayer, since they had already heard that such a master of prayer existed in the world and since this master of prayer had already been renowned in the world. The world called him the pious master of prayer. Nobody had been able to recognize him or capture him because he appeared differently to every person. To one person he would appear as a merchant, to another as a poor one, etc., and he always escaped from there.

The followers return and report to the master of prayer how the inhabitants in the country of wealth are governed by their passion for money and have even made humans their gods. The master of prayer is once again lled with compassion for this people. As mentioned above, this compassion relates to the attribute of mercy and is the sole chance of this people to avoid God’s stern judgment. When faced with the

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followers, who may not possess the same mental power as their spiritual leader, the inhabitants do not seize the chance. But it is as if the master of prayer knows, once he hears that they have committed the serious sin of worshipping human gods, that God’s stern judgment has come closer, which is most likely why he decides to go to their country. If the master of prayer can succeed in making them repent, he can prevent God from eradicating a part of God’s own creation. The rst representatives of the country of wealth, whom he meets, are the guards. The guards stand, according to their own conviction, on the threshold between the elevated world and the unclean, deled world. They are given this work, which includes their own delement, because they are low-ranking members of the country—i.e., they do not have much money. However, even though they are looked upon as despicable by their own religion, they cling to the sketched idols of its human gods. They are so immersed in their pecuniary outlook that they do not listen, once the master of prayer begins to speak to them about the truth. Truth implies the service of God, Torah, prayer, and good deeds. The truth is that money can never serve as a purpose; on the contrary, it can only lead to stupidity. This is what the master of prayer tells them; but maybe to hinder their repentance they have been hardened and therefore do not listen. The master of prayer proceeds and enters the city. He presents the citizens with the same message of truth, but they are so immersed in their stupidity that they cannot listen either. Instead, and this may contain a glimpse of hope, they are puzzled by the ability of the master of prayer to enter the city, they are puzzled by the fact that someone can have a different religious outlook, and they are puzzled by his identity. They have heard rumours about a famous, pious master of prayer who is also a master of disguises; and so the citizens reason that he must be the master of prayer. Nothing more is mentioned in this passage, where the ability of the master of prayer to raise the curiosity of the citizens may be his way to adjust to the ones he approaches. Maybe one day their curiosity will lead them to direct their attention toward him. 3:—1:-, 3:—1:- Once upon a time there was a warrior who assembled other warriors. This warrior used to go with his fellow warriors and conquer countries. He only asked for submission. When the people of the country submitted to him, he would leave them in peace; if they did not, he destroyed them. He conquered but did not want any money; he only wanted them to submit

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to him. The warrior used to send out his warriors to a country, when he was still far away from it, maybe fty miles, telling the inhabitants that they should submit to him. This was his way of conquering countries. The merchants of the wealthy country who conducted trade in other countries came back to their own country and told them about the warrior. They were seized with great fear. At rst, it seemed acceptable to submit to him, but when they heard that he detested money, that he did not want any money at all, and that this was contrary to their religion, it was impossible for them to submit to him. This appeared like conversion to them, since he did not have faith in their religion at all—i.e., in money—and so they feared him very much. They began to make rituals and sacrices to their gods. They took an animal (that is someone with a small amount of money who was considered an animal at their place) and sacriced him to the gods. They made other rituals like this. The warrior was coming closer and closer to them. He sent his warriors to them to nd out what they wanted to do, as it was his custom. They were seized by great fear and did not know what to do. Their merchants gave them the following advice: “Is it not so that all the people in that country are gods? And are they not traveling with angels?” All the people in that country, whether low or elevated, were so immensely rich that even the low one was a god according to their faulty conviction. They traveled with angels—that is, their horses were covered with such a wealth in gold, etc., that the cover of one horse amounted to the required sum of an angel among them. This is why it appeared that they traveled with angels. They tied three pairs of angels in front of a carriage and traveled in this way. “Therefore you just need to send for them in that country. Surely, they will be of help to you, since in that country they are all gods!” This was the advice of the merchants. It sounded like a very good idea since they believed that the fact that they were all gods would be their rescue.

The warrior, who has an army of warriors, conquers countries with the apparent purpose of making these countries submit to him. He sends out some of his warriors to inquire what the decision of the respective country will be. If a country agrees to submit to him, he will leave it in peace and will not take its money. If, however, the country refuses to submit, he will destroy it. This is a strange behavior for a warrior. Warfare is expensive, which is why conquered countries are usually deprived of their money in one way or another. Only one warrior behaves, according to my knowledge, against expectations, and that is God.775 As in the case of the warrior, God’s stern judgment is only

775

Cf. the designation   in Is. 9,5; 10,21.

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applied when people refuse to submit to the will of God. If people submit to the will of God, they are blessed with peace and prosperity, whereas those who go against God will eventually be punished. Adding to the understanding of the warrior as performing the task of God, “warrior” is the (imperfect) translation of the Hebrew and Yiddish .776  is linguistically linked with . Gevurah (might, heroism, or strength) is another designation for the serah Din, i.e., the attribute of God’s stern judgment.777 The country of wealth comes to fear this warrior once the inhabitants nd out that the warrior detests money. If the inhabitants submitted to the warrior, their money would not necessarily be taken away from them, and maybe this is why at rst it seemed acceptable to them to submit. But once they realize that he detests money, they understand that submission would equal conversion from their own belief that the main purpose in life is money. They cannot succumb to him, since it would imply that they gave up the religion, on which their lives are based. This parallels the earlier passage where I argued that the attempt of the nancial supervisors to secure justice according to their religion would be impossible since a religion, where the ultimate goal is to gain money, cannot include an ethic that prevents people from reaching this goal. For the same reason they cannot submit to the warrior, who detests their pecuniary goal, since he as ruler may try to prevent them from reaching it. Therefore, the inhabitants decide to refuse submission and instead to counter the risk of destruction by sacricing some animals, i.e., low-ranking humans, in order to make their own gods save them. But once again the listener/reader will recall that human-made gods cannot save.778 The merchants, who have informed the country of wealth about the warrior, suggest with reference to their knowledge about the world and once the warrior has come much closer, that they should ask for assistance in a country in which every single inhabitant is so rich that all inhabitants are considered gods. Their horses are even covered with

776 Band, Steinsaltz, and I have chosen to translate  as “warrior”; whereas Kaplan and Wiskind-Elper have chosen ‘mighty warrior’. Cf. Band 1978: 222; Steinsaltz: 79; Kaplan 1983: 292; Wiskind-Elper: 46. 777 Cf. Sefer haZohar II,137a. Kaplan sees the same parallel between gibbor and the serah Gevurah; cf. Kaplan 1983: 293n. 778 Cf. Is. 44.17, 45.20.

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so much gold that they consider their horses angels. The suggestion of the merchants does not threaten the inhabitants’ continued worship of money, since money seems to be the main purpose in life in this country as well. The inhabitants decide on this solution. Steinsaltz and Kaplan779 point to Is. 31 as a reference, where it says: “Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses esh, and not spirit. When the Lord shall stretch out his hand, the helper shall stumble, and he who is helped shall fall down, and they all shall perish together” (Is. 31,3). Egypt is associated with the pursuit of wealth.780 According to Steinsaltz’s and Kaplan’s understanding, and mine as well, it is not that the country of wealth only refers to Egypt. The essential issue with relevance for this tale is that the country of wealth as well as these so-called gods in the country, where all the inhabitants are gods, shall be destroyed. The warrior incarnates God’s threat against those who are unwilling to submit to him and unwilling to make the service of God the essential purpose in life. The threat points forward to their destruction. 4:—4:-, 2:—4:- The master of prayer decided to go once more to this country; maybe, and despite all, he might be able to make them repent their errors. He went there and came to the guards. He began to speak to one guard, as it was his custom. The guard then told him about the warrior and about how they were all very much afraid of him. The master of prayer asked him: “And so what do you want to do?” The guard told him about it, about how they would send for those in that country where they are all gods. The master of prayer laughed at him a lot and said to him: “What a great stupidity! The inhabitants of this country are all human beings, just like we are. Even you and your gods are simply human beings. They are not God. There is only one God in the world, and his name is the Creator, blessed be He! One should only worship him, and one should only pray to him. This is the essential purpose in life!” The master of prayer talked to the guard about these things, but the guard did not listen because they had immersed in their stupidity for a long time. Nevertheless, the master of prayer did so many things to him that nally the guard answered him: “Yes, but despite this, what can I do? Am I not just a single person in this world (compared to the many inhabitants in this country)?”

779 780

Cf. Steinsaltz: 112; Kaplan 1983: 295n. Cf. Is. 31.1.

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chapter four This was a somewhat comforting answer to the master of prayer, since he realized that the things he had said had begun to enter the ears of the guard. The things the master of prayer had said at rst to this guard and the things he said now were being stored in his heart until they nally made an impression, until they slowly began to cause doubt and make him bend toward him. This is what he saw in this answer. Upon this the master of prayer went to a second guard and talked to him in the same way, but he did not listen either. But at the end he also said to him: “Am I not alone against the inhabitants of this country?” The same happened to all the guards who gave him the same answer at the end. Upon this, the master of prayer entered the city and began once again to talk to them, as was his custom, about how they were all in great error, about how their purpose in life was not a purpose at all, and about how the essential purpose in life was solely to engage in Torah and prayer. But they did not listen to him because everybody had immersed very much in the error for such a long time. They told him about the warrior and about how they would send for those in that country where they were all gods. He also laughed at them and said to them that this was stupidity since all of them were just human beings. “They will not be able to help you at all, because you are human beings and they are human beings. They are not gods at all! There is only one God, blessed be His name!” About the warrior he said to them: “Is this not the warrior?” (From the sound of his voice it sounded as if he knew the warrior). But they did not understand what he was talking about. And so he went from one to another to talk to them, and concerning the warrior he said to every single one: “Is this not the warrior?” But they did not understand what he was talking about. It made an impression in the city that there was someone who talked in this way; someone who made fun of their religion, and who told them that there was only one God. Concerning the warrior he asked if this was not the warrior, and so they realized that surely he had to be the master of prayer because he had already been renowned among them.

The master of prayer still has not given up on this idolatrous country. Surely, the inhabitants of this country are entitled to feel God’s stern judgment; however, the compassionate master of prayer seems to incorporate aspects of Hesed in one way or another; the only attribute that can soften the attribute of judgment.781 This is the third time the inhabitants are approached by either the followers of the master of prayer or by the master of prayer himself. Once again the master of prayer begins by approaching the guards.

781

Cf. again Sefer haZohar II,137a; III,20a.

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The rst guard, whom the master of prayer approaches, is actually an honest man. He informs the master of prayer about the warrior, he reveals that the entire country is frightened, and he reveals their plan to ask for assistance from the so-called gods in the immensely rich country. The master of prayer replies by telling him the truth, which is that there is a fundamental difference between humans and God. God alone, who has created the humans, should be worshipped and addressed in prayer. At rst, the guard does not listen; but somehow the master of prayer displays an immense level of activity that nally enables him to open up the heart of the guard, who subsequently realizes that the master of prayer speaks the truth. However, the guard does not believe that his newly changed perception of the essential purpose in life can alter the perception of his fellow inhabitants. Nevertheless, the master of prayer feels encouraged by the slight amount of progress in this guard, and so he approaches the remaining guards until he has nally convinced all of them about the truth. The reason for his success may be that fear has opened the hearts of the guards toward the truth. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Berachoth 17a ),782 though the guards may not yet be conscious of the identity of the warrior as God’s stern judgment. The master of prayer proceeds and enters the city in the country of wealth where he pronounces the enigmatic sentence: “Is this not the warrior!” The citizens do not listen to his general words about the truth. But they display honesty when they reveal that they are threatened by the warrior and therefore plan to ask for assistance among the so-called gods in the immensely rich country. However, they do not sense any fear or open up toward his words about the truth. They are just impressed by his way of making fun of their religion (most probably because he refers to it as stupidity) and his way of speaking about one true God, which assure them that he is the renowned master of prayer. Besides the lack of fear, there may be one additional reason for their incapability to be inuenced by the master of prayer. The guards were low-ranking inhabitants in the country because of their small amount of money. Those who live and work in the city are better off, and subsequently more immersed in money than the guards. They are therefore closer to fullling the idolatrous purpose of being rich. However, the fact that

782

See as well Sefer haZohar I,7b.

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they are impressed by him and that they engage themselves in understanding his identity may constitute a hope that he will eventually be able to make them realize the truth and draw down the attribute of mercy upon them. If not, they will be destroyed. 2:—4:-, 2:—2:- Orders were given to nd him and capture him. He changed his appearance in front of them all the time, but they knew that the master of prayer changed his appearance in front of them all the time, and so the order was given to investigate the matter to be able to capture him. And they did nd him and they did capture him, and so they brought him before the ministers. They began to speak to him, but he said the same to them; that they were all in error and stupidity; that money was not a purpose in life at all; that there was only one God and His name was the Creator, blessed be He; and that the inhabitants of that country, who said that they were all gods, could not help them at all, since they were just human beings. They considered him crazy, because all the inhabitants in this country were immersed in their erroneous belief in money so deeply that this talk against their religion and their stupidity appeared to be craziness. They asked him: “What is it that you are saying about this warrior? Why do you say: Is this not the warrior!” He answered them: “I used to be with a king who lost a warrior. If that warrior is the same as this warrior, I know him. Actually, more than that. What you are sure of—that they are all gods in that country—reects stupidity, because they cannot help you. If you remain condent in them, it will according to my knowledge lead to your defeat!” They said to him: “How do you know this?” He answered them: “It is so that the king, whom he served, had a hand; or rather this king had an image of a hand with ve ngers. All of the lines on this hand showed that the hand was a map of all of the worlds. Everything, which existed from the creation of the sky and the earth and to the end and everything to come afterward , was drawn on this hand, because the drawing of the lines showed the constituency of the world and its details in a way typical of world maps. Next to the lines there was something like letters, just like letters are written on a world map next to the different items in order to show what each item is. In this way one can know that this is a specic city, this is a specic river, etc. Something like letters was imprinted in the same way next to the lines on the hand. These letters were imprinted next to the different items on the hand in order to show the identity of an item. The details of the countries, the cities, the rivers, the bridges, the mountains, and other specic items were imprinted in the lines of the hand. The written letters were next to every specic item. Even all the human beings who were walking inside a country and their activities were imprinted on it. All the roads from one country to another or from one place to another were

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written on it. Because of this I knew how to enter this city, even though no human is supposed to be able to enter here. Also if you want to send me to another city, I will know the way as well thanks to the hand. It is even imprinted on it the way from one world to another, because the way and the direction on the hand can make one ascend from the earth to the sky. All the ways from one world to another are imprinted on it. Elijah ascended to the sky along a specic way and this way is written down there. Moses, our teacher, ascended to the sky along another way, and this way is written down there as well. Enoch ascended to the sky along yet another way, and this way is written down there as well. From one world to another—it is all imprinted in the lines of the hand. Also everything is imprinted on the hand as it was from the creation of the world, as it is now, and as it will be. Like in the case of Sodom. Sodom is imprinted as the city it was before it was destroyed; the upheaval of the city is imprinted; its destruction; and how it was after the destruction. Everything as it was, as it is, and as it will be was imprinted on the hand. On this hand I saw that all the inhabitants in the country, about which you say that all the inhabitants are gods and from whom you expect to receive help, will all be defeated together with you!” They were very much astounded about this, because the words of truth were remarkable. It was known that these things were drawn on the world map, and they furthermore realized that these were words of truth since they could see that it was possible to connect and join two lines in a hand to form a letter. (In this way they understood that one could not make up something like this from the heart, and so they were very much astounded). They asked him: “Where is this king? Maybe he can reveal to us a way of nding money?” He answered them: “You still want money! Do not speak about money at all!” They asked him: “Nevertheless, where is this king?” He answered them: “Even I do not know where he is! Here is a story about how it was:”

The previous curiosity of the inhabitants about the identity of the master of prayer now leads them to investigate his changes in appearance in order to be able to capture him, which they eventually do. With reference to the ability of the master of prayer to adjust to those he approaches, I suggested that his way of making them puzzled could be his way of addressing the idolatrous inhabitants. This notion is substantiated by an inclusion of perceptions that reveals the lack of consensus between the ministers and the master of prayer. At rst, the ministers speak. The listener/reader does not hear what they say; though it is likely that they present their perception on the essential purpose in life. The master of prayer responds that their perception is erroneous and stupid, and so he explains to them the truth—that is, that money cannot constitute a purpose in life, that the Creator is the only true

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God, and that the so-called human gods cannot save them. However, the ministers are so deeply immersed in their faulty perception that they express their notion that his words about the truth are craziness. It is as if this inclusion signals that the master of prayer has reached the center of idolatry. In one way it could indicate that the master of prayer is captured, which is on the narrative level what the text says. But in another way it indicates that he has penetrated the strongholds of idolatry and has now reached the center, where he can change their faulty perception from within. If this is correct, one could say that this initial talk with the ministers constitutes a turning point in the tale. The ministers interrogate him to attain information about the warrior. They want to know the meaning behind the enigmatic sentence: “Is this not the warrior!” The master of prayer answers them that he suspects the warrior to be the same warrior, with whom he used to serve under a certain king. Given that this premise is correct, the master of prayer draws the conclusion that the country of wealth will be defeated by the warrior. The ministers want a qualied explanation of this sinister prophecy. The master of prayer agrees to explain. The king, under whom the master of prayer and the warrior served together, had a sketched hand that included all ve ngers and all the various lines on the palm of the hand. This hand constituted a world map, although it was denitely not an ordinary world map. The world map transcended all dimensions known to man. This world as well as the supernal world was depicted. The time and history of creation, be it past, present, or future, were depicted. The one who looked at it could see this world as well as the supernal world. The one who looked at it could see creation and the history of every created being, its past, present, and future. Such a transcendent perspective is only accessible to God. The sketched hand belonged to the king, which makes it quite obvious to interpret the king as God. According to Wiskind-Elper, the king’s hand does not only refer to Torah. It refers to the primordial Torah as a blueprint in the act of Creation.783 When Wiskind-Elper is speaking about a primordial Torah

783 Cf. as well Wiskind-Elper: 246n85. Wiskind-Elper is here referring to Pirkey de Rabbi Eliezer: 48 and to Steinsaltz who considers the hand the image of the Torah and a map “of all facets of existence is an ancient idea. It has roots in the Bible and the Midrash, where it is said that God used the Torah as a blueprint for creation. In the Kabbalah this concept deepened, and the Torah came to be perceived as a key to all

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as a blueprint in the act of creation she is referring to this zoharic passage: ‘When God’, he [R. Hiya] said, ‘resolved to create the world, He used the Torah as the plan both of the whole and the parts . . . When God was about to create man the Torah remonstrated, saying: “Should man be created and then sin and be brought to trial before Thee, the work of Thy hand will be in vain, for he will not be able to endure Thy judgement.” Whereto God replied: “I had already fashioned repentance before creating the world.” When God created the world, He said to it: “O world, world! Thou and thy order are founded only upon the Torah, and therefore I have created man in thee that he may apply himself to its study; otherwise I will turn thee into chaos again.” Hence Scripture says: “I have made the earth and created man upon it” (Is. XLV, 12). The Torah in truth continually calls to the sons of men to devote themselves to its study, but none gives ear. Yet whoever labours in the Torah upholds the world, and enables each part to perform its function . . . The Torah contains all the deepest and most recondite mysteries; all sublime doctrines, both disclosed and undisclosed; all essences both of the higher and the lower grades, of this world and of the world to come are to be found there (Sefer haZohar I,134a–b).

According to this passage it makes sense to see the hand as the primordial Torah as well as the entrance to God’s transcendent perspective, because the primordial Torah reects nothing but God’s will with creation. The master of prayer knows the content of this primordial Torah, cf. his memory of the roads depicted on the map and that he constantly cleaves to God. He knows that he has to bring mankind, including the country of wealth, to engage in Torah in order to lead the world to repentance. Otherwise, creation will be brought to trial and will not be able to endure God’s stern judgment.784 The master of prayer, having looked at this heavily connoted hand, knows what happened to the sinful Sodom, where the lack of ten righteous men justied its destruction despite Abraham’s attempt to prevent God from destroying it (cf. Gen. 18–19). On the narrative

the worlds. Thus, by studying the Torah, man could glimpse the totality of existence and even use it as a guide in his ascent to the heavens” (Steinsaltz: 107). Wiskind-Elper is also referring to Sefer haZohar I,134a (and ‘b’!) which is part of the elaboration on Genesis Rabbah 1.1; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 68. 784 Cf. Magid’s explanation of how Likkutey MoHaRaN should be understood as a new way to gain insight into the primordial Torah and the innite knowledge that lies within it. Direct access to the primordial Torah was granted to a Zaddik haDor; cf. Magid 2002: 32–33.

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level of Nahman’s tale the listener/reader is brought directly from the destruction of Sodom to the inhabitants in the country of wealth. The question is if the master of prayer can nd “ten righteous men” here? Through the implicit reference to Sodom, a connotation is furthermore evoked to a quorum which depends on ten men willing to pray together.785 In the hand, in the primordial Torah or maybe just in the Book of Isaiah, the master of prayer has seen the destruction of the country of wealth and of the so-called human gods in the immensely rich country, from whom they expect assistance: Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses esh, and not spirit. When the Lord shall stretch out his hand, the helper shall stumble, and he who is helped shall fall down, and they all shall perish together (Is. 31.3).

However, the question is if it is possible for a master of prayer to argue against God’s blueprint of creation? To be able to do so, the master of prayer will need to bring the inhabitants to repent. The ministers are very much astounded. Impressed by the potentiality of this world map, which belongs to the king, they ask for the king, hoping that he will be able to help them nd more money. The master of prayer, of course, rebukes the ministers for this expression of stupidity. Yet, compassionate as he is, he still does not give up on them. When asked about the location of the king, he answers that he does not know, although he agrees to tell them a story about the king. 1:—2:-, 1:—2:- “Once there were a king and a queen who had an only daughter. When she reached a certain age, they summoned counselors to advise them who would be suitable for her to marry. I was among the counselors, since the king liked me very much. I advised him to give her to the warrior, because the warrior had done so much good for us. He had conquered some countries, which was why it would be suitable to give him the queen’s daughter as a wife. They liked my advice and so they all agreed to this. There was great happiness there, because they had found a groom for the queen’s daughter. They married her off to the warrior, and the queen’s daughter gave birth to a child. This child had the most beautiful appearance, which reected a beauty that was not human at all. His hair was made of gold

785

Cf. Roskies 2002: 92–93 on the meaning of the term “master of prayer”.

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and had all sorts of shade. His face was like the sun. His eyes were like planets. This child was born with a perfect wisdom, and one would realize at once that he was a perfect wise man. When other people were talking, he knew on the spot to laugh where he was supposed to laugh, etc. One could recognize that he was a perfect wise man; only did he still not have the movements or manners of speaking of such a great man. The king had a bard who could make speeches, songs, and praises to the king with such a wonderful eloquence. The bard considered himself a ne bard; however, the king showed him the way to achieve the real power of wisdom to speak. In this way the bard became very, very wonderful. The king also had a wise man. The wise man considered himself wise; however, the king showed him how to achieve wisdom, and because of this, he became a very wonderful wise man. The warrior also considered himself a warrior, but the king showed him how to achieve strength, and because of this he became an extremely wonderful warrior. This is due to this: There is a sword that hangs in the air of the world, and this sword has three qualities: When the sword is raised, all army ofcers ee and run away, and from doing this they will be defeated. When the ofcers ee, there is nobody to lead the war or to resist. However, the remaining soldiers can still approach. The sword has two edges with the two remaining qualities. Because of the sharpness of the rst edge, everybody will fall; and because of the sharpness of the second edge they are aficted with gauntness which will make them thin and make their bodies fall apart, just like the plague, Heaven have mercy! It just takes one swing with the sword, and it will effect this. Because of the power of the two edges the enemies will be aficted. The king showed the warrior the way of the sword, and this is how he achieved his strength and greatness. The king also showed me how to achieve what I needed. This king had a dear and faithful friend who loved the king in a very wonderful and loving way. They loved each other so much that one could not be without the other for just one hour. Nevertheless, there were times when they had to separate for a while, and so they had portraits of the two of them together. When one was separated from the other, they where grateful and appeased by having these portraits to look at. The portraits reected how this king and his dear and faithful friend loved each other; and how they hugged and kissed each other with great love. The portraits had a special quality. Whoever looked at these portraits was seized by a very great love. Likewise, this dear and faithful friend received the love from the place the king had showed him. There was a time for everyone mentioned here, where everyone went to his place to receive his power. The bard, the warrior, all of the king’s men ascended to their place to renew their power. Once upon a time there was a great tempest in the world. This tempest turned the entire world upside down. The sea changed to dry land, and the dry land changed to sea. The desert changed to a settled area, and the settled area changed to desert. It changed the entire world. The

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chapter four tempest entered the house of the king. It did not cause any damage there; however, the tempest went in and snatched the child of the queen’s daughter. During the tumult and in the moment where it had snatched the precious child, the queen’s daughter began to chase it. The queen and the king began to chase it as well, until they were scattered all over and nobody knew where they were. All of us were not involved in this, because each of us was ascending to his place to renew his power. When we returned, we were unable to nd anybody. Even the hand was missing. From that moment we were scattered all over, since neither of us could ascend anymore to each of our places to renew our power. After the entire world had changed and had been turned upside down; and after all the places of the world had changed, from sea to dry land, etc., it certainly became impossible to ascend along to original ways. Now that the places had changed and had been altered, nobody could return to his place to renew his power, and so other ways had to be found. It left a tremendous impression on each of us. But the warrior was the king’s warrior and so of course he remained a very great warrior.”

The king’s family is presented. The king and the queen only have one daughter. In the other tales of Nahman, an only child usually signals that the heredity line is threatened. The threat may not be actualized; however, the potential threat makes this only child extremely important, because only this child can secure the continuity of the family, be it common, royal, or divine.786 Because of the aforementioned transcendent perspective of the king, it is most likely that the king represents God. In Judaism God does not have a family; however, in Jewish mysticism the different serot are often described as members of a family.787 The father is usually Hokhmah representing divine wisdom; the mother is usually Binah representing divine understanding; the daughter is usually Shekhinah representing God’s presence.788 The precious child in this tale is the result of the union between a divine character and the warrior. The warrior has conquered many countries for the king and is subsequently rewarded by the king, who agrees to the match between the warrior and the royal daughter. Earlier I suggested that the warrior performed the function of Din, which I still believe to a certain extent. However, compared to the royal family, the warrior still seems like a mortal human being who is dependent upon

786 787 788

Cf. tales #2, 5, 8, 9, and 10. Cf. Tishby: 281–282. Cf. Matt 1994: 8–9.

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the king/God to show him how to achieve strength and greatness. This could imply that he represents a part of mankind. The warrior enters into a union with the divine, in this case a most likely representative of Shekhinah. Such a union between a part of mankind and Shekhinah probably refers to the covenant between God and Israel. If all of these above-mentioned assumptions are plausible, the consequence of the union between Shekhinah and mankind is that the child can be no other than Mashiah ben David. Adding to this, the precious child has an appearance that reects a superhuman beauty. The child has golden hair, a face like the sun, eyes like the planets, and perfect wisdom. The description of the radiant appearance is similar to the description of “the son who was made of precious stones” in the fth tale, whom I also interpreted to develop into Mashiah ben David. The radiant quality of his appearance could be a reection of the divine light. The king’s court together with the royal family consists of ten characters, if one includes the king’s treasure-keeper, who will appear later in the tale. According to Steinsaltz789 and Kaplan,790 these ten characters should be understood as representatives of the ten serot. I only partially agree. The king could be Keter or Hokhmah. The queen could be Binah; the queen’s daughter could be Shekhinah. Concerning the court members, they represent some of the qualities present as attributes in the serotic system, though I believe that an automatic allegorical translation is impossible. The six court members furthermore bear human features. The master of prayer directs his prayers, songs, and praises to God, which is an upward movement, while the function of Hesed is to direct mercy downward to mankind. Through these acts he performs the work of Mashiah ben Yosef, who is associated with Yesod. The master of prayer is thus connoted with two serot. The warrior, who performs the function of Din, canalizes God’s decisions to punish mankind. But I know of no place in the mystical literature, where a direct union between Din and Shekhinah leads to the birth of a positively connoted child, most likely Mashiah ben David. The wise man could be connoted with Hokhmah, i.e., wisdom. But Hokhmah belongs to the three upper serot—places which ought to be occupied by the king or his closest family. The king’s dear and beloved friend, who is the object of the king’s affection, connotes God’s love as it is present in Hesed, but the functions of Hesed are already

789 790

Cf. Steinsaltz: 107. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 278n.

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being performed by the master of prayer. The king’s treasure-keeper, whom Nahman/Nathan forgets to mention in this passage, could be a reection of Hod. However, I am not capable of nding a convincing allegorical translation for the dear and beloved friend, the bard, and the wise man. Furthermore, it does not make sense to interpret the child, who evokes so many connotations to Mashiah ben David, to reect one particular serah, because the Messiah will only come through a union between God and mankind, which would lead to the ideal kingdom. In that case he could be connoted with Malkhut, another name for Shekhinah, but that place has already been taken by his mother. Finally, the court members possess certain skills whose renement depends on the king’s instructions and that they visit a certain place to renew their powers. It would not make sense for God to instruct his own attributes on how to rene the skills, which is why I consider the court members more or less human and yet subservient to God. I agree that the tale, because of the number ten, encourages the listener/reader to look for the serotic potential of the characters, but I do not think that the tale provides sufciently obvious descriptions to force forth such a translation. I am therefore more inclined to ask my reader cautiously to keep some serotic parallels in mind and then be open to simultaneous suggestions. Kook suggests that it is the qualities of the court members that will eventually lead the world to tikkun.791 Steinsaltz brings the additional suggestion that the court members represent eternal personications of particular qualities or attributes792 or “a residue of a now-vanished closeness to God” (Steinsaltz: 108). Two remedies are mentioned in the description of the court members. The rst remedy is the sword. The sword has three qualities: it makes the ofcers ee, it makes the soldiers fall, and it aficts the fallen with gauntness. When the master of prayer is telling the ministers in the country of wealth about the last quality of the sword, he exclaims: “Heaven have mercy!” He thereby stresses once again that mercy is the only thing that can counter the overhanging judgment of the inhabitants, who are facing the warrior, who is a master of this sword. The portraits of the king and his dear and beloved friend constitute

791 Cf. : 151–152. These qualities are eloquence (the bard), wisdom (the wise man), strength and greatness (the warrior), compassion and devotion (according to my understanding of the master of prayer), and love (the dear and faithful friend). 792 Cf. Steinsaltz: 107.

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the second remedy. These portraits reect how the king and his friend loved, hugged, and kissed each other. Because the king most likely reects God, the king’s attachment to his friend conveys God’s love for anyone who strives for such attachment, which is substantiated by the fact that anyone who looks at the portraits feels God’s love. In this way, these portraits constitute a contrast to the idol portraits of the wealthy inhabitants, which represent the attachment to the so-called gods which, however, cannot “repay” the reverence by saving them from the warrior. It is hard to guess the meaning of the sword and the portraits, but one suggestion could be that they represent the necessary fear and love of God required by every Jew.793 The sword imposes fear upon those whom the warrior attacks; the portraits impose love upon those who look at them. One day a tempest occurs which turns the world upside down. That the world is turned upside down evokes connotations to the eleventh tale where the purpose was to restore everything to its intended order, which again evokes connotations to the necessity of tikkun. The tempest is not an ordinary tempest; it has evil features. It enters the royal palace and snatches the precious child of the queen’s daughter, a possible representative of the Messiah. The queen’s daughter, the king and the queen begin to pursue the tempest to regain the child; but the only result of this pursuit is their dispersal. The ve court members mentioned are affected by the tempest as well. They are forced to look for new ways to renew their power. Earlier the king/God was present to instruct them on how and where to renew their powers; but now the direct access to the king/God is lost and so is the hand that connotes the primordial Torah, which gave direct access to the transcendent perspective of God. However, the ve court members still incarnate their respective qualities, which again supports one of Steinsaltz’s notions that they represent “the residue of the now-vanished closeness to God” (Steinsaltz: 108). The purpose of this tale within the tale seems double. On the one hand, it explains the impressive origin of the warrior (and the master of prayer). It could be part of the tactics of the master of prayer to impress and frighten the inhabitants in the country of wealth by telling

793

Cf., e.g., Berachoth 17a.

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them about the sword and that the king’s warrior, despite the tempest, is still attached to the qualities of the sword. On the other hand, this story provides background knowledge to the listener/reader. Nathan Sternhartz was the rst to mention that the destruction after the tempest should be understood as shevirat hakelim; i.e., the breaking of the vessels,794 through which creation was severed from its divine source. Kook,795 Steinsaltz,796 Kaplan,797 Wiskind-Elper,798 and Roskies799 are clear in supporting Nathan’s initial interpretation, whereas Band800 only indirectly refers to the Lurianic myth and its implications. Kaplan is the one who has the most complex understanding of the tempest. He writes that along the understanding of the tempest as a representative of shevirat hakelim there is also a reference to Gen. 1,2 where “God’s wind blew on the face of the earth”. These two connotations should be allowed to transpose signicance onto the tale, because even though evil came into existence because of shevirat hakelim, it also brought about creation as the listener/reader knows it.801 The tempest as a marker of shevirat hakelim makes the interpretation of the court members even more difcult. The tempest represents the dividing line between primordial times and creation. The court members were present in primordial times, and yet they are also present in

794

Cf. Nathan Sternhartz: Likkutey Halakhot, Oreh Hayyim, Tellah 4,1–3. Cf. : 151–152. 796 Cf. Steinsaltz: 108. 797 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 309n. 798 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 140. 799 Cf. Roskies 2002: 89. 800 Cf. Band 1978: 317. 801 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 309n. In Lurianic Kabbalah Din, i.e., judgment, was with its limiting and dening qualities supposed to constitute the mass, from which God created the vessels to contain the divine light. However, the divine light could not be contained in these vessels and so they broke. The vessels shattered and fell into the world of creation. This event is named shevirat hakelim. In the world of creation these broken pieces, originally made of Din, were now severed from their divine origin and came to represent judgment, destruction with no divine purpose, i.e., evil. Most of the divine light returned to its source, i.e., Binah; but a small amount of divine light remained as fallen sparks that were encapsulated by the broken pieces from the vessels. The broken pieces from the vessels, representing evil, could then sponge on the divine sparks and grow. The broken pieces or shells, originally made from Din, were no longer in contact with its divine origin and its intended purpose of restraining mankind. It had become an independent destructive force fed by the divine light that still shone into the vacuum. Once the divine serotic system was created in God’s second attempt, where Shekhinah came into being, the evil shells around the divine sparks became constant obstacles for the well-being of Shekhinah. Cf. Vital in Matt 1994: 94–95; and Matt 1994: 15. 795

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history as human characters working on tikkun. Had they only been ve, it would have been obvious to interpret them as the ve Zaddikey haDor, as bearers of the potential Messianic soul.802 But even though the treasure-keeper is forgotten in this passage, he appears later on and performs such an important function that his appearance cannot be interpreted as a redactional interpolation. It seems that the listener/reader will have to accept the complex multipotential of these characters. 8:—1:-, 5:—1:- This was what the master of prayer told the people. They listened to his words and were astounded. They kept the master of prayer with them and would not let him go, since the warrior, whom he described and knew about, might come and attack them. The warrior was approaching. He kept on sending his messengers, until he had reached their place. He positioned himself outside the city and sent his messengers to them. [The ministers] were very frightened. They asked the master of prayer to give them a piece of advice. He said to them: “One needs to look into the way and behavior of the warrior to be able to nd out if this is the king’s warrior!” The master of prayer walked out toward the warrior and arrived at his camp. The master of prayer began to speak to one of the warrior’s guards. The master of prayer asked him: “What are your deeds? How did you all come to join forces with the warrior?” He answered him: “This is how it happened according to the story that is written down in their chronicles: There was a very great tempest in the world, and the tempest changed the entire world. The sea changed to dry land, and the dry land changed to sea; the desert changed to a settled area, etc. The entire world was turned upside down. After the tumult and all the changes, which turned the world upside down, human kind decided to appoint to themselves a king. They considered who would be t to be king over them, and they came to the conclusion that since the essence in life is to nd the purpose in life, the one who engages in nding this purpose is t to be king. And so they immersed in dening the purpose. Among them there were very many factions. One faction said that the essential purpose in life was honor. It realized that honor is the essential thing in the world. The essential thing in the world is to respect the honor of a man. There will be bloodshed if one speaks in a way that impinges his honor. Even after someone’s death, it is important to respect the honor of the dead person, his grave, etc. (People even say to him: ‘What ever is being done, is being done to your honor’). People insist on honoring the dead person, even though he may not have any belongings or money

802

Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 191.

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chapter four and cannot reveal what he desires. This is why it seems that the essential purpose in life is honor. This [faction] continued with similar (confused and stupid) conjectures, until they decided after all that the essential purpose in life was honor. They then needed to nd an honorable man who was also chasing honor in order to be honored. An honorable man like this would be honored and would chase honor. By nature he would want honor. It appeared that such a man would engage in the purpose of life and achieve it (this was their enlightened and confused perception). Such a man would be t to be king. They went and searched for such a man, and they found some people who were carrying an old gypsy beggar. There were around ve hundred people following him. All of them were gypsies like he was. This beggar was blind, hunched, and dumb. The people who were following him were members of his family. He had sisters and brothers, children and friends. They made up the procession that carried him. To him honor was very important. His anger was great, and he always got angry with them in his great pedantry. He always ordered other people to carry him, and he always got angry with them. [The faction] believed that this old beggar seemed to be a very honorable man, since he was honored in this way and also chased after honor. He was very pedantic about honor. The faction thought it would be good to appoint him king. Land was another factor. A land can cause honor to matter or cause another kind of quality, and so the faction searched for a land that could cause honor to matter. They found a country which conformed to this, and so the faction settled there. A second faction said that honor was not the essential purpose in life. They considered it and decided that the essential purpose in life was murder. It can be seen how everything in this world is worthless, and how everything in this world—grass, plants, humans, and everything else—will decay and become destroyed. It therefore seems that the purpose of everything is decay and a matter of being destroyed. Therefore, the murderer, who kills and destroys human beings, seems to bring the world to its purpose, and so they decided that the purpose in life was murder. They searched for such a man who killed, was hot-tempered, and was the most zealous of all. Such a man would be close to the purpose (according to their confused perception) and would be t to be king. While searching, they heard a screaming voice. They asked: “What is this screaming voice?” They were answered that the screaming voice related to one man slaughtering his father and mother. They replied: “There cannot be someone as hot-tempered as this murderer of such a valiant heart who kills his own father and mother. This man achieves the purpose!” They liked the idea and appointed him their king. And they searched for a land that would cause murder to rise. They chose for themselves a place in the high mountains that would be a place for murderers. They went there and settled there with their king. A [third] faction said that one would be t to be king if he had a great abundance of food, if he did not eat the food of ordinary people,

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but only ne things. Such a man would be t to be king. However, they could not nd a man who did not eat the food of ordinary people, and so they chose for themselves a temporary king who was a rich man who had a great abundance of food. For the time being the rich man would be king. But when they found a man according to their will, the rich man would have to descend from the throne. They appointed the man king and chose for themselves a land that would cause this to matter. They went and settled there. A [fourth] faction said that a beautiful woman would be t to rule, since the essential purpose in life was for the world to be populated, since this was the reason for the creation of the world. A beautiful woman would stir the lust to populate the world. It seemed that she would bring the world to its purpose, and so a beautiful woman would be t to rule. They chose for themselves a beautiful woman to rule over them, and they searched for a land that would cause this to matter. They went there and settled there. A [fth] faction said that the essential purpose in life was speech, because, as opposed to animals, man was allowed to speak. Since this was the essential purpose in life for man, this should be their essential purpose as well. They therefore searched for a speaker who was a man of eloquence who knew linguistics and who constantly talked. Such a man would be close to the purpose. They went and found a man, a crazy Frenchman, who was walking around talking to himself. They asked him if he knew linguistics, and he did know linguistics. Such a man would denitely bring them to the purpose (according to their confused perception). He was a man of eloquence who knew linguistics and who talked very much, since he even talked to himself. They liked the idea, and so they appointed this man king. They chose for themselves a land that would cause this to matter. They went there and settled there with their king. And certainly he led them on to the right track. A [sixth] faction said that the essential purpose in life was happiness. People are happy when a son is born. When a wedding takes place, people are happy. When a country is conquered, people are happy. It seems that the entire purpose in life is happiness. They therefore looked for a man who would always be happy, since such a man seemed to be close to the purpose. He should be king over them. They went and found a Gentile who was walking in a despicable gown, drinking a bottle of schnapps, and a lot of Gentiles were following him. This Gentile was very happy (since he was very drunk), and they saw that this Gentile was very happy and that he had no worries. They therefore liked this Gentile, since he would bring them to the purpose which was happiness. They appointed him their king; and certainly he would lead them on to the right track. They chose for themselves a land that would cause this to matter. This place had a vineyard where they made wine. From the kernels they made schnapps. Nothing should be wasted, since the essential purpose in life at their place was to drink and get drunk. They actually had nothing to be

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chapter four happy about, but despite this the essential purpose in life at their place was to be constantly happy about nothing. They chose for themselves a land which caused this to matter; they went there and settled there. A [seventh] faction said that the essence was wisdom. They searched for a great wise man and made him their king. They searched for a land that would cause wisdom to matter, and so they went there and settled there. An [eighth] faction said that the essential purpose in life was to take care of oneself by eating and drinking and thereby make the limbs grow. They searched for a man who had great limbs and who took care of himself by making the limbs grow. Since this man had great limbs, he would have a greater share in the world. Such a man would be deeply immersed in the purpose of making the limbs grow. Such a man would be t to be king. They went and found a tall eellike man and they liked him. He was a man of limbs deeply immersed in the purpose, and so they appointed him king. They searched for a land that would cause this to matter, and so they went there and settled there. A [ninth] faction said that this was not the essence at all. The only essential purpose in life was to engage in prayers to God, blessed be He, and to be humble and modest. They searched for a master of prayer and made him king over them. (It is evident that all the factions were very much in error because of their very confused perceptions, except for the last faction who chose the truth. They were blessed).

The ministers are seized with fear because of the approaching warrior. According to my previous reading, this is a positive sign, since “fear is the beginning of wisdom”.803 As a consequence of their fear, they approach the master of prayer and ask him for advice. This seems to indicate the rst recognition of the kind of insight, a divine kind of insight, that he has. In response to their question, he replies that it is necessary to look into the identity of the warrior. The master of prayer then leaves the domain of the ministers and walks to the camp of the warrior. The master of prayer meets one of the guards of the warrior. This guard tells the master of prayer the story about the tempest, by which the master of prayer can recognize the warrior. A consequence of the tempest, which is not formulated in the tale, even though it is crucial to the understanding of the upcoming story, is that the world was left without a visible king804 because of the tempest. Before tsimtsum and

803 804

Cf. Berakhot 17a. Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 176.

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shevirat hakelim everything was God, but after the primordial disaster the difference between Ayin and Yesh arose, leaving this world without a ruler, according to human perception. People in the newly created world argued according to their human logic that the essence of life is to have a purpose in life, and so a king should be appointed according to the most essential purpose, which they could agree on. However, the people could not agree on one purpose, and instead different factions were formed where each faction chose a king according to the purpose it found essential and moved to a land which would promote the fulllment of this purpose. A description follows of nine factions, of their reasoning before dening the purpose in life, and of their way to nd an appropriate king and land. In most cases the descriptions are full of sarcasm, prejudice, and ridiculing. Such negative descriptions, no matter how offended a modern reader may be, serve the literary purpose of stressing that there is only one purpose in life and that is to engage in the service of God. The ninth faction mentioned decides on the service of God as the essential purpose in life. The remaining eight factions, which are mentioned, reect how incompetent man is to govern his own life. The rst faction decides on honor as the main purpose. The argumentation for the importance of honor is arbitrary and testies to the incompetence of man when he is without the guiding God-given mitsvot. The rst faction nds an old, blind, pedantic gypsy beggar and decides that he incarnates their ideal of honor. His honor stands in sharp contrast to God’s honor, which is unquestionable. The rst faction profanes the quality of honor by their choice of king.805 The second faction argues just as arbitrarily as the rst one that decay and destruction constitute the essence of life, according to which murder must lead to the purpose. This faction chooses as their king a killer, who has slaughtered his own father and mother. Creation as man knows it does degenerate until it nally appears as if it has been destroyed or become nothing because of decay, but everybody knows that life re-emerges from decay. In nature decay forms the breeding ground for new life. A rotten corpse eventually becomes fertile soil, from which new life emerges. The telos of life is therefore not decay and

805 Cf. Kaplan 1983: 313n for a similar reading. Kaplan quotes Avoth 6.11: “Everything that God created, He created for no other reason than for His honor”.

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destruction but ever-returning attempts to foster life. The argument of the second faction displays a highly limited amount of knowledge about what life is. Intentional murder is a despicable act in most cases, cf. Ex. 20.13; Num. 35.33–34, and murder is a sin that can only be rectied in the eyes of God with the death of the murderer, cf. Ex. 21.14—a death executed by the relatives of the murdered one. Destruction is furthermore the threat that in this tale is constituted by the warrior who is, most likely, serving God in order to punish the idolaters. God destroys, cf. e.g., the ood806 and Sodom and Gomorra.807 Again the quality of decay and destruction can be divinely connoted, but as in the case of the rst faction, the second faction profanes the meaning of “decay” and “destruction” because of their limited amount of understanding. According to the third faction, the purpose in life is abundance of food. Food provides sustenance for the physical organism of man, and God wants man to eat, cf. Deut. 8.10. However, “man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord does man live”, cf. Deut. 8.3. Food alone is not sufcient to nourish man, and so the perception of this faction about the purpose in life is faulty as well. The fourth faction agrees that procreation is the purpose in life, and so they decide on a beautiful woman, who stirs the lust in man to procreate. Sex is positive as long as a man and a woman have sex within the marriage. Sex has two purposes: one is to have children, cf. Gen. 1.28; Is. 45.18; the other is to strengthen the love bond between husband and wife, cf. Ex. 21.10.808 But sex outside the marriage leads to a waste of semen, which is a sin in the eyes of God, cf. Gen. 38.9–10; Lev. 15.1–18. In other words, the faction does not understand procreation in its subtlety. The fth faction chooses a crazy Frenchman as king for its purpose, which is speech. When talking to himself, this Frenchman probably speaks nonsense; however, speech can be extremely important. God created the world by saying: “Let there be . . . ”, cf. Gen. 1. The characters in the tales of Nahman, who bear the traits of Shekhinah, usually master several languages, by which they can elevate the divine sparks

806 807 808

Cf. Gen. 6–9. Cf. Gen. 19. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 317n.

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from the domain of the kelippot.809 When people pray to God they use speech. This faction, however, has chosen someone who does not use speech in any constructive way. The sixth faction chooses happiness as their main purpose in life and associates it with the drunkenness of a Gentile, who is appointed king. In Judaism God is happiness, cf. Ps. 43.4; and God causes happiness, cf. Eccl. 5.19. Happiness is more or less a commandment in Hasidism since it is a way of recognizing God’s presence and constitutes a means to elevate the divine sparks.810 However, happiness in the hands of the sixth faction has turned to emptiness. The seventh faction chooses wisdom as its purpose. Wisdom, of course, breaks away from its divine origin if it is used for secular purposes, but the listener/reader does not know if this is the case with this faction. The eighth faction considers the purpose of growing limbs essential. The purpose can be achieved by eating and drinking. Of course it is good to eat and drink if the purpose is to grow up and grow strong and thereby achieve the ability to serve God. However, as I mentioned with reference to the third faction: “man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord does man live”, cf. Deut. 8.3. If man only nourishes the body and not the soul, he has not grasped the essence of growing. The ninth faction has chosen prayer as the essential purpose in life, and as Nathan states in the parenthesis, this faction was the only one that perceived the truth. Prayer directed to God is, as the master of prayer emphasizes again and again, the only true purpose in life. The country of wealth is not mentioned as the tenth faction, but since the inhabitants in this country chose money as the essential purpose in life, it is most likely that they were forced to decide on a purpose after the tempest as well. Having heard about the decisions of the different factions, it should be clear to the listener/reader how incompetent man is to govern his own life when he does not submit to the guidance which can be found in Torah. It furthermore lies in each of the selected purposes that they

809

Cf. tales #2, 5, and 10. Cf. the Ba’al Shem Tov: Zavaxat ha-Rivash #137, quoted after Lamm 1999: 389. See as well Lamm 1999: 389n6. 810

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could be understood as positive; however, because of the limited perception of man the purposes become distorted. On this I am in line with Kook, who writes about the factions that the king, his family, and his court constitute the ten members of the group that will eventually lead the factions to tikkun and thereby rectify their distorted perception of the purpose in life. Ten ways of living are being described. Nine of them have been distorted; i.e., honor, murder, adultery, mortication, the growing of limbs, speech, drinking, the passion for money, and the recess to philosophy; whereas the “way” of prayer is the right one, through which man can direct himself to God.811 If the factions keep the mitsvot, if man submits to God and takes upon himself the yoke of the heavenly kingdom, each quality will be restored from its distortion to its intended meaning, which is a matter of tikkun. Each quality can only be perceived of as good if man chooses God as his prime focus in life and understands the quality in its intended divine context.812 I agree with Kook that it makes sense to see a correlation between the tempest and the distortion of the qualities. Earlier, the tempest was explained as directing the associations toward shevirat hakelim, after which the world was turned upside down. This disaster has most obviously also turned the qualities in life upside down.813

811 Cf. : 151–152. Here, Kook also includes the country of wealth as the faction which has a passion for money. Though nothing in the tale is mentioned about the negative side of wisdom, she explains it as the recess to philosophy. What I cannot explain is why Kook seems to be interpreting the third faction’s emphasis on sophisticated food as mortication. 812 Cf. : 152–153. 813 Steinsaltz has made a scheme of the relationship between the members of the king’s court and the perverted and higher forms of each attribute; see below in this footnote. I am certain that there is some kind of relationship between the king’s group and the factions, because both sides together reect to a certain extent the bipolar meaning of different qualities. But I do not see that the tale presents the queen as a representative of understanding, unless of course one interprets her as a representative of Binah, which can be argued for on an allegorical level based on the name alone. I agree that the warrior and the limb-growing faction should be read together, but I do not consider the warrior a precursor of the coming of the Messiah, since it is the work of the master of prayer that in the end leads to repentance. It seems arbitrary that the dear and faithful friend should represent Abraham, as it seems with the master of prayer as Elijah, though I do agree that the description of him point to him as Zaddik haDor.

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analysis of the twelfth tale 1:—8:-, 11:—6:-

The master of prayer was told all of this by the warrior’s guard. He told the master of prayer how they (had joined forces with the warrior and had) come from the faction that focused on the growth of limbs, and that had appointed a man of great limbs to be king over them. One day one military unit consisting of these men of great limbs followed the supply unit that had food and water on the wagons. These men of great limbs certainly imposed fear and terror upon human beings, because they were huge and warriorlike. Whoever met them would step aside upon their passing. Once, when this unit was proceeding, the warrior came toward them. When the warrior came toward the unit, he did not step aside. He entered into their midst and dispersed them in all directions. The people in the unit were very much afraid of him. He went up into the wagons of the supply unit and ate everything there. This was a marvel to them, and so they fell down before him and said: “Long live the king!” They knew that this warrior would certainly be t to be king according to their perception where the essential purpose in life would be fullled by someone with great limbs. They made their king descend from the throne, now that they had found a warrior with great limbs who was t to rule. And so it was. They appointed the warrior king over this faction. This warrior is our king, with whom we are going to conquer the world. The warrior, who is now king over them, says that he means something else by conquering the world. His intention is not to conquer the world, to bring the world under his rule. His intention lies elsewhere. (These were the words of the warrior’s guard. He told all of this to the master of prayer, who had asked him why he had joined forces with the warrior).

Member of Court King

Representative of: God

Queen

----

King’s daughter

Shekinah

Warrior

Infant

Precursor of Messiah Abraham Moses Aaron, high priest King David, Levites Messiah

Master of prayer

Elijah

Lover Sage Treasurer Bard

Cf. Steinsaltz: 110–111.

Debased Virtue Honor Destruction, murder Orgiastic fecundity Physical prowess Drunkenness Cleverness Wealth Verbosity, prolixity Health, care of body Prayer (not debased)

Higher Virtue Glory Understanding, analytic power Divine abundance Spiritual prowess Unlimited love Torah widom Blessing Praise of God Perfection Prayer, zaddik of the generation

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The limb-growing faction caused fear and terror, but one day the warrior came toward them and caused them to be afraid and so they appointed him king. The listener/reader knows that the warrior used to serve the king, who is most likely a representative of God. The warrior used to serve the king, which is why the purpose of the warrior is probably to make people engage in the service of God. When the warrior approaches the limb-growing faction, he imposes fear upon those who usually impose fear and terror upon others. The act of imposing fear upon the limb-growing faction and of eating without restraint as the faction members do may be his way of adjusting to the faction, a tactic similar to the one employed by the master of prayer. The warrior’s way of approaching them has a successful outcome. The faction submits to the warrior and accepts his leadership. After having been in the service of the warrior, the guard is able to inform the master of prayer that the warrior has a special understanding of world conquest. By conquering the world, the warrior does not want to rule the world. The listener/reader knows from a previous passage that he does not want to take money from his subjects. The listener/reader also knows that growing limbs and strengthening the body constitute no purpose in itself, since the soul has to be strengthened too. The quality of strength has to be submitted to a greater purpose, and in this passage the warrior is the one who incarnates this purpose, though it is still unclear what his specic purpose is. 7: —1:-, 4: —1:- The master of prayer asked him: “What is the heroic deed of this heroic warrior, who has become your king?” He answered him: “Once there was a country that did not want to submit to him. This warrior then took his sword, which has three powers: When it is raised, all the army ofcers run away, etc., etc. When the master of prayer heard this, he realized that this must certainly be the warrior of the aforementioned king. The master of prayer asked if he could meet face to face with this warrior who was now king over them. They answered him that they would announce his wish to the warrior and ask him if he would grant him audience. They went and asked him and the warrior granted him audience. When the master of prayer came to the warrior, they recognized each other, and they were both so very, very happy that they had succeeded in meeting again. They were joyous but shed tears as well, because they remembered the king and his men. They cried over this. This is why they were joyous and shed tears as well. The master of prayer and the warrior discussed how things had developed and how they had come to this place.

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The warrior told the master of prayer that ever since the tempest, ever since they had been scattered all over, ever since he had returned from the place, to which each of them ascended to renew his power, and ever since he had returned and had not found the king and his people, he had walked and walked and had come upon all of them; or rather, he knew that they were all there. When he had come upon a certain place, he knew that the king had to be there, though he could not search for him or nd him. In the same way he had come upon a different place and knew that the queen would be there, though he could not search for her or nd her. In this way he had come upon the place of everyone. “Except I did not come upon you!” The master of prayer replied: “I came upon the place of everybody—even upon your place. I was passing one place when I saw the king’s crown, and so I knew that the king had to be there. However, I could not search for him or nd him. I walked on and came upon a sea of blood, and so I knew that this sea had to consist of the tears of the queen, who cried over all of this. The queen had to be there, but I could not search for her or nd her. Then I came upon a sea of milk, and so I knew that this sea consisted of the milk from the queen’s daughter, who had lost her son. She was squeezing the surplus of milk from her breasts, and from this the sea of milk arose. Certainly she had to be there, but I could not search for her or nd her. I walked on and saw that the golden hair of the child was lying there. I did not touch it at all. I knew that this had to be from the child, but I could not search for him or nd him. I walked on, and when I came upon a sea of wine, I knew that this sea certainly consisted of the bard’s speeches. The bard had to be standing somewhere speaking words of consolation to the king and the queen. Upon this he must have turned around to speak words of consolation to the queen’s daughter. From these speeches the sea of wine arose, but I could not nd him. I walked on and saw a stone, upon which the sketched image of the hand was engraved. I knew that the wise man had to be there and that he had to be the one who had engraved the hand on the stone, but I could not nd him. I walked on and saw on one mountain the arrangement of the king’s golden tables, his cupboard and treasures, and so I knew that the one in charge of the king’s treasures had to be there, but I could not nd him.” The warrior replied: “I came upon all of these places as well, but I took some of the child’s golden hair. I took seven hairs of different shades, and they are very precious to me. I sat down somewhere and kept myself alive by eating grass and the like, until I had nothing left to sustain myself, and after that I walked away from my place. I forgot my bow there!” The master of prayer replied: “I saw this bow and knew that it had to be yours, but I could not nd you!” The warrior continued to tell the master of prayer about how he had walked from there: “I walked until I came upon the supply unit. I entered the wagons, because I was so hungry. I just wanted to eat, but as soon as I entered the wagons, they appointed me their king. Now I am going

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chapter four to conquer the world. My intention with this is that I might be able to nd the king and all of his people!” The master of prayer said to the warrior: “What should be done about the people in the country who have fallen so deeply into their passion for money that they have come up with such stupid ideas as to make the rich people their gods, etc.?” The warrior said to the master of prayer: “I have heard from the king that whoever has fallen into a passion can be brought up from there, except when someone has fallen into the passion for money. Someone like this cannot in any way be brought up from the place into which he has fallen. Certainly, nothing can be done for them, because they cannot be brought up from there at all. However, I did hear the king say that one who walks upon the way of the sword, and who receives his strength from it, can actually deliver the one who has fallen and immersed into the passion for money!” The warrior and the master of prayer sat together for some time. The people in this country had asked the master of prayer to meet the warrior to ask for respite, and so respite was granted by the warrior. They agreed on signs, through which they could communicate. Upon this, the master of prayer went away. On his way, the master of prayer saw some people praying. They were carrying compositions on prayer. He was afraid of them, and they were afraid of him. He stopped to pray, and they stopped to pray as well. Upon this, he asked them: “Who are you?” They answered him that once there had been a tempest. It had made people of the world divide into different factions. Some had chosen one faction, whereas others chose another. “We chose always to engage in prayers to God, blessed be He. We searched for and found a master of prayer and made him king over us.” When the master of prayer heard this, he became happy, since this was what he desired as well. He began to speak to them and revealed to them his arrangement of prayers, that he had written compositions on prayer, etc. When they heard this, their eyes opened and they saw the format of his virtue. They immediately made him their king. They made their king descend from the throne when they realized that the format of the master of prayer was exceptionally great. The master of prayer studied together with them and made them complete and great zaddikim, since they were actually zaddikim right from the beginning. However, now that the master of prayer had illuminated their eyes, they became extremely great zaddikim. The master of prayer sent a letter to the warrior, in which he announced to him that he had succeeded in nding these people and that he had become king over them.

The master of prayer asks the guard what entitled the warrior to become their king. The guard mentions his sword. The listener/reader knows that the sword was made known to the warrior by the king as a means to improve his skills as a warrior. The sword is able to make ofcers ee, make people fall, and inict people with gauntness. The effects of

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the sword sufce to convince the master of prayer that this is indeed the king’s warrior. Concerning the sword, the warrior is once again connoted with destruction and judgment. There might be a reference in the sword to the two-edged ashing sword of the cherubim at the entrance to the Garden of Eden,814 which in this tale so far has been accessible to the followers of the master of prayer. The cherubim shall guard the way to the Tree of Life, most likely to pass two judgments: admittance to enter and vengeance for the insults to the covenant.815 When the master of prayer and the warrior meet, they recognize each other. They are overcome with happiness and sorrow at the same time because despite the joyful reunion, they remember the dispersal of the king, his family, and his court. The warrior has come upon the present location of everyone except for the location of the master of prayer. The king’s presence was suggested by his crown. Crown in Hebrew is  ,816 which refers to Keter as the rst serah, representing the innity of God, including God’s transcendent knowledge, cf. the sketched hand. A crown straight on the king’s head furthermore connotes a rmly established kingdom; however, here king and crown have been separated, signalling a kingdom without a king. The queen’s presence was suggested by a sea of blood stemming from her tears. The meaning of the sea of blood is opaque; however, in the Talmud one explanation may be found. It is stated that “One may not slaughter [in such manner that the blood runs] into the sea” (Chullin 41a), most likely because such an act could resemble idolatrous worship, and because blood outside the body deles water which is pure. In a probable recount of the Bar Kokhvah War, it is explained how the Romans slaughtered the rebelling Jews and how “men, women and children were slain in [Bethar] until their blood ran into the great sea . . . For seven years the Gentiles fertilised their vineyards with the blood of Israel without using manure”, cf. Gittin 57a. At this point in the tale the listener/reader knows about the idolatry of the world and that it was caused by the tempest, where the link between God and human kind was severed. These intertexts help signify that the tempest not only refers to shevirat hakelim, but also to evil gaining the upper hand

814 815 816

Cf. Gen. 3.24. Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar I,61a; I,240b; III,62a. Cf. p.  in the Hebrew text.

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over Israel. When Gentiles rule, idolatry ourishes, and sins are committed against the laws of God. Accordingly, the bloody tears of the queen could refer to the sins of the world that reect the lack of will to recognize God’s understanding of how mankind should live, cf. the queen’s possible identity as Binah. The presence of the queen’s daughter was suggested by a sea of milk. Nahman explains the meaning of this imagery in a very powerful way. The queen’s daughter still had milk in her breasts when her precious child was snatched away by the tempest, and to avoid the pain she had to squeeze the milk from her breast. This zoharic passage intersects with the tale: “[T]hose that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts” (Is. XXII, 9), for whose sake the Shekinah dwells in the midst of Israel in exile, as indeed there will be few sages at that time . . . it does not depend upon the Mother to free them from exile, but upon the Supreme King; for it is the young ones and the sucklings that will give strength to the Messiah, and then the Supernal Mother . . . will be stirred up toward Her Spouse. He will tarry for twelve months longer, and then he will appear and raise her from the dust . . . On that day the Messiah will begin to gather the captives from one end of the world to the other (Sefer haZohar II,9a).

Shekhinah followed the people of Israel, the children of God, into exile, after the destruction of the temple when the Gentiles prevented Jews from being close to the divine. Shekhinah is here the surety, the guaranty, that God has not forgotten the people of Israel.817 But Shekhinah alone cannot bring about the coming of the Messiah. The people has to abide by the laws of God and refrain from sin. The only way to do so is to engage in Torah. The children of Israel can through Torah bring about the Messiah, which is why it says:

817 In Sefer haZohar Shekhinah is interpreted as this surety: “ ‘My tabernacle’ (mishcani) means the Shekinah; the word can also be rendered ‘my pledge’, which was taken back for the sins of Israel. Once a man was very fond of a friend of his and said to him: I am so fond of you that I am going to stay with you. Said the other: How do I know that you will stay with me? So he took all his most precious belongings and brought them to him, saying: Here is a pledge to you that I shall never leave you. So God sought to abide with Israel, and He therefore took his most desirable possession and sent it down to Israel, saying: Here is my pledge to you that I shall never leave you. And although the Holy One, blessed be He, has departed from us, He has left his pledge in our hands, and we keep that treasure of His, so that if He wants His pledge He must come and abide with us” (Sefer haZohar III,114a).

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“If thou knowest not, O thou fairest among women”, how to gather strength in captivity and to defend thy children, “go thy way forth by the footsteps of the ock”: these are the school children who learn the Torah . . . “The ‘footsteps of the sheep’ are the students who have come later into the world and nd the Torah clearly expounded, and yet manage to nd new expositions every day, and the Shekinah rests on them and listens to their words” (Sefer haZohar III,197b).

It is the queen’s daughter who sat in this sea and squeezed out her milk. Milk is a marker of the written Torah.818 Torah as the milk, which has been squeezed out, is the only thing that can ease the pain of having lost her son. The great pain of hers from having lost her child furthermore parallels Rachel weeping over the children who were not, though hope exists for the future that they shall return.819 The golden hair suggested the presence of the child. The golden hair refers to the child’s superhuman beauty and most likely his radiant appearance, which may be reecting the divine light. A lot of things indicated that he was the Messiah, but it seemed, nevertheless, that time was not yet there to let the Messiah emerge completely. The hairs are the sad remains of the promise, which could have been fullled, had it not been for the tempest. However, the hairs signal just as much a hope that it shall be possible to witness his emergence in the future. The dear and beloved friend of the king is not mentioned, but later he is found in a sea of wine. The presence of the bard was suggested by a sea of wine. Wine represents the oral Torah.820 On Sabbath, wine represents the joy of Torah. It says: “‘Why have we learnt that Sabbath is to be remembered over wine?’ He replied: ‘Because wine represents the joy of the Torah, and the wine of the Torah is the universal joy’” (Sefer haZohar III,95a).

818

Cf. the festival of Shavu’ot; Sefer haZohar I,240a. Cf. Jer. 31.14–16. According to Wiskind-Elper, the interdependence between mother and son bespeaks the interdependence between Shekhinah and the Jewish people. That her son ends up sitting in and being nourished by the sea of milk is taken by Wiskind-Elper to indicate Shekhinah’s omnipresence. In relation to this passage, which Wiskind-Elper calls “one of the most pathetic scenes in all of Reb Nahman’s tales”, she points to the weeping Rachel in Jer. 31.14; Megillah 29a; Sefer haZohar II,217b as sources (Wiskind-Elper: 107–108). Wiskind-Elper interprets the child as the Messiah (Wiskind-Elper: 31–32, 192). The imagery of a tempest that snatches a child away is most likely, according to her, taken from Lamentations Rabbah 1, with a parallel in Berakhot 2, 5a. 820 Cf. Sefer haZohar I,240a. 819

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The presence of the wise man is suggested by a stone, on which the sketched image of the king’s hand is engraved. The master of prayer is certain that it was engraved by the wise man. The hand itself probably represented the primordial Torah, and by linking the wise man to this hand, his wisdom is explained as the divine insight of God. However, here the wise man has sketched the hand on a stone, and the listener/ reader knows that the hand had gone after the tempest. This could indicate that the wise man has attempted to preserve the content of the primordial Torah by engraving it, which makes it similar to Moses who carved the commandments into the two stone tablets, which later became the foundation of the written Torah.821 According to Nahman, Moses was the rst Zaddik haDor and thereby also one who had insight into the primordial Torah.822 The treasure-keeper is mentioned for the rst time. His presence is suggested by a mountain, on which the king’s golden tables, cupboard, and treasures are arranged. This could, as Kaplan suggests, refer to the one in charge of the golden tables, the Holy Ark and the treasures in the temple.823 It is worth noticing that these items are arranged on a mountain, where the altitude may signal the remoteness of what may be the heavenly Jerusalem, waiting for the Messiah to come. This landscape of markers, through which the master of prayer and the warrior have crossed, signals the absence of the divinely connoted characters, and yet the markers signify their eventual return. The message, which this imagery of different markers conveys, is that it is possible to bridge the gap between the innite God and the present state of the world where evil and sin have gained the upper hand. It is true that the people of Israel are in exile; however, the written and the oral Torah are the means through which man can cling to the Messianic hope and even work for its fulllment, since the way to crossing that bridge is written down in Scripture. The Messianic age is distant, it is remote, but it is not inaccessible.824 The devastating piece of information is, however, that neither the master of prayer nor the warrior was able to search for or nd the divinely connoted characters. Nevertheless, they have now found each other, and maybe their reunion can make it possible to look for the others and nd them. 821 822 823 824

Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf.

Ex. 34.28. See as well the scheme of Steinsaltz; cf. Steinsaltz: 110–111. Magid 2002: 33. Kaplan 1983: 326n. Steinsaltz: 111 for a similar understanding.

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After the master of prayer has told his story, the warrior nally reveals his intention with the various conquests. He is hoping that they can lead him to nd the king and all of his people. This can be understood literally in that by going through the world he will eventually come upon the king. Another way of interpreting his intention would be that the accessibility of the king and his people depends on the submission of all the countries in the world. Submission is not just submission, it is a matter of adhering to the laws of God, and when that has been achieved, universal redemption will take place. A major obstacle to universal redemption is the idolatry of the country of wealth. The warrior informs the master of prayer that the king once told him that most sins could be redeemed. However, the king also said that whoever had fallen into the passion for money could not be redeemed, unless this one walked upon the way of the sword and received its strength. The country of wealth has fallen exactly into the passion for money, according to which the solution must be to bring the nation to the way of the sword. Respite to the country of wealth is therefore given, probably reecting the common intention of the master of prayer and the warrior to bring them there. On his way back to the country of wealth, the master of prayer meets the faction of prayer. After having engaged in a dialogue the faction of prayer decides to discharge their former master of prayer and instead appoint the master of prayer their king. As it has been stated earlier in this tale, the faction of prayer was the only one that was not distorted. In fact it here says that the members had been zaddikim right from the beginning; though they grow to complete and great zaddikim under the guidance of the master of prayer. 4: —8: -, 3: —5: - The inhabitants of the wealthy country increased the engagement in their kind of worship. The limited amount of time that the warrior had granted them was running out, and so they were very frightened. They engaged in worship. They sacriced, burnt incense, and engaged in their kind of prayer where they prayed to their gods. They decided that they were forced to (follow their original plan to) send for the country, in which there were such extraordinary riches, and in which the inhabitants were all gods according to their perception. They would surely rescue them, since they were all gods. They sent messengers to their place, and on their way to this place the messengers got lost. They found a man who was walking with a wand that was worth more than the possessions of all of their gods. The wand was covered with expensive precious stones worth

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chapter four more than all the riches of their gods. He was also wearing a hat that was decorated with precious stones worth a fortune. They immediately fell down upon their knees and prostrated themselves in front of him because according to their perception and this man’s tremendous riches, he had to be the god above all of their gods. (This man, whom they met, was really the one in charge of king’s treasures). This man said to them: “This must be something new to you! Come with me and I shall show you riches!” He led them to the mountain where the king’s treasure was kept, and he showed them the treasure. They immediately fell down upon their knees and prostrated themselves in front of him because he was the god over all gods according to their (enlightened and confused) religion (where the essence of their belief was money and wealth). However, they did not sacrice themselves there (though he was a god and though they certainly were supposed to sacrice themselves to a god like this). However, when these messengers sat out, they had been warned not to sacrice themselves on their way. They were afraid that if they sacriced themselves, none of them would remain. If they found a treasure of someone or if one of them went to a toilet and found a treasure of someone there, they would begin to sacrice themselves to this god and none of them would remain. This is why the messengers were warned not to sacrice anyone among them on their way, and so accordingly the messengers did not sacrice themselves to this person in charge of the treasure. Nevertheless, it was clear to them that he was the god over all gods. He was so very enormously rich. The messengers thought to themselves: “Why should we go to these gods in the country who were so wonderfully rich and who were all gods, when this man would certainly be able to rescue them? Was this man not the great god over all gods? He was so very more enormously and wonderfully rich than anybody else!” They therefore asked this man to come with them to their country. He gave his consent, walked together with them, and arrived at their country. The inhabitants of the country were very happy that they had found a god like this, because they were sure that thanks to a god like him who was so very enormously rich they would certainly be rescued. This man commanded that they restored a proper order in this country, and that there could be no sacrices at all. (This was really the treasure-keeper of the king. He was a great zaddik, since all of the king’s men were very great zaddikim. Of course he despised all their evil ways of behavior and the stupidity of this country, though he still could not bring them to repent their evil ways. But he did command for the time being that nobody made sacrices).

Time is running out, and the overhanging danger of destruction by the hand of the warrior is pressing the inhabitants of the country of wealth to make a decision. But in the absence of the master of prayer and in fear of being destroyed, they increase the worship to their pecuniary

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gods and they send a delegation of messengers to the immensely rich country, where the inhabitants are all “gods”, to ask for assistance. The listener/reader knows that if they succeed in joining forces with these so-called gods, then the prophecy from Is. 31.3, where it says that those who are helped by false gods will perish together with them, will most likely come true. It is not in the interest of God to destroy God’s creation, but God can, of course, be forced to do so. In other words, the delegation has to be stopped. Divine intervention is needed. As if the divine actually intervenes, the messengers are lost and come upon the king’s treasure-keeper, who is walking with a wand covered by precious stones and is wearing a hat also covered by precious stones. As could be expected, the messengers from the country of wealth are struck with awe because of the apparent richness of this man. He looks so rich that the messengers conclude that he has to be the god above all gods, and so they decide not to go to the country of immense richness, but instead to ask this man, the king’s treasure-keeper, to return with them to the country of wealth. However, before he returns with them, he shows them the mountain where all the king’s treasures are kept. The messengers prostrate themselves and thereby submit to him. Upon return to the country of wealth, all the inhabitants are happy that the messengers have succeeded in nding such a rich “god”. They have faith in him rescuing them from the approaching warrior. The passage does not explicitly mention if the treasure-keeper is made king, but he does restore order to the country and puts a ban on any future sacrices. However, he did not succeed in making them repent their evil ways. The repentance of the inhabitants of the country of wealth requires that they walk upon the way of the sword and receive its strength, which is why the treasure-keeper cannot succeed in making them repent. But the treasure-keeper prevents future idol sacrices, which is extremely important, since such sacrices forge a link to Sitra haRa825—which again will lead evil to gain additional power. This nation has sinned enough, and the treasure-keeper therefore takes an important step in preventing the number of sins to grow any further.826

825

Cf. Sefer haZohar I,84b. Kaplan has some comments on the treasure-keeper, whom he considers symbolic of Aaron. The High Priest Aaron had the rod of Levi that “brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds”; cf. Num. 17.23. It is within the 826

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15: —4: -, 9: —3: - The inhabitants of the country began to ask the treasure-keeper about the warrior who was facing them. The treasure-keeper also said to them: “Maybe this is the warrior I know!” The treasure-keeper went to the warrior and asked his men if it was possible to meet face to face with him. They said that they would announce his request to him and ask him. They went and asked him and he granted him permission. The treasure-keeper went to the warrior. They recognized each other. They were happy but they also shed tears. The warrior said to the treasure-keeper: “Do you know that our pious master of prayer is here as well? I have seen him. He has already become king!” The treasure-keeper told the warrior how he had come upon the place of the king and all of his men, though the treasure-keeper had not come upon the place of the master of prayer or upon the place of the treasure-keeper. The treasure-keeper and the warrior talked together about this country, about how they had gone astray and had been misled so much that they had come to such a degree of stupidity. The warrior answered the treasure-keeper in the same way, in which he had answered the master of prayer, that he had heard from the king that whoever immerses himself so deeply in money can in no way be redeemed or be brought up from there, except if one walks on the way of the sword (from which the warrior had received his valiant strength). Only in that way could they be brought up from there. The respite was prolonged for the inhabitants of this country, which was why the treasure-keeper talked to the warrior. The treasure-keeper and the warrior then agreed on signs, through which they could communicate. After this, the treasure-keeper left and returned to this country. (Certainly, the treasure-keeper also rebuked them for their evil way of behavior. He told them that they had gone astray and had been confused very much by their passion for money. But to no avail at all. They had already immersed themselves so deeply into money. It was just because the master of prayer and now the treasure-keeper had rebuked them so much that they were bewildered and said: “Nevertheless, please deliver us from our stupidity!” Even though they held on to their religion so strongly and did not want to repent their evil stupidity at all, they said to their rebuker: “Nevertheless, if it is as you say that we are in error and great confusion, please, deliver us from our stupidity!”) The treasure-keeper gave the inhabitants a piece of advice since he knew the power of the warrior and knew from where he had received his strength. He told them about the sword, from which the warrior receives

High Priest’s responsibility to guard the temple that contains the treasures of God, but Israel is also said to be the “treasure from among all nations”; cf. Ex. 19.5. Cf. Kaplan 1983: 331n.

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his strength. “This is why we shall go, you and I, to the place of the sword. In this way you might be able to overcome what is facing you!” The intention of the treasure-keeper was that when they came there, they would be able to repent and be brought out of their stupidity. They accepted his advice (to go with him to the sword). And so the treasurekeeper went. The inhabitants of the country sent along with him their greatest men who were considered gods among them (and as it could be expected and since it was so essential to them, they walked covered in their silvery and golden jewelry). They walked together.

Similar to the meeting between the warrior and the master of prayer, the meeting between the warrior and the treasure-keeper is characterized by mutual recognition, happiness because of the reunion, and sorrow because of the dispersed king, his family and his court. The good news is that the warrior can inform the treasure-keeper about the presence of the master of prayer. They soon proceed to discuss the country of wealth, and the warrior once again repeats that only by walking on the way of the sword can its sinful inhabitants be redeemed. They therefore prolong the respite given to this country, they agree on signs for communication, and the treasure-keeper returns to the country of wealth. It is worth noticing that the warrior is really not interested in destroying, which once again activates the connotation of his relationship with God. The signs of communication, which have now been agreed upon by the master of prayer, the warrior, and the treasure-keeper, are not specied. Furthermore, it is not revealed later in the text what message they convey. At this point, my only suggestion is that these signs provide a bond that binds the people of the king together, whereas earlier the situation of the world prevented them from communicating. Upon return, and as it is described within the parenthesis that signals that this is Nathan’s explanation, the treasure-keeper rebukes the country of wealth for its worship of money in the same way as the master of prayer had done. The rebuke does not cause any understanding among the inhabitants; however, they end up being bewildered. They nally beg the treasure-keeper to deliver them from their stupidity. Bewilderment has led them to ask for help from a divinely connoted character, according to Nathan. Upon return and without reference to Nathan’s parenthesis, the treasure-keeper informs the inhabitants about the sword, which offers their only rescue. The treasure-keeper may be playing a trick on them, since he informs them that this sword has provided the threatening warrior with the strength which represents their overhanging destruction.

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The inhabitants agree to follow the treasure-keeper to the place of the sword, not knowing that the treasure-keeper hopes that the inhabitants in this way will understand, repent, and leave their stupid pecuniary religion. I actually believe that the reader should ignore Nathan’s parenthesis. Within his parenthesis it is overemphasized that the treasure-keeper is a man who tells the truth, a man who has the courage to confront people with the truth, and a man who has such power to convince that he can bring people to the position where they beg to be delivered from their own stupidity even though they do not understand what their stupidity is. Outside the parenthesis, the protagonist is once more making use of a trick. The listener/reader knows that the master of prayer used disguises and played tricks on the ones who were not interested in his message about prayer as the essential purpose in life. The treasurekeeper is tempting the inhabitants to come with him to the sword that has provided the warrior with strength, thereby making the inhabitants believe that they may achieve just as much strength as the warrior and in that way stay with their pecuniary religion. It is only the way of the sword that can make those with a passion for money repent, so why should the inhabitants initiate their own process of repentance. It is furthermore stated below the parenthesis that the intention of the treasure-keeper is to make them repent once they arrive at the place of the sword and then bring them out of their stupidity. Finally, once the richest men of the country of wealth, who are considered gods, set out together with the treasure-keeper for the place of the sword, these men are covered in silvery and golden jewelry, which indicate that they have no overt clue about the fact that the treasure-keeper will launch an attack on their obsession with wealth. Nevertheless, under all circumstances the treasure-keeper, who deals with wealth in a responsible way, has led those with a negative passion for wealth to take the rst step toward their only chance to be redeemed. In this way he too has adjusted to their nature—with a higher purpose of course. 10:—15: , 7:—9: - The treasure-keeper announced to the warrior that he was going with them to nd the place of the sword, and that his intention was hopefully to be able on his way to nd the king and his men. The warrior said: “I want to come with you as well!” The warrior changed his appearance, so that the people who walked together with the treasure-keeper would not recognize him as the warrior. This is why he changed his appearance.

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The warrior then went together with the treasure-keeper. They thought to themselves that they should also announce this to the master of prayer, and so they announced it to him. The master of prayer said that he also wanted to come with them, and so the master of prayer came to them. The master of prayer ordered his people to pray that God would succeed on the way and that they would be able to nd the king and his men. The master of prayer was always praying for this. He had ordered his men to pray and he had prepared for them prayers to pray on this occasion. And now that he was together with the treasure-keeper and the warrior to nd the king and his men, he instructed them even more to always pray that they should succeed in nding them. The master of prayer went to the treasure-keeper and the warrior, and certainly there was great happiness among them, happiness as well as tears. The three of them walked together. The gods, or rather the richest men in the country, were walking together with the treasure-keeper, the warrior, and the master of prayer. As they were walking, they came to one country, around which guards were standing. They asked the guards about the affairs of the country and who their king was. The guards answered that after the tempest, which had scattered the people of the world all over and into different factions, the inhabitants of this country had decided that the essential thing in life is wisdom. They had appointed a great wise man king over them. However, shortly after they had found an extremely great wise man who had such a tremendous wisdom that they had made their king descend from the throne and appointed the other one king. In their place the essence was wisdom, and now that they had found such an extremely great wise man, they appointed him king. The three of them said to them that it seemed that he was their wise man (that is, the king’s wise man), and so they asked if they could meet with him face to face. They answered them that they would announce it to him and ask him. They went and asked, and he gave permission. The three of them went to the wise man, who was king over this country. They recognized each other, because this wise man was the king’s wise man. The happiness was certainly great, but again there was happiness as well as tears. They moaned: “How shall we succeed in nding the king and all of his men?” They asked the wise man if he knew anything about the king’s [sketched] hand. He answered them, that he had the hand. However, after they had been scattered all over because of the tempest and the king had disappeared from them, he had totally refrained from looking at the hand, which was solely connected to the king. The only thing he had done was to engrave the form of the hand on a stone to use when his affairs made it necessary, but he had not looked at the hand at all. They talked to the wise man about how they had been wandering around and had come to this place. The wise man told them that after the tempest he had been walking (and come upon everybody except for the three of them; i.e., the master of prayer, the warrior, and the treasure-keeper) until he had found the inhabitants of

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chapter four this country who had appointed him king. At the moment he had to lead them according to their way of wisdom, but later he would make them return to the truth. They talked to the wise man about the inhabitants of the country where they had gone astray and been bewildered so much by their erroneous and alien worship of money. They said: “If only we had not been scattered and dispersed! This country needs to be brought back to the good track. It would have been sufcient for us to work just for their sake, because they have really become stupid and gone astray!” All the factions had really gone astray and been confused. They needed to be restored827 and returned from their stupidity to the true purpose in life. Even the faction that had chosen wisdom as the purpose in life did not achieve the true purpose. Tikkun and repentance were needed, since they had chosen a supercial and secular kind of wisdom. However, it is easier to bring back someone from his stupidity to the truth than it is to bring back the ones who had gone astray in their alien worship of money and who had immersed themselves so deeply in it. It is impossible to deliver them. (They wise man answered them that he had heard from the king as well that it is possible to deliver a person from any kind of passion, into which he has fallen. However, it is not possible to deliver him, if he has fallen into the passion for money, unless one walks on the way of the sword). The wise man wanted to come with them as well, and so the four of them walked together. Also, the foolish gods walked with them.

When the treasure-keeper informs the warrior about the journey, on which he sets out, a very useful piece of information is given. The intention of leading the representatives from the country of wealth equals the intention of nding the king and his men along the way. This could be the key to understanding the king, his family and his court. Their activation depends on the redemption of the country of wealth. The reason that the master of prayer or the warrior has not been able to search for or nd the king’s men, who are divinely connoted, may lie in the sins of the country of wealth. Human sins seem to cause these characters to be inaccessible, though they have left signs all over the world to indicate the possibility of their activation. The warrior decides to join forces with the treasure-keeper—which he does, though he changes his appearance to hide his identity before the country of wealth. The master of prayer, as he hears about their quest, decides to join forces with them as well. Before leaving, the master of prayer instructs the faction of prayer, over whom he is king, to pray

827

Cf.  in the Hebrew text, p.  .

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in accordance with some prayers, which he has made for the occasion. They should pray for God’s success and for the reunion of the king, his family, and his court. The faction of prayer even has to intensify their praying activity, now that the treasure-keeper, the warrior, and the master of prayer have come together. It is here important to notice that a group of devout human beings can actually assist the redeeming agents. Redemption does not depend on God alone; the efforts of mankind is certainly needed. The efforts are not for themselves to invent prayers, as they still depend on the master of prayer to compose prayers for them; but still, their activity is important, and even more important than usual now that it seems that those who used to have direct access to God are on their way to complete reunion. The extended delegation comes upon the faction of wisdom. Their king is the king’s wise man. When the king’s wise man meets the master of prayer, the warrior, and the treasure-keeper, there is mutual recognition, happiness over their reunion, and sorrow over the fact that the king, his family, and his court are still separated from one another. Recognition, happiness, and reunion characterize each meeting between the members of the king’s court so far, and it seems that these three mental states constitute an important spur to proceed in their quest. Nahman may here try to legitimize happiness as well as sorrow in contrast to Hasidism of his time, which he occasionally blamed for being too negligent of reasons for sorrow in this world. And it is a persuasive argument to let the divinely connoted characters in his tale be characterized by both happiness and sorrow. When those who used to be in direct contact with God have reason to moan, so has mankind.828 The three court members ask the king’s wise man about the king’s sketched hand. The wise man replies that the hand is solely connected with the king, and since he has no contact with the king, he has been unable to even look at it. However, he did engrave the form of the hand on a stone. Wiskind-Elper also understands the king’s sketched hand on the stone as the written Torah. With reference to this current passage Wiskind-Elper explains that: he could not bring himself to read the original hand image at all, and so he carved its form in stone, compelled to use that reproduction in place of the original. [The fate of the Torah] reenacts the stages of loss that

828

Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 139–143.

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chapter four mark the history of the Jewish people. The rst tablets, written by the nger of God to be given to a more pure world, must shatter; the nation distorted by the sin of the Golden Calf is given a second set in their place, a lower, prosaic version fashioned by human hands. Centuries later, the ark holding both the second tablets and the fragments of the rst is stolen from the ruined Temple. The paths of ascent to Jerusalem are obliterated. The scent of the holy sacrices rising from earth to heaven is no more. In the wake of national destruction, new paths must be found, new spiritual pilgrimages and symbolic sufferings (Wiskind-Elper: 69).

The wise man has made a new Torah, the one accessible to mankind today, thanks to which it should be possible to nd guidance to overcome this-worldly sufferings. However, a nuance has to be added. Torah as mankind knows it today cannot counter the sins of the world. Direct access to the divine insights of God is still needed, which is why the master of prayer must proceed together with the former court members in the attempt to nd the king. This could be interpreted as a clear call for Nahman’s belief in the power of the Zaddik haDor to reveal the mystical aspect of Scripture; i.e., God’s perspective.829 The world needs the Zaddik haDor to enable mankind to understand Torah and thereby God’s will. And as it is today, the canonical Torah does not sufce. Nahman is not only separating himself in this passage from traditional Jewish orthodoxy, where Torah and its literal meaning are given priority. He is also separating himself from many zaddikim in his own lifetime, who did not accept the Messianic implications that lay in this bold conception of the access of the Zaddik haDor to the divine insights of God.830 The wise man relates to the three other members of the king’s court how he was made king over the faction of wisdom. He emphasizes that this faction does not possess true wisdom. Their kind of wisdom is supercial and secular, that is, either atheistic or skeptical. However, compared to the country of wealth the wise man considers it easier to restore and make this faction repent than it is to redeem the country of wealth. But the wise man is aware, as is the warrior, of the king’s prescription for the sole kind of tikkun that can lead to the redemption of those who have immersed into the passion for money, and that is the way of the sword. It is worth remembering that the king’s hand/the

829 830

Cf. Magid 2002: 33. Cf., e.g., Green 1992 (1979): 221–222.

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blueprint for creation and its course contained information that the country of wealth was doomed for destruction. However, the court members are on their way to alter the will of God, which was not an uncommon thing for zaddikim to do.831 The court members pronounce an enigmatic sentence in this passage—i.e., that it would have been sufcient for the court members to work just for the sake of the country of wealth despite all the other factions, which have debased some kind of virtue. This seems to indicate that by redeeming the worst sin of all, all other sins would be redeemed.832 4:—10:-, 3:—7:- They walked and came to a country. Here they asked the guards as well about the affairs of the country and asked who their king was. The guards answered that after the tempest the inhabitants of this country had decided that speech was the purpose in life and so they had appointed a speaker king over them. Later, they had found another man who was a man of eloquence, a bard and the most exceptional speaker of all. They had appointed him king. They had made the[ir rst] king descend from the throne, because this [new] man of eloquence was like this. The four of them understood that certainly he had to be their bard, and so they asked if it was possible to meet with the king. The guards said that they would announce to the king that they wanted to receive permission. The guards went and asked, and the bard gave them permission. The four of them went in to the king of this country, and he was indeed the king’s bard. They recognized each other, and there was great happiness among them as well as tears. The bard also went together with them, and so they went to nd the remaining persons; that is the king and his men. They realized that God was helping them on their way, since they constantly found one more of their friends. They ascribed this to their pious master of prayer who was always engaged in praying for this, and thanks to his prayers they succeeded in nding their friends. So they walked on hoping to nd the remaining ones. The walked and came to a country. Here they asked as well about the affairs of the country and asked who their king was. They answered them that they belonged to the faction which had chosen happiness and drunkenness as their purposes in life. They had appointed a constantly

831 Cf. Dov Baer: Or ha-Emet 55c; Elimelekh of Lizhensk: Noam Elimelekh to “Va’ethanan”; to “Emor”. All three are rendered in Lamm: 283–287; 291–292. 832 Cf. Liebes 1993 on Sabbatai Sevi’s sin as the worst sin of all, and how Nahman by rectifying this sin could accomplish haTikkun haKelali, the all-encompassing rectication of the world.

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chapter four happy, drunk king over them. However, later they had found one man who had been sitting in the middle of a sea of wine. They were convinced that he certainly had to be the most exceptional drunk, and so they appointed him king. They asked them if they could meet face to face with him, and they went and received permission. The ve of them went in to this king, and it was indeed the king’s dear and faithful friend who was sitting in the middle of the sea of wine, which had arisen from the consoling words of the bards. They recognized each other, and there was great happiness among them as well as tears. The dear and faithful king went with them as well. They walked on and came to a country. They asked the guards: “Who is your king?” They answered that the king is [a queen] of the most beautiful appearance. She brings them to the most important purpose in the world [of populating the world]. At the beginning they had a beautiful woman as queen, but later, when they found this very, very exceptionally beautiful woman, they appointed her ruler. The friends realized that certainly she had to be the queen’s daughter. They asked to meet with her. They went and received permission. They went into the queen and they recognized her as the queen’s daughter. The happiness, which was there, was great and endless. They asked her how she had come to this place. She told them that after the tempest, which had snatched the precious child, she had in the moment of tumult run after the child, but had not found him. This had made her milk burst, and from this milk the sea of milk arose. The inhabitants of this country had found her and appointed her ruler over them. There was great happiness, but they also cried very much over the precious child who had been lost from them. She did not know anything about her father and mother. Suddenly the husband of the queen came, that is the warrior, and from that moment the country had a king. The queen’s daughter asked the master of prayer to go into her country and purify it from its great scum. In their place the essential purpose in life was a beautiful woman, and certainly these scumlike people were deeply lost in their lust. This is why the she asked the master of prayer to go and take the time to purify them, for them not to personify their scumlike perception completely. Their lust had totally overpowered their belief about the purpose in life. (Every faction had chosen for themselves an evil quality as their purpose. This quality was like a complete religion to them). They had become crazy because of this, which is why she asked him to go and take the time to purify them. Upon this they all went to look for the remaining ones. They walked and came to a country, and here they asked as well: “Who is your king?” They answered that their king was one year old. They belonged to the faction that had chosen that whoever had plenty of food and whoever was not nourished by the food of ordinary people would be t to be king. For a period they had had a rich man as king, but after they had found a human being sitting in a sea of milk, they had agreed to appoint him king, since this human being had been fed with milk all of his days and was not nourished by the food of the rest of the world. They called him

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the one-year-old because he was fed with milk like a one-year-old. They understood that this was the child. They asked if they could meet with him face to face. They went and asked and did receive permission. They went in to him, and they recognized each other. The child recognized them even though he had just been a small child when he disappeared from them. But because he was a complete wise man already at birth, cf. that he was born with a complete wisdom, he recognized them. Of course they recognized him, and surely there was great happiness indeed though they cried as well since they still did not know anything about the king and the queen. They asked the child: “How did you come here?” He told them that after the tempest had snatched him, it took him to a place. At this place he had kept himself alive with whatever he was able to nd until he had come to a sea of milk. He had understood that certainly this sea consisted of his mother’s milk; it had burst in her, and from it the sea had arisen. He had sat there in this sea of milk and was nourished by it, until the inhabitants of this country had come and appointed him king. Upon this they walked on and came to a country. They asked: “Who is your king?” They answered that they had decided that killing was the purpose in life, and so they had appointed a murderer king over them. Later they had found a woman sitting in the middle of a sea of blood, and so they had appointed her queen, since they realized that certain she must be a very great murderer now that she was sitting in the middle of a sea of blood. They asked if they could meet with her face to face. They went and received permission, and so they went to her. She was the queen who had been constantly crying, and the sea of blood had arisen from her tears. They recognized each other, and the happiness was certainly great, though they still cried, since they still did not know anything about the king. They walked on and came to a country where they asked: “Who is your king?” They answered that they had chosen an honorable man to be king, since the essential purpose in life at their place was honor. After a while they had found an old man with a crown on his head sitting in the eld. They decided that he, since he was very honorable and sitting in the eld crowned with a crown, should be appointed king. They knew that certainly this had to be their king, and so they asked as well if it was possible to meet with him. They went and received permission. They went to his place, and they understood that this was the king himself. The happiness, which was there, was so great and unimaginable. Those foolish gods (the rich ones, the great men from the country of wealth who were considered gods in their country) walked with them, and did not understand at all the reason for all of this happiness.

The king, the king’s family, and the king’s court are nally united in this passage. The rst one to be found is the bard. He has become king over the faction of speech. The delegation and the bard realize that

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God is helping them, which they ascribe to the prayers of the master of prayer, probably those that the master of prayer pronounces himself as well as the prayers he instructed the faction of prayer to pronounce. What they recognize as God’s help gives them hope to proceed. The dear and faithful friend has become king over the drunken faction of happiness. The faction found him sitting in the middle of a sea of wine, which had arisen from his words of consolation. I have argued that wine could be connoted with the oral Torah. The image of wine, which becomes complete in this passage, could as imagery convey the message that in times of exile the oral Torah provides consolation. The queen’s daughter has become ruler over the faction of procreation. She has no knowledge of her parents’ whereabouts, which along with the loss of her child is a reason for sorrow. However, happiness occurs because in this passage she is not only reunited with the king’s court as such; she is also reunited with her husband, the warrior, who is subsequently made king over the faction of procreation. The faction is characterized as scum because of its perception that the purpose in life is to have sex in order to procreate. The lust for sex has made the faction go crazy, and so the queen’s daughter asks the master of prayer to purify the faction before it ends up personifying the scumlike perception completely. Here it may be worth mentioning that one purpose of haTikkun haKelali by Nahman was to help male followers to avoid nightly emissions of semen.833 The precious child of the queen’s daughter has become king over the faction of food. When one day the faction had found the precious child sitting in the middle of the sea of milk, the faction decided to appoint him king. The child had recognized the milk as his mother’s milk, which is why he had decided to dwell in this sea. I have argued that milk could be interpreted as the written Torah and that the child could be Mashiah ben David. If this is the case, the now complete imagery could signal that the Messiah is nourished by Torah while waiting for his own anointment. The queen has become ruler over the faction of murder. This faction had witnessed how her tears had formed a sea of blood, and the faction had subsequently appointed her ruler. Nothing is added to the description of this faction. The passage ends with mutual recognition,

833

Cf. Chapter 2.1 on the practice of haTikkun haKelali.

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happiness over the reunion between every member of the king’s court and the king’s family, but also with sorrow that they still have not found the king. The king had become king over the faction of honor. They had found him sitting in a eld with a crown on his head. The faction had considered this very honorable. I have argued along with Kaplan that man’s pursuit of honor was a distortion of honor solely to be attached to God. “Everything that God created, He created for no other reason than for His honor” (Avoth 6.11).834 At rst the faction appointed the old, pedantic gypsy beggar their king. When the faction noticed the king in the eld with a crown on his head, they perceived this as honorable. However, there is denitely no reason to perceive this as honorable. It is the saddest sight, given the king’s most likely identity as the innite God. God is supposed to sit on a throne, and not be left alone in a eld. It does not seem that the faction of honor has expanded its perception during its existence as faction; but, nevertheless, it has at least led the king/God to a minor authoritative position, from which he can rule over a small group of people. It can generally be observed that the king, the king’s family, and the king’s court have been appointed rulers, though they have so far been unable to alter the limited and often faulty perception of their factions. Only the master of prayer has been successful in perfecting his faction of prayer by making the faction members perfect and complete zaddikim. All the other factions need to be elevated from their distorted perception of their respective virtues. It has not been sufcient that each faction has submitted either to the king, the king’s family members, or the court members. However, the mere presence of one of the ten protagonists enables each faction to benet from the reunion of the ten characters and eventually to undergo tikkun. Concerning the country of wealth, there is still a long way to go, as seen in this passage where the rich representatives from the country of wealth follow the group of protagonists without understanding the reason for this group’s unimaginable and great happiness.

834

Cf. Kaplan 1983: 313n.

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13:—5:-, 9:—3:- Now they returned and formed this holy gathering. They sent the master of prayer to the countries (of the different factions who had chosen an evil quality as their purpose in life) to restore them and purify them, and to make them repent their stupidity. Each country should repent its stupidity, since they had all gone astray and been confused. Now the master of prayer had certainly the power in his hand to go to them to make them repent, since he had received the power and the permission from the kings of these countries, because all of their kings were there. The master of prayer walked with their power to purify them and to bring them to repentance. The warrior talked to the king about the inhabitants in the country where they had fallen into the foreign worship of money. The warrior said to the king: “Did I not hear from you that by means of the way I had to the sword it would be possible to deliver the one who had immersed in foreign worship of passion and money?” The king answered him: “Yes, this is so!” The king announced to the warrior: “It is so that on the way that leads to the sword there is a side road by which one can ascend to the mountain of re. On this mountain crouches a lion. When the lion needs to eat, it falls upon the ocks and takes sheep and cattle and eats them. The shepherds know about this and are very careful to guard the sheep against it, but the lion does not care. Whenever it wants to eat, it falls upon the ocks. The shepherds beat it and yell at it, but the lion does not hear this at all. It takes sheep and cattle for himself; it roars and then eats them. This mountain of re cannot be seen at all. “Further along the way there is another side road. Along this road there is a place called ‘the kitchen’. In this kitchen there are all sorts of different dishes. In this kitchen there is no re at all. The different dishes are prepared with the re from the mountain. The mountain is very far away from there, but lanes and channels lead from the mountain of re to the kitchen, and with this they can prepare the dishes. This kitchen cannot be seen at all. However, there is one sign. Birds rest upon this kitchen, and this is how one knows that this is the kitchen. These birds y on their wings and kindle the re and quench the re. By ying, the birds kindle and quench the re. They alone quench the re so that it will not burn too strongly. They stir the re as much as it is necessary for each dish. According to each dish, they stir the re. “Therefore, you shall lead them (all the people who had fallen into the foreign worship of money, who were gods in the country of wealth), rst against the wind for the wind to bring to them the smell of the dishes. Upon this, you shall let them taste the dishes. Then they will certainly abandon their passion for money!” This is what the warrior did. He took the people who were the great men from the country of wealth who were considered gods in their country. These gods were the ones who were there, because they had come together with the treasure-keeper. As they had left their country

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together with the treasure-keeper, the inhabitants had given them power and authorization as emissaries to do what they had to do. All the inhabitants of the country were forced to agree to whatever these emissaries did, and it was not to be changed. The warrior took these people, who were called gods in their country, because they were rich, and led them to the way of the sword. He brought them to the kitchen of dishes. First he led them against the wind, and the wind brought to them the smell of the dishes. They began to implore him to give them these tasty dishes. Upon this, he led them away from the wind, and they began to scream and say that there was a very foul odor. He once again led them against the wind, and once again the wind brought to them the good smell of the dishes. They implored him again to give them something from the dishes. He once again led them away from the wind, and again they screamed and said that there was a very foul odor. The warrior replied and said to these people: “Do you not see that there is nothing here that causes stinking? Are you not forced to say that certainly it must be you who stink, now that there is nothing here that stinks?” After this he gave them something from the dishes, and as soon as they ate from these dishes, they immediately began to throw away and hurl off their silver and gold. Everyone dug a hole for himself and buried himself in it because of the great shame. From tasting the dishes, they had sensed the foul odor of money (which stank like excrement). They tore their faces and buried themselves, and they could not lift their faces at all. Everyone was ashamed of the other, because in this place money was the greatest of all shames. Whoever wanted to talk despicable words to someone else, said to him that he had money, now that having money was such a great shame there. One who had more money than someone else was accordingly more ashamed, which is why they buried themselves out of this great shame and could not lift their faces, not even in front of a friend, and certainly not in front of the warrior. The one who still had a coin or maybe more got rid of it immediately and threw it very far away from himself in a hurry. Upon this, the warrior went to them and brought them up from their holes and graves, and he said to them: “Come with me, because now you have no need to fear anymore for the warrior. I am indeed the warrior!” They implored the warrior to give them something from these dishes to bring to their country, because they certainly despised money very much, and they wanted all the inhabitants of the country to leave their passion for money behind. He gave them something from the dishes and brought it to their country. As soon as they gave them something from these dishes, they immediately began to throw away their silver and gold. They buried themselves in the dust of the earth out of their great shame. The richest men and the gods were ashamed the most, and also the lowly, who were called wild animals in this place, were also ashamed of themselves that they had been lowly in their own eyes because they had had no money. Now the contrary had been revealed, that money is the essence of shame. The dishes had had this effect on them that whoever

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chapter four ate from them would despise money very much, because one would sense the foul odor of money, which was like excrement and lth. Subsequently they threw away their gods of silver and gold. Upon this the master of prayer was sent to this place. He made them repent, he restored835 them, and puried them. The king ruled over the entire world. The entire world returned to God, blessed be He; and they solely engaged in Torah, prayer, repentance, and good deeds. Amen! Let His will be. God bless the world! Amen and Amen!

An immense development takes place in this passage, which informs the nale. The king, the king’s family, and the king’s court are gathered and together they are designated “    / ”, i.e. “the holy gathering”. The holy gathering consists of ten characters, which in my opinion could refer at the same time to the ten men who are required to form a minyan—i.e., a prayer quorum836—and to some divine representatives plus some extremely holy men, amounting to the identity of zaddikim, having come together. But what is more important is the designation “holy”. The only thing that is constantly holy is God.837 Adding to this, everything that stands in a relationship to God is holy, as long as the relationship is proper. This could be the temple, Jerusalem, the priests, the holidays and the Sabbath, the prophets, and the warriors.838 However, when the ten characters assemble they do not form a holy gathering; they form the holy gathering, which has now been reassembled. If the holiness of this gathering depended on a proper relationship to God, it would have been grammatically correct to use the innite pronoun; however, with no prior introduction, the ten characters are presented as nite as the holy gathering. This indicates a link to the constant holiness of God.

Cf.  , p. . I am here in line with Roskies’s indication; cf. Roskies 2002: 93; and with Kaplan, though Kaplan offers different suggestions like Steinsaltz did. Concerning the ten men required for a minyan, Kaplan refers to Likkutey Halakhot Telah 4,12 where Nathan writes that “whenever ten men come together to pray, they also bring together the ten men of the King, who are then with them”; cf. Kaplan 1983: 342n. He also suggests that the ten characters relate to the ten serot, the ten commandments, and to the Idra (that is, the circle around R. Simeon bar Yohai also consisting of ten men), though Kaplan also points to the possible autobiographical traits of the characters in the tale (Kaplan 1983: 278n). 837 Cf. the trishagion in Is. 6.3; in Is. 40.25 “Holy” is the name of God; God is designated ‘the Holy One of Israel’ in Ps. 71.22 and in Jer. 51.5. 838 Cf., e.g., Ps. 73.11; Is. 52.1; Lev. 21.6–8, 23; Jer. 1.5; 1. Sam. 21.6. 835 836

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This holy gathering rules over the different factions and authorizes the master of prayer to approach the different factions in order to perform their tikkun,839 to purify them and to make them repent their debased perceptions of their respective virtues. Since the master of prayer is given the responsibility to perform such an important act, the listener/ reader certainly has to note his signicance. It seems that he is not only given the responsibility, but also the only one who is able to do so. The Hasidic listener/reader will know that a Zaddik haDor is able to perform this function, that is, to elevate the entire generation. If this is so, the connotations of the master of prayer convey a tremendous amount of hope to mankind, since it is possible for someone among the humans to emerge840 and bend God’s possible intention to pass judgment on mankind for not submitting to the service of God. Further support for seeing the master of prayer as a Zaddik haDor would be that a Zaddik haDor represents Mashiah ben Yosef, whose “sword” to prepare for the coming of the Messiah is prayer. The Zaddik haDor/Mashiah ben Yosef draws the true power of prayer from the phallic serah Yesod and can pass it on to his followers, which is what the master of prayer does in this twelfth tale.841 As the master of prayer is sent out to perform the tikkun of the different factions, the warrior approaches the king and asks him to conrm that the country of wealth, which has immersed into a passion for money, can be redeemed on the way of the sword. The king conrms and furthermore instructs him on how to redeem the fallen inhabitants. The king describes to the warrior a certain area close to the way of the sword. On one side road there is the mountain of re and its lion, where both represent danger. Fire devours, and so does a lion, though it is only the lion that is described as a threat here. When it attacks, the shepherds are left helpless in their attempt to save their ock. Sheep and cattle are by nature helpless against a predator like a lion. Nothing is able to prevent the lion from attacking and devouring. The destructive force of the lion is obvious. On the other side of the road there is a kitchen with no re, though everybody knows that re—before the age of electricity—was needed in order to prepare food.

 is the word used on p. . Cf. Roskies 2002: 92 on how a master of prayer does not need any professional training. 841 See Green’s detailed explanation in Green 1992 (1979): 187–189. 839 840

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However, birds are sitting on the rooftop, and they y to the mountain to increase or decrease the amount of re sent through the lanes and channels that lead to the kitchen, so that the dishes can be prepared. In other words, these birds are the regulating factor of the re, which is—when in its own environment—associated purely with destruction. The scenery reects in this way how destruction is restrained and transformed into something that may be positive. If one holds on to the idea of the restrained and transformed destructive force made constructive, it is time to include at least one potential intertext. When Nahman nished telling this tale, he said that one should consult Is. 31 in order to understand the tale.842 Judgment will be passed on the Egyptians and those who believe that the Egyptians are gods. This prophecy is followed by a parable in verse 4: Like the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them; so shall the Lord of hosts come down to ght for Mount Zion, and for its hill (Is. 31.1–3).

Here the lion is likened to God, who is willing to ght for his prey, Jerusalem, and its surroundings. In verse 5 the parable is transformed to a certain extent: “As birds ying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; he will defend and deliver it, and passing over it he will preserve it.” The lion, which in verse 4 was a threat to those who claimed that Jerusalem belonged to them, is here transformed to birds defending, delivering, and preserving Jerusalem. In other words: God attacks like a lion when somebody claims ownership of what belongs to God. The virtues of the factions and the title of “God”, cf. the country of wealth, were profaned in the tale. They were made secular, though the virtues should have been subsumed under the service of God, and though the title of “God” solely belongs to God the Creator. The virtues and the title of God are linked to “Jerusalem”, but somebody is trying to remove them from there. Such a sin legitimizes God’s appearance as an attacking lion. But in verse 5 it says that God will defend, deliver, and preserve Jerusalem. Those who respect the virtues and the title of “God” as linked to God will witness God’s appearance as birds. God attacks and defends depending on the behavior of humans.

842

Cf. p. .

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In the following it says: Turn to him from whom the people of Israel have deeply revolted. For in that day every man shall throw away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your own hands have made to you for a sin. Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword, not of a mighty man; and the sword, not of a mean man, shall devour him; but he shall ee from the sword, and his young men shall become slaves. And his rock shall pass away in terror, and his princes desert the banner in fear, said the Lord, whose re is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem (Is. 31.6–9).

Israel has revolted against God but is now being encouraged to turn to God. When Israel turns to God, the sinful worship of silver and gold must be rejected. The Assyrian, most likely Sennacherib, who worshipped a god called Nisroch and who was slain by the sword of his two own sons, cf. Is. 37.37–38, is here predicted to ee and leave his, probably, adherents behind. These adherents will then leave the banner, which in the tale of Nahman connotes the faction and its faulty assessment of what the purpose in life is, and come to the fear of God. After the prediction, the distinction between re and furnace—a distinction also made in the tale of Nahman—is mentioned, probably to remind the reader that it is up to him/her to choose between either God’s punishing or God’s nourishing side. It lies within the ability of Nahman’s birds to either kindle or quench the re. When the re has been regulated, the kitchen/furnace can prepare the dishes in order to nourish mankind. If the re is kindled, a consequence ought to be that some humans are nourished with a great amount of judgment, whereas in the cases where the re is quenched only a small amount of judgment is needed. In the serotic system the destructive force of Din is restrained by the loving kindness of Hesed. With the sword hovering over the mountain of re including its lion and the kitchen including its birds, one could say that the court has been set, and the outcome depends on this: “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword” (Is. 1.19–20). The birds seem to guarantee that the verdict passed will be righteous.843

843 Other intertexts may be found in Sefer haZohar. One zoharic passage describes the four kinds of punishment meted out to the wicked. One kind of punishment is strangulation, another is stoning. The third kind is darkness. It says: “ ‘Darkness’ is burning, as it is written: ‘And it came to pass, when ye heard the voice out of the midst

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After having described the area of the sword, the king instructs the warrior to take the representatives of the country of wealth, who believe themselves to be gods, to the kitchen and lead them up against the wind—rst to let them smell the dishes and second to let them taste the dishes. According to the king, this should make them abandon their passion for money. The warrior follows the instructions of the king, even though he leaves his personal touch on the events, when the wealthy representatives have smelled the dishes for the rst time. He leads them away from the wind with the result that the representatives suddenly sense the foulest odor. He brings them up against the wind once more, along which the representatives beg him to give them some, but again he leads them away from the wind and confronts them once more with the foul odor. The odor is so foul that they scream, but the warrior interrupts their exclamations by suggesting that they are the ones who bring about the foul odor, since the wind, when it carries the air of the area, brings about the most delicious smell. Upon this suggestion he gives them a taste of the dishes. The result is as the king said it would be. They not only abandon their passion for money, they hurl off their silvery and golden jewelry. They dig holes and bury themselves in them out of shame. They tear their faces. After a while, when the representatives have realized how faulty and sinful their perception of the purpose in life was, the warrior approaches them and brings them up from their holes. Upon this, the warrior reveals his true identity to them and tells them not to fear him anymore. They have now come to understand their deviation from truth. These representatives used to be considered gods because of their great amount of wealth. When they sat out with the treasure-keeper, they were authorized to do anything it would take to prevent the attack of the warrior. The representatives, now that they have become “sober”,

of the darkness, while the mountain did burn with re’ (Deut. 5.20), also: ‘and the mountain burned with re into the heart of heaven and darkness, etc.’ (Deut. 4.11): this is the re that rests on the heads of the wicked to consume them.’” (Sefer haZohar I,11b) The wind, which will later play a role in the nale of the tale, is mentioned as the fourth punishment. The wind that constitues the fourth kind of punishment “alludes to beheading by the sword, which whirls round the wicked like a tempest, as it is said: ‘and the aming sword which is turned every way’ (Gen. 3.24). These punishments are meted out to those who transgress the precepts of the Torah” (Sefer haZohar I,11b). Cf. as well Sefer haZohar I,53b.

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decide to ask for some of the dishes to bring back to the inhabitants of the country of wealth. The warrior grants them this. When they return and make the inhabitants taste the dishes, the entire country detaches itself from its values and subsequently realizes that money is nothing but the essence of shame. But the country is not yet redeemed. The master of prayer is needed for this task, and so he arrives. He makes them repent, he enables their tikkun, and nally he puries them. When the sin of the country of wealth has been rectied the entire world returns to its intended order. The king/God becomes ruler over the entire world. The entire world turns to God. And humans do nothing but engage in Torah, prayer, repentance, and good deeds. This seems to be a description of the world-to-come. Actually, it is one of the few descriptions in Nahman’s tales of what the world-to-come will be like. When God rules the world, humans engage solely in the service of God. There is no mentioning of eating and struggling to support one’s family. It seems to imply a purely spiritual union, where the only human feature is that they praise God, while God receives their praises. They do not act according to their own needs because only one need is recognized, and that is God’s need for mankind to submit. It is also worth noticing that the upside-down state of the world is restored to its intended structure. From being a purpose, money is now restored to its essence, which is shame. There is only one God, not many gods. There is only one country, not many countries. There is only one king, not many kings. There is only one purpose, not many purposes. There is only one will, and that is the will of God. With very few lines Nahman describes his perception of the world-to-come. Oneness will characterize everything, because everything is God. The tale nishes: “Amen! Let His will be! God bless the world! Amen and Amen!” This is a typical end of a prayer, and this might be how the twelfth tale, “The Master of Prayer”, should be perceived. Recapitulation The most transcendent aspect of God, Binah, Shekhinah, the Messiah, and six entities of the most important qualities existed together in primordial times. However, shevirat hakelim caused them to be separated from each other and dispersed to such an extent that mankind, which came into existence after this primordial catastrophe, believed itself to be without a ruler. Based on man’s limited ability to perceive, mankind divided into several factions. Each faction chose for itself the guiding principle

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for the rule, under which it wanted to live. The guiding principles were the debased human versions of divine qualities. One faction confuses God’s honor with a human, selsh need of attention. A second faction confuses life with decay and destruction. A third faction forgets about the spiritual needs of man. A fourth faction confuses fertility with lust. A fth faction confuses the creative power of language with nonsense. A sixth faction confuses drunkenness with happiness. A seventh faction confuses wisdom with rationalism. An eight faction believes that man only has a body to take care of. A ninth faction understands that man needs to pray for God’s guidance. The distortions of the rst eight factions are redeemable. The ninth faction already contributes to the process of redemption through its prayers. However, there is a tenth faction that worships money to the extent of idolatry, which is irredeemable. The faction has appointed human gods and established a cult based on human sacrices, which forges a link to Sitra haRa. The plot of the tale is to nd a way to redeem the irredeemable. The ten primordial characters are present in the created world; eight of them are implicitly present through markers, whereas a master of prayer and a warrior are directly accessible. The master of prayer has established a community that offers a pretaste of the world-to-come for those who decide to follow him. The master of prayer demands from his followers that they engage in hitbodedut, prayer, song, praise, confession, fasting, self-mortication, and repentance. The physical aspects of these activities lead to self-annihilation and Bittul haYesh in general. The verbal activities establish a bridge to the divine, across which each follower is enabled to return to his divine source. This bridge is the positive alternative to the link forged by the country of wealth to Sitra haRa. Every activity in the community of the master of prayer reects the engagement in the process of tikkun and thus the attempt to return to the order of existence from before shevirat hakelim. The warrior incarnates God’s threat against those who are unwilling to recognize the service of God as the sole and essential purpose in life. This threat points forward to their destruction. Those who do not already recognize the service of God as essential will have to repent to avoid destruction. The warrior causes fear of destruction among the citizens in the country of wealth, and this fear becomes the point of departure for the master of prayer in his attempt to soften the judgment about to be carried out by the warrior. That the master of prayer and

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the warrior work together reect the interest of God not to eradicate the world that God created. In this attempt the master of prayer and the warrior pass through a landscape of markers that conveys the following: Because of shevirat hakelim, the primordial Torah has been replaced by the canonical Torah; God has been separated from God’s kingdom, i.e., creation; divine understanding has been blocked by the sins of the world; Shekhinah is in exile but consoles herself through the written Torah; the Messianic era has been postponed; and the heavenly Jerusalem is more remote than ever before. If the sins of the wealthy citizens were not as grave as they are, the canonical Torah would have sufced as means for man to work toward the Messianic era; however, given the state of this specic country the master of prayer and the warrior have to join forces. The prayers within the community of the master of prayer assist the master of prayer and the warrior. Each becomes king over a faction/country, and their mere presence redeems it. When the rst two countries are redeemed, it enables them to proceed and nd each of the eight remaining primordial characters. Because of the prayers and the progression in the process of tikkun they are transformed from markers to active rulers over different countries. The ten primordial characters restablish their holiness from before shevirat hakelim, and they can draw upon the primordial insight of God. The holy gathering leaves it to the master of prayer to redeem the different factions except for the country of wealth. God instructs the warrior to carry out a rather lenient punishment of the country of wealth. The citizens of this country detach themselves from their previous values; they realize that money is the essence of shame, and they repent. Once they have repented, the warrior brings the citizens before the master of prayer who then performs the nal act of redemption for them. Only after having realized that the master of prayer is the only one who is able to redeem the different countries, and the only one who can redeem those who have repented the irredeemable act of worshipping money and human gods, does it become possible to interpret the character of the master of prayer. He is redeeming his entire generation and should therefore be interpreted as the last Zaddik haDor/Mashiah ben Yosef who brings about the Messianic age. Adding to this understanding he seems to act as an instrument for Hesed, God’s merciful attribute, to soften Din, God’s stern judgment. God’s stern judgment is embodied in the warrior without him being a direct gurative representation of

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this serah. The treasure-keeper, the bard, the king’s dear, and beloved friend and the wise man could reect some serotic potentials, though the tale seems too unclear as to which. Their human characters could indicate that their identities as well as that of the warrior amount to those of zaddikim, and maybe through these identities have they come to incarnate attributes from before shevirat hakelim. The king represents God’s most transcendent aspect, the queen could represent divine understanding, the daughter represents Shekhinah, and her son represents Mashiah ben David. Once the master of prayer/Mashiah ben Yosef/the last Zaddik haDor has performed the nal tikkun, God is reinstalled as the recognized ruler in this world. The world is governed according to God’s understanding. God’s presence dwells among mankind, and the ground has been provided for the Messiah to grow up and initiate the Messianic era, in which humans do nothing but engage in Torah, prayer, repentance, and good deeds. Humans engage solely in the service of God. The Messianic era can be characterized as a purely spiritual union between God and humans, where the only difference is that humans praise God, while God receives their praises. Humans do not act according to their own physical needs, because only God’s need for mankind to submit is recognized. Oneness will characterize everything, because everything is God.

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4.13 The Thirteenth Tale The Seven Beggars Introduction The thirteenth tale844 consists of many tales. Some are coherent some seem to stand alone, and one is missing. Nevertheless, they are all subjected to Nahman’s initial remark: “I shall tell you how they used to be happy”. The thirteenth tale is known under the title: “   ’   ” from the bilingual version, i.e., “the thirteenth tale about the seven beggars”. The Hebrew text begins: “       

 ”,845 i.e., “A tale. Once upon a time there was a king who had an only son”. With the same meaning the Yiddish text begins: “

        ,      ”. All commentators name the tale according to the bilingual version.846 An only son has so far in Nahman’s tales indicated a fragile line of succession, where the fragility reected that this only child would be the only one to secure a continuation of the father’s qualities or a continuation of what the father represented.847 In the thirteenth tale, the father connotes happiness; however, his only son has a rationalistic approach to life and is thus unable, once he becomes king, to follow his father’s

844 Tale #13 was told from 30 March to 10 April 1810. The opening story and the story of the rst day were told on 30 March where Nathan Sternhartz was not present. Nahman did, however, review it for him on 4 April and corrected some of the details which the other disciples had not transmitted accurately enough. The story of the second day was told on 4 April, where the inspiration may have been the deciencies of the world and the debts of the wealthy people in Berdichev. The stories of the third day and the fourth day were told on 6 April, where the inspiration may have been Nahman’s sorrow over his grandson’s illness. The story of the fth day was told on 8 April. The story of the sixth day was told on 10 April. Nathan Sternhartz seems to have been present at the telling of the stories of the second through the sixth day. Cf. Kaplan 1985: 181n–183n; Band 1978: 44. On 8 May Nahman says to Nathan Sternhartz on their way to Uman that the story of the seventh day will not be told until the time of the Messiah; cf. Yemey MoHaRNaT #43. 845 The Hebrew text writes    and not   . 846 Cf. Berger: 14;  1975: 144; : 209; Band 1978: 251; Green 1992 (1979): 301; Steinsaltz: 148; Schwartz: 215; Kaplan 1983: 354; Cunz: 232; Wiskind-Elper: 19; Roskies 2002: 93. 847 Cf. tales #8 and 9. Tales #2, 5, and 10 deal with childlessness which reects an intensied emphasis on the same problematic aspect of securing the continuation of the parental qualities or representational values.

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advice always to be happy. The description of the son’s rationalism is followed by a description of a mass ight. On the narrative level there is nothing that ties the two descriptions together, though commentators disagree on the possibility of an implicit connection. Seven beggars help two children lost after the mass ight, but when the marriage of the two children is arranged for, only six of the helping beggars attend the marriage celebrations. The children and the listener/reader still wait for the seventh beggar to appear by the unnished end of the tale. Commentators agree that the absence of the seventh beggar indicates a connotation to the Messianic era, which nds support in Nahman’s words to Nathan Sternhartz that the tale about the seventh beggar could not be told until the time of the Messiah.848 Since the tale focuses more on the efforts of the beggars to perfect the world—which could be accomplished once all seven beggars were gathered—than on the reason for the state of the world, I choose to follow the other commentators and refer to the tale as “The Seven Beggars”. Summary The opening scene describes how a country celebrates because a son succeeds his father on the throne, while this father, the king, is still alive. The old king advises his son to be happy. He even stresses that the son’s legitimacy as king depends on his ability to be happy even on that particular day in the future when he shall descend the throne. However, whereas the father appreciates happiness, the son appreciates wisdom. Secular wisdom gains the upper hand in the country where nally everyone engages in wisdom except for the common people, who are excluded from the impenetrable and sophisticated wisdom. The son recognizes how this wisdom leads him into confusion; but his intelligence prevents him from abandoning his secular approach to life. A shift of scenery takes place. During a mass ight from a certain country, a boy and a girl from two different families are lost in a forest. They cry out in desperation, upon which seven beggars appear. Each of them provides the children with bread. The seven beggars all suffer from an apparent handicap. The rst beggar is blind, the second is deaf, the third stutters, the fourth has a crooked neck, the fth is a hunchback, the sixth has no hands, and the seventh has no feet. But despite

848

Cf. Yemey MoHaRNaT #43.

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the beggars’ willingness to feed the children, they all refuse to take the children along. Instead they bless the children with a rather peculiar blessing: i.e., each one wishes for the children to become like him. After the seventh beggar has left the children, the children walk toward a settled area to ask for food. They end up around beggars who soon decide to arrange for the children’s marriage. During a public feast on the king’s birthday, the beggars ask for meat and bread for the wedding; they dig a deep hole, which they cover with branches, soil and garbage, and inside which they place the wedding canopy. The children and the beggars descend into this hole, where they celebrate the wedding in great happiness. During the celebration, the children recall how God bestowed grace on them in the forest by sending the beggars, and so the children express their longing for the rst blind beggar. The blind beggar arrives and gives the children his present for the homily.849 He then explains that he is not blind; it only appears so because he is unwilling to look at the world, which according to him is unworthy of being seen. He also says that he is old and yet very young. He explains this through a tale and ends it by handing over his long life to the children, after which there is great happiness. On the second day of the wedding the deaf beggar arrives and gives the children his present for the homily. He explains to the children that he is not deaf. It only appears so because he is unwilling to listen to the complaints of the world. The deaf beggar tells a tale about a withering garden and ends it by handing his good life to the children, after which there is great happiness. On the third day the stuttering beggar arrives and presents the children with his present for the homily. He explains that he does not stutter; it is just that worldly speech contains neither praises of God nor integrity. The stuttering beggar tells a tale about the true man of mercy who assists a heart and a spring (sic!) and ends it by giving the children the present that they may be as he is, after which there is great happiness. On the fourth day the beggar with the crooked neck arrives. He explains that he has no crooked neck, but that it appears so because he turns his head away to avoid breathing the air of the world, which

849 The present for the homily is part of a wedding tradition. The bridegroom gives a derashah (a homily). The presents of the guests are presents for this derashah and not for the groom and the bride; cf. Kaplan 1983: 363n.

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is polluted by its nonsense. Actually he has a beautiful neck as well as a beautiful voice that contains all the sounds of the world. He then tells his tale about a male and a female bird who have become separated and ends it by giving the children the present that they may be as he is, after which there is great happiness. On the fth day the hunchbacked beggar arrives and gives the children his present for the homily. He explains that he is no hunchback, but that it appears so because his small shoulders hold a lot. He tells his tale of something small holding a lot and ends it by giving the children the present that they may be as he is, after which there is great happiness. On the sixth day the beggar without hands arrives. He explains that his hands are not deformed. He has a great power in his hands, but he cannot use it in this world since it is needed for something else. The handless beggar tells his tale about a queen’s daughter who had to be cured and ends it by giving the children the power in his hands as a present, after which there is great happiness. The entire tale nishes here. Or rather, Nathan Sternhartz explains in his notes that the end of the tale would involve the coming of the seventh beggar without feet and a return to the opening scene of the thirteenth tale where the happy king has handed over the kingdom to his secular son. But Nahman refused to nish the tale. He said that it was difcult for him to tell this tale. And he said to Sternhartz that the part of the tale concerning the seventh day would not be told until the Messiah had come.850 Scholarly comments on the tale Berger’s rst impression of the thirteenth tale is one of confusing symmetries casting doubt on whether the tale takes place in heaven, in the Nether World, or on their border. The content circles around “a vision of Existence, of exposure to erce and possibly hostile powers, of despair and hope”.851 Berger presents his understanding of the third beggar’s tale about the heart and the spring as a reection of how Nahman tries to prolong his attempts to reach the world-to-come despite his weak lungs.852 850 851 852

Cf. pp. 

-

; Kaplan 1985: 186. Cf. Berger: 15. Cf. Berger: 17–18.

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Dan comments on the missing link on the narrative level between the opening story and the story about the two children and the seven beggars. The opening story is characterized by two motifs: the opposition between happiness and sadness and by the identicalness between enlightenment and atheism. Both motifs were common in Bratslav Hasidism and used to emphasize that happiness and simplicity depend on faith, whereas sadness and enlightenment lead to heresy, as was described in the ninth tale about “The Wise One and the Simple One”.853 According to Dan, one is left to assume that these Bratslav motifs are not referred to in the tale for didactical purposes, since this would only leave the listener/reader more puzzled than before. On the contrary, they serve in this peculiar story only as means to further the plot.854 The opening story is unnished, as was the rst tale. Dan interpreted the unnished end in the rst tale as a way to conceal Nahman’s Messianic aspirations, which Nahman could not express openly. The plot of the rst tale reected Lurianic Kabbalah, which is why Dan decides to look for tsimtsum, shevirah, and the dispersal of the divine sparks in the opening story in the thirteenth tale as well.855 He detects tsimtsum in the opening story when the king decides to pass over the kingdom to his son. The king is interpreted as En Sof. En Sof contracts itself and shapes the powers that lead to the existence of reality here as his son. At this point En Sof still rules over reality outside the void, and without this inuence reality would not exist. The happiness described reects En Sof ’s happiness over the decision to create the world, and the son/creation is still under the dominance of En Sof. The son’s loss of faith symbolizes shevirat hakelim, which constitutes the theological reason for the disaster. The end of the opening story would obviously be to return the son to faith, to complete the tikkun of the broken vessels; to annihilate what appeared from tsimtsum and to annihilate this worldly reality.856 The main story about the two children and the seven beggars reects a process that could complete the opening story. Each beggar represents a quality crucial to tikkun. Dan points to the fact that the story of each beggar is independent and does not seem to depend on the stories of

853 854 855 856

Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf.

 1975: 146.  1975: 147.  1975: 147.  1975: 148.

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the other beggars. He therefore suggests that the essence lies in the presents each beggar gives to the children as a present for the homily. Concerning the seventh beggar, Dan presents his suggestion of how the tale would have ended, had Nahman decided to nish it. I shall render Dan’s suggestion in my analysis.857 Kook considers the thirteenth tale lled with hints at a mystical content. The longing of the children for the beggars leads to the beggars’ arrival where they pass on to the children their ability to serve God, which includes advice on how to overcome doubt, confusion, and problems in order to reach faith.858 Man has to reject human intelligence and perception since both tie man to the immanent world. The rejection of intelligence and perception based on the senses can come about by recognizing the limitations of man and by praying, studying Torah, and keeping the mitsvot. The beggars reveal these limitations of human intelligence and perception by showing that apparent defects are really signs of completeness, whereas the apparently complete is full of defects.859 Kook turns to the apparent structural lack of coherent plots because of the missing link between the opening scene and its continuation. However, as she writes: “         

         , ” (: 235); i.e., “if we translate the language of symbols and allegory in the tale, we shall nd a conceptual and consistent completeness.” The depression, which torments the king’s son (as it tormented the wise one in the ninth tale), is countered by the innocence of the children (like the innocence of the simple one in the ninth tale). The seven beggars and their tales represent seven ways of faith to overcome doubt, confusion, and problems.860 By emphasizing that the world is deformed and not they, they convey how the king’s secular son as well as the world can reach completion. In her description of the seven beggars, Kook convincingly demonstrates how Nahman actually presents a solution to the doubting king’s son, and how, in this way, the opening scene and the tales about the beggars are in fact coherent.

857 858 859 860

Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf.

 1975: 150–151. : 233. : 234. : 235.

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Band, in his commentary to the thirteenth tale, renders Dan’s overview of the tale (see above) and adds his own observations and recognition of the complexity of the tale due to its apparent structural incompleteness. He furthermore notes this thirteenth tale’s many references to themes in the other tales of Sippurey Maxasiyot.861 Band asks two essential questions: (a) What is the connection between the tale of the king who transferred his power and the main story of the two children who were rst lost, then united in a festive marriage? (b) Why do only six of the seven beggars appear to tell their stories at the wedding? (Band 1978: 322)

Concerning the rst question, Band suggests that it is possible that the mass ight should be seen as a consequence of the wisdom-loving son’s ascent to the throne. Band follows Dan, who considers “the son’s abandonment of joy and espousal of secular wisdom [as] the cataclytic era of shevirah and scattering” (Band 1978: 323), whereas the happiness and wedding celebration in the shabby pit dug by the beggars indicate the act and locus of tikkun. The tales of the beggars are complementary to the opening tale about the king’s son. Band writes: With their deliberately wild logic [the tales of the beggars] confound the rationality of the king’s son; by their festive spirit they nullify his worries; and in their fantastic play of the imagination, they replace for the reader the missing dance of the seventh and last beggar who would have made the wedding feast complete (Band 1978: 324).

Concerning the second question Band suggests that the seventh missing beggar signals “reticence concerning the coming of the day of redemption” (Band 1978: 322). However, Band adds that recourse to Kabbalistic, serotic structure may not be necessary to explain the absence of this beggar. He argues:

861 Dan, Kook, and Steinsaltz have mentioned this as well; cf.  1975: 146; : 235; Steinsaltz: 173; 185. Steinsaltz mentions the theme of wisdom leading to heresy as known from tale #9, and the theme of an evil king, who holds a princess prisoner as known from tale #1, which is present in the tale of the handless beggar. According to Band, the theme of a regent’s misrule is present in tales #4, 7, 10, and 11. The theme of love between two children destined for each other is touched upon in tales #2 and 10. The theme of an initial cataclysm is touched upon in tale #1. The theme of an enigmatic testament to the offspring is known from tale #3. And nally the theme of taste being dependent on the consumer is known from tale #9. Cf. Band 1978: 321–323.

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chapter four There are, for instance, seven days of wedding feasts at a traditional Jewish wedding and the introduction of the seventh beggar would be analogous to the completion of the feast, the total consummation of the wedding, an episode Nahman might not have cared to introduce. There are also seven days in the week crowned by the Sabbath, a day of joy—celebrated in Bratslav circles by song and dance (the last beggar had no legs and was probably a consummate dancer)—suggestive, therefore, of life in the next world. (Band 1978: 322)

“Or”, as Band suggests on the previous page, Nahman “was simply too feeble toward the end of his life to complete so demanding a work” (Band 1978: 321).862 Concerning the apparent defect of each beggar, Band writes that the guiding principle in the description of these beggars is “that there is a true world beyond this illusory world of our daily experience”, since what is perceived of as a defect of each beggar “turns out to be a virtue” (Band 1978: 323). Green does not analyze the thirteenth tale; however, he mentions it as an example of “paradoxical faith”. Green nds the concept reected in the inexplicable longing of the king’s son in the opening story to nd a greater meaning in his life.863 It is furthermore reected in the story of the third beggar about the heart that yearns for the spring but is unable to be united with it;864 and in the efforts of the zaddik gure in the fth beggar’s tale to guide those who struggle to obtain faith.865 I shall return to Green’s two suggestions in my analysis. Steinsaltz considers the theological and cosmic role of the zaddik the central theme of the thirteenth tale, which on the structural level is more complex than the other tales because of an outer and an inner narrative framework, the latter of which contains six tales all cast in the same literary form.866 According to Steinsaltz, the outer framework

862 Nahman contracted tuberculosis in July 1807; cf. Kaplan 1985: 143. Tale #13 was told almost half a year before Nahman’s death on 16 October 1810. Nahman was furthermore able to engage on a journey from Bratslav to Uman on 8 May 1810. I am therefore not convinced that Nahman should have been particularly weak while telling tale #13. 863 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 300. 864 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 302. 865 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 365. 866 Steinsaltz: 171–172. On the common literary structure of the six tales, see Steinsaltz: 176.

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describes a scenery similar to the Garden of Eden: God/the king has created the world/established a kingdom of happiness. God/the king hands over the dominion over the world/kingdom, upon which the heavenly hosts/inhabitants celebrate. God is omniscient/the king can foretell the fall of Adam/the descent of his son, but God/the king does not predict when, despite the injunction against eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge/despite the king’s statement that the son’s legitimacy depends on happiness. Adam/the son has a free will to form his own life.867 Steinsaltz mentions that it has been suggested that the mass ight opening the inner narrative could be seen as a result of the excessive concentration on wisdom and as a result of the negligence in the struggle against evil, which will eventually lead to the fall of the kingdom. However, Steinsaltz states that there is no textual support for this understanding. Instead he suggests that the beginning of the inner narrative, where a few survivors ee from a catastrophe, depicts “a new creation, a new generation that can set right what their predecessors have spoiled” (Steinsaltz: 173). Steinsaltz sees the seven beggars as representing the so-called “seven shepherds” in Jewish tradition: Abraham, Isac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and David. To explain their meaning Steinsaltz points to the linguistic link between begging and seeking, where these beggars are “devoting their lives to the quest for sparks of holiness that are immanent in the world yet exiled from it, the beggars are seeking a connection to divinity” (Steinsaltz: 174).868 Concerning the deformities of the beggars, he writes that they are Like photographic negatives that render white as black. Qualities that are intrinsically perfect are perceived externally as faults . . . This reects a profound and esoteric kabbalistic doctrine which develops the biblical verse that man was created in God’s image into the idea that there is a link between each external organ and each of the ten Serot, the divine manifestations. Man’s task in the world is to bring himself to perfection—that is, to re-create himself according to the divine image and thereby to redeem himself and the world (Steinsaltz: 174).

The blessings of the beggars over the children reect this task. When someone is blessed, one passes on to another a present that one once

867

Steinsaltz: 172–173. Despite the linguistic link between begging and seeking ( ), the Hebrew text actually uses the Yiddish word for beggar, i.e.,   . 868

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received. God blessed the beggars with their individual qualities, and God wants these qualities to be passed on, since it is God’s “desire to remain in the world indenitely by imparting his experience and essential humanity to those whom he considers worthy” (Steinsaltz: 175). The children develop spiritually from each encounter with one of the beggars. But the “Redemption will come only when the powers of all the beggars are brought together in a single person (or in the bride and groom)” (Steinsaltz: 182). Schwartz considers the thirteenth tale a commentary on Maaseh Bereshith, the process by which the world came into being. The seven beggars represent the seven days of the week. As in the biblical myth of creation, the seventh day and the seventh beggar are singled out for particular emphasis. The seventh day, of course, represents the Sabbath, while the seventh beggar may be seen as the representative of the Messianic era, if not of the Messiah himself (Scwartz: 215).

Schwartz substantiates this through Nathan Sternhartz’s nal remark to this tale: “may [the Messiah] come speedily in our days, Amen”. Furthermore, Schwartz nds it likely that the beggars represent the patriarchs. Isac was blind. Abraham was deaf to the noise of the world. Aaron’s afiction focused on the neck as symbolizing the bond between God as head and Israel as body. Jacob is known as the pillar that supports the world. Joseph is associated with spiritual power, which again is associated with the hands. The Messiah is associated with the feet, cf. the footsteps of the Messiah.869 Finally, Schwartz presents his reading of the rst beggar’s tale as a reection of creation. Kaplan presents no overall understanding of the tale, but I shall include his comments on details in the tale when relevant. Cunz argues that the missing piece of the thirteenth tale—of the opening story and of the story of the seventh beggar—is to be found in Nathan Sternhartz’s account of Nahman’s journey to Israel. Cunz is aware that the tale is unnished because the coming of the Messiah is still not at hand, and he sees this as a way to let ction reect the present

869

Schwartz: 215–216.

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reality.870 However, at the theological level Nahman combines within himself all Messianic potentialities. Therefore, when Sternhartz recounts how Nahman arrived at the Holy Land, he indicates that Nahman paved the way for the coming of the Messiah. The seventh beggar is without feet, which connotes the difculties of Messiah. However, just like the six other beggars who showed how their handicaps were really special potentialities, the seventh beggar will reveal how he can transform his handicap into the ability to walk and thereby initiate the movement out of exile.871 Cunz argues by pointing to Sternhartz’s writings about Nahman, published after Nahman’s death, that Nahman understood himself as the messenger who had to deliver an important message to the Messiah.872 Nahman’s role as messenger was threefold: der Unerkannte, der für verrückt Erklärte und der Leidende. Seine Aufgabe ist es, das Kommen des Messias vor dem falschen Messianismus in dreierlei Gestalt zu schützen und damit eine weitere messianische Katastrophe im jüdischen Volk zu verhindern. Seine Hoffnung und Versuchung, er selbst oder vielleicht sein Sohn Schlomo Efrayim könnten vielleicht der Messias sein, war die Gefahr, in denen die Boten in der Geschichten schweben, nämlich ihr Geheimnis preiszugeben and zu bewirken, dass ’ihm alle nachgelaufen wären’. Nachmans Israelfahrt wäre, so gesehen, seine geheime Mission durch den König der Könige (Gott) zum König Messias ins Land Israel gewesen . . . Alles, was . . . , nach dem Zusammenbruch seiner messianischen Naherwartung und nach seinem Tod noch getan werden konnte, war, diese geheime Mission des Meisters zu erzählen, in der Hoffnung, sie werde sich eines Tages erfüllen (Cunz: 235).873

Wiskind-Elper states that the defects of each beggar conceal true essence. She sees a biographical hint in these apparent defects, since Nahman is said to have conceived of himself as a poor one, whose only solace was that in the world of truth everybody would need to

870

Cf. Cunz: 232–233. Cf. Cunz: 233. 872 Cf. Cunz: 234. 873 I agree with Cunz that an ending to tale #13 can be constructed by taking recourse to Nahman’s theology. But I am not convinced that such a construction is only possible through Nahman’s journey to Israel or through Nathan’s way of describing his master. Tale #12 contains an ending that describes the world-to-come. Dan suggests that it is possible to reconstruct the ending by means of Lurianic thoughts. Green, whom Cunz now and then quotes, outlines Nahman’s messianic strivings in detail. In other words, the idea of Nahman as the messenger who has to conceal his messianic message in Sippurey Maxasiyot is not convincing. 871

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hear his innovating words.874 According to Wiskind-Elper, the pit, where the celebrations take place, becomes the locus for the recognition of true essence: The marriage feast . . . takes place in the most degraded place imaginable, a hole roofed with planks, dirt, and rubbish. Yet it is precisely in that humble pit that bride and groom, guests and reader, realize their own blindness, deafness, etc., relative to him, and precisely there that they are permitted to glimpse the wholeness informing the beggar’s essence. Each in his own way shows that, through his unique attribute, he is capable of restoring the constricted, fragmentary world to its original state, and it is this potential that gives each story its eschatological valence. Further, in his parting gesture of offering his story as a wedding present, each beggar bequeathes the secret of his perfection, truly an element of the world to come, to his human audience. The very setting of The Seven Beggars, then, epitomizes a central theme in Reb Nahman’s thought: the incongruous coexistence of the two realms, this world and the transcendent one, in human consciousness. True identity can be revealed only when appearances have been acknowledged as a disguise (Wiskind-Elper: 170–171).

Nothing is what it seems, and so each individual who wants to assist in the process of redemption has to overcome this apparent paradox, or at least realize what Wiskind-Elper describes as “the unbearable contradiction of immanence and transcendence”. The zaddik is the one who can aid the individual to realize this apparent paradox.875 Time-wise, this world and the transcendent world are weaved together as well: Each beggar begins by anchoring his story in the vague, unreal past with the words “once upon a time” . . . Yet in the events of that “ctional” kingdom, garden, faraway land, the storyteller himself, indisputably real and alive before his audience, is the hero. Here, then, is the rst anomaly: the simultaneous presence of legendary past and the narrator’s present. Yet his story, we discover, concerns not only the past; what each beggar recounts is a saga of shevirah and tikkun, of primal sin, repentance, and ultimate redemption . . . While this drama has its inception in obscure moments of some distant age, it progresses into the present (of the ctional audience and, certainly, of the reader as well) and continues to unfold until its denouement in the unimaginable future . . . The abrupt shift between the captivating events of the story and the comparatively static time frame of the external story occurs in the nal sentence reit-

874 875

Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 34–35. Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 179–181.

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erated by each storyteller: “And now . . . I give it to you as a gift” . . . His story itself . . . is the vital tool that empowers them to actualize his wisdom (Wiskind-Elper: 143–144).

Wiskind-Elper furthermore presents her reading of the third beggar’s tale about the heart and the spring, which I shall refer to in my analysis. Roskies presents his reading of the third beggar’s tale about the heart and the spring as a reection of Nahman’s concept of dialectical faith, much in line with how Green does.876 I shall refer to it in my analysis. Analysis 9: —1: -, 4: —1: - I shall tell you how they used to be happy: Once upon a time there was a king who had an only son. The king wanted to hand over the kingdom to his son while he himself was still alive. The king arranged a banquet, and certainly whenever the king arranged a banquet there was great happiness. This time, when the king was about to hand over the kingdom to his son, while he himself was still alive, there certainly was a particularly great happiness. All the ministers of the kingdom were present, and so were all the dukes and the lords. Everyone was very happy because of the banquet. The country beneted from the fact that the kingdom was handed over to the son, while the king himself was still alive, because it was a great honor for the king. The happiness was very great indeed. The happiness was expressed in various ways. There was a group of musicians, a comedy was performed, and other things like this. All sorts of things took place at the banquet to make people happy. When everyone had become very happy, the king stood up and said to his son: “It is so that I have looked at the stars, and I have seen that sometime in the future you will have to descend from the throne. Therefore, make sure that you will not have any sorrows when you descend from the throne. Be nothing but happy! If you are happy, I will be happy as well! Even if you should experience sorrow the day when you are no longer king, I shall nevertheless be happy, because you are not t for the throne if you are unable to strengthen yourself through happiness the

876

Cf. Roskies 2002: 94–95.

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chapter four day when you descend from the throne. However, if you will be happy, I will be so extremely happy!” Upon this and strengthened [by these words], the king’s son received the kingdom. He appointed ministers of the kingdom, dukes and lords, and he set up an army. The king’s son was wise. He was a lover of wisdom, and he surrounded himself with great wise men. Whoever approached him with a wise thought was highly esteemed by him. He would honor him and give him something valuable because of his wisdom, depending on the wish of this one. If he wanted money, he would be given money. If he wanted to be honored, he would be honored—everything for the sake of wisdom. Since he considered wisdom so important, everyone embraced wisdom. The entire country engaged in wisdom—one because he wanted money, another because he wanted esteem and honor. And since everyone engaged in wisdom, everybody in this country forgot about tactics of war, now that they were engaged in wisdom. Finally, all the inhabitants became great wise men to such an extent that their least wise one would be the greatest wise man of all in another country. The wise men of this country were so very exceedingly wise. Due to the wisdom, the wise men of this country became heretics and even dragged the king’s son into their conviction, and so he became a heretic as well. The common people in the country, however, did not fall into heresy, because there were a great impenetrability and sophistication in this wisdom of the wise men, which is why the common people in the country did not immerse into this wisdom and were not damaged by it. But the wise men and the king’s son did become heretics. The king son’s, who had goodness within, since he had been born with goodness and had some good qualities and urges, now and then remembered to ask himself: “Where am I in this world and what am I doing?” He used to moan and sigh because he had fallen into confusion as if he had lost his way completely. He sighed a lot. But as soon as he began to use his intelligence, his secular wisdom became strengthened. It went on like this for quite sometime: He would remember, he would moan and sigh; but as soon as he began to use his intelligence, the secularism returned and became strengthened.

The world is in a crisis, since happiness belongs to the past. At least, this is what one could fear, based on Nahman’s proem to the tale where his immediate intention is rendered: “I shall tell you how they used to be happy.” A consequence of this fear is to ask: What went wrong, since happiness does no longer prevail in this world? And so the listener/ reader proceeds in this last and thirteenth tale, looking for an answer. The tale begins in a distant past where a king decides to hand over his kingdom to his only son, while he himself is still alive. A lot of information is embedded here. The king diverts from the norms, since he decides to hand over the kingdom in his own lifetime. An

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only son of a king signals that it is only this son who can ensure the continuation of the throne. Furthermore, as the only child of any parent, s/he is the only one to secure the continuation of whatever the parent represents. The royal father in this tale represents happiness. All sorts of entertainment take place at the handover ceremony with one purpose, and that is “to make people happy.” The son’s future subjects, i.e., ministers, dukes, and lords, are present and gathered to witness what will inuence their lives as well. The subjects can only hope that the happiness at the celebrations will prevail under the new rule of the king’s son.877 One can nd hints at an interpretation of this happiness in Steinsaltz’s biblical explanation878 and in Dan’s, Band’s, and Wiskind-Elper’s overall Lurianic understanding of the tale.879 However, since Nahman’s context was Hasidic, one should not exclude this emphasis on happiness as a reference to the dominant message of Nahman’s great-grandfather, the

877 The emphasis on happiness is hard to ignore. The word for “happy” occurs twelve times in this passage. The word for “happiness” appears ve times. In the crooked beggar’s tale about the different birds which try to encourage the two separated and moaning birds, “happy” occurs twice and “happiness” three times. In the description of the children’s longing for the hunchbacked beggar, “happiness” occurs once. Finally each tale about the six beggars nishes with the word for ‘happiness’. See as well Dan’s remark that Nahman’s use of the word for happiness or happy ties the opening story and the story about the two children and the seven beggars together; cf.  1975: 151. 878 Steinsaltz interprets the outer frame to describe the Garden of Eden where God hands over the dominion of the world to mankind. During the handover, the heavenly hosts celebrate. God is omniscient, which is why he can foretell the fall of Adam, though God cannot prevent him from eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge, since Adam has a free will to form his own life; cf. Steinsaltz: 172–173. If Steinsaltz is correct, then the happiness of the tale is to be interpreted as man’s happiness and praise in gratitude of creation. Creation is to be considered the masterpiece of God. The only thing God in return demands from creation is rejoicing in creation, which makes the king’s instructions to his son about being happy potential instructions in praising the creator and thus honoring God. 879 Dan, Band (indirectly), and Wiskind-Elper consider the opening scene a reection of primordial time before shevirat hakelim and tikkun; cf.  1975: 147–148; Band 1978: 323; Wiskind-Elper: 47–48. The difference between the opinion of Steinsaltz and these three other commentators is essential. When creation comes about after shevirat hakelim, which was unintended, it speaks against considering it God’s masterpiece. According to this Lurianic paradigm, creation came about only in God’s second attempt and not as perfect as God intended; cf. Vital: “On the World of Emanation” in Matt 1994: 94–95. Band and Wiskind-Elper do not account for the happiness in the opening scene according to a Lurianic paradigm, but Dan does when he writes that it reects God’s happiness over having decided to create; cf.  1975: 148.

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#xal Shem Tov. The #xal Shem Tov argued that man has no excuse for not being happy, since God is present in everything and everything is inside God.880 This pantheism and panentheism can be traced in Nahman’s homiletic works.881 Nahman had a highly complex conception of happiness and of how to reach this state, which again depended on his concept of dialectical faith. However, the complexity does not mean that happiness based on a pantheistic and panentheistic world-view should be excluded from his theology. As the tales of the six beggars will show, there are ways to secure profound happiness. The old king has arranged the celebration, and concerning this, another peculiar piece of information is given when the text states that the country beneted from the fact that the handover takes place in the king’s lifetime, since the handover bestows great honor upon the king. Why does the country benet from the honor bestowed on the king? The logic is unclear to me, but there are parallels in Jewish tradition where the prosperity of Israel testies to the honor of God;882 or into the Jewish mystical universe where praises to God cause God to bestow shefa on mankind.883 This recourse would leave the listener/reader to presume that the king is God and the ministers, dukes, and lords represent mankind about to benet from this handover, upon which the king/God has decided. The one to receive the responsibility for the happiness of mankind is the king’s son. God has no son in Judaism, but Israel is referred to as “my rstborn”.884 This would make the king’s son a representative of the people of Israel. The honor depends on the handover taking place in the king’s own lifetime. Any father will, of course, be proud to present his trust in his son to an entire population. However, in this case the trust is not complete. During the handover celebrations the king conditions the handover by emphasizing that the son has to be and stay happy, even on the day of his descent from the throne. In fact, the king states that the son’s legitimacy to the throne depends on his happiness and not on his status as the king’s son. He says: “You are not t for the throne

880

Cf. the Baxal Shem Tov: Zavaxat haRivash #137 in Lamm: 389. Cf., e.g., Likkutey MoHaRaN #33.2. 882 Cf., e.g., Is. 62.2–3. 883 Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar I,249a or Sefer haZohar II,176a where Is. 49,3 is woven into the idea “Happy is the lot of Israel, by whose praises the Holy One, blessed be He, is gloried even as He is gloried above: ‘Israel in whom I am gloried’ (Is. 49.3).” 884 Cf., e.g., Ps. 89. 881

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if you are unable to strengthen yourself through happiness the day when you descend from the throne.” The country benets from the take-over taking place in the king’s lifetime, because the king can formulate the conditions for the take-over and react through judgment to the testimonies of whether the son is and stays happy and if he causes happiness among his subjects or not. The old king’s emphasis on happiness is contrasted in the following where the son, a lover of wisdom, falls into confusion, depression, and sadness due to the dominance of his human intellect.885 Happiness seems as distant as the past, in which the opening scene is set. The king’s son decides, once he has become ruler, to give wisdom priority in his kingdom. His subjects adjust to the son’s priority and embrace wisdom with the prospect of gaining money, esteem, and honor. Wisdom enables them to promote themselves and be elevated, which again contrasts how the country used to benet from the honor bestowed upon the old king and not upon themselves. During the son’s rule, however, the common people of the country cannot penetrate into the sophisticated wisdom. They are left out of, but also left unharmed by, the state of heresy, i.e., secular wisdom, which now characterizes the kingdom. Their simplicity has saved them. The contrast between the sophistication but also depression of the king’s son and the simple people activates an intratextual reference to the ninth tale, “the Wise One and the Simple One”, where the wise one fell into depression because of his intellect and limited human perception, whereas the simple one prospered in life because of his simplicity, happiness, and faith in God.886 A slight glimpse of hope prevails in the thirteenth tale accessible through the occasional sighs and moans of the son, which are the expressions of his confusion. In these states of confusion, his good qualities and urges cause him to question his rationalistic way of life. Since good qualities within a human being in Hasidism can easily be associated with the reason for happiness—i.e., God’s omnipresence and the divine sparks within each part of creation—one could say that the son’s inner goodness is what links him with his fatherly/divine origin. Man’s divine origin is the innite God, but man is nite, man is limited

885 Kaplan understands the son’s rationalism as a reference to Adam and his subsequent fall because of his love for wisdom/knowledge; cf. Kaplan 1983: 356n. 886 Dan, Kook, Band, and Kaplan mention the association to tale #9 as well; cf.  1975: 147; : 235; Band 1978: 321–323; Kaplan 1983: 356n.

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in his ability to perceive what transcends time and space. God transcends time and space, and maybe man’s inability to understand something beyond human perception is what causes the son’s goodness at the end of this passage to be defeated by doubts gaining the upper hand and entrenching him within the connes of an intensied secularism.887 8:—10: -, 5:—5: - Once people were eeing from a certain country. Everybody was eeing. Along their ight route they passed a forest, in which a boy and a girl were lost. One family lost a boy, and another family lost a girl. They were both small children, between four or ve years old, and they had nothing to eat. They were screaming and crying because they did not have anything to eat. Suddenly, a beggar approached them with his sacks, in which he carried bread, and so the children began to move closer to him and bond with him. He gave them some bread to eat and so they ate. He asked them: “Where do you come from?” They answered him: “We don’t know!” because they were small children. He began to walk away from them, and so they begged him to take them along. He said to them: “I don’t want you to walk with me!” At the same time they were looking at him, and suddenly they realized that he was blind. To them it was a wonder how a blind man like him knew how to walk. The blind beggar blessed them: “May you be as I am! May you be old as I am!” He then left them some more bread to eat before he walked on. The children understood that God, blessed be He, watched over them and had arranged for this blind beggar to give them something to eat. But after a while they ran out of bread, and so they began to scream for food again. Night fell and they fell asleep. In the morning they still did not have anything to eat, and so they screamed and cried. A deaf beggar appeared and they began to speak to him, but he gestured to them with his hands that he could not hear. He also gave them some bread to eat, and then walked away from them. They also wanted him to take them along, but he did not want to. He blessed them: “May you be as I am!” He then left them some bread to eat before he walked on. Again they ran out of bread, and they began to scream again. A stuttering beggar arrived. They began to speak to him, but he stuttered while speaking and they did not understand what he was saying. But he understood what they were saying; though they did not understand what

887 Kook mentions how the king’s son is in need of raising his faith in order to enable his faith to win over his doubt and confusion; cf. : 240–241. Raising faith as a means to overcome doubt and confusion is presented as the overall conclusion to her reading of the six tales of the beggars.

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he was saying, because he stuttered while speaking. He also gave them some bread to eat and walked away. He blessed them as well: “May you be as I am!” He then walked on. A beggar arrived who had a crooked neck. He acted in the same way. Another beggar arrived who was a hunchback. Another beggar arrived who had no hands. And yet another beggar arrived who had no feet. Every one of them gave them some bread and then blessed them: “May you be as I am!” After a while they ran out of bread and so they began to walk toward a settled area. They came to a certain road. They walked on this road until they arrived in a certain village. The children entered a certain house, where people had mercy on them and gave them some bread. They entered another certain house, where people gave them bread as well. They went from door to door. They realized that something good was in front of them, and so they agreed that they should always be together. They made themselves large sacks and went from door to door; they went to all kinds of celebrations, to circumcisions, and to weddings. They then walked to another place. They went to various towns where they went from door to door. They went to the markets and sat among beggars on a bench with a plate, until they had become famous among all beggars. Everybody recognized them and knew about them that these were the children who had become lost in the forest. Once there was a large market in a large city. The beggars went there, and so did the children. It occurred to the beggars that they would arrange for the children’s marriage. They should be married to each other. As soon as they mentioned it, they all liked the idea very much and so they decided on a marriage arrangement. The question was, however, how to make the wedding. They decided that on a certain day, where there would be a public feast on the king’s birthday, all the beggars would attend it and ask for meat and bread for themselves, and from that they could make the wedding. And so it was. All the beggars went to the public feast and asked for bread and meat. They also collected the leftovers, meat and egg bread, from the meal. Then they went and dug a deep hole, which could hold a hundred people, and covered it with branches, soil, and garbage. They all went into it, and in it they held the wedding for the two children. They brought them under the wedding canopy, and they were very, very happy. The groom and the bride were also very happy, and they remembered the grace that God, blessed be He, had bestowed upon them that day in the forest. They cried and expressed their deep longing: “How do we bring here the rst beggar, the blind one, from the forest, who brought us food?”

Somewhere in a certain country a catastrophe occurs. It is possible that Nahman does not specify the location and the reason for the occurrence of the catastrophe, because he has already told for several minutes about the kingdom, in which the wisdom-loving son neglected

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his father’s instructions to be happy. That the mass ight from this certain country is caused by the human rationalism of the wisdomloving son is my opinion as well as the opinion held by Kaplan, Kook, Dan, Band, and Wiskind-Elper.888 Dan is particularly aware that two motifs link the opening story with the tale about to begin. The two motifs he mentions are that happiness and simplicity depend on faith and that sadness and enlightenment lead to heresy.889 Because sadness and enlightenment are associated in Bratslav thought with the Lurianic concept of shevirat hakelim, Dan explains the mass ight as a marker of shevirat hakelim.890 When the vessels broke, the divine sparks were dispersed all over, which makes “mass ight” an obvious image, as was the ight of the emperor’s daughter and the king’s son in the rst tale, according to my reading. The decipherment of the text will substantiate this point further and depends on my interpretation in the previous passage of the king as God and of the son as a representative of creation/Israel. In Judaism God is dened as innite. At the same time, human wisdom, which characterizes the son, is limited in its ability to deal only with objects within time and space. The inherent logic of this differentiation and my interpretation of the king and the son thus provide the information that the kingdom has moved from being under the rule of the innite to being in the hands of someone limited in perception. The limitation of perception is a human characteristic, and since happiness is associated with the innite king, the limited perception of man has suddenly become the obstacle for man to obey the king’s/God’s command always to be happy. The mass ight portrays what follows from the lack of acceptance that man needs faith in God as a way of guidance to live despite his limited perception. Taken as imagery, the mass ight visualises how man ees from one perception to another. Every perception is arbitrary and depends on the interests of the perceiver. I disagree with Dan that faith versus heresy linked with the Lurianic concept of shevirat hakelim as part of the narrative plot does not have any didactical purpose.891 The didactical purpose of the inherent message is an encouragement to the listener/reader to choose faith in God instead of trust in human perception. 888 Cf.  1975: 146–147; : 235; Band 1978: 323; and Wiskind-Elper: 47–48. Kaplan refers to Hokhmah U’Tevunah 15,1 by R. Avraham ben Nachman of Tulchin from 1962; cf. Kaplan 1983: 358n. 889 Cf.  1975: 146. 890 Cf.  1975: 148. 891 Cf.  1975: 146–147.

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Steinsaltz nds no textual support for a coherence between the outer and inner frame of the thirteenth tale. On the contrary, he suggests that the beginning of the inner frame, where a few survivors ee from a catastrophe, depicts “a new creation, a new generation that can set right what their predecessors have spoiled” (Steinsaltz: 173). However, when a new generation has to set right what the previous generations did wrong, one is in fact speaking of coherence. Steinsaltz is furthermore contradicting himself when he states that the seventh and missing beggar at the end of the thirteenth tale will cause the children to “be able to save the king’s son from his doubts” (Steinsaltz: 186). Here he points to a coherence himself. The mass ight from this certain country causes two young children, a boy and a girl from two different families, to be lost in a forest. A forest is known in the tales of Nahman as a place for God’s interference,892 and the catastrophe for these two children is warded off when the seven protagonists of the tale intervene by arriving one by one. The seven beggars appear to be handicapped or deformed in one way or another. The rst beggar is blind, the second beggar is deaf, the third beggar stutters, the fourth beggar has a crooked neck, the fth beggar is hunchbacked, the sixth beggar has no hands, and nally the seventh beggar has no feet. They all behave according to the same pattern: Each beggar arrives when the children let out their cries. Each beggar gives them some bread; but when the children beg the beggar to take them along, the beggar refuses. Instead he gives them some more bread followed by a blessing: “May you be as I am!”893 Given their apparent handicap, these blessings seem like curses, but as it is clear from the other tales of Nahman, nothing is what it seems.894 The children interpret the intervention of the blind beggar to be the intervention of God. God watches over them and arranges for

892 See tales #2, 11, 12; Hayyey MoHaRaN #217, 221 and as Kook puts it, a place for going astray as well as being delivered, depending on the nature of the individual; cf. : 236. 893 The blind beggar also wishes for the children that they may be as old as he is. However, I do not consider it important that this beggar is specic about his blessing. Nahman may simply be anticipating the blind beggar’s tale, which focuses on age, and which was told also on the rst day; cf. Kaplan 1985: 181–183. 894 Concerning the deformities and the blessings of the beggars, and though Steinsaltz’s understanding of the beggars’ blessings anticipates his reading of the tale, he writes that the beggars are “[l]ike photographic negatives that render white as black. Qualities that are intrinsically perfect are perceived externally as faults” (Steinsaltz: 174).

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each of the aiding beggars. Four-or-ve-year-old children are capable of recognizing God’s intervention in contrast to the adult king’s son, who did not just receive bread, he received an entire kingdom and responded by praising the human intellect. The rst contrast and link between the king’s son and the children is presented,895 and the didactical purpose in this passage seems to be the emphasis on how one just has to recognize God’s power to intervene and ask/pray for this in order to witness it. After a week in the forest and after having met the seven beggars, the children leave the forest and head for a settled place. To every settled place they arrive, they are given bread when they beg for it. Kaplan writes: The great tzaddikim are called beggars, since they seem very insignicant in the eyes of the world. The light of great tzaddikim is hidden so much that they appear to be totally disabled (Likkutey Etzoth B, Tzaddik 97). Furthermore, they are called beggars because they were worthy of this great level only because they begged God to help them . . . The beggars all blessed the children that they should be like them, and one benet that the children derived from this was that they learned to be beggars (Kaplan 1983: 359n, 361n).

Later in this tale, the listener/reader realizes that the beggars represent different divine qualities. In Steinsaltz’s comment on the deaf beggar’s tale, he writes that bread represents a minimal relation to this world, which is why bread can cure man from the superciality of human conducts of life. Furthermore, the linguistic link between begging and seeking, cf.  , imply a quest for sparks of holiness, thereby transcending the immanent world in order to reach the divine world.896 The bread given to the children, rst in the forest and now in various settled places, could point to the initiation of the children as seekers of the divine. The positive connotations of the lowly may explain why Nahman spends several sentences to explain how the children walk from door to door in order to beg for food. They beg for food in places where

895 It is not uncommon for Nahman to attach hope to young people; cf., e.g., tale #8 about the Rabbi’s Son, where Nahman, according to Roskies, “adds an overlay of generational conict between the young, who are drawn to Hasidism, and the older, rabbinic elite who remain adamantly opposed”; cf. Roskies 2002: 84. 896 Cf. Steinsaltz: 174, 177–179.

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people celebrate, e.g., a circumcision or a wedding. The circumcision connotes the monotheistic faith,897 and in Judaism this of course connotes the covenant between God and Israel.898 A wedding connotes the love between man and wife, which again ought to be similar to the love between God and Israel, between Shekhinah and Knesset Israel.899 Celebrations are furthermore characterized by one essential sentiment in this tale, and that is happiness. Now, if these two children beg for bread, connoting a minimal relation to this world, in places where happiness dominate because the celebrations refer to man’s relationship with God, happiness is once again indicating that man’s true nourishment comes from recognizing God’s presence. The children are sitting among beggars at market places, and very soon they become known among the market beggars. The market beggars are concerned about them, and one day they decide to arrange for the children’s marriage. In accordance with the positive connotations of being lowly, the market beggars collect food from the king’s birthday—as if the royal title guarantees the happiness during the celebrations and its transferral into the bread. Transferral of a certain quality into bread or food is known from a common practice in Hasidism where the zaddik, after eating just a little of his food, divides it into several morsels, the so-called shirayim, after which these morsels are distributed to those present around the zaddik’s table. When those present eat these morsels, the morsels become remedies for any trouble, and as remedies they become effective through the qualities and powers of the zaddik.900 After having received the leftovers from the king’s birthday, the market beggars dig a deep hole, which they cover with branches, soil, and garbage. It cannot be more shabby; however, the concerned market beggars manage to place the wedding canopy inside the hole, upon which all the market beggars, including the children, descend in order to celebrate the children’s wedding. The scenery could indicate the Hasidic concept of descent for the purpose of ascent.901 Descent before ascent is usually associated with the practice of a zaddik, and in Bratslav thought to be associated with his confrontation of evil and his

897

Cf. Gen. 17.11. Cf., e.g., Nedarim 32a; K’rithoth 9a; Sefer haZohar II,174b. 899 Cf. Sefer haZohar II,169a–b. I am quite convinced that this zoharic passage forms the intertext in tale #13. See below where I shall analyze it as such. 900 Cf. Sharot: 166. 901 Cf. Lamm: 337–338. 898

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subsequent rectication of evil. The lowly position of the canopy thus points forward to a process which is very positively connoted. The high hopes for the wedding are substantiated by a zoharic passage which as a central intertext transposes signicance onto the thirteenth tale. Incorporation of Sefer haZohar II,169a–b Just as at every celebration of the covenant of circumcision a beautiful chair must be prepared for the “man of zeal” (Elijah the prophet), since he is present there, so also at every wedding the canopy must be beautifully decorated in honor of the celestial Bride; for as below, so above: as the bride here below is blessed with seven benedictions, so is her prototype. [Tr. note: The Shekinah-Malkuth receives the fullness of blessing from the preceding Seroth] A woman who is being married is called “bride” only after the seven benedictions have been pronounced; and only then can there be conjugal union. All this is according to the pattern of what is above. These seven benedictions the Bride receives from the Spirit above, from that realm whence all blessings come. But are there not, in fact, only six benedictions with which the (supernal) Bride is blessed?

When the children in Nahman’s tale begged for food they witnessed the happiness at the celebration of circumcision, which connoted the happiness from recognizing the covenant. The celebration of the covenant is in this zoharic passage likened to a wedding that honors the human bride as well as Shekhinah. The honoring is reected in the decoration of the canopy. However, the beggars, despite all their good efforts, do not decorate the canopy. The canopy is placed in a shabby pit, covered with soil, garbage, and dead branches, and if this zoharic text is an intertext, it signals the miserable place, from which the honoring of the covenant has to begin. Nevertheless, just like Shekhinah is blessed above by the proceeding serot, so will the bride, in this case the young girl, receive seven blessings. Hopefully, these blessings will be able to elevate the miserable context of the honoring of the covenant and promote the conjugal union, at this point, indicating the covenant between man and God. However, the zoharic passage is aware of one problem: There are only six lower serot above Shekhinah to bless her! In anticipation of the seventh beggar, who remains absent by the end of the wedding celebrations in Nahman’s tale, an explanation may be found here. There is no seventh serah to bless Shekhinah/the bride. Or is there? Sefer haZohar (and the Soncino translater) is kind enough to answer this question and to explain the meaning of each of the seven benedictions/blessings presented to the bride.

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The last (the seventh), however, is the one which conrms all the rest. Most benedictions are pronounced over wine; why is this? Because wine symbolizes joy . . . Therefore the rst benediction of the seven—“Blessed art Thou who createst the fruit of the vine”—is connected with the mystery of wine [Tr. note: Binah] which produces joy both above and below. The vine [Tr. note: Malkuth] takes all and brings forth fruit in the world. The awakening of joy proceeds from the left side . . . And that Tree of Life [Tr. note: Tifereth] produces fruit through this awakening. Therefore this benediction over the fruit of the vine is the rst of all.

The zoharic passage elaborates on the seventh blessing below. Here it seems essential to point to the meaning of the rst blessing. Binah, the mystery of wine, creates the grapes, markers of happiness above and below. Binah is the last of the three upper serot, and when happiness above and below is mentioned here it must indicate happiness among the upper and the lower serot. Shekhinah is likened to the vine plant, emerged from the grape kernels, and can be so because Shekhinah was conceived as the daughter of Binah. Shekhinah passes on grapes, most likely shefa, to the world. This awakening of the world depends on the left side, that is, the serah Din, God’s stern judgment. God’s judgment is what causes fear of God among mankind. That the world acknowledges the power of God to punish mankind, and that the world thereby receives the shefa, causes Tifxeret to produce shefa as well. In other words, the rst blessing celebrates the perfect self-sustaining organism between the most transcendent innite aspects of God, the intermediary serot, and God’s creation—all thanks to the fear of God among mankind caused by the threat of God’s stern judgment. The second is: “Blessed art thou . . . Who hast created all things to Thy glory”. This contains the mystery of the holy covenant, the joy of union. It takes all the blessings from the mystery of the Right Hand in order to produce fruit in that vine; for rst that inux proceeds from above by way of the organs, and is then drawn to the sign of the holy covenant, to proceed thence to the vine . . . in order that all may form the mystery of Man.

The second blessing emphasizes that the purpose of creation is to honor God. Man comes to understand this through the covenant that unites God and mankind. This union is a reason for happiness. The second blessing derives from the right—that is, from Hesed, God’s mercy and loving kindness—which inspires mankind to love of God. Every blessing that Hesed has to give is taken to produce the grapes in Shekhinah, the vine plant. The sign of the holy covenant is most likely the circumcised penis, often referring to Yesod, which penetrates the vine plant/Shekhinah/

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or her human counterpart, the woman. This happens for one purpose and that is, that man may be able to create children who can honor the Creator, which is why the second blessing is a blessing of God, the primary creator. In other words, mankind’s presence in this world has the purpose of honoring mankind’s divine origin. [H]ence the benediction, “Blessed art Thou . . . Creator of man”, follows as the third in order, and therefore Jacob, the “middle pillar”, was in the likeness of Man.

Scarce information is given as to the third blessing and relates to the pillar in the middle, i.e., Tif xeret. Tif xeret is known to be the lover of Shekhinah, which is probably why this third blessing shifts the daring focus on the phallic Yesod to Tif xeret, whose love for her makes him similar to man, who is supposed to love God. God as transcendent cannot be perceived, but God’s presence, Shekhinah, can, and so mankind is able to love God’s presence. Maybe this explains why Tifxeret is made in the likeness of man, cf. his love for a female, so that mankind may be able to understand what love of God is. The fourth benediction, “Blessed art Thou . . . who hast made man in Thine image, after Thy likeness, and hast prepared unto him, out of his very self, a perpetual fabric . . . “refers to the one pillar of the right thigh [Tr. note: Nezah].

The pillar on the right is Netsah, which means eternity and connotes victory and consistency. Man is made in God’s likeness, and if man is ever to perfect himself, he has to recognize the perpetual, eternal fabric of divine sparks that God has placed within man. Man can begin this process of perfection by pronouncing the fourth blessing of God for having placed these eternal sparks within him. The fth benediction is: “May she (Zion) who was barren (akarah) be exceeding glad and exult, when her children are gathered within her in joy”, which means to say: May she who is the centre (akereth, from ikkar, substance) of the house rejoice when her children are gathered from the four corners of the world. This is the mystery of the other pillar which is united with the left thigh [Tr. note: Hod] in order to draw the children in love from all directions together, and set them between the knees; and in those two, wherein is the abode of the Prophets (the realm of Prophecy), is the joy of Her who is the basis of the house. Why is this her joy? Because the gathering together of the children, which is the fruit of the two willows [Tr. Note: Nezah and Hod], is effected only by the power of the Prophets.

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Zion is another name for Shekhinah, and through this reference to Is. 54,1–5 she comes to gather within her the people of Israel. When this happens, the potential of Knesset Israel is activated, thanks to the left pillar, Hod, the majestic splendor of God, reecting a human insight among the people of Israel similar to the insight that used to be reserved for the prophets. If Israel listens to the prophets, Knesset Israel will be activated and cause the greatest joy in Shekhinah. It is interesting to note that the fth benediction is a wish and not a direct blessing of God. The rst four blessings blessed God because of the constituency of the divine, self-sustaining organism and its interrelation with mankind. The fth blessing is a wish to change the present state of the world, because Israel is far from realizing its potentiality as Knesset Israel. The sixth benediction is: “O make these loved companions greatly to rejoice, even as of old Thou didst gladden Thy creature in the Garden of Eden . . . ” This is the region wherein goodwill, joy, and fellowship are found. It is the pillar of the whole universe, namely the “Righteous”. The Righteous and Righteousness are the inseparable “beloved companions”. Thus far there are six benedictions by which the bride is blessed.

The loved companions may refer to the Idra of R. Simeon bar Yohai, those righteous men with whom RaShBY expounded Torah in the hills of Galilee. Their interpretations of Torah, their righteousness and their fellowship sustain the righteous, i.e., Yesod, and enable them to have a post- or pretaste of the Edenic world. When Yesod is sustained in this way, the phallic serah is able to unite with righteousness, another name for Shekhinah, and this union reects the intended fellowship and activity of mankind. However, as the fth blessing the sixth blessing is a wish as well, because this is not how mankind act and interact. Now the seventh benediction is the synthesis of them all, and from it all the universe is blessed, because it comprises what is above and what is below, it is the epitome of the Ten creative Words, and therefore ten aspects of joy are found in this benediction: “Blessed art Thou . . . Who hast created joy and gladness, bridegroom and bride, mirth and exultation, love and brotherhood, peace and fellowship” in order that the bride may be the perfection of all. Blessed are the Israelites who are worthy to represent below that which is above.

The seventh blessing is pronounced also as a wish that everything described in the six previous blessings may come true. The entire universe, everything, God, the divine self-sustaining organism, creation, everything will be affected. Joy, gladness, bridegroom, bride, mirth, exultation, love, brotherhood, peace, and fellowship are the ten creative

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words of happiness in the seventh blessing, which, if the words are recognized and celebrated, can perfect the bride’s true fertility. Every Jewish woman is a living possibility to perfect and thereby change the world to mirror the supernal world completely. If this world mirrors the supernal world completely, the Messianic era will have begun. That the Messianic era is pointed at in the seventh blessing is substantiated by the chair prepared for Elijah at the celebration for the covenant of circumcision, which by the zoharic text is juxtaposed to the wedding and the need for all seven blessings. Elijah is the one who will return to pave the way for the Messiah.902 Based on the intersection of Sefer haZohar II,169a–b, it is reasonable to assume seven blessings in the thirteenth tale to be pronounced at the wedding of the two children with the purpose of making the content of all seven blessings real. The rst four blessings depend on man’s ability to see man’s origin in God, man’s dependency on God, and subsequently man’s obligation to fear and love God, to love God’s presence in this world and recognize the divine sparks within man. The last three blessings encourage every listener and pronouncing person to activate the potentiality of Knesset Israel; to engage in Torah, righteousness, and meaningful fellowship; and nally to strive for the Messianic era. Its focus on wedding, on seven blessings of which the seventh is enigmatic, and on happiness indicate, in my opinion, that Sefer haZohar II,169a–b is a central intertext. Add to this the initial seven blessings by the beggars in the forest who all said “May you be as I am”. The point in the zoharic passage is for man to recognize his divine origin, which could hint at the beggars as messengers of God. The beggars are able to turn to the children with this message because they have already recognized God’s power and have already become seekers of the world-to-come, that is, the Messianic era. Return to 8:—10: -, 5:—5: - In gratitude of the wedding taking place, in gratitude of what the market beggars have done for the two children, and especially in gratitude of the “grace that God, blessed be He, had bestowed upon them that day in the forest”, everybody is very, very happy. The morsels of happiness

902 My interpretation of the different zoharic symbols depends in general on Tishby: Vol. I, 269–307.

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from the king’s table have functioned as they should. However, the happiness is mixed with a deep longing, once they come to remember the week in the forest, and so they express their longing for the rst beggar, the blind one. 13:—8:-, 9:—5:- As soon as they had expressed their deep longing for the beggar from the forest, someone said: “Here I am. I have come to your wedding, and I shall give you a present for the homily, a homily present, and that is that you shall be old as I am. Initially, I blessed you with respect to this, but now I shall give this to you as a perfected present for the homily that you may live as long as I have. You were thinking that I was blind, but I am not blind at all. It is just that to me time as perceived by the entire world does not amount to even a blink of an eye. (This is why he appeared to be blind. He never looked at the world at all, because it never attracted the attention of his eye. He did not ascribe the look and the appearance of the world any worth at all.) I am very old and yet I am completely like a child. I have not yet begun to live at all, but nevertheless I am very old. It is not only I who says so. It is just that I have an agreement about this with a great eagle. I shall tell you a tale: “Once people were traveling in many boats on the sea. A tempest occurred and splintered the boats. The people were saved and came to a tower. The ascended the tower and found all sorts of food, drink and clothing; everything that they needed was there. Only good things and only all the pleasures of the world were there. They said that everyone had to tell an old tale, the rst one from his earliest recollection; what he remembered from when he rst began to remember. There were old and young people. They honored the oldest one among them by letting him begin to tell a tale. “He said: ‘What shall I tell you? I do remember when they cut the apple from the branch and no man knew what he was saying.’ Some wise men were there who said: ‘Certainly, this is a very old tale!’ They honored the next one by letting him tell a tale. The second one, who was not as old as the rst one, said: ‘This is an old tale that I remember as well. But I even remember when the light was lit.’ They said: ‘This is an even older tale than the rst one!’ It was a wonder to them how the second one, who was younger than the rst one, could remember a tale older than the rst. They honored a third one by letting him tell a tale. The third one, who was younger than the others, said: ‘I even remember when fruit was formed, that is, when fruit began to take form!’ They said that this was the oldest tale. The fourth one, who was even younger, said: ‘I even remember when the rst kernel was planted!’ The fth one, who was even younger, said: ‘I even remember the wise men who were thinking of how to deliver the kernel!’ The sixth said that he even remembered the taste of the fruit from before the taste entered the

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chapter four fruit! The seventh one said that he even remembered the smell of the fruit from before it entered the fruit! The eighth one said that he even remembered the appearance of the fruit from before it was bestowed on the fruit! And I (the blind beggar who was telling all of this) was only a child at that time, but I was there. And I said to them: ‘I remember all of these tales and yet I don’t remember anything!’ And they said: ‘This tale is older than all of the tales!’ They were astounded that a child could remember more than the others. “Suddenly a great eagle came and landed on the tower, and it said to them: ‘Stop being so poor! Return to your treasures and use your treasures!’ It told them to leave the tower according to age. The oldest should leave rst. It led them all away from the tower; and the rst to be led out was the child, since he was really older than the others. Similarly, the younger ones were led out rst, and the oldest was led out last. Whoever was younger was older. The old one among them was younger than the others. The great eagle said to them: ‘I shall interpret all the tales which were told according to their recollection: “‘What the one remembered, who told how he remembered when the rst apple was cut from the branch, was when his umbilical cord was cut. What the second one remembered, who said that he remembered the time when the light was lit, was when he was in the womb and a light was lit over the head. What the third one remembered, when he remembered how the fruit began to take form, was how the body began to take form; how the child was created. What the fourth one remembered, when he remembered how the rst kernel was planted, was how the semen was yielded during intercourse. What the fth one remembered, when he remembered how the wise men delivered the kernel, was how the semen still was in the mind (because the mind is delivering the semen). The sixth one, who remembered the taste, remembered the soul. The seventh one, who remembered the smell, remembered the spirit. The eight one, who remembered the appearance, before the soul, the spirit and the higher spirit.903 The child, who said that he remembered nothing at all, is elevated above all. He remembered what comes before the soul, the spirit and the higher spirit, and that is the principle of nothingness.’904 “He said: ‘Return to your boats. They are your splintered bodies. Return to them their form. Return to them now!’ And he then blessed them. To me (to the blind beggar, who was a child at that time, and who is telling this tale) the great eagle said: ‘Come with me, because you are like me! You are very old, and yet you are very young. You still haven’t begun to live, and yet you are very old. It is the same with me. I am old and yet I am young.’ This is why it seems that I have an agreement about this with the great eagle. Now I will grant you my long life as a present for the homily!” There was happiness, very, very great joy and rejoicing.

903 904

Cf.   , ,. “”.

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The rst beggar is the blind one. The purpose of his appearance is to attend their wedding, and he passes on his present for the homily, which is a realization of the blessing that was once bestowed on the children in the forest. In the forest he said to them: “May you be as old as I am!” Now he gives them his long life. A focus on long life is directed toward the concept of blindness. The blind beggar explains that his blindness is only apparent. It is a matter of sense deception when people think that he is blind. He just appears so because he refuses to look at this world, since it is not worth anything. Time as conceived in this world would in his life be measured as a split second, as something which only lasted as long as it would take to blink the eye. Wiskind-Elper suggests Ps. 90 as one out of many intertexts for this expression: “[F]rom everlasting to everlasting, you are God. You turn man back to dust; and say, Turn back, O children of men! For a thousand years in your sight are but like yesterday when it is past” (Ps. 90.2–4). Wiskind-Elper then mentions that a “blink of an eye” becomes a metaphor in Sefer haZohar for human experience itself, cf. Sefer haZohar I, 99b.905 Man is deceived when he thinks that time in this world is the same as time in the supernal world. Man is deceived by his own senses. From long life through blindness as sense deception a riddle appears. The blind beggar says that he is old and young at the same time and that he has an agreement with a great eagle about this. This claim is substantiated by a tale, which bespeaks the past of the blind beggar. Once a catastrophe occurred at sea, where a tempest splintered some boats.906 The people, who were in these boats, survived and found refuge in a tower, where everything was at hand to enable their good lives. The splintering of boats and the mass ight from the “certain” country may both be characterized as a catastrophe.907 The catastrophe was warded off for the children by the arrival of the seven beggars. This could indicate that Nahman wants to draw attention to the similarities as well as differences between the mass ight and the splintering of boats. The people, who found refuge in the tower where everything was at hand, and the children, who found refuge in

905

Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 204. Concerning the storm that splinters the boats; cf. tales #2 and 10; Sefer haZohar II,199a; Wiskind-Elper: 144. 907 Cf. Steinsaltz: 173 for a similar characterization. 906

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the forest where God provided for them by sending the beggars, are all survivors. However, they respond in different ways. The survivors from the storm respond to their situation by engaging in what seems to be a meaningless boasting competition,908 whereas the children respond by recognizing God’s intervention immediately and by becoming beggars, i.e., seekers of the divine. The winner of the boasting competition will be the one with the oldest memory. Eight men present their oldest memory, upon which the blind beggar, at the time when he was a child, arrives and presents the oldest memory, upon which a great eagle appears and tells them not to be so poor. Instead they should return to their treasures—which are later in this passage explained as their boats, which again are explained as their splintered bodies. The men are told by the eagle to restore their splintered bodies their form and leave the tower in a line according to age. The oldest should leave the tower rst. However, the eagle, having overheard their tales, decides to let the youngest leave as the oldest. Now, the reason for this reversal of age is to be found in their tales. The eagle interprets the tales, but not until they have all left the tower according to the eagle’s reversed understanding of who is old and who is young. Similarly, it takes the interpretation of the eagle for them to understand that their recollections reect the history of the creation of man. The oldest competitor recalls how the umbilical cord was cut. The second oldest remembers how a light was placed over the womb of the pregnant woman.909 The third oldest recalls how the body of the child was created. The fourth oldest how the semen was yielded during intercourse. The fth oldest recalls how the semen is really delivered by the mind. The sixth oldest remembers the soul. The seventh oldest remembers spirit. The eight oldest recalls the higher spirit. Finally, the blind beggar, who was a child at that time, remembers all of these tales though he remembers nothing, which is interpreted by the eagle to be the recollection of Ayin, that is primordial innity.910 Ayin, once it is

908 Each beggar’s tale involves some kind of boasting competition where the competitors’ limited ability of perception is revealed. Boasting stands in opposition to the humility, with which man should approach the world, if he should ever be able to come to simplicity of faith. 909 This tradition is explained in Niddah 30b. 910 Dan notes “Ayin” as the most essential symbol in the blind beggar’s tale; cf.  1975: 154.

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perceived through the eyes of God and not by the limited perception of man, is the designation of the state where everything is God.911 In this way the bond between the blind beggar as a child and the children is explained. The children, who were lost in the forest and whose wedding is now being celebrated, perceived God’s intervention on their behalf. Perceiving God’s intervention could be seen as an initial step toward the beggar’s recognition of God as Ayin. When the eagle instructs the rst eight competitors to repair their splintered bodies, this may, according to Wiskind-Elper, imply a return of the souls to their bodies.912 However, the eagle can invite the blind beggar, who was a child at that time, to come with him. The eagle represents true recognition of man’s origin in the divine, and so does the child. This is their common trait. They are young because they live as creatures in this world, but they are old because they recognize the origin of man, which bespeaks a shared identity with the innite divine, which is of course the oldest essence in all of the worlds.913 Therefore, when the blind beggar gives to the children his long life as a wedding present, he passes on the recognition of man’s origin in the divine. The world, which did not attract the attention of the beggar, caused him to bond with the children, because they, in the forest, recognized how God is behind everything. True understanding of time and long life reect the innity of the divine,914 which also characterized

911 According to Schwartz, the rst beggar’s story reects the emanation process in reverse and ends with no tenth participant to tell about En Sof, because En Sof cannot be described since it is innite. As Schwartz writes: “These stages of emanation are the kabbalistic equivalent of the seven days of creation, although they are far more abstract and obscure. The fact that this tale within a tale is the rst to be told emphasizes its role as an allegory about creation” (Scwartz: 216). Schwartz presents arguments for his conception of tale #13 as an allegory about creation; however, I am not convinced. Every single act of the beggars seems to reveal an attempt to return to the origin of everything; also the rst beggar who himself was the one who could characterize existence from before creation as Ayin. Nahman recounts emanation in reverse, which is not the same as focusing on the process of creation. Of course one needs knowledge about how the world came into being, but the difcult part is how to return. 912 Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 147. 913 The idea of describing longevity and metaphysical vision as incorporated in an eagle may according to Wiskind-Elper be derived from Is. 40.31 and Ps. 103.5 where the faithful are mentioned as eagles, who are, according to Genesis Rabbah 19.5 and Midrash Shmuel 12.2, granted immortality. On young and old; cf. Ps. 37.25. See Wiskind-Elper: 130, 146. 914 I am here in line with Kook, according to whom, the blind beggar avoids, by closing his eyes, to ascribe any truth to man’s limited concept of time. The beggar thereby gains access to the innite; cf. : 236–237. Steinsaltz touches upon something

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the king/God in the opening story. That happiness characterizes the reception of this present is obvious, since the Hasidic emphasis on happiness is caused by the recognition that man has his origin in the divine and that the divine is behind/inside everything. The innity of God and happiness are linked, and so are this beggar’s tale and the opening story. Concerning Sefer haZohar II,169a–b as an intertext, the rst blessing celebrated the perfect, self-sustaining organism between the most transcendent innite aspects of God and the lower serot and mankind. The rst beggar’s tale directs focus to Ayin as the most transcendent aspect of God and emphasizes exactly man’s origin in the divine, as did the zoharic passage. So far, the intertextual connotation is substantiated. 15: —1:-, 10: —1:- On the second day during the seven banquet days the married couple remembered the second beggar, the deaf one, who had kept them alive by giving them bread. They cried and expressed their longing: “How do we bring here the deaf beggar, who kept us alive?” As soon as they had expressed their longing, someone came and said: “Here I am!” He embraced them, kissed them, and said to them: “Now I shall grant you the present that you shall be as I am, that you shall live a good life as I have! Initially, I blessed you with respect to this, but now I shall give you my good life as a perfected present for the homily! You think that I am deaf, but I am not deaf at all. It is just that the entire world never attracts my attention at all and never makes me listen to its lacks. All the voices reect these lacks. Everyone screams about what he lacks. Even at all the celebrations in the world, everybody is celebrating a lack. They are celebrating that whatever was lacking someone has been given. The entire world never attracts my attention at all, and I should never let their lacks enter my ears, because I am living a good life, where no lacks can be found. I have an agreement on this, that I am living a good life, with the country of wealth!” His good life included that he could eat bread and drink water. (He told them:) “There is a country where there is great wealth. They have great treasures. Once they assembled and each one began to boast

similar when he states that the blind beggar represents Isac who is characterized by blindness and a long life. His superiority when it comes to memory reects his high level of existence in the upper worlds, in which duration “is progressively more concentrated; and as one reaches the highest realms, it contracts to a single dot that verges on nothingness” (Steinsaltz: 176). The acuity of vision, i.e., the ability to perceive eternity, disguised by his apparent blindness, is therefore what the blind beggar passes on to the children.

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about his good life; about how he lived his good life. Thus, every one of them told about what constituted his good life. I said to them: ‘I live a life that is better than the good lives of yours! Here is the evidence—if you live a good life, let me see if you can save a certain country! It is so that there is a country, in which there was a garden. In this garden there were fruits with all the tastes in the world. There were also all the smells in the world, all the appearances, all the colors, and all the owers. Everything was in this garden. A gardener took care of the garden and the inhabitants of this country lived a good life because of this garden. One day the gardener disappeared; and everything that was in this garden was certainly bound to perish and come to an end because there was no gardener in charge. Nevertheless, one could live from the weed in the garden. However, a cruel king arose in this country, who could not do anything for them. He spoiled the good lives of this country which they had derived from the garden. He did not spoil the garden; but he left three groups of servants and ordered them to do whatever he commanded. Because of this and what they did there, the sense of taste was spoiled. Whoever wanted to taste something, would taste the taste of a corpse. They also spoiled the sense of smell. All smells would be like the smells of galbanum. They also spoiled the vision. They caused the eyes to darken, as if there were dark clouds in there. ‘If you live a good life, let me see if you can save them! I tell you, if you do not save them, the damages in this country will damage you as well!’ “The rich ones walked to this country, and I walked with them. Still while walking, the life of every one of them was a good life, because they had treasures. When they came near to the country, their sense of taste as well as the other things began to be spoiled. They sensed themselves how this was being spoiled. I said to them: ‘Even though you still have not entered their place, your sense of taste has already been spoiled! How will it then be if you enter the place? And furthermore, how will you be able to save them?’ I took my bread and water and gave it to them. They sensed in this bread and water all the tastes; and whatever had been spoiled in them was restored. “The inhabitants in the country of the garden began to look out for a way to restore the country, in which their sense of taste had been spoiled. They thought to themselves: ‘Is it not so that it seems that the country of wealth is derived from the same root as [our] gardener (who caused [us] to live a good life and) who disappeared, since its inhabitants live a good life.’ Their counsel was therefore to send for the country of wealth, which certainly would be able to save them. And so they sent for this country of wealth. The messengers went and met those (from this very country of wealth who wanted to come to them). They asked the messengers: ‘Where are you going?’ They answered: ‘We are walking to this country of wealth which will be able to save us!’ They replied: ‘We are indeed inhabitants in this country of wealth and we are going to your place.’ “I said to them: ‘You need me to go there to save them! You cannot, which is why you will have to stay here! I shall go with the messengers

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chapter four and save them!’ And so I went with them and entered the country and entered a certain town. I arrived and saw people telling jokes. After a while more people joined them, until they made up an entire gathering still telling jokes, giggling, and laughing. I bent my ear toward them and heard that they were speaking words of obscenity. One was sophisticated, another laughed, and yet another enjoyed himself. After this I left the place and walked to another town and saw two inhabitants arguing over some business. They walked to the courthouse to settle the argument and it meted out the verdict: one was innocent, and one was guilty, and then they left the courthouse. They returned and began to quarrel again. They said that they did not like this courthouse. They wanted another courthouse, and so they chose another courthouse. They were judged by this courthouse. After this, they returned and began to quarrel again, and so they wanted yet another courthouse. They were arguing and quarreling like this, and they chose various courthouses, until the entire town was full of courthouses. “I realized that it happened like this because there was no truth. One day a judge would judge in favor of one person, the next day this person would do something for him in return. They received bribes, and there was no truth among them. Upon this, I realized that they were full of exaggerated lustfulness, and there was so much lustfulness that it had become completely legitimate. I told them that this was the reason for their spoiled sense of taste, sense of smell and sense of sight, because this cruel king had left you with three groups of servants who went and spoiled the country. They were speaking the words of obscenity and introduced it to the country. Because of the obscene words, the sense of taste was spoiled and all the tastes were like the taste of a corpse. They introduced bribery to the country, and because of this the eyes were darkened and the sense of sight was spoiled, because bribery makes the wise men’s eyes blind. They introduced lustfulness to the country, and because of this the sense of smell was spoiled. ‘Do you see that you must restore these three groups in this country, search for these people and then expel them? When you restore these three groups, you will not only restore the sense of taste, sight and smell; you may also nd the gardener who disappeared.’ They did this. They began to restore the country from these three transgressions, and they looked for these people. They captured someone and asked him: ‘How did you come here?’ They continued until it was clear to them who the men of the cruel king were and so they expelled them. They restored the country from the transgressions. Suddenly they heard a noise. It was a crazy one walking around saying that he was the gardener. Everyone considered him crazy and threw stones after him. However, and after all, maybe he could be the real gardener. They brought him before those (who were restoring the country). I said: ‘Certainly this is the real gardener.’ “This is why it seems that there is an agreement with this country of wealth. But now I give you my good life as a present!” There was very great happiness and much rejoicing.

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The rst beggar had given them his long life, while the second beggar had given them his good life.

The second beggar is the deaf beggar who blessed the children in the forest with his good life. At the wedding, focus on good life is shifted toward the concept of deafness. The deaf beggar explains that his deafness is only apparent. It is a matter of sense deception when people think that he is deaf. He just appears so, because he refuses to listen to the voices of the world reecting people’s complaints about what they are lacking. Worldly celebrations are nothing but celebrations of a lack countered by gain. By ignoring their voice, the deaf beggar avoids, according to Kook, ascribing any truth to human expressions of reality.915 These complaints about the so-called lacks of the world threaten to disturb his good life in which no lacks can be found. His good life includes water and bread. Concerning his good life he has an agreement with the country of wealth. The deaf beggar’s tale takes place in a country of wealth where everybody had treasures, an intratextual reference to the blind beggar’s tale where treasures implicitly referred to bodies complete with souls, which adds a positive connotation to this country.916 In this country of wealth some people engaged in a boasting competition about their good lives. The deaf beggar appears on the stage and claims that his life is better than the boasting competitors, and so he challenges them by saying that a good life depends on saving a garden from withering. The deaf beggar’s tale can be divided into four parts. The two rst parts of the tale are told to the competitors from the country of wealth and could be labeled “the primordial past” and the “historic past” of a country with a garden. The third part of the tale portrays the competitors as narrative gures in a tale told to the children. It could be labeled “the present”. The fourth part, which could

915 Cf. : 236–237. Steinsaltz is in line with Kook when he suggests that the true zaddik, as Steinsaltz considers the deaf beggar, must be “deaf and pay no attention either to the imaginary problems of life or to its illusory pleasures” (Steinsaltz: 178). The deaf beggar represents Abraham, according to Steinsaltz. Abraham had a good life and was alluded to in a midrashic source as ‘the deaf servant of the Lord’ . . .; cf. Steinsaltz: 174. Like Steinsaltz, Schwartz understands the seven beggars as representatives of the patriarchs; cf. Schwartz: 215–216. 916 Because of the blind beggar’s tale and the connotation of treasures to souls, it does not seem that this country of wealth has anything to do with the country of wealth from tale #12.

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be labeled “the future”, involves only the deaf beggar and the citizens in the country with the garden, and it seems that this part concerning the future is not revealed to the representatives from the country of wealth. It is only revealed to the children and their wedding guests. This complicated structure may bear relevance to its meaning: Once, in “the primordial past” there was a country in which there was a garden with fruits. These fruits contained all the tastes, smells, appearances, colors, and owers of the world. A gardener in this garden enabled the good life of the citizens in this country.917 In the tale of the blind beggar, the listener/reader was told that taste represents the soul, smell represents the spirit, and vision represents the higher spirit. Colors and owers can refer to many things; however, that souls, spirits, and higher spirits thrive in this garden clearly indicates an Edenic setting where the contact between God and humans is close; otherwise the souls, spirits, and higher spirits would not thrive. However, a “historic” or recognizable past is presented once the tale explains how a gardener used to care for the garden so well that it sustained the entire population. However, one day he disappears, and the disappearance of the gardener threatens to make the garden wither. If I am correct in suggesting that the bond between God and humans caused the souls, spirits, and higher spirits to thrive, then it is the severing of this bond that has caused the disappearance of the gardener and the subsequent threat that the garden shall wither. The missing bond between God and humans causes a cruel king to arise. He is not concerned with the citizens; he does not provide for them, though he does not interfere with the garden. This cruel king believes that he is entitled to use his power according to his whims, which is why he sets up three groups of servants who are to act according to his will. There is a difference between a gardener and a king. A gardener takes care of an area that belongs to another. The garden depends on the gardener’s daily effort, while the gardener at the same time is responsible and has to account for his daily efforts and the garden’s well-being to the owner.918 The gardener’s position and function has

917 The positive gardener evokes connotation to the king’s real son and the late king by the end of tale #11, where placing oneself behind the copy of the late king caused the garden to become a garden of bliss and Edenic associations. 918 Wiskind-Elper has another but not contradicting interpretation of the gardener. According to her, the deaf beggar may hint at Nahman’s perception of himself as

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a parallel in the position and function of the shepherd. A king was God’s shepherd, who was supposed to look out for God’s humans.919 However, the cruel king of this tale does not interfere with the garden, in which there is a bond between God and humans. Which is exactly the problem. The cruel king does not recognize the bond between God and humans, which is why he can convince himself that he as a king is entitled to behave according to his own liking. This is where the cruelty occurs. The cruelty takes the form of three serving groups, who act according to his will. The cruelty inuences the inhabitants, and so the inhabitants lose their sense of taste, smell, and vision, which the listener/reader knows should be translated soul, spirit and higher spirit. Humans without soul, spirit, and higher spirit represent the catastrophe at hand in this country with the garden about to wither and evokes connotations to the mass ight following the opening story, where mankind most likely had forgotten about its divine origin. The divine origin is only recognizable through man’s soul, spirit, and higher spirit.920 The deaf beggar therefore encourages some representatives from the country of wealth, i.e., from the country where people still have a body and a soul, to come with him to this country’s rescue. An argument is presented and that is, that the decline of this country threatens to spread to and destroy the country of wealth. The “present” involves the deaf beggar who now, followed by the representatives from the country of wealth, is coming to the rescue of the country with the withering garden. However, as they approach, the sense of taste, smell, and vision of the representatives becomes destroyed. Suddenly they begin to taste corpses, smell galbanum, and see nothing but darkness, whenever they use their senses. This is sense deception incarnate, and it is described as contagious since it infects the representatives from the country of wealth. Sense deception is linked to the ignorance of the bond between God and humans, an ignorance that dominates in the country of the withering garden. Thankfully, the deaf beggar is there. He gives them water and bread, an intratextual reference to the nourishment that the children enjoyed in the forest

the gardener in God’s garden; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 19–20. Nahman as a zaddik has to be deaf. The zaddik’s deafness reects his ability to exclude the noise of the world and instead be able to perceive the voice of God. 919 Cf., e.g., Ps. 78,70–72. See as well Nielsen 1992. 920 Cf. the message in tale #11 about the subordination of the body to the soul.

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and that signies a minimal relationship to this world. Suddenly, with their senses restored they meet a group from the country with the withering garden, who has reasoned that the country of wealth with all of its treasures—i.e., intact souls, and the gardener, who made souls, spirits, and higher spirits thrive—must derive from the same root, i.e., God. This group is limited in their reasoning, since they believe that the country of wealth in itself is sufcient to restore to the country its original state. However, they express a sincere wish for help, which is responded to by the beggar. This beggar’s response to such wishes has earlier been associated with God’s intervention, and it is likely that this response should be conceived of in the same way. The “future” efforts of the deaf beggar do not include the presence of the representatives from the country of wealth. If the treasures of these representatives are taken in their gurative sense as intact souls, it is, nevertheless, not enough to restore to others the necessary bond to God. This is why these representatives are left behind. The deaf beggar enters the country with the withering garden on his own and nds corruption, vicious jokes, and words of obscenity in one town, while in another he nds arbitrary sentences, no truth, nepotism, bribes, and exaggerated lustfulness. This characterization leads one to think of laughable behavior as an gurative expression of man’s inability to serve God921 and the exaggerated lustfulness as a hint to Nahman’s emphasis on how rectication of sexual sin could rectify all other sins committed, which is the thought that lies behind haTikkun haKelali.922 The deaf beggar concludes that the evil of this country is rooted in acts of the three serving groups who perform the will of the cruel king. These three groups have to be captured and subsequently expelled. This is the rectication of the transgressions of this country prescribed by the deaf beggar. The only explanation I can come up with as to why the cruel king himself does not have to be expelled is derived from Deuteronomistic and Kabbalistic reasoning, where it is a general understanding that God responds to evil by granting someone else power to confront evil with evil.923 This is a means of divine punishment, and in this way the cruel king is nothing but a divine punishment of those

921 Cf.  1974: 127–128; Wiskind-Elper: 37; Mark: xv. See as well tales #1, 6, 7, and 9. 922 Cf. Liebes 1993 in general. 923 Cf., e.g., Judg. 3.7–8. See as well Sefer haZohar 148a–b, Sitrei Torah.

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who have forgotten the bond between God and humans. Once the three serving groups of evil—and the biblical and Kabbalistic usage of the term “slave” or “servant” should be mentioned as a common term for those who ignore the bond between God and humans924—have been expelled, the gardener appears in the disguise of a crazy one, at whom stones are thrown. The despicable righteous, who can only be recognized by someone who shares his righteousness, appears as a gardener again, connoting the return of the country to a state where God and humans are bonded and where humans recognize their task as gardeners accounting for their doings to God. The craziness of the gardener is here revealed as man’s lacking ability to perceive, which is blocking for the thriving result of the intact bond between humans and God. The rectication of the country with the withering garden is, according to my reading, situated in the future. This rectication bespeaks a future and nal step in the process of tikkun. However, the deaf beggar has the necessary knowledge of what conditions a good life, and he knows how to change an evil life to a good life. It is this knowledge that the deaf beggar passes on to the children. Obviously such a present causes happiness, because acknowledging the fundamentals of a good life implies a nullication of man’s limited ability to perceive. When this ability has been nullied, humans will realize that God is in everything and that everything has its origin in God. Such a present is indeed a reason for being happy. The second blessing in the zoharic passage emphasized how the union between God and mankind caused Hesed to bestow shefa on mankind. The shefa has the purpose of inspiring mankind to love God, and shefa enables mankind to give birth to children who can honor God. The second beggar’s tale does emphasize the union between God and mankind and the subsequent ow of the shefa. Concerning the honoring of God, one would have to return to the initial words of the deaf beggar, who refuses to listen to the complaints of mankind, to nd a parallel. Obviously, honoring God is the opposite of this worldly complaints about whatever man lacks. It is therefore furthermore supported that Sefer haZohar II,169a–b constitutes a central intertext.

924

Cf., e.g., Lilith as maidservant; cf. Sefer haZohar I,122b; and Tyre; cf. Is. 23.

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2: —1: -, 2: —1: - On the third day the married couple again remembered, cried, and expressed their longing: “How do we bring here the third beggar who stuttered?” Immediately he came and said: “Here I am!” He embraced them and kissed them and also said to them: “Initially I blessed you for you to be as I am. Now I shall give you a present for the homily, and that will be for you to be as I am. You think that I am a stutterer, but I do not stutter at all! It is just that the world’s way of speaking does not contain any praise of God, blessed be He. There is no integrity in it. However, I am really no stutterer. On the contrary, I am a bard and a very wonderful speaker. I can recite such wonderful riddles, poems, and songs that there will remain no living soul who does not want to listen to me. The riddles and poems that I know contain all the different kinds of wisdom. Concerning this, I have an agreement with a certain great man who is called ‘the true man of mercy’. There is a perfect tale about this. “Once, all the wise men sat down. Each one of them boasted about his wisdom. One boasted that he could bring forth iron thanks to his wisdom; a second boasted that he could bring forth another kind of metal; a third boasted that he could bring forth silver thanks to his wisdom, which was most important; a fourth boasted that he could bring forth gold; a fth boasted that he could bring forth weapons; a sixth boasted that he knew how to make these kinds of metals without making them from the substance, of which they are usually made; a seventh boasted about different kinds of wisdom, since there are certain things in the world, which can be brought forth thanks to wisdom, such as saltpeter and powder. Everyone was boasting about his wisdom. “One said: ‘I am wiser than you, since I am as wise as the day!’ But they did not understand what he meant by saying that he was as wise as the day. He said to them that if their wisdom could be gathered, it would not amount to more than one hour, even if every kind of wisdom was taken and gathered from a specic day, according to the creation that took place on that day. If all your kinds of wisdom [about making metals] (was taken and gathered from the day, where the creation of these metals took place), all of your gathered wisdom could not amount to more than one hour. However, I am as wise as a full day!’” I (the stuttering beggar) said to this one: “‘as which day?’ (The wise one) said: ‘This one is wiser than I am, because he asks ‘as which day?’ Nevertheless, I am as wise as any day you prefer! But it now becomes difcult. How can this one who asks ‘as which day?’ be wiser than I am, who is as wise as any day one prefers? But there is a perfect tale about this. It is about this true man of mercy who is really a very great man. The stutterer gathers true examples of mercy and brings them to the true man of mercy. The essence of time coming into existence (since time in itself is created) depends on the true deeds of mercy. This stutterer gathers all the true examples of mercy and brings them to the true man of mercy.”

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“There is a mountain. On top of the mountain stands a stone. From the stone gushes forth a spring. Everything has a heart. The world as a whole has a heart. This heart of the world rises in its entirety with a face, with hands, and with feet. The toenail of this heart of the world is more wholehearted than any other heart. The mountain with this stone and this spring stands at one end of the world, while this heart of the world stands at the other end of the world. This heart, which stands at the opposite end of the spring, constantly wants and yearns very much to come to the spring. The yearning is very great. It cries out to reach this spring, and the spring too yearns after the heart. This heart has two weaknesses: One is due to the sun, which chases it and burns it (because it yearns to come near to the spring); the other weakness of the heart derives from the yearning and longing, when it yearns and constantly wants to come to the spring. The yearning and the desire for the spring are unrestrained. It cries out ‘Help!’, because it stands at the opposite end of the spring. It yearns for it very much. When it needs to rest for a while, to catch its breath, a large bird comes and spreads its wings over it to shield it against the sun. In that way the heart gets a little bit of rest. But even then, when it rests, it looks toward the spring and longs for it. “But why does it not go to the spring, when it longs so much for it? When it approaches the mountain, it can no longer see the mountain peak and so it cannot look at the spring. And when it does not look at the spring, its soul leaves because its essence of life is derived from the spring. And when it stands at the opposite end of the mountain, it sees the top of the mountain peak where the spring is; but as soon as it approaches the mountain, the spring on top of the mountain peak disappears and can no longer be seen, and its soul, God forbid, leaves. If the heart should go away, God forbid, the entire world would be annihilated, since the heart is the very being of everything, and certainly nothing would come to existence without the heart. This is why it cannot go to the spring. It can only stand opposite of it and long and cry. Concerning the spring, it has no time, because this spring does not exist in time at all. Time as such to the spring depends on the one day, which the heart gives it as a present, when this day is about to nish and come to an end. If this day should nish, there would be no time for the spring, and then it would pass away, God forbid! Upon this the heart would pass away, God forbid! And then the entire world would be annihilated, God forbid! When this day is close to its end, they prepare themselves to part from one another. They begin to recite such wonderful riddles, poems, and songs for each other (with great love, very great yearning). The true man of mercy watches over this. When the day is about to nish and come to its end, the true man of mercy gives the heart one new day. The heart then gives the spring the present of one day, and in this way the time of the spring is extended. “When this day arrives from the place where it came from, it arrives with very wonderful riddles and poems (which contain all kinds of wisdom). There are differences between the days. There are Sundays,

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chapter four Mondays, the days of the New Moon, and holidays. All the time, which the true man of mercy has, is thanks to me, the stutterer, who walks and gathers all the true deeds of mercy, through which time comes to existence. Therefore it seems that I have an agreement about this with the true man of mercy. I can recite riddles and songs that contain all kinds of wisdom. Now I shall give you the perfect present for the homily that you shall be as I am!” There was very great happiness and much rejoicing.

Once again the longing of the children for one of the beggars results in his coming, which again signals God’s intervention through a beggar. This time it is the third beggar, whose apparent defect is his stuttering. The stuttering beggar refutes that he should suffer from the handicap of a stutterer. On the contrary, he claims it is the entire world that has a speech defect, since the worldly speaking does not contain any praises of God or any integrity. His apparent handicap reects the sense deception of the world, since the world has become so accustomed to its own way of speaking, that the world hears praises to God and words of integrity as the defect speech of a stutterer.925 As a true bard and speaker of wise riddles, poems, and songs, the third beggar can awaken every living soul with his speech. This is explained through a tale. Seven wise men boast about how they can bring forth different kinds or items of metal and chemicals thanks to their wisdom. An eighth competitor arrives and boasts that he is as wise as a full day. A ninth competitor, the stuttering beggar, intervenes and asks this eighth competitor which day he has in mind. The question leads the eighth

925 Kook suggests that the beggar who stutters represents silence, just like Moses did, where the absence of speech allows one to gain access to the divine realm. However, the beggar who stutters is not silent. On the contrary, he states that the speech of the world contains no praises of God and then he tells his tale, which is why I do not understand Kook’s claim about silence; cf. : 237–238. Steinsaltz is also convinced that the stuttering beggar represents Moses, who was slow in speech and slow of tongue. Moses attained such a high spiritual level and understood the transcendent aspects of the Torah to such a degree that anyone who listened to him would only hear the fragments, the stutter; cf. Steinsaltz: 179-181. Steinsaltz’s argument for seeing the reference to Moses is convincing because the text supports his argument by emphasizing the lack in insight as the main reason for the world’s inability to understand the beggar’s speech. It may be important to add to Steinsaltz’s argument, since this beggar characterizes himself as a bard, that a bard in tale #12 was linked with the oral Torah. Schwartz interprets the beggars as the patriarchs and species the representational values of each one of them, except for this stuttering beggar; cf. Scwartz: 215–216.

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competitor to conclude that the stuttering beggar is wiser than he is. The eighth competitor, who turns out to be this “true man of mercy”, anticipates the end of the third beggar’s tale by revealing that the stuttering beggar gathers true deeds of mercy and hands them over to “the true man of mercy”. In this way “the true man of mercy” depends on the stuttering beggar, which is why the stuttering beggar is wiser. A tale about a heart and a spring explains why the deeds of mercy have to be handed over to “the true man of mercy”. The tale bespeaks how the world is sustained. At one end of the world there is a mountain, on top of which there is a stone. From this stone a spring gushes forth. At the other end of the world there is a heart, which is the heart of the world. The heart and the spring long for each other; however, it is impossible for them to ever meet. While they long for each other, the heart is burned by the sun; but now and then, to give the heart a rest from the burning sun, a large bird comes and shields the heart with its wings.926 The heart cannot move close to the spring. If it tried, it would lose sight of the spring at a closer distance, most likely because of overhanging cliffs that would prevent the sight of the spring. Losing sight of the spring is presented as disastrous. It would involve the soul of the heart disappearing. The life-source of the heart is its ability to see the spring. At the same time, the heart constitutes the very being of the world. Therefore, if the heart lost sight of the spring, the entire world would be annihilated. Another ominous problem is at hand. The spring has no time because it does not exist in time. The only reason why the spring exists is that by the end of each day, the heart gives it the time of one day. If for some reason the spring does not receive this present, the spring would disappear, the heart would lose sight of the spring, the soul of the heart would disappear, and then the entire world would be annihilated. To prevent the annihilation of the world the stuttering beggar and “the true man of mercy” offer a crucial effort every day. The stuttering beggar collects the true deeds of mercy in this world, which is important, since time comes into existence through mercy. The stuttering beggar hands over the collection of merciful deeds to “the true man of mercy”. At this time the heart and the spring express their longing with the most beautiful riddles, poems, and songs, which contain their longing

926 Wiskind-Elper interprets and suggests the intertexts for this short passage. She mentions, e.g., Ps. 61; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 214.

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for each other, their love for each other, and their fear of being forced to part from one another, which would involve the annihilation of the world. But such disaster is prevented by “The true man of mercy”, who arrives and passes the collection of merciful deeds to the heart of the world, which then gives them to the spring as a present consisting of the time of a full day. In this way time is extended for the spring. However, it is not just any kind of time. At the beginning of the stutterer’s tale, he asked “the true man of mercy” what day he had in mind. “The true man of mercy” replied “any day you prefer”. By the end of the stutterer’s tale, it seems that the stutterer is in charge of deciding which day should be handed over to the spring, which does not exist in time. Not existing in time involves innity. A consequence must be that the stutterer in fact ties the worldly calendar to innity. This is a way of establishing a bond between this world and the supernal world, where innity reigns.927 The organism, which has to be sustained, consists of the heart, which represents the very being of this world, and the spring, which represents the supernal world of innity. This world and the supernal world depend on each other. One cannot exist without the other. The gulf between God as innite and the world as nite will persist, and subsequently the gulf between God and man appears to be unbridgeable. The inability to be united with the beloved in the case of the heart and the spring is seen by Green to reect Nahman’s concept of paradoxical faith.928 Roskies, who refers to Green’s reading,929 deals with paradoxical faith as well, though he refers to the concept as “dialectical faith”. The good deeds, which the true man of mercy gives to the spring, recast the experience of prayer into a language that can bridge the unbridgeable gap between the worshiper and God, which is a very important observation by Roskies. Like Green, Roskies points to the dialectical faith as reected in the longing and yearning of the heart, though Roskies indicates that the heart is interested in preserving the distance between God and man, since otherwise there would be no faith, because faith comes from longing.930 Roskies is here in opposition to

927 On the efforts of uniting the nite world with holy time through the calendar; cf. Elior 2001a: 126–143. 928 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 302. 929 Cf. Roskies 2002: 95, 102n65. 930 Cf. Roskies 2002: 94–95.

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Green, who considers this longing a fundamental problem to Nahman who longed for God. I am not convinced that the heart wants to remain at a distance. Otherwise why did the heart attempt to approach the mountain on top of which the spring is? When the heart approached the spring, the spring became invisible. The heart has tried. The heart was forced to give up its attempts to unite with the spring, but giving up is not the same as wanting to maintain the distance between them if everything were possible. Wiskind-Elper, also referring to Green,931 deals intensively with man’s fundamental problem of always being separated from the innite God. The experience lived by the heart, in the tale, is the unremitting dynamic between the relative and the absolute: man’s distance from God, his desire to draw near, and yet the impossibility of any union in life . . . this ambivalence of attraction and existential separateness, which pervades man’s relationship with God, is, indeed, an intrinsic element; it cannot be annulled . . . Thus, it is the dialectic, born of separateness . . . that provides man the only possibility of maintaining any relationship at all with the transcendent, elusive mystery of God (Wiskind-Elper: 213).

Green and Wiskind-Elper seem to have noted that the heart would prefer the ideal of union though the heart knows that at present it is impossible. The third beggar’s tale explains how this world is sustained, but does that mean that this sustenance represents the ideal? Nahman was as much of an idealist as anyone could possibly be. Has he given up on his own idealism here in the last and thirteenth tale? The answer cannot be given before the end of the thirteenth tale. The stuttering beggar should be able not only to restore to humans the hearing sense but rst of all to accustom the world to utter praises to God and words of integrity, so that such expressions will not be heard as the defect speech of a stutterer. The awakening riddles, poems and songs of the third beggar parallel the oral expressions as uttered by the heart and the spring. They all represent perfect speech. At the beginning of the beggar’s tale, he claimed that he could awaken every living soul, which is why speech may be restored as soon as the soul is awakened. Maybe by singing and reciting riddles and poems, the beggar awakes souls and causes man to perform deeds of mercy.

931

Cf. Wiskind-Elper: 213, 285n205.

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According to Nathan, Nahman said that Ps. 61 was relevant for the tale of the stuttering beggar.932 I shall therefore present a reading of Ps. 61 as another intertext of the tale, concurrent with my assumption of how Nahman would have read it. To the chief Musician, for stringed instruments, A Psalm of David Hear my cry, O God; attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to you, when my heart is faint; lead me to the rock that is too high for me. For you have been a shelter for me, and a strong tower against the enemy. I will abide in your tent for ever; I will trust in the shelter of your wings. Selah. For you, O God, have heard my vows; you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name. Prolong the king’s life; may his years be as many generations. May he be enthroned before God for ever; O appoint love and truth, that they may preserve him. So I will sing praise to your name for ever, as I daily perform my vows (Ps. 61).

The chief musician pleads with God to listen to his prayer, which could indicate that prayers should be conceived of as music in the divine realm, cf. as well that he, by the end of the psalm, promises to sing praises to God for all eternity in his everyday life.933 The chief musician 932 Cf. p. 

. Berger uses this reference to Ps. 61 to turn to an allegorical focus on some of the symbols in the tale about the heart and the spring. The sun is time oppressing Israel. The spring is the source of all Being, whose tikkun mankind can contribute to through prayer, studying, and longing. The bird is a symbol of Torah. Is. 53.4–5 is incorporated to explain how the innocent heart suffers because of human transgressions. The spiritual preparations prior to the shabbatons and good deeds are seen as crucial to the continuous creation of newborn days. “The tale thus illustrates the cardinal principle that ‘the world is founded upon Torah, upon Avodah (Divine Service-Prayer) and Gemilut Hasadim (practice of charity)’ (Aboth I,2)” (Berger: 16). For a similar way of including Ps. 61, see Wiskind-Elper: 215. Berger offers a biographical interpretation of the tale about the heart and the spring. It may reect Nahman’s illness and his weak lungs and how it may have been interpreted by Nahman in Kabbalistic terms. The malfunctioning lungs are seen as the lack of ability to blow coolness and humidity on the overheated heart. For more on Nahman’s interpretation of his own lung disease; cf. Mark: iv;  : 48–61. His sickness is connected to every day being a day of judgment, and his illness is seen in Messianic terms as the punishment of the collective for its sins. However, the “Man of True Grace” transmits the woven day to the Heart, thereby constituting a “desperate note of hope” for Nahman to prolong his attempts to reach the world-to-come; cf. Berger: 17–18. 933 Roskies presents Ps. 61 as a way for Nahman to link prayer with niggunim; cf. Roskies 2002: 95.

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thinks of himself as a faint heart. The musician wants to be led to the rock that is too high for him to climb. God has provided shelter for the musician in the past. However, after the “Selah” the musician mentions that he has been rewarded and that he has been listened to by God, but then he suddenly comes to pray for the prolongation of the king’s life, for his eternal enthronement, and for love and truth to preserve the king. The question regarding Ps. 61 is what the too-high rock refers to. It connotes the king, whose life and enthronement need to be prolonged, even for all eternity. Maybe King David asks the musician to perform a song that can convince God to let King David continue on the worldly throne, even for all eternity. If the attempt to persuade God is successful, it would include that God would bestow eternity on a this-worldly king. Nahman is aware that this-worldly means cannot bridge the gulf between the nite world and the divine world of innity. However, he may be praying through Ps. 61 because he knows that it is within the power of God to do anything, also to bestow eternity on a this-worldly king. If God did this, the torments related to dialectical faith would be annulled because “the heart and the spring”, the innite and the nite world, would meet in one man and thereby incarnate the annihilation of the otherwise unbridgeable gap. But rst, the musician must ask for help for the faint heart, maybe as in the beggar’s tale representing a world that does not live up to the worship God is entitled to. King David’s prolonged, or even eternal reign, would then depend on bringing the world back to worshipping God. This psalm may express King David’s repentance on behalf of the world, where God’s forgiveness and God’s assistance seem to be the only way to climb the high rock—to bridge the unbridgeable gap between this world and innity. Given this interpretation of Ps. 61 as an intertext, the beggar’s tale reects a situation where the beggar can assist “the true man of mercy” to make him sustain this world as well as the supernal. The sustenance of the world depends on accustoming mankind to praises of God and words of integrity. After this kind of tikkun has been performed, it becomes possible to pray for God’s intervention to bridge the gap between this world and the innite divine. However, the deafness of the world still prevails. Maybe the happiness at the end of the third beggar’s tale reects a happiness for knowing that the two children, having received the quality of the beggar, can now assist the stuttering beggar in his important task. The third blessing in Sefer haZohar II,169a–b focuses on the love between Tif xeret and Shekhinah as a parallel to man’s love for a woman.

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The parallel had the didactical purpose of teaching man to love God in the same way. The third beggar’s tale relates to man’s almost impossible love and longing for God. Tifxeret and Shekhinah are united when mankind refrains from sinning and when mankind acts according to the will of God. The will of God includes God’s wish to hear man’s praises and words of integrity, and through Ps. 61 it may be possible that Nahman is suggesting that God could intervene and unite mankind with God as Shekhinah is united with Tif xeret in the zoharic passage. Sefer haZohar II,169a–b still intersects as an intertext. 14: —3: -, 2: —3: - The following morning, after they had ended last day’s celebration and slept through the night, the married couple began to long for the beggar, who had a crooked neck. Immediately he came and said: “Here I am!” “Initially I blessed you for you to be as I am, but now I shall give you a present for the homily and that will be for you to be as I am. You think that I have a crooked neck, but my neck is not crooked at all. On the contrary, my neck is a very straight neck, a very beautiful neck. It is just that the world has gone astray, and so I do not want to take any breath or breathe air polluted by the nonsense of the world. (Because of this it seemed that his neck was crooked, since he bent his neck away from the nonsense of the world to avoid taking a breath and breathe nonsense of the world). But I really do have a very beautiful neck, a very wonderful neck because I have a very wonderful voice. My voice contains all the different sounds in the world, speechless sounds, which I can utter with my voice. I have a very wonderful neck and voice, and it seems that I have an agreement about this with a certain country. “There is this country where the inhabitants are skilled in the art of music. Everyone there engages in this art, even the small children. There is no small child who does not know how to play on some kind of instrument. A child from this country would be considered immensely skilled in the art of music in another country. The wise men, the king of this certain country, and the musicians are so very exceptionally wise and skilled in this art. Once the wise men of this country sat down, and everyone boasted about his music. One boasted that he knew how to play on a certain instrument, a second boasted that he knew how to play on another instrument, a third boasted about a certain instrument, a fourth boasted that he knew how to play on several instruments, a fth boasted that he knew how to play on all kinds of instruments, a sixth boasted that he could imitate a certain instrument with his voice, a seventh boasted that he could imitate several instruments with his voice, an eighth boasted that he could make a perfect imitation with his voice of a drum which has just been beaten, a ninth boasted that he could imitate the sound of shots red from a canon with his voice. I was there as well.

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“I said to them: ‘My voice is better than yours. The proof is that you are skilled in music. But if this is so, then go and deliver these two countries! These two countries are a thousand miles away from each other. When night falls in these two countries, nobody can sleep because when night falls, everyone—men, women, and children—begins to moan with a moaning voice. If a stone were to be put down there, it would be dissolved by the very moaning voice that can be heard at night. Because of this everyone is moaning—men, women, and children. In the one country people hear the moaning voice, and so they moan. And the same happens in the second country. The two countries are a thousand miles away from each other. Therefore, if you are so skilled in music, let me see if you can deliver these two countries, or if you can tune in on the voice (that is, if you can imitate the moaning voice, which can be heard there)!’ “They said to him: ‘Will you lead us to this place?’ He said: ‘Yes! I will lead you to this place!’ They all stood up to go there. They arrived (in one of the two countries), and when they arrived, and when night fell, it happened as he had said. Everyone was moaning very much, and even the skilled ones in music moaned (from realizing that certainly they would not be able to deliver these countries). (The [beggar] with the crooked neck said to the skilled ones): ‘Tell me anyway where it comes from! How come the moaning voice can be heard?” They said to him: “You know!’ “He answered: ‘Of course I know, since there are two birds, one male, the other female. There was only this pair from the species in the world. But then the female disappeared, and the male went to search for her. She searched for him. They were both searching so much for each other, until they lost their way and realized that they could not nd their spouse. They then remained in one place and made themselves nests. One bird made for himself a nest close to one of the two countries, and the other made her nest close to the other country. The nests were not entirely close to the countries, just close enough for the birds’ voices to be heard in the respective countries. When night falls, each one of them begins to moan with a very great moaning voice, because each one of them moans over its spouse. This is the reason for the moaning voice which can be heard in these two countries.’ “However, they did not want to believe what he said, and so they said to him: ‘Take us there!’ He said: ‘Yes, but you will not be able to go there at night, because when you approach this place you will not be able to endure the moaning voice. Even here at night you will not be able to endure it, and you will be compelled to moan as well. If you arrived there, you would not be able to endure it at all. And during the day you will not be able to endure the happiness, which is there. During the day, birds gather around each one of the couple. They comfort each one of them and make them happy with words of very great happiness, and they comfort them so much, by saying that they can still nd each other, that it becomes impossible to endure the great happiness that is there. The voice of the birds that makes them happy cannot be heard

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chapter four from a distance, only when one arrives there. But the moaning voice of the couple can be heard from a distance at night, and because of this it is impossible to go there.’ “(The skilled ones said to the [beggar] with the crooked neck): ‘You can rectify this!’ He said: ‘I can rectify this because I can tune in on all the voices in the world! I can even send out voices. I can send out a voice, which cannot be heard at all at the place where I utter it, which, however, can be heard at a distance. In this way I can send out the voice of the female bird so that it will reach the place close to the male bird, and similarly send out the voice of the male bird to reach the place close to the female bird! Because of this, they shall be able to continue their lives together!’ “But nobody believed this, so he led them into the middle of a forest where they heard the sound of somebody opening a door, then it was closed and locked with a bolt, from which a bashing sound was heard, then there were shots red from a gun, and a dog was sent out to capture the prey. The dog struggled while dragging itself through the snow. The skilled ones heard all of this and looked, but did not see anything, nor did they hear any sound (from the [beggar] with the crooked neck) at all. (It was [the beggar] with the crooked neck who had sent out all of these sounds, which is why they heard the sounds. From this they realized that he could imitate all kinds of sounds and tune in on all kinds of voices, that he could send out voices and in this way rectify everything).” (He did not tell more than this. He then proceeded). “It therefore seems that I have an agreement with this country about my wonderful voice. I can imitate all the voices of the world. Now I shall give you this as a perfect present for the homily that you may be as I am!” There was very great happiness and much rejoicing.

The fourth beggar is the one with a crooked neck, where the crookedness of his neck reects his efforts to avoid inhaling the air that is polluted by the nonsense of the world. The world has to realize that it speaks nonsense because it has gone astray. The beggar with the crooked neck explains that he has a beautiful voice. His skill is his ability to imitate all sounds and voices, and he has an agreement about this with a certain country. His tale describes a competition where nine men boast about their musical skills. The beggar with the crooked neck appears and claims that his voice is the best. Upon this he challenges the nine competitors to save two countries. The two countries are separated by a thousand miles. At night a moaning voice is heard, which causes the entire population to moan in one great moaning voice, of course depriving them of their sleep. In the other country the same thing happens. According to the fourth beggar, the competitors shall either save these countries or tune in on

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the moaning voice. The competitors agree, and all ten walk to one of these countries. However, as soon as they arrive, they begin to moan, and Nathan Sternhartz explains within the parenthesis that they moan from realizing that they cannot save them. I should suggest that this is a mistake. If one recalls the deaf beggar’s tale about the withering garden, the competitors lost their sense of taste, smell, and vision because the decline of the country was contagious. Furthermore, it has already been explained in this fourth beggar’s tale that the nightly moaning voice causes the population to moan, which should support my understanding of the voice as contagious. Finally, it does not make sense that the competitors begin to moan because they cannot save them, because they were also given the option of tuning in on their moaning. Later in this beggar’s tale, the moaning signies the longing between a male and female bird. By tuning in on the moaning of these two birds, the competitors take part in their longing, which again reects a recognition of the bond between them. The theme of longing evokes associations to the previous third beggar’s tale, and it should be noted here that the third and fourth beggar’s tale were told on the same day.934 Still, while the third beggar and the true man of mercy seemed alone in their task of connecting the heart and the spring, the competitors in the fourth beggar’s tale take part in the moaning. This may explain why the beggar does not give up on them when he asks them “anyway . . . How come the moaning voice can be heard?” At this point the competitors recognize the beggar’s knowledge by leaving it to him to explain. The explanation goes: A male and female bird, being the only pair of their species and thereby unique, were once separated from each other. There might be an implicit and intratextual reference to Nahman’s second tale, where the emperor’s daughter went missing, upon which the king’s son searched for her but then lost his way. Accordingly, the separation of the two birds refers to Shekhinah and the potential Knesset Israel being lost from one another.935 In Sefer haZohar II,169a–b, the longing of this

934

Cf. Kaplan 1983: 181n–183n. Kook, Steinsaltz, and Wiskind-Elper have a similar understanding. Kook suggests that the beggar with the crooked neck symbolizes the niggun, which can straighten whatever has been distorted. Concerning the two separate countries that send out voices of moaning, Kook states that apparently peculiar voices, just like in tale #11, have to be listened to carefully in order to understand what causes them. Furthermore, such voices will not change to being beautiful until the process of tikkun has been initiated; cf. : 238. See as well Roskies 2002: 95 on the possible inuence from the concept of the niggun, though with respect to the tale about the heart and the spring. 935

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world for innity was paralleled in Tifxeret’s love for Shekhinah. Only man’s submission to God could unite Tifxeret and Shekhinah and through Ps. 61, if man submitted to God, it might be a reason for God to intervene to bridge the unbridgeable gap between man and God’s presence. If Knesset Israel actualizes its potential, Knesset Israel and Shekhinah are united. By playing upon the same theme, but this time with ten men, enough to constitute a prayer quorum, the third beggar, who could only strive to inspire people to prayers and good deeds, has now been replaced by the fourth beggar ready to establish a group of praying men. Maybe they will be able to actualize the potential of Knesset Israel. The reaction of both birds is to build a nest close to two different countries, i.e., the two countries separated by a thousand miles. The fact that they build nests contains their hope that one day each one will be able to nd its spouse, upon which their union will result in young—i.e., the fertility which is a consequence of the union between Shekhinah and Knesset Israel, thanks to the shefa which will ow from the serotic system. However, the hope is mixed up with longing as a consequence of their separation expressed through their mutual moaning at night, which causes the two countries to moan as well. Doubt sneaks in on the competitors who demand proof for this, and so they ask to be brought close to these nests. The beggar replies that one thing is to stand through the moaning in one of the two countries, which causes whoever is present to moan as well. But it is something different to stand close to these nests. At night the moaning is completely unbearable, and at day there is a happiness, also completely unbearable. The happiness at day is caused by the encouraging words of different birds who come to comfort either the male or the female bird by supporting them in their hope that one day they will be united. The happiness caused by the birds can be heard next to the nests but not in either of the two countries. Now, if the female and male bird Schwartz; cf. Schwartz: 215–216, and Steinsaltz consider the beggar with the crooked neck a representative of Aaron, the rst priest of Israel, whose task it is to reunite Israel with God. The lack of harmony in this world makes the beggar turn away his head, which is where music becomes an issue, since it relates to the restoration of the harmonious relationship between God and Shekhinah, who ever since the exile have been separated; cf. Steinsaltz: 181–182. Steinsaltz rarely operates with the concept of Knesset Israel, though I am sure that he will agree that God and Shekhinah can only be united when the potential of Knesset Israel is activated. Wiskind-Elper suggests an inspiration concerning the lamentations at night from Jer. 31.14; Ps. 77.1–7. She furthermore understands the two birds as representatives of Shekhinah and Israel during exile; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 217.

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represent Shekhinah and the potential Knesset Israel, then I suggest that the encouraging words of the many birds reect the prayers and praises of mankind who wants to see Shekhinah and Knesset Israel united. But only a few people do in fact pray to God and praise God, which is why this human encouragement cannot counter or compete with the general misery of the female and male bird/Shekhinah and the potential Knesset Israel. That only a few people pray juxtaposes the unbearability of happiness with the stuttering of the third beggar and reveals the sense deception in this world. First, had the entire world been engaged in prayers and praises, the comforting words of the birds would rst of all be heard in both countries; and second, happiness would be a cause not for moaning but for joy. Such happiness was ordered by the king from the opening story, indicating the perfect state of mankind, which again involves the union between Shekhinah and the actualized Knesset Israel. This union signies, if Ps. 61 intersects, a reason for God to bridge the gap between God and mankind. By tuning in on either of the two birds’ voices and then sending it out to the other, the beggar enables the two birds to continue their lives together. Here it seems, as in the stuttering beggar’s tale, that the gulf between them is not really bridged. A sound relationship between them at a distance, where they end their moaning, can be sustained; but bridging the distance would take the intervention of God. Suddenly the competitors express their disbelief in the fourth beggar’s skills, and so he has to waste time proving them. Without hearing anything from the beggar’s voice, the competitors witness the sound of a door opening and being closed and bolted, they witness the sound of shots being red, and they witness the sound of a dog dragging itself through snow. In a parenthesis by Nathan Sternhartz it is explained that this convinces the competitors to believe. Nahman, however, did not tell if and how the beggar with the crooked neck tuned in on their moaning voice and if he sent it to the spouse of one of the two birds. As I have already suggested, this would involve a collective participation in the moaning. Soothing the pain in Shekhinah and Knesset Israel from being separated would take the successful attempt of the fourth beggar to make the ten men constitute a prayer quorum. He would then be able to channel their prayers to the two birds.936 But Nahman did not nish the fourth beggar’s tale. Maybe the

936

I am here in line with Wiskind-Elper, who states that the beggar with the crooked

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world needs the children to receive the presents of all seven beggars before it is possible to soothe pain of Shekhinah and Knesset Israel. The happiness of the children, when they receive the present from the beggar with the crooked neck, is a happiness over the ability to direct their voices, carrying the prayers of Israel, to God. The children will be able to send conrmation to God that mankind recognizes the bond between God and this world, which again would enable the union between Shekhinah and Knesset Israel. The union comes about when mankind engages in prayers and praises to God, thereby removing from the air the nonsense caused by this worldly speech. In this way, even the crooked neck of this beggar would be brought back to its actual straight stature as a very beautiful neck. The fourth blessing in Sefer haZohar II,169a–b focuses on man’s need to perfect himself by recognizing the divine sparks within him. The process of perfection can be initiated when man blesses God for having placed the divine sparks within him. In the case of the fourth beggar’s tale the parallel to the zoharic passage is not overtly obvious, unless of course one is a Hasid who associates prayer and praises with the raising of divine sparks. Tuning in on the moaning voice could, seen from a Hasidic perspective, be a way to listen to one’s inner divine voice. But in the case of the fourth beggar I am more cautious to claim the zoharic passage an intertext. 13: —1: -, 12: —3: - On the fth day they celebrated as well, but then the married couple remembered the beggar, who was a hunchback, and so they expressed their deep longing: “How can we bring here the hunchbacked beggar? If only he were here, there would be very great happiness!” Immediately he arrived and said: “Here I am! I have come here for the weeding!” He embraced them, hugged and kissed them, and said to them: “Initially I blessed you for you to be as I am. Now I shall give you this as a present for the homily that you may be as I am! I am not a hunchback at all! On the contrary, I have these shoulders which are small in size but are holding much. And I have an agreement about this. “Once, there was an exchange of stories, where people were boasting about themselves and their sizes. Everyone was boasting about his

neck fullls the role of the zaddik as a channel between earth and heaven. The beggar’s voice is like the sound of the shofar with its messianic and redemptive connotations; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 16–17.

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small size and yet his ability to hold a lot. They grinned and laughed at someone particular. Those, who boasted about being small of size and yet able to hold much, accepted these words. I, however, held with my small size more than anybody else. One boasted that his brain was an example of something small that held a lot. In his brain he carried thousands of people including their needs, their ways of behavior, their existence, and their motions—everything was carried in his brain, which is why he was an example of something small that held a lot now that his brain carried so many people. They laughed at him and said that these people as well as he were nothing at all. A second agreed and said: “I saw an example of something small that held a lot. Once, I saw a mountain that was covered with garbage and dirt. This was astounding, because from where did all of this garbage and dirt come? There was a man on this mountain who said: ‘It comes from me’. This man was sitting on this mountain, and he constantly threw garbage on this mountain and spread things from his food and drink there so that garbage and dirt began to increase on this mountain because of him. It seemed that this man was an example of something small that held a lot now that the garbage increased so much because of him. A third boasted that he had an example of something small that held a lot. A part of a country produced a lot of fruit. Later they counted the fruit and realized that the country was not as large as the amount of fruit, because there was not enough space to hold all of this fruit, which is why it seems that this is an example of something small that holds a lot. People liked what he said because this was really an example of something small that held a lot. A fourth told about a very wonderful orchard with fruit. ‘Many people go there, ordinary as well as powerful people, because this is a really beautiful orchard. In the summer ordinary and powerful people go there to travel around in it; and really, the orchard has not enough space to hold all of these people, which is why this is an example of something small that holds a lot.’ People liked what he said as well. A fth said that his speech was an example of something small that held a lot. He was the trusted secretary of a great king. A great many people came to him. One would present praises to the king; another would come with requests. ‘Of course the king could not listen to them all, but I could collect all of their words and sum them up before the king in small speeches, in which their praises and requests were included. All of their words were summed up in the small speeches of mine. It therefore seems that my speech is an example of something small that holds a lot.’ A sixth said that his silence was an example of something small that held a lot. He was faced with accusers and people with an evil tongue who informed against him a lot. Everything they informed and said against him, and everything they accused him of with a very evil tongue was excused by his silence and by what he kept silent about. It therefore seems that his silence is an example of something small that holds a lot. A seventh said that he was an example of something small that held a lot. ‘There is this poor and blind man, who is very tall, whereas [I am] completely small

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chapter four and lead this one!’ The one, who was boasting about being small, led the poor and blind man, who was very tall. It therefore seems that he is an example of something small that holds a lot, since the blind one could stumble or fall, but by leading the blind one he held him, which is why he is an example of something small that holds a lot, now that he is small and holds the tall blind man. “I, the hunchback, was there as well, and I said: ‘The truth is that you are all examples of something small that holds a lot. I understand the point in your words. Nevertheless, the latter, who boasted about leading the tall blind man, is the greatest among you. But by far I surpass all of you. The point of the one who boasted about leading the tall blind man is that he leads the orbit of the moon represented by the tall blind man, since the moon has no light of her own, which is why she is called a blind man. The moon has nothing of its own. The one who leads the moon, when he is small and the orbit of the moon is very large, sustains the world, since the world is in need of the moon. It therefore seems that he is a true example of something small that holds a lot. “However, my example of something small that holds a lot surpasses all of your examples. This is the proof: Once there was a group of scholars who contemplated on the fact that every animal had a specic shade, in exactly which it wants to rest. Every animal has a specic shade that it chooses for itself, and in exactly this specic shade it wants to dwell. Similarly, every bird has its specic branch upon which it wants to dwell. They considered if it would be possible to nd a tree, in whose shade the animals would like to dwell; a tree, in whose shade all the animals would choose and prefer to dwell and on whose branches the birds would dwell. They looked into it and found such a tree, and they wanted to go there to this tree, because the wonderful pleasure that could be derived from this tree had to be unimaginable, since all the birds and all the animals are there. No animal can be harmed there. All kinds of animals live together there, they play there; and so an immense pleasure must be derived from being close to this tree. They considered from which side to approach this tree. Concerning this, a disagreement occurred among them, and they could not come to a decision. One said that they should approach it from the eastern side, one said from the western side, another said from this side, and yet another said from that side, until nally they could not decide from which side to approach the tree. “A wise man came and said to them: ‘Why do you consider from which side to approach the tree?’ First you should considered who among you could approach this tree! Not everyone is able to approach this tree. Only the one who has the virtues of the tree can approach it! The tree has three roots. The rst root represents faith, the second represents fear, and the third represents humbleness. The trunk of the tree, from where branches emerge, represents truth. Nobody can approach this tree unless he has in him these virtues. “The members of the group were now rmly united and did not want to separate from each other to see one part of the group approach the tree

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while the other part stayed behind. However, not all of them were worthy of approaching the tree, since some did not have in them these virtues. Therefore they waited for each other, until they all, through hard work and struggles, achieved in them these virtues. In this way they all became worthy of approaching the tree. They worked hard, and they struggled until they all achieved these virtues. When all of them had achieved these virtues, they reached a common understanding and decided on one way, along which they could approach the tree. They all went. They walked for some time until they saw the tree (from a distance). They looked and saw that the tree was not in any place at all, because the tree had no place. And since it had no place, how could they approach it? “But I, the hunchback, was also there with them, and I said: ‘I can bring you to this tree. This tree does not have a place at all, because it is completely elevated above the place, and the aspect of something small that holds a lot is still in a place, because after all it has a place; it is just that it is something small that holds a lot, but after all it still has a place. The aspect of something small that holds a lot which I can lead you to is the absolute end of the place, after which there is no place at all. This is why I can lead you to this tree, which is absolutely above the place. I took them and brought them there to this tree. It therefore seems that I have an agreement about representing the highest aspect of something small that holds a lot. (Because of this he seemed like a hunchback, since he carried a lot, and this is why he represented something small that held a lot). Now I shall give you this as a present that you may be as I am!” There was very great happiness and much rejoicing.

The hunchback refutes the impression that he should be a hunchback. He explains the impression by referring to his skill, which is that his small shoulders hold a lot. It is interesting to note that he does not blame the world for misperceiving his appearance. An actual reason for his apparent handicap is mentioned, i.e., the load on his shoulders. Maybe because this beggar is directly associated with happiness, no critique of the world is mentioned. The tale of the hunchbacked beggar begins with a competition where the point is to boast about something small that holds a lot. Green mentions that “something small that holds a lot” is a midrashic designation. It has been used for the gathering of water on the second day of creation, for Moses’ handful of ashes bringing the whole plague of boils,937 the assembly of all Israel in the tabernacle and at the rock Moses struck. This little containing a lot is conceived of as a miracle by the rabbis.938 937 938

Cf. Ex. 9.8. Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 364, 371n24 on Genesis Rabbah 5.7.

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Seven men participate and they mention as examples: the brain, which holds all of its thoughts;939 a man who covers a large mountain with garbage; a country that produces a lot of fruit; an orchard visited by many people; summaries, which contain the content of long speeches; silence, which covers the truth; and nally a small man who leads a tall blind man. Suddenly, the hunchbacked beggar appears and concludes that the seventh example of the small man, who leads the tall blind man, is the best example since it pertains to one man who leads the orbit of the moon, which has no light of its own. This man’s act sustains the world, since the world is in need of the moon. The mentioning of the moon that has no light of its own is a reference to a zoharic passage, where Shekhinah depends on the light she receives from Tif xeret.940 However, as in this example, it is obvious that Tif xeret will only cause its light to shine on the moon if mankind keeps the mitsvot. The example mentions one man who causes the moon to sustain the world, which is why a zaddik is probably thought of.941 However, the hunchbacked beggar brings an example from his own past, which surpasses the examples of all the other competitors and leads the listener/reader to suspect that he will present some hing small that can actually do more than sustain the world at its distance from the divine. One could hope for Nahman that this one will be able to counter the torments that follow from the gap separating this world and innity. The fth beggar’s example takes the form of a tale. Once, a group of scholars wanted to nd a tree, in whose shade animals and birds would prefer to rest. They assumed that since this tree would be the favorite place of the birds and animals, and since this tree would bestow harmony on those present, it should be possible to derive the most wonderful pleasures from this tree. However, and despite the prospect of harmony, the scholars disagree on how to approach the tree. Suddenly a wise man appears and tells them that a premise for approaching this tree at all is to incarnate the virtues of the

939 Green asserts that the rst contestant in the fth beggar’s story is a rebbe and that the portrayal of this “rebbe” depicts Nahman’s criticism of leaders within popular Hasidism boasting of the mere quantity of their followers and not their quality; cf. Green 1992 (1979): 365. However, the text does not say that this one was a rebbe; cf. p.  . 940 Cf. Sefer haZohar I,20a. 941 Wiskind-Elper also comments on this zoharic passage; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 201–203.

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tree, which are: faith, fear, humbleness, and truth. For some reason, the interference of the wise man causes harmony to reappear among the scholars, and since not all of them incarnate all of these virtues, they decide to wait for all to achieve these virtues. The tree, however, is beyond space, and only now it becomes relevant to ask the question of how one can approach this tree. Maybe as a response to the sincere efforts of the scholars to achieve the four virtues collectively, the hunchbacked beggar responds by arriving. He offers to take them to the tree. The hunchbacked beggar explains that the aspect of “something small holding a lot” is still within the concept of space. The hunchbacked beggar also explains that he can lead them to the ultimate example of “something small holding a lot”, which is the end, or rather edge, of all space. The hunchbacked beggar’s ability to lead these scholars to the tree becomes the solution to their wish to derive the most wonderful pleasures from this tree. Innity lies beyond space. The tree was beyond space, that is, its position transcends human perception of space. Green suggests that the scholars may be rebbes where the fth beggar is a kind of hidden zaddiq gure [performing] that task which allows the world to go on living . . . Rather than boasting about all the people he can carry around in his head, this zaddiq works only with those who have already prepared themselves by hard work to come along most of the way. Bratslav remains an elite path; not all are ready for the zaddiq to help them in that nal step . . . ; his “little that contains a lot” has rather to do with the quality of what he can do for his disciples: he can help them to transcend space, if they are ready to do so (Green 1992 (1979): 365).

Green continues and weaves this commentary together with his more general thoughts on the role of “paradoxical faith”: In the tales he seeks to do what he speaks of theoretically in Liqqutim. The illusion of space in particular is one constantly troubling to Nahman’s religious consciousness. He feels far from God; he is at pains to cross over the great void; heart and spring are lled with longing because they are distant from one another, forced by the tyranny of space to remain at opposite ends of the universe. The zaddiq who can truly redeem must be able to point up the illusory character of space, and thus enable his followers to transcend it (Green 1992 (1979): 365; Green’s italics).942 942 Though Green does not present an analysis of tale #13, Green perceives of and explains lucidly Nahman’s wish to create a (literary) reality, in which it is possible to transcend the illusions of this world. In my opinion this constitutes probably the main theme of Sippurey Maxasiyot.

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The fth beggar’s tale and Green’s argument are exactly what is needed to argue against Weiss’s distinction between Hasidism of Faith and Contemplative Hasidism,943 because the fth beggar’s tale reects that Nahman is not interested in maintaining the distance between this world and innity. Nahman does not want to give up like the heart in the third beggar’s tale. He wants more than the faith that may come out of longing.944 The only tree known to me, which touches innity, is the serotic tree.945 The four virtues of faith, fear, humbleness, and truth are virtues necessary to enter through the gate to the serotic tree, cf. that Shekhinah/ Malkhut is known by the name: Fear of God.946 Humbleness is a virtue interpreted by Nahman to be essential in the process of reaching God.947 Truth is also viewed as essential by Nahman.948 By incorporating these virtues and entering the serotic system, the scholars cause the shefa to ow.949 However, reaching innite bliss as present among the animals and birds in the shade of the tree is not accessible to the scholars or to anyone else before someone like the hunchbacked beggar arrives and assists in bridging this world and the world of innity. This beggar is, according to Kook, hunchbacked because he, like other zaddikim, has to bend himself in order to adjust to the level of mankind.950 The true zaddik is able to perceive the innity of space.951 If the

943

Cf. Weiss 1997 (1953) and Chapter 2.1. Roskies suggested that the gap between the heart and the spring had to be maintained because the distance caused longing, and longing caused faith to arise in man; cf. Roskies 2002: 95. 945 Kook understands the tree as Torah, to which man must cleave in order to nd rest in a shadowy place in life. The tree as Torah symbolizes the innity of space, just like the innity of time has already been touched upon. The human perception of space has to be rejected, if innity should be reached; cf. : 238–239. Theologically, I agree with Kook, but I do not see anything in the text that directly points to the tree as Torah. However, I appreciate her observation that this tale touches upon the innity of space as the innity of time has already been touched upon. Wiskind-Elper also sees a reference to Is. 11.6–10, where birds and animals rest in the shade of a tree; cf. Wiskind-Elper: 55–56. 946 Cf. Sefer haZohar I,7b. 947 Cf. tales #6, 12. 948 Cf. the stuttering beggar who feared the lack of integrity in this worldly speech. 949 Cf., e.g., Sefer haZohar III,42a–b. 950 Cf. : 238–239. 951 According to Steinsaltz and Schwartz, the hunchbacked beggar parallels Jacob, who is known as the pillar that supports the entire structure of the world; cf. Steinsaltz: 182–184; Schwartz: 216. This does not contradict Green’s and my interpretation, 944

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hunchbacked beggar carries the world including innity on his shoulders, he denitely reects the ultimate aspect of something small holding a lot; and one can understand why he is hunchbacked. But the happiness is also understandable. When mankind longs for harmony and incarnates essential virtues, the hunchbacked beggar can assist mankind in transcending human perception of space, thereby enabling a link between the divine and human world. It is this ability that the hunchbacked beggar passes on as a present to the children, enabling them as well as authorising them to bridge this world with the supernal world. This is indeed something to put on their shoulders as well as a reason for happiness. The fth blessing in Sefer haZohar II,169a–b reects a wish and not a description of what this world is like. It is a wish that mankind must come to share the same insight as the prophets used to have. The wish will come true, once Israel activates its potential as Knesset Israel, which will lead to its union with Shekhinah. This activatation could depend on, as the fth beggar’s tale indicates, faith, fear, humbleness, and truth. That mankind should come to represent faith, fear, humbleness, and truth depends in the zoharic passage on the prophets, while in the fth beggar’s tale it depends on the gure that the fth beggar represents. This gure is described by Green as a zaddik.952 The role of prophecy involves Nahman’s probable reason for turning to telling tales. According to Nahman, the “imagination is restored by prophecy, and this leads to the restoration of proper faith”.953 In other words, it is likely that Sefer haZohar II,169a–b still intersects. 11:

—1: -, 7:

—1: - On the sixth day they also celebrated, but then they expressed their longing: “How can we bring here the [beggar] who had no hands?” Immediately he arrived and said: “Here I am! I have come here to your wedding!” He kissed them and said to them as well: “(You think that my hands are deformed), but my hands are not deformed at all. Actually, I have a power in my hands; only I do not make use of this power in my

since the entire structure of the world is of course linked with the innity of the supernal world; cf. the Lurianic process of creation, where creation has its origin in the divine. 952 Cf. Green 1992 (1979): 365. 953 Quoted after Green 1992 (1979): 342. For more on the role of imagination and prophecy, see Chapter 2.3.

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chapter four hands in this world because I need this power for something else. I have an agreement about this from the water castle. “Once, some people were sitting down, and all of them were boasting about the power in their hands. One boasted that he had such and such strength in his hands; a second boasted that he had a specic kind of strength in his hands; and so they all boasted about the strength they had in their hands. A third boasted that he had such power and strength in his hands, that when he shot an arrow from his bow he could make it return and attract it back to him. Thanks to the power in his hands, he could, even when the arrow had been shot off, make it return and attract it back to him. I asked him: ‘Which arrow can you make return?’ There are ten kinds of arrows as well as ten kinds of poison. When someone wants to shoot an arrow, one drags it through a certain kind of poison; and there are ten kinds of poison. Thus, when someone drags it through this poison it harms in this way, and when someone drags it through the second kind of poison, it harms even more. In this way there are ten kinds of poison, where each additional one destroys even more. There are ten kinds of arrows, though they are all the same; however, from the transformation that comes about when the arrow is dragged through the poisons, there are ten kinds. This is why one can say ‘ten kinds of arrows’, and this is why he asked him: ‘What kind of arrow can you make return?’ He also asked him if he could make the arrow return before it hit the one it was intended for and if he could still make it return after it had hit. He answered: ‘Yes, even when the arrow has hit I can still make it return!’ But he still wanted to know what kind of arrow he could make return. He replied that he could make a specic kind of arrow return. I, the beggar with no hands, said to the one who was boasting about this thing with the arrow: ‘If this is so, you cannot cure the queen’s daughter, because you are only able to make one kind of arrow return and attract one kind of arrow, which is why you cannot cure the queen’s daughter.’ A fourth boasted that he had such power in his hands that whatever he received from someone, from whom he took, he would give him. In any case he would be a man of salvation. I asked him: ‘What kind of salvation can you provide (since there are ten kinds of salvation)?’ He answered that he tithed. And so I said to him: ‘If this is so, you cannot cure the queen’s daughter, because you will not be able to reach her place at all. You will not be able to enter except through one wall (inside which she sits), which is why you will not be able to reach her place!’ A fth boasted that he had so much power in his hands because there were leaders in the world where every one of them needed wisdom. He had this power in his hands, and he could give these leaders wisdom by laying his hands on them. I asked him: ‘What kind of wisdom are you able to give them with your hands, since there are ten measures of wisdom?’ He replied: ‘A specic measure of wisdom!’ And I said to him: ‘If this is so, then you cannot cure the queen’s daughter, since you will be unable to take her pulse. You will not know nothing but one pulse, even though there are ten pulses!’ A sixth boasted that he had so much power in his hands

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that during a tempest he could detain it with his hands and then balance it so that it would be the kind of wind one would need. “I asked him: ‘What kind of wind can you hold with your hands, since there are ten kinds of wind?’ He replied: ‘A specic wind!’ I said to him: ‘If this is so, you cannot cure the queen’s daughter, because you will only be able to play but one melody in front of her. There are ten different melodies, and playing them is her cure, but you can play only one of the ten!’ They said: ‘What is your skill?’ I answered: ‘I can do what you cannot—I know all the remaining nine parts, where you boasted of only one. I know them all!’ “There is this story: Once, there was a king who fell in love with a queen’s daughter, and who made plots to capture her. He did eventually capture her, and so she was by his side. Once this king had a dream where she was leaning over him and then killed him. The dream came to an end, but it entered his heart. He called upon all dream interpreters, who interpreted it as follows: The dream had a literal meaning, and that is, that she would kill him. The king did not know what to decide and what to do about her. Should he kill her? That made him sad. Should he send her away? That made him sad, because then another man could take her. It made him very sad, because he had made such an effort to capture her. If he expelled her, she would end up with another man and then the dream would certainly come true, since she would still be able to kill him if she were with another man. He held on to her, but he was in fear because of the dream. The king did not know what to do about her. “As this happened, his love for her was spoiled more and more because of the dream, and for each new day it was spoiled even more. Her love for him was spoiled more and more for each new day, until she felt hatred against him, and so she escaped away from him. The king sent someone after her to search for her. People came and said to the king that she was staying at the water castle with ten walls around it, one around the other and all of them made of water. The ground on which one walked inside the castle was also made of water. There are trees and fruits there, and they are all made of water. The astonishing beauty of the castle speaks for itself, because certainly it was a very astonishing marvel, since it was made of water. One could not enter into this castle, since whoever entered would drown in the water. Everything was made of water. The queen’s daughter, who had escaped, came to this castle, and so she walked around the water castle. The people said to the king that she was walking around this castle, and so the king and his soldiers went to capture her. “When the queen’s daughter found out about this, she decided to run into the castle because she would rather drown in the water than be caught by the king and be forced to be with him. And maybe against all odds she might be saved and might be able to enter the water castle. When the king saw that she was eeing toward the water, he said: ‘If this is how it is . . . ’ He then commanded her shot, and if she died, she died. They shot at her, and the ten arrows, which had been dragged through

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chapter four ten kinds of poison, hit her, but she ed toward the castle. She entered it and passed through the watery gates in the walls, which were there. She passed through and entered through the ten watery walls, until she came inside. At this spot she fell down and became unconscious. “I, the beggar with no hands, healed her. One who does not have in his hands ten kinds of salvation, cannot enter through the ten walls. He would drown in the water. The king and his soldiers chased after her and drowned in the water, but I could enter through the ten watery walls. These watery walls are the waves of the sea that rise as a wall. The winds cause the waves of the sea to stand and hold them. The waves, which constitute the ten walls, are always there; but the winds cause them to stand and hold them. I could enter through the walls, and I could hold back and pull out the ten arrows from the queen’s daughter. I know all the ten measures thanks to the ten ngers on my hands, because each of the ten ngers knows a special measure out of ten measures. I could heal her with the ten melodies; this is how I healed her. It therefore seems that I have this power in my hands. I shall now give it to you as a present!” There was very great happiness and much rejoicing.

The sixth beggar is known as the beggar with no hands. At a boasting competition about who has the greatest power in his hands, two competitors boast about their general strength in their hands. A third boasts that thanks to his hands, he can shoot an arrow and attract it back, even after it has hit its target. At this point the beggar with no hands intervenes and asks which arrow. If he cannot shoot all ten arrows, dragged in ten kinds of poison, causing ten kinds of harms and then attracting them back even after they have hit their target, he cannot cure the queen’s daughter. A fourth boasts that thanks to his hands, he can give whatever he has taken, which implies that he is a man of salvation. The beggar intervenes and asks which kind of salvation. If he cannot cause ten kinds of salvation, he cannot cure the queen’s daughter, he cannot reach her place by entering the walls that surround her. A fth boasts that thanks to the wisdom in his hands, he can give wisdom to the leaders of the world. The beggar intervenes and asks which kind of wisdom. If he does not know the ten measures of wisdom, he cannot cure the queen’s daughter by taking her ten pulses. A sixth boasts that thanks to his hands, he can detain a tempest and balance it according to wish. The beggar intervenes and asks which wind. If he only masters one wind, he will only be able to play one melody, though it takes ten melodies to cure the queen’s daughter. At this point the competitors demand to know the skills of the beggar with no hands. When asked, he replies that he knows the remaining nine parts of whatever they boasted of. Maybe to explain the relevance of

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his skills, the beggar tells a tale of a king who makes a plot to capture a queen’s daughter, and he succeeds. While living together, the king dreams that she intends to kill him. Once awake, the king calls upon dream interpreters, who tell him that the dream should be taken in its literal sense. The king is confused. He does not know what to do, since every solution—be it killing her, expelling her, or letting her live—will cause him to be either miserable or dead. So, the king refrains from making a decision. However, the fear causes his love for her to be spoiled, and vice versa. The queen’s daughter ends up hating him, and so she, capable of making a decision, decides to escape. The king, who does not accept her decision to leave, sends someone after her. It is rather interesting that this small passage is, on the structural level, similar to the aggadaic account of Lilith escaping from Adam because she did not want to accept her intended position. Adam therefore made God send three angels to look for her.954 However, I do not think that Nahman had Lilith in mind in this part of the tale, where the queen’s daughter, captured by an evil king, is more likely to represent Shekhinah captured by Yetser haRa. Content-wise it is therefore to be considered a reversal of course, where her escape indicates Shekhinah’s movement toward her intended position. The king receives intelligence that she has found refuge outside a water castle with ten walls, inside which there are trees and fruit. Everything in this place consists of water and obviously involves the risk of drowning. The king sends soldiers to capture her, and when the queen’s daughter realizes that she is being pursued, she, once again capable of making a decision, decides to run into the water castle. She has nothing to lose, since she would rather drown than be forced to return to the king. The king, who would rather suffer than grant her freedom, orders ten poisonous arrows shot at her. They hit their target, but she manages to enter the castle before she falls down on the watery ground unconscious. The king and his soldiers believe that they can do the same, so they enter, but they all drown. Here there is a clear reference to the escape of Israel from Egypt through the Red Sea, where Pharaoh’s soldiers drowned when God caused the sea to close itself over them. A repetition of exodus could be in mind, involving an exodus toward nal redemption, because the nal redemption includes the restoration of Shekhinah to her intended position.

954

Cf. Ginzberg: I, 65.

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The beggar with no hands knows all ten kinds of salvation, which is why he can enter through the ten watery walls without drowning. The ten walls are held in their position by the winds; and here it is strange that the text does not mention that the beggar with no hands has the power to control these winds. But a lot of logical references to the boasting competition are left out here at the end. The beggar pulls out the ten poisonous arrows, though it also says that he held them back, which does not make sense because the queen’s daughter was actually hit by them—otherwise, why should she fall down unconscious? The beggar mentions that he knows all ten measures (of the wisdom according to the text), thanks to the ten ngers of his hands. This is of course important to know, though the point must be that he uses these ten measures of wisdom to take her ten pulses. He healed her with the ten melodies, which again, according to the boasting competition, derives from the skill that comes from the ten winds. However, despite the lacunae, the beggar with no hands heals the queen’s daughter, which is of the utmost importance, especially if she represents Shekhinah trying to escape from and survive the dominion of the evil urge. The beggar with no hands has this power. The healing power is passed on by the handless beggar to the children. The liberation of Shekhinah and her healing after having been captured by evil is crucial for redemption. It is also a consequence of redemption, since Shekhinah always reects the present state of mankind. Mankind has to see through time and recognize man’s origin in the innite divine, as was depicted in, e.g., the opening story and in the blind beggar’s tale. Mankind has to turn away from evil and choose the good life by not being distracted by the superciality of this world, as was the case in the deaf beggar’s tale. Mankind has to return to praising God, to speak words of integrity and perform true deeds of mercy, as was the case in the stuttering beggar’s tale. Mankind has to pray to God and thereby add to the love relationship between God and this world, as was the case in the tale of the beggar with the crooked neck. Mankind has to take upon its shoulders the heavenly yoke and thereby link this world with the supernal world and cause the shefa to ow. If this is done, mankind gains the ability to heal Shekhinah from the pain she has suffered during exile. The ten measures of each skill, which the handless beggar masters, may refer to the ten serot. This indicates that the children, as representatives of the young generation, to which one must attach all hope, will be able to ascend through the serotic system and draw down the

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shefa, owing through the system. The free ow of shefa would bring about a perfected world, a redeemed world, and the coming of the Messiah. The children should subsequently be interpreted as those who will be able to cross the threshold to the Messianic age. However, the ten measures may as well refer to the ten creative words of happiness in the seventh blessing in Sefer haZohar II,169a–b, which conrms the previous six blessings.955 From the six beggars’ tales I think it is evident that the world is in need of all of their skills, and so is the king’s son from the opening story. He will have to learn to recognize his divine origin; he has to turn away from evil and choose the good life by not being distracted by the superciality of this-worldly philosophy; he has to praise God, speak words of integrity, and perform true deeds of mercy; he has to pray to God; he has to take upon his shoulders the heavenly yoke and thereby link himself with the supernal world and thereby cause the shefa to ow. Mashiah ben David cannot perform what is the task of mankind, which, however, does not mean that he will not come. However, Mashiah ben Yosef, who is incarnated in the Zaddik haDor, can assist such secular people as the doubting king’s son. The listener/reader knows this from “The Wise One and the Simple One”, where the miracles of the baxal shem nally redeemed “the wise one” from his skepticism. I am here in line with Steinsaltz, who has an interesting suggestion with respect to the beggar without hands. This beggar represents, according to him, the biblical Joseph, who is known as the zaddik, the righteous one, and the one who can act on the material world, including healing the pain of this world, the pain of Shekhinah.956 Maybe Wiskind-Elper has something similar in mind when she sees the hands of the handless beggar as the

955 Kook writes that the hands of the handless beggar represent Torah, with which man can stand up against the temptations of Yetser haRa. The resistance of the queen’s daughter, who is pursued by the evil king, symbolizes man being tempted by Yetser haRa. The water castle represents Torah, which can be considered man’s fortress, from where he can resist evil. By taking refuge in Torah, the princess has found the solution that could save in the opening scene the king’s son, who is tormented by doubts and confusion. Kook argues in this way that the various scenes of tale #13 are in fact coherent; cf. : 239–240. I agree with Kook that the various scenes and tales inside this tale #13 are coherent. However, I do not see how the hands of the handless beggar should come to symbolize exactly Torah, and how Torah should be the only solution needed to cure the doubting king’s son. 956 Cf. Steinsaltz: 184–186.

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hands of God, which enable the beggar to save the queen’s daughter, whom she also understands as Shekhinah.957 The sixth blessing in Sefer haZohar II,169a–b presents the ideal companionship among the righteous, whose righteousness cause Yesod to unite with Shekhinah. When Yesod unites with Shekhinah, it indicates that Shekhinah is in her intended position in the serotic system. However, the sixth beggar’s tale only relates that the queen’s daughter is healed, not that she is redeemed and restored to her intended position. It is here important to remember that the sixth zoharic blessing is a wish, not a description of the present state of the world. The tale does therefore not contradict its intertext; it only expresses the same wish. Those who cause Yesod to unite with Shekhinah are living in a state similar to the state of the world-to-come. What is needed, at this point in the tale, is to bring the rest of the world to the same Edenic state. The missing beggar with no feet According to the sources, the rst one to wonder about the seventh beggar and his lack of appearance was Nathan Sternhartz on 8 May 1810. He asked Nahman, while they were on their way to Uman, when the tale about the seventh day would be told. Nahman replied that the tale about the seventh beggar would not be told until the time of the Messiah.958 Later, commentators have guessed about what would characterize the tale of the seventh beggar with no feet. Concerning his arrival, Band suggests that the seventh beggar will represent the peak of the wedding celebrations.959 His blessing will probably be that the children shall be as he is. The question is, of course, who is he? His apparent handicap is that he has no feet. In line with the other beggars, his special quality will probably reect the opposite of his handicap. Cunz suggests that sense deception concerning his handicap will be revealed as the difculties of the Messiah, but that he in fact has the ability to walk and thereby, as the Messiah, lead the world to the Messianic era.960 Kook, Dan, and Steinsaltz suggest that the seventh beggar will present himself as the most exquisite dancer.961

957 958 959 960 961

Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf.

Wiskind-Elper: 18, 195–201. Yemey MoHaRNaT 43. Band 1978: 322. Cunz: 233. : 240;  1975: 150; Steinsaltz: 186.

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Dance implicates, according to Kook, the power to raise faith with the feet.962 The king’s son from the opening scene is in need of raising his faith and needs faith to conquer his doubt and confusion. Faith as such would be the theme of the seventh beggar’s tale and would tie this beggar’s tale together with the opening story, which portrays the loss of faith within the king’s son.963 Steinsaltz is very much in line with Kook. Steinsaltz sees the missing beggar with no feet as King David, who danced in 2 Sam. 6. Dancing is, according to Steinsaltz, associated with simple and perfect faith and dance precedes the coming of the Messiah, a period known as “the footsteps of the Messiah”. Steinsaltz writes: When the bride and groom receive the gift of the seventh beggar, they will have acquired the degrees of perfection of each of the seven shepherds and will be able to go on to their own day, the day of the Messiah. Then they will be able to save the king’s son from his doubts and will themselves assume rule of the land, and perfection will be restored to the world (Steinsaltz: 186).964

Dan is the one who elaborates most thoroughly on a possible end of the thirteenth tale. Dan suggests Lurianic Kabbalah as the theological context of this tale. The married children will incorporate all seven qualities of all seven beggars, upon which they will be able to gather the divine sparks, once the seventh beggar hands over his present on the seventh day of celebration. The gathering of the divine sparks would be able to rectify shevirat hakelim, which is referred to by the son’s loss of faith in the opening story. Dan therefore suggests that three more

962

Cf. Likkutey Etsot #12; see as well Wolfson 1997: 206n128. Cf. : 235. Kook has another suggestion, which is that the advice of the wise man from tale #3, who warns his family about the secular wisdom of the desert king, could be perceived as the missing beggar’s tale. In the wise man’s warning and later when he passes on the demon book to his grandson, the wise man says that one should only have faith in God; cf. : 240–241. I do not think that it is necessary to go all the way back to tale #3 to nd this message, which is central to Nahman’s tales in general. One could, e.g., mention the focus of the master of prayer from tale #12 on faith or the simple faith of the simple one in tale #9 as well. Nevertheless, I believe that Kook is correct in suggesting faith, since faith as such has not yet been mentioned in the tale and since the happiness, stressed by the old king from the opening scene, is connoted with faith and simplicity. 964 Here Steinsaltz seems to agree with those unnamed commentators who considered the mass ight from a certain country a mass ight from the country of the king’s secular son, even though he stated that there was no textual support for such an understanding. 963

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episodes are needed to complete the thirteenth tale. One episode would have to portray the arrival of the seventh beggar. The beggar may here be presented as a dancer and as the one who is able to walk past the guards and enter the pearly castle on the golden mountain in the rst tale in Sippurey Maxasiyot to liberate the king’s daughter. The second additional episode would be to conclude the marriage between the two children by bestowing the last of the seven presents upon them. The third additional episode would be to return the king’s son to faith. Dan argues for this suggestion by pointing to Nahman’s emphasis on happiness during the wedding celebrations as well as in the king’s speech to his son about being constantly happy. The consequence of restoring the king’s son to faith and happiness would reect the tikkun of the broken vessels and the annihilation of the need for tsimtsum,965 that is, the annihilation of this worldly reality.966 Band, who agrees with Dan’s overall Lurianic interpretation, notes something worth considering: Nahman’s unwillingness to tell about the seventh beggar. His lack of appearance signals “reticence concerning the coming of the day of redemption” (Band 1978: 322). The question is why. I do not think that the two children, after having received all the blessings and thereby having incorporated all the qualities of the beggars, can go alone into the “day of the Messiah”, as Steinsaltz puts it.967 These two children will have to change mankind rst and thereby come to represent mankind in perfect union with Shekhinah. The sixth blessing in Sefer haZohar II,169a–b only indicated that the righteous lived in an Edenic state, while the question remained of how to bring the rest of mankind to a perfect union with God. I agree with all the other commentators that the seventh beggar probably represents the Messiah. It may therefore be worthwhile to return to the previous twelve tales to see what information is provided about the Messiah or the Messianic era. In the rst tale, the protagonist is still depending on the world to perfect itself before he can liberate the king’s daughter. In the second tale the ideal union is vaguely referred to as “home”. The third tale’s end depicts the collapse of evil. The fourth tale’s end describes the

965 966 967

Cf.  1975: 150–151. Cf.  1975: 148. Cf. Steinsaltz: 186.

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just death of those gentile kings who did not allow Jews to practice their religion. The fth tale’s end describes in fact the beginning of the Messianic era, but only with the slight piece of information that the Messiah will stand erected as a statue consisting of precious stones. By the end of the sixth tale the protagonist comes to a simultaneous recognition of God’s immanence and transcendence. The seventh tale describes how far away mankind is from the Messianic era because the soul of the Messiah is trapped within a gentile king. The eighth tale ends by emphasizing that traditional Judaism must recognize the need for Hasidism if the Messiah shall ever come. The ninth tale ends where a representative of rationalism has come to realize the power of a baxal shem/zaddik. The end of the tenth tale provides the information about the Messianic era that Shekhinah and Knesset Israel will rule together. The eleventh tale ends at the threshold of the Messianic era, when both individual and universal tikkun have been performed. The twelfth tale provides the slight piece of information about the Messianic era that mankind will forget about human needs and only serve the needs of God, which are for mankind to engage in prayers, songs, and praises. Tales #1, 7, and 8 present the obstacles for redemption or the simple fact that the world is still waiting for redemption. Tales #3, 4, 6, 9, and 11 describe the requirements for reaching the Messianic era. Only tales #2, 5, 10, and 12 describe the Messiah or the Messianic era. In the second tale, “home” probably relates to a return to man’s divine origin, i.e., God. The Messiah as a statue in the fth tale indicates that Mashiah ben David is simply the marker of the Messianic age. That Shekhinah and Knesset Israel will rule together, according to the tenth tale, indicates man’s union with God. No human needs to attend in the twelfth tale indicates a change in human nature that includes a nullication of physical drives. This information, conveyed by the intratexts, could have been provided by the seventh beggar. Since Sefer haZohar II,169a–b is a palimpsest-like intertext, it is worth mentioning that the seventh blessing points to the coming of the Messiah just like the thirteenth tale and its seventh beggar. Every new Jew will live in a perfected world that will be characterized by joy, gladness, bridegroom, bride, mirth, exultation, love, brotherhood, peace, and fellowship. These qualities are compatible with Nahman’s ideals and are more or less advocated for in the thirteenth tale in the beggars’ tale, through the fellowship of the beggars, or through the wedding itself. What so far has been mentioned about the Messiah or the Messianic era reects man’s expectations; but since Nahman distinguished between

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this world and the world-to-come and was well aware that the worldto-come is not yet here, nobody has the experience of what the worldto-come will be like. This lack of knowledge may have been a reason for Nahman’s silence about the seventh beggar. Recapitulation Happiness characterizes the primordial past, in which the opening story is set. This happiness reects the Hasidic understanding that God is in everything and everything is in God. When the innite God decides to hand over creation to mankind, the legitimacy of mankind as ruler in this world depends on man’s recognition of his dependency on God. However, man was created with a limited perception unable to transcend time and space, which explains why he goes astray and cannot perceive his innite divine origin, which legitimizes his rule in this world. Restrained by human perception, man either chooses to take recourse to human wisdom or chooses simplicity. Human wisdom leads to confusion, depression, and sadness, whereas simplicity leads to faith in God. Within the opening story the son of a king represents the part of mankind misled by human wisdom. He is, however, now and then overcome with confusion, depression, and sadness, which reminds him about his good qualities and urges, which link him with his innite origin. Confusion, depression, and sadness as reminders establish a slight hope of the son one day being susceptible to simplicity of faith as man’s only possibility to recognize his divine origin and thereby be enabled to take part in the happiness this divine origin connotes. The remaining part of the thirteenth tale explains how. The rationalistic approach to life of the king’s son is equalled to a catastrophe that leads to a mass ight that again causes two children to be lost. The two children being lost reects that mankind has gone astray. However, the children are too young to be seduced by human wisdom and rationalism, and so they call out for God’s intervention. God intervenes through seven beggars, whose apparent handicaps reect the limited perception of man. The children become beggars themselves, which reects their minimal relation to this world. They seek out the spots in this world connected with the divine realm and nd such a connection in the covenant, in the serotic system, and in the activation of divine qualities within themselves. A group of beggars arrange for the children’s marriage, and the scenery of the canopy placed down

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in a deep hole may signal descent before ascent, which eventually will lead to the coming of the Messiah. The rst of the seven beggars, who is blind, bestows his long life on the children. This long life is dened as man’s ability to see his origin in the innite divine. To achieve this ability man must restore his soul to the body. The second beggar, who is deaf, bestows on the children his good life on the children. This good life depends on man’s ability not to listen to this worldly speech and instead to listen to this beggar’s tale, which recounts how the original bond between God and humans was severed because it was ignored. Only by confronting evil, and in this way turning evil to good, may this bond be restablished. The third beggar, who is stuttering, bestows the ability on the children to reaccustom mankind to praises of God and to words of integrity, which at present are perceived of as stuttering. By awakening the souls in this world through riddles, poems, and songs, the children will be able to cause true deeds of mercy, which again will enable them to tie worldly time with innity and thereby sustain the existence of this world as well as the innite world. The fourth beggar, who has a crooked neck, bestows the ability on the children to restablish the intended union below between Shekhinah and Knesset Israel and above within the serotic system. This ability is achieved when more people engage in prayers, which again will lead to happiness, connoting man’s divine origin. The fth beggar, who is hunchbacked, bestows on the children the ability to lead mankind to bridge the unbridgeable gap between this world and the supernal innite world. This ability is achieved by enhancing the longing in this world for harmony and by promoting the virtues of faith, fear, humbleness, and truth, which eventually will enable mankind to transcend human perception of space. The sixth beggar, who is handless, bestows on the children the ability to heal Shekhinah and thereby initiate a new exodus toward redemption. This ability is not intended for the world as it is at present, but one day it will be needed. To reach the point where this ability is needed depends on the world having adjusted to the acts of the rst ve beggars. Because the ability of the sixth beggar can be interpreted as the healing of Shekhinah and initiation of a new exodus toward redemption, and because it is said that this ability will be needed in the future, the development of the tale itself indicates that the next step, taken by the feetless beggar, will be redemption per se. The marker of redemption is Mashiah ben David. If the king’s son from the opening story as well as the listener/reader have listened to the didactical messages inherent

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in each of the beggars’ tales, and if only he and the listener/reader take these messages to heart, confusion, depression, and sadness will be overcome and replaced by happiness. The happiness will reect the annihilation of the gap between mankind and God. The change will affect the narrative universe of the thirteenth tale and, according to its theological message, reality as well.

CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION

5.1

The Informative and Performative Function of the Tales

To highlight the informative and performative function of the tales, I shall systematise their content and arrange it into six minor chapters. The focus will be directed toward the theological information, including the performative aspects and the way of legitimizing this information. I shall highlight the information conveyed about God, the mythical historiography and its consequences, the present state of the world, individual tikkun, universal tikkun, and nally Messianic expectations. 5.1.1

God

In primordial times everything was God and everything to be perceived was the innity of God. After God’s decision to create, God remained and remains the innite everything and is subsequently referred to as En Sof (innity) or as Ayin (nothingness) because innity and therefore also God are beyond the grasp of human perception. Innity as a characteristic of God is hinted at in all of the tales because every tale contains Kabbalistic markers of this theosophical conception. However, God as transcendent innity is directly represented by narrative characters in tales #1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, and 13. It was God’s will to create the world and everything in it, and it was God’s will to hand over creation to mankind. This is directly referred to in tales #2, 5, and 13. God’s decision to create included that man should consist of soul and body, and that man’s soul, guided by God, should be in control of the body and not vice versa, cf. tales #11 and 13, rst beggar’s tale. It was part of God’s blueprint for creation that the people of Israel should be predestined for the covenant with God, and that Israel together with Shekhinah should administer God’s creation in a way compatible with current Messianic expectations, see especially tales #2, 5, and 12. Some highly interesting information can be deduced from tales #2 and 13, and that is, that God in primordial times had a premonition

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that something would go wrong and that the behavior of the people as a result would not reect the divine will. God therefore predestined the nature of evil to be eventually self-destructive, according to tale #3, as a means to persuade man not to choose evil. This decision involves God’s current recognition that God is responsible for having created the evil impulse in man, cf. tale #9. God’s premonition was correct, and the primordial disaster occurs. It forces God to redene the divine will to take account of the unintended state of creation following the disaster and its consequences. The primordial disaster implies that man’s ability to perceive is limited and that man therefore cannot perceive the innity of God or perceive that God as sovereign master of the universe is present in creation and that creation is a part of God. This problem is referred to in various ways in all of the tales. After the unintended state of creation has occurred, it becomes God’s will that man annihilate his own will, which has been misled by his senses, as hinted at in all of the tales. It furthermore becomes God’s will that man recognize God’s twofold nature of immanence and transcendence. The recognition of God’s immanence is an issue in all of the tales, while the recognition of God’s transcendence is touched upon as a theme in tales #1, 6, 7, 11, 12, and 13. God knows that mankind depends on God, and it is therefore God’s will that man refrain from denying the existence of God, as portrayed in tales #2, 3, 4, 9, 12, and 13. The rectication of the primordial disaster requires that Jews return to ideal Judaism, no matter their previous attachment to secularism, other religions, or traditional Judaism, cf. tales #2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 13. To achieve this, God intervenes in multiple ways, which will be elaborated upon below. When the listener/reader is informed that God is beyond the grasp of human perception, that God is the creator of the world, and that God is capable of predestining and intervening, God is established as the sole and absolute authority. Consequently, the will of God should be conceived of as unquestionable and one with which man cannot argue because man will not even be able to understand God’s motivations, since these are beyond the grasp of human perception as well. 5.1.2

Mythical historiography and its this-worldly consequences

Several textual components evoke the Lurianic myth of tsimtsum and shevirat hakelim, especially in tale #12. According to tale #12, the most

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transcendent aspect of God, Binah, Shekhinah, the Messiah and six entities of the most important qualities existed together in primordial times. However, shevirat hakelim caused them to be separated from each other and caused them to be dispersed; it caused the primordial Torah,1 which was used as God’s blueprint for creation, to be replaced by the canonical Torah; and it caused God to be separated from creation. With respect to mankind, shevirat hakelim caused the relationship between soul and body to be distorted, as described in tales #11 and 13, rst beggar’s tale. When the body against the will of God is in control of the soul, the soul is not susceptible to the guidance it could have received from God. When mankind, furthermore and also because of shevirat hakelim, becomes limited in its ability to perceive innity, the ground is provided for an understanding of a second fall, this time caused by humans. The lack of true perception is described in all of the tales and explains why man in general cannot recognize the sovereignty of God, man’s origin in God, and man’s dependence on God. If only Israel would recognize this, it would legitimize Israel’s rule together with Shekhinah in this world, cf. tales #1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13, as it has been predestined to in primordial times, cf. Chapter 5.1.1. When man cannot recognize the innite, man chooses to trust his apparent ability to perceive. Trusting this ability leads to sinful behavior, which worsens the state of the world and again leads to the greater inuence of evil. The increased interference of Yetser haRa causes a continuous distortion of creation, which brings suffering to all, cf. tales #11 and 13. Nevertheless, God remembers the predestination of Israel to greatness. When Jews express faith, gratitude, generosity, willingness to act for a just cause, and sexual purity, God blesses the people of Israel with fertility. The fertility manifests itself in the presence of Shekhinah and the potential Knesset Israel; see especially tale #10. Shekhinah and Knesset Israel are part of this world and therefore subjected to reect the state of the world at any given moment. Sin, injustice, and impurity cause the exile of Shekhinah from the serotic system, cf. tales #1, 2, 10, 11, 12, and 13. Grave conditions of sin, injustice, and impurity remove her from the people of Israel. Subsequently, Shekhinah cannot bestow shefa upon Israel and mankind—the prerequisite for life. When Shekhinah is in exile

1 This information is contradicted in tale #7’s intertextual use of Sefer haZohar, where God decides to give to Moses the primordial Torah several generations after shevirat hakelim.

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or lives under exilic conditions, it reects at the same time how Israel removes itself from its ideal potentiality as Knesset Israel. That Israel is far from activating its potentiality as Knesset Israel is typically represented in the tales by a male character, destined for greatness, but waiting somewhere in a passive position, cf. tales #1, 2, 3, 10, and 13. When Shekhinah is in exile and when Israel is far from activating its potential as Knesset Israel, the world calls for rectication of the sins and the conditions that have caused its negative state. This performative call is made in all of the tales. The eventual outcome of such a rectication will be the coming of the Messiah and the beginning of the world-to-come, which will reect a manifestation of the world as God intended it to be in primordial times, cf. Chapter 5.1.6. The optimistic information, after all, which is embedded in this mythical historiography and its consequences, is that when shevirat hakelim took place, the link between God and creation was only severed according to human perception. Seen from God’s perspective, a link is still there. Divine sparks of God’s innite essence are present in every part of creation. Everything is within God and God is present in everything. Shevirat hakelim caused these divine sparks to be conned within what man conceives as existence, i.e., Yesh. When man sins, the connement increases, and the divine sparks become more unperceivable, as described in tales #1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, and 13. However, if man allows prophesy, tales, insight from the primordial Torah to cleanse man’s imaginative faculty, man will come to understand the performative call for redemption and will be prepared to engage in tikkun, on the individual as well as the universal level. Tikkun implies an elevation of the divine sparks from within the connes and the subsequent return of the divine sparks to their divine origin, cf. Chapter 5.1.4 and 5.1.5. below. The mythical historiographical information provides an explanation for this-worldly suffering. The explanatory aspect is crucial to the persuasiveness of any world-view. When the tales furthermore provide information about the consequences of tsimtsum and shevirat hakelim, they are delineating that the people of Israel have been close to sapping God’s willingness to lead Israel to a privileged position among the nations for a very long time. The threat of losing God’s preferential treatment can be understood as serving the performative purpose of encouraging individual Jews to strive for change.

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The present state of the world

In continuation of the consequences of tsimtsum and shevirat hakelim, the tales describe the present state of the world. At present, Shekhinah is not just in exile and thereby removed from her intended position in the serotic system, cf. tale #11. She is captured and harmed by evil, cf. tales #1, 3, 10, 12, and 13. At times, she transforms to her evil counterpart, Lilith, as a means to survive and to achieve the attention of the world, cf. tales #2 and 5; or she even dresses like a man to protect her femininity, upon which the ow of shefa depends, cf. tales #2; 10. Knesset Israel has become passive or has completely disappeared, cf. tales #1, 2, 3, 10, and 13. Israel is sent into exile and is suppressed by foreign nations, sponging on God’s love for Israel, cf. tales #2, 3, 4, 11, and 13. At present, Jews are living in exile. They are forced to convert to other religions or to secularism to maintain or obtain material gains. However, conversion to anything else but Judaism is fruitless, because a non-Jewish/secular ruler will be unable and often unwilling to secure the lives of the Jews. When threats are directed or carried out against Jews, who have converted to obtain material gains, it should be conceived as God’s warning or punishment. Anti-Jewish rulers will of course be punished as well, even by death, for their anti-Judaism, and non-Jewish/secular rule will be overthrown because secularism, just like evil, is self-destructive by nature, cf. tales #4 and 7. Traditional Judaism has declined to such an extent that it is hindering the serotic union of Shekhinah and Tifxeret, which would otherwise have led to the advent of the Messiah and the Messianic era. Samael takes advantage of the reluctance of traditional Jews against Messianism to prevent the coming of the Messiah, which is a goal of both traditional and mystical Judaism. Adherents of traditional Judaism are urgently in need of realizing the necessity of Hasidism and the power of the zaddikim, if Judaism is to persist at all, see especially tale #8. Some Jews have even abandoned Judaism and chosen secular wisdom instead. This threatens the rectication of the world, since rectication will have to come from Judaism, cf. tales #5 and 9. These secular Jews encounter—in addition to the general disaster that will come from this unwisely choice—loneliness, isolation, dissatisfaction, restlessness, misery, sadness, depression, doubt, and social decline. They do so because they have ascribed the immanent world the role of measuring stick, leaving every value to be relative and thereby insignicant, cf. tales #4, 9, 10,

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and 13. If they stubbornly persist in their haskalah like denial of the indisputable authority of God and Jewish religious world-views, God has to take recourse to evil and impose a limited period of punishment on the Jewish representatives of secularism. The period of punishment is, however, limited, because God recognizes that God is responsible for having created the evil impulse in man and that God is in need of all Jewish souls to return to Judaism, cf. tale #9. Sinful Jews may draw sustenance from Shekhinah for a while. However, their engagement in corruption, sin, and unwillingness to recognize the necessary commitment to the covenant while still interested in the benets will eventually send them into a worsened state of exile with no Shekhinah to sustain them, see especially tale #10. Praises of God and words of integrity have become so unusual that they are not even perceived. The present state of the world has made God’s will, as described in the canonical Torah, completely inconceivable, even though the canonical Torah used to be the medium for divine guidance. Without this guidance and given man’s inability to choose wisely, man faces extinction as part of the stern judgment, which God in grave cases is prepared to carry out; see especially tales #3, 4, 7, 12, and 13. The tales inform how Jews live without God’s presence and thereby without any link to God, who could have guaranteed the life of every single Jew. Instead some Jews face a limited period of punishment, while others even face extinction. Traditional Judaism has declined to such an extent that it cannot rectify the present state of the world. However, since the rectication of the world can only be accomplished by Judaism, and given the decline of traditional Judaism, Hasidism becomes the only true kind of Judaism with the potential to rectify the world. The tension between, on the one hand, traditional Judaism, secularism and non-Jewish religion, and on the other hand, Hasidism, reveals Nahman’s struggle with previous Jewish traditions as well as with his secular and Christian-European context. By describing the alternatives to Hasidism as incompetent with respect to avoiding punishment and extinction, and by drawing upon the concept of Israel as the only people capable of rectifying the world, his version of Judaism becomes the true version and thereby the only portal to life. If the listener/reader is prepared to accept this information about reality, it consequently legitimizes Nahman’s performative call for tikkun.

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Individual tikkun

Fear is one point of departure for the recognition that God is the sovereign master of the universe, cf. tales #7 and 12. Confusion, depression and sadness are mental states within the individual that serve the purpose of awakening the individual to recognize his/her dependency on God, cf. tales #1, 8, 9, 11, and 13. When the individual has accepted his/her need to turn to God, the rst step is, in case one is not Jewish, to convert to Judaism. Gentiles, who treat Jews with fairness, will be rewarded by God, cf. tales #4 and 7. However, they cannot actively contribute to the process of tikkun, which is why gentiles ought to convert, cf. tale #7. The second and most basic step, with respect to individual tikkun and according to Nahman’s tales, is to replace trust in one’s ability to perceive and decide with simplicity of faith. Simplicity of faith is a central theme in all of the tales. This replacement involves a decision to refrain from making or following evil decisions and from sinning, cf. tale #3. It involves man forcing the body to be guided by the soul, while the soul has to accept that it needs God’s guidance which can be achieved if one accepts a lowly position, cf. tales #11 and 13. Replacing human perception with simplicity of faith is very difcult to accomplish, and the replacement is a phase that includes setbacks, doubts, and torments, cf. tales #1, 10, and 11. However, setbacks, doubts, and torments can be lessened or even avoided if one chooses to bond with a zaddik-type, cf. tales #3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, and 13, which would represent a third step. The zaddik-type will lead the follower through a dialectical process of listening to oscillating recounts of what the world is, according to God, and what reality is according to the follower, until the follower is convinced that man’s perception of reality falls short of protecting the follower and of securing him the benets that God is prepared to provide. Some people have simple faith all through their lives, and they seem to be blessed and protected by God, though the tales do not really explain why; cf. tales #3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 13.2 The tales do not invest much description in these natural-born representatives of simple faith, which

2 I do not include the master of prayer from tale #12 because he performs selfmortication, confession, and acts of repentance, which indicate that his faith is characterized by a certain complexity.

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is why I assume that they are placed in the tales as ideals. Given the present state of the world, it seems more important to address those who do not have faith or those who are in the middle of the difcult process of achieving simplicity of faith. Once, in the middle of achieving simplicity of faith, the follower will be advised to turn to certain assisting kinds of practice. These kinds of practice are: expressing repentance and longing for redemption, a minimal relation to this world, contemplation on Torah and the commandments, confrontation of evil, and elevation of divine sparks within oneself. The performative call to turn to these kinds of practice is explicitly or implicitly conveyed in all of the tales, but emphasized in tales #1, 12, and 13. Everyone who engages in individual tikkun will be rewarded immediately. The rewards are the activation of the divine potentiality within oneself, see especially tale #13. Shefa will be bestowed on the individual, which includes guidance, protection, fertility, and happiness, cf. tales #1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13. One will specically experience personal attachments, nonrelative happiness, delight in small things, divine sustenance, a cleansed imaginative faculty, supernal wisdom, access to the primordial Torah and social elevation, cf. tale #9. Finally, one will be elevated to a tool for God’s intervention, such as causing the death of God’s enemies, cf. tale #4. In this way, one will be able to contribute to the larger process of tikkun because individual tikkun is a prerequisite for universal tikkun. Individual tikkun will lead to the activation of those capable of effecting universal tikkun, cf. tales #4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13; which will eventually lead to Israel’s and Shekhinah’s shared administration of the world; see especially tales #2 and 10. The very performative function of describing individual tikkun in the tales is thus strengthened by including information about the rewards the individual will receive if s/he engages in this crucial process of rectication. 5.1.5

Universal tikkun

Information can be derived from the tales about God, Shekhinah, evil, the Messiah, and the Zaddik haDor and his community as primary agents in the process of universal tikkun.

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God mediates his response to the present state of the world through the two serot, Hesed and Din, through which mankind can be inuenced. Hesed and Din may manifest themselves in certain chosen people who become instrumental for rectifying “irredeemable” sins, the debasement of divine qualities and of general state of the world. The imposition of fear through the serah Din is instrumental for Hesed in Hesed’s attempt to soften divine judgment. The joint venture reects the interest of the most transcendent aspect of God not to eradicate creation, cf. tale #12. God communicates with man through dreams, cf. tales #7 and 11. God intervenes through the natural elements, cf. tale #3. God intervenes through individuals, who have come to simple faith, cf. tales #3, 4, 9, 10, 12, and 13; or by elevating Zaddikey haDor, zaddikim, ba’aley shem, and wise men to act out the divine will, cf. tales #3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, and 13. God intervenes directly through Shekhinah, who is represented as an active narrative character in tales #1, 2, 3, 5, and 10. According to tales #2, 5, and 10, Shekhinah is the most important protagonist in the process of universal tikkun, while the majority of tales convey that her efforts should not be considered the most crucial, cf. tales #1, 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, and 13. Shekhinah works on different levels, depending on the state of the world. In the most severe cases, she dresses like a man, and the male appearance signals the most heightened level of activity as well as the protection of her femininity, which incarnates the access to shefa, cf. tales #2 and 10. Under grave and yet not rmly established conditions of evil, Shekhinah transforms to her evil counterpart Lilith, as mentioned before. She can do so because she embodies what she in this respect and according to Kabbalah receives from above. If mankind behaves, she is inuenced by Hesed. If mankind works against God, she is inuenced by Din, and Din is the source of evil. When appearing like Lilith, Shekhinah uses evil as a tool to make mankind realize the gravity of the situation, cf. tales #2 and 5. When the Messiah hints at his coming, Lilith, as Shekhinah’s alter ego, will initiate acts of evil that reect the yearnings of the righteous for redemption and the divine punishment with the purpose of cleansing mankind. The deeds of divine evil will cause the gathering and elevation of the souls of the Jews and nally the coming

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of Mashiah ben David. This coming equals the defeat of evil and the beginning of the Messianic age, cf. tale #5. Lilith, however, can act on her own accord, as in tale #11, probably as an indication of Shekhinah being in captivity, which is a situation known from tales #1, 10, 11, 12, and 13. Shekhinah is only able to use her cunning to escape from captivity in certain cases, cf. tales #2 and 10. Under conditions where the people of Israel can be said to consist of good and evil members, the good people within the nation make Shekhinah address the entire nation about the importance of the union between them and her and how to accomplish this union. She appoints different individuals and uses other nations to assist her in the process of tikkun, as described in tales #1, 2, and 10. Shekhinah may act as the temptress to convince Israel into following her by promising the shared rule over the world, once Israel has repented its sins, cf. tales #1 and 10. However, if Israel should fail to follow her, she will nevertheless continue in her endless efforts of making Israel turn to God, cf. tales #1, 2, 3, and 10. Evil is sometimes present in the tales without Shekhinah or Lilith being so. Shekhinah’s constituency depends on whether Hesed or Din dominates, as mentioned above. However, the independent kind of evil represents the force that God predestined to become a weapon against the evil urge within man. The purpose of this kind of evil is to exemplify the selfdestructive nature of evil, cf. tales #2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13, and to cleanse mankind, cf. tales #2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, and 13. The predestination of evil to self-destruction may at a rst glance not correspond to the Lurianic conception of the broken vessels, originally made out of Din to contain the divine light. As shattered pieces the vessel material was no longer in direct contact with the divine, though it could draw sustenance from the remains of the divine light still oating within the vacuum and subsequently grow so strong that it could encapsulate and conne the divine sparks. However, the point seems to be that the vessel material is no longer in contact with the divine itself. It only sponges on its reection, cf. the light, which is why it cannot survive in the long run, because only God represents life. In this way, one could say that the self-destructive nature of evil is not a matter of predestination but of consequence. The tendency of evil to conne the divine sparks to sponge on them as long as it lasts, is referred to in all of the tales, but very clearly in tale #6, where the protagonist has to penetrate the layers of evil to reach the divine.

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Samael refers to evil with no access to God as the source of life. Samael has as his purpose to extinguish the Messianic hope, cf. tales #7, 8, and 10. However, Samael may suddenly activate his connotation to evil as the self-destructive force that is supposed to counter the evil urge in man, as described in tale #8, when he explains to the representative of traditional Judaism about the shortcomings of traditional Judaism and the need for zaddikim. Here, he assists in the process of redemption. The Messiah is a complex character. Nahman operates with two Messiahs: Mashiah ben Yosef and Mashiah ben David. Mashiah ben Yosef will pave the way for Mashiah ben David, i.e., the actual Messiah. Mashiah ben Yosef thus engages in universal tikkun and performs the same task as the last and fth Zaddik haDor, with whom Nahman probably identied to a large extent. I shall present what the tales convey about the Messiah and the Messianic age in Chapter 5.1.6. Here, I shall only deal with those characters who contribute or intend to contribute to universal tikkun before emerging as Mashiah ben David. In tale #5 the coming Messiah reveals his Messianic nature to his sister, a representative of Shekhinah, who initiates acts of evil as Lilith to perform the nal cleansing of mankind. The rst revelation of the Messianic nature thus initiates the nal phase leading to universal tikkun, and the nal step is dened as the cleansing of mankind through evil. God awakens the Messianic soul through a dream in tale #7. God thus decides the time of the awakening of the Messiah. The Messianic soul is awakened at a time where it is trapped within a gentile. Being the carrier of the Messianic soul seems sufcient to make this gentile susceptible to the message of the dream, which convinces him to convert to Judaism and to commit to universal tikkun. The universal tikkun, which he decides to perform, is to convert the whole world to Judaism and to reveal the primordial Torah, because knowledge of the primordial Torah can restore the ability of the people to understand the canonical Torah. Universal conversion to Judaism and revelation of the primordial Torah are dened as the aims of the Messianic soul. Revelation of the primordial Torah is within the abilities of a Zaddik haDor, and it is furthermore implicit in the name “Zaddik haDor” that he is able to rectify the entire generation. The Messianic soul is in need of help from a Zaddik haDor. The Zaddik haDor assists the Messianic soul by telling him how to convert the entire world to Judaism, and how to reveal the primordial Torah. The Messianic soul must initiate the pro-

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cess of redemption by countering the obstacles, which were laid out by Samael to make people give up their Messianic hope. However, when the Messianic soul in tale #7 needs help from someone else to understand this, it seems that he, just like the king’s son in tale #5, and despite his intentions to redeem the world, is more or less to be conceived of as a passive symbol. It is the Zaddik haDor (the wise man in tale #7) who is handling the atoning incense, while the Messianic soul does not even know where to begin. The atoning efforts of the Zaddik haDor appear instrumental to changing the behavior of the world and to restoring its belief in Messianism. Restoration of belief in Messianism is described as the means to bring the Messianic soul to actualize its potential as Mashiah ben David, according to tale #7. The existence of the Zaddik haDor has been predestined. Nevertheless, the emergence of such a predestined Zaddik haDor depends rst of all on his recognition of his own divine soul root—see especially tales #1, 11, and 13, rst beggar’s tale—and a recognition of what is evil in this world, cf. tale #6. The Zaddik haDor will have to take the consequence of realizing that divine reections in this world will be replaced by the divine itself, once God is recognized as ruler and that Bittul haYesh is a crucial step in the process of tikkun. He himself must therefore through self-annihilation ascend from this worldly perception to a perception of Ayin as the transcendent realm of reality, cf. tales #1, 3, 6, 11, 12, and 13, because it is God’s wish to be recognized both in Yesh and as Ayin; see especially tale #6. This perception and ascent will grant him access to the primordial Torah, with which he can return to convey this pantheistic and panentheistic message to the world and maybe even be able to express the innite with human means of expression, cf. tale #6, Yiddish version. Mankind will thereby be re-enabled to understand the canonical Torah, if only it is willing to listen to its performative call for repentance, cf. tales #1, 7, and 12.3 Rectication of the sins of mankind is the primary task of a Zaddik haDor; see especially tales #3, 9, 12, and 13. Kabbalah will teach the

3

It seems that the simple one in tale #9 gains access to the primordial Torah, but this character is, according to my reading, an ideal representative of simple faith and not a Zaddik haDor-type. The Zaddik haDor-type is more likely to be represented by the Ba’al Shem in tale #9. Insight into the primordial Torah as a reward to someone who engages in individual tikkun, before he develops to take part in universal tikkun, is only mentioned in tale #9.

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Zaddik haDor to differentiate one thing from another, cf. tales #4 and 11. This ability is required to rectify whatever has been changed to the reverse because of shevirat hakelim. The Zaddik haDor must not be tempted to conceive of things, as they appear to be, cf. tales #1, 6, 7, 11, and 13. The Zaddik haDor must be guided by God’s will as it is described in history and tradition. The Zaddik haDor must bring Israel to actualize its potentiality as Knesset Israel and must restore Shekhinah to her intended position in the serotic system, from where the divine presence can protect and nurture mankind, as explained in tale #11. A Zaddik haDor is in need of elevating human beings to tools as part of his engagement in the process of universal tikkun, and he has the power to do so. First he must attract followers, who will typically come from the young generation, which is more susceptible to change, cf. tales #3, 8, 12, and 13. The Zaddik haDor attracts followers by adjusting to their level and by communicating with them on their terms, only to transform this communication into a revelation of their need of individual tikkun. This revelation will lead them to engage in selfannihilation, which will eventually make them replace their individual will with simplicity of faith. Once they have come to faith, they will be ready to assist the Zaddik haDor in the process of universal tikkun. The followers will do so by engaging in hitbodedut, prayer, song, praise, confession, fasting, self-mortication, and repentance. They will thereby be able to effect the rectication of other souls, cf. tales #2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, 12, and 13; and to establish a bridge to the divine, across which each follower is enabled to return to his divine source. These activities reect their contributions to return everything to the order of existence from before shevirat hakelim. In return the followers are offered a community, in which they are given a pretaste of the world-to-come, as it is explained in detail in tale #12. The Zaddik haDor, not the transcendent aspects of God, is the only one who can redeem all those who have debased the divine qualities. “Irredeemable” sinners will only receive punishment as long as it takes them to recognize their sins and until they repent. Once they have repented, they will be ready for the Zaddik haDor to perform the nal act of redemption for them. He will subsequently replace the stony hearts of these sinners with hearts of esh, with the purpose of making God’s name holy. The redemption of the irredeemable sinners is the nal act in the process of universal tikkun, cf. tales #9 and 12. Concerning the general capability of a Zaddik haDor, he is able to predict and cause divine evil as well as the potential Mashiah ben

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David to be born, cf. tale #5. He is able to penetrate the layers of evil around the divine sparks in this world, cf. tale #6. He can activate the transcendent aspects of God, which have been lying dormant because of this-worldly sin, cf. tale #12. He can awaken the souls in this world through riddles, poems, and songs, which again will cause true deeds of mercy to establish the link between this world and innity to sustain the existence of this world and the innite world, cf. tale #13, third beggar’s tale. When nally the Zaddik haDor has restored the soul to the body of man; has made mankind turn evil to good; has awakened the souls to praise God, to speak words of integrity and engage in prayers; has enhanced the longing in this world for harmony and a return of man to man’s divine origin; has promoted the virtues of faith, fear, humbleness, and truth; and nally has bridged the gap between Yesh and Ayin, then the Zaddik haDor will be able to heal Shekhinah and thereby initiate the nal exodus toward redemption, cf. tale #13. 5.1.6

Messianic expectations

According to the tales, Mashiah ben David may develop from a passive symbol to become perceivable and accessible to humans, when the whole world has converted to Judaism, when the Jewish souls have been gathered and together with the world been rectied, cf. tales #5, 7, and 12. Mashiah ben David is thus the marker of complete redemption and of the Messianic era itself, cf. tales #5, 7, 12, and 13. Mashiah ben David may develop from a gentile, who has carried the Messianic soul all along, but needs the world to adhere to Messianism before he can emerge as Mashiah ben David, cf. tale #7. He may develop from the upper union between Tif ’eret and Shekhinah, caused by the young Hasidic generation cf. tale #8; from a secular Jew who develops into a Zaddik haDor before he can place himself on the throne of Mashiah ben David, cf. tale #11; or from the perfected nation of Israel, cf. tale #13. These options are not mutually exclusive. Certain Messianic expectations are described. Human beings will live in closeness to God, cf. tale #1. The limited ability of mankind to perceive will be replaced by the ability to perceive the innite, cf. tale #6, and, according to its Yiddish version, it will include the human ability to express the innitte. It will include the ability to understand the divine messages in the primordial Torah, cf. tale #7, which indicates a more direct communication between God and mankind. The

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Messianic age is furthermore the kind of creation that God initially wished for, cf. tale #5; and God’s initial wish is to be considered man’s origin, cf “home” as the last word in tale #2. Happiness is the gurative expression of this wish, and whenever true happiness is displayed, it hints at the annihilation of the gap between mankind and God in the Messianic era; see especially tale #13. Only tales #10, 11, and 12 take the listener/reader across the threshold to the Messianic era and describe what it will be like. Tale #10 conveys the information of a common rule of Shekhinah and the actualized Knesset Israel in the Messianic era. Tale #12 conveys the information that the most transcendent aspect of God will be recognized as the actual ruler of the universe. It therefore seems that Shekhinah and Knesset Israel will be in charge of creation. Simultaneously, creation will understand that the transcendent aspect of God is the sole and absolute authority in the universe. All primordial entities will restablish their holiness from before shevirat hakelim, and they will draw upon the primordial insight of the most transcendent aspect of God. The world will be governed according to God’s understanding. God will dwell among mankind. Humans will do nothing but engage in Torah, prayer, repentance, and good deeds. Humans will engage solely in the service of God. The Messianic era will be characterized as a purely spiritual union between God and human beings, where the only difference will be that human beings praise God, while God will receive their praises. Human beings will not act according to their own physical needs because only God’s need for mankind to submit will be recognized, cf. tale #12. A large amount of information is conveyed about the capabilities of the agents engaged in universal tikkun. God is almighty and can choose whatever medium of intervention is appropriate for the situation. Shekhinah, an aspect of God, transforms according to the situation. Divine evil wards off evil and leads it to self-destruction. These three divine agents reect that God can bring about redemption whenever God wants to. Given the present state of the world, it seems that God does not want to. Since redemption is the ideal, the listener/reader thus realizes that the coming of redemption requires that s/he acts in accordance with the information about individual tikkun, if God shall be motivated to bring about redemption. The Messianic soul is only able to wish for redemption and to acquire knowledge about how to achieve it. This leads us to the nal agent, the Zaddik haDor. The tales are replete with information about the Zaddik haDor. Here I shall focus

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on two performative aspects of this information. When the majority of the tales portray the Zaddik haDor as the redeemer, and if this Zaddik haDor actually reects Nahman’s self-conception, Nahman is through the tales calling for any listener/reader to enter his community of Hasidim, who will eventually become assisting zaddikim to the master. This would mean that there is an autobiographical aspect, which, however, cf. my arguments against Dan, has didactical consequences, since Nahman would be in need of the listener/reader to respond to this performtive call. If the portrayed Zaddikey haDor do not reect Nahman, but redeemers, whom Nahman hoped for, the information about them nevertheless constitutes a performative call to the listener/reader to engage in individual tikkun, hoping that this engagement will eventually bring forth those redeeming types who can effect universal tikkun for the listener/reader as well as for Nahman.

5.2

Concluding Remarks

This book represents the rst comprehensive scholarly work on the whole selection of tales in Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav’s Sippurey Ma’asiyot. It reects the recognition that the preponderant part of these tales derives its meaning through the interaction with external sign systems. Accordingly, I have chosen an intertextual approach. Markers of this intertextuality often take the form of imagery with implicit references to biblical, rabbinical, and mystical literature, particularly to Sefer haZohar. These references serve a function on multiple levels. By drawing upon the canonical aspect of Jewish scriptures in the tales, the listener/reader is likely to include Nahman, his theology and practical instructions within the boundaries of what Jewish tradition considers proper religious doctrines and forms of practice. In this way the authority of the canonical writings becomes a legitimizing factor in Nahman’s attempt to transform Judaism from within. The intertextual references also create a tensive dialogue between various established trends in Judaism and the tales. The effect of the tensive dialogue is similar to the effect of the informative and performative impact of split references in gurative language. Figurative language adds a surplus of meaning and offers a new understanding of reality, which is the informative function of gurative language. Its performative function is to make the listener/ reader appropriate this information and act accordingly. If the tales

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convince the listener/reader to such appropriation, Nahman succeeds in causing a religious revolution by means of tales. By focusing on the informative and performative function of the tales, I position myself closer to the didactical stand within scholarship on Nahman than to the autobiographical stand. In concluding I shall reiterate why. The theology of the tales can be shown to serve the overt purpose of legitimizing every call imbedded in the tales for a change in the world-view and the behavior of the listener/reader. No listener/reader who has come to accept the theological description of God, the mythical historiography and its consequences, the present state of the world, the possibility of changing it through individual and universal tikkun, and the Messianic expectations, can ignore the overt encouragement to engage in individual tikkun by turning to those who can effect universal tikkun. The tales address anyone who is prepared to listen to and accept the conveyed understanding of reality. Nahman’s followers, Hasidim in general, traditional Jews, gentiles, and seculars are addressed. The universal address is urgent because of the present state of the world and disseminates the following: God is sovereign master of the universe. Man has to recognize his/her dependency on God, convert to Judaism, replace human perception with simplicity of faith, submit the body to the soul, turn to the Zaddik haDor, repent, long for redemption, relate minimally to this world, live according to Torah and the commandments, confront evil, and elevate the divine sparks within oneself. Attaching hope to the redeeming agents—God, Shekhinah, evil, the Messiah, and the Zaddik haDor and his community—and assisting them in the process of redemption are presented as the sole alternative to loneliness, isolation, dissatisfaction, restlessness, misery, sadness, depression, doubt and social decline, afiction, punishment, death, and universal destruction. Even from the most selsh point of view the tales provide every reason to obey the performative call of the tales. One can choose to focus on the autobiographical aspect of the tales, which is an absolutely legitimate purpose. Even I cannot say that I have not focused on such aspects. By considering Nahman’s discursive turn to telling tales as his revolutionary weapon in pursuit of redemption, I am making a biographical claim, as I am when I point out when Nahman positions himself as having superceded his precursors, alias the four other Zaddikey haDor, or when I claim that the tales aspire to be Scripture through Nahman’s mystical expositions of the primordial

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Torah. But despite such biographical aspects, one cannot exclude the didactical/performative aspect of the tales as their central characteristic. The tales provide guidance to anyone who wants to approach God and be a follower of Nahman’s theology. The follower’s approach to God is described as a dialectical process of listening to Nahman’s oscillating recounts of what the world is, according to God, and what reality is, according to the follower, until the follower is convinced that man’s perception of reality falls short of protecting the follower and of securing him the benets that God is prepared to provide. Listening to the tales and acting according to the guidance imbedded in these tales is a prerequisite for individual as well as universal redemption and for crossing the threshold to the Messianic age.

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INDEX

Aaron Leib Tziegelman 92 n. 93 Aaron of Karlin 33 n. 29 Abraham Gershon Kutover 298 Abraham of Kalisk 30 n. 17, 33 n. 29, 34–35, 37, 45 n. 71 Abraham Peterberger 30, 30 n. 13, 52 n. 100 Adam Kadmon 107, 130, 219 Addressee 11, 18 Akiva 2, 390, 454 Alexander Susskind haKohen 41 n. 54 Alim LeTerufah 92 n. 93, 282 n. 404 Allegory/ies 3, 10, 75, 80, 141 n. 129, 295 n. 434, 417, 468, 548, 575 n. 911 Alternative 3, 10, 13, 19, 74, 148, 181, 216, 235, 356, 429, 540, 624, 635 Altmann, Alexander 87 n. 76, 229 n. 295 Ambivalence 11–12, 18, 228, 589 Amulet 33, 239, 345–346 n. 534, 347, 349, 349 n. 540 Angel 129 n. 107, 187, 200 n. 245, 215, 217, 219, 231, 257, 286, 297, 332 n. 516, 393 n. 635, 434, 434 n. 701, 438, 479, 481, 485, 487, 609, 633–634 Anxiety 2, 14–15 Apocrypha 59, 228 n. 295 Apophrades 16, 17 n. 21 Appropriate (vb.) 23, 39, 54 n. 104, 72, 108, 158, 293, 340, 382–383, 396, 479, 505, 633, 634 Appropriation 22–23, 25, 635 Aryeh Leib of Shpola 33, 35–37, 37 n. 40, 38, 38 n. 41, 43, 51, 51 n. 93, 79, 99, 282–283, 299, 305, 305 n. 455 Asaf, David ( ) 638 Ascetic 29, 118–119, 120 n. 87 Asceticism 100 n. 19, 118 Ashkenazic 59 Askesis 16 Astrologer 216, 219 n. 278, 222–224, 229 n. 295, 234 Astrological 227 Astrology 187 n. 223, 215, 228, 228–229 n. 295

Atone 31, 49–50, 119, 283, 297 Atonement 39, 249 n. 343, 297, 436 n. 711 Author 4, 9–10, 10 n. 4, 12–13, 18, 21, 23, 54, 56, 106, 343, 402, Authority 2, 24–25, 34 n. 11, 104, 154, 273, 286, 333, 339, 406, 426, 447, 467, 472, 620, 624, 633–634 Authorization, 130, 164, 533 Authorize 25, 164, 356, 466, 535, 538 Autobiographical 4, 10, 62, 71, 73–74, 80, 83, 219, 261, 305, 305 n. 456, 469, 534 n. 836, 634–635 Autobiography 62, 80, 92 n. 93, 99 Avodah baGashmiyut 31 Avraham ben Nahman of Tulchin 92 n. 93, 288 n. 423, 562 n. 888 Ayin 47, 47 n. 79, 48, 86, 131, 134 n. 118, 137, 150 n. 156, 264, 270, 275, 277, 277 n. 396, 278–279, 301, 327, 422, 446, 505, 574, 574 n. 910, 575, 575 n. 911, 576, 619, 630, 632 Azazel 319, 321, 347, 349–350, 354, 356 Baxal Shem Tov 2, 27, 29, 31 n. 22, 32–33, 33 n. 27, 35, 35 n. 32, 38, 43–44, 48, 48 n. 81, 50, 58 n. 116, 59–60, 85, 98, 143, 183, 239, 246, 293, 298–299, 302, 305, 305 n. 456, 345–346 n. 534, 388, 391, 416, 507 n. 810, 558, 558 n. 880 Bakhtin, Mikhail 2, 11–13 Band, Arnold J. ix, 5, 5 n. 9, 6, 80, 84–85, 85 n. 72, 86–87, 101, 102, 107, 123, 128, 135–136, 141, 176, 178–179, 213, 215–218, 226, 230, 238–240, 260–261, 278–280, 282, 285, 297, 303–305, 317, 321–322, 326, 357, 360, 379–380, 410, 417, 469, 500, 549–550, 557, 562, 612, 614 Barthes, Roland 4, 9–10, 10 n. 4, 56 Barukh of Medzhibozh 27, 33–34, 34 n. 32, 35, 37, 43 Behavior 54, 60, 83, 87, 108–109, 111, 116, 126–127, 140–141, 152–153, 163, 169, 171–173, 193,

644

index

241, 252, 255, 261, 269, 284, 286, 300–301, 315, 350, 359, 370, 373, 397–398, 399, 402, 426, 464, 477–478, 485, 501, 518, 520, 536, 582, 599, 620–621, 630, 635 Belief 24–25, 49, 101, 235, 302, 321, 343–344, 346, 346 n. 535, 348–349, 353 n. 552, 426, 454 n. 736, 456, 479, 486, 490, 518, 526, 528, 630 Berger, Abraham 74, 74 n. 33, 75, 546 BeShT 27, 27 n. 1, 31, 33, 50, 59, 246 n. 337, 298–299, 307 n. 460, 346 n. 534 Beshtian 33, 33 n. 27, 48, 298 Bible 24 n. 41, 25 n. 44, 28, 106, 106 n. 41, 118, 151, 168, 202–203, 206, 254–255, 255 n. 352, 338, 350 n. 542, 431, 435, 492 n. 783 Biblical 2, 23, 53, 61, 105 n. 37, 116, 118–119, 142–143, 202, 225, 226 n. 288, 228 n. 295, 254, 293, 341, 370–371, 373, 399 n. 642, 435–436, 443, 551–552, 557, 583, 611, 634 Binah 135, 144, 151, 244, 262–263, 496–497, 500 n. 801, 508 n. 813, 514, 539, 567, 621 Biographic 62 Biographical 2, 4, 56, 74, 88–90, 102–103, 128, 142–143, 240, 305 n. 458, 553, 590 n. 932, 635–636 Biography 10, 69, 75, 84, 87, 89, 92 n. 93 Bittul haYesh 41, 46, 446, 446 n. 724, 461, 540, 630 Blessing 33, 44, 59, 165–166, 195–196 n. 235, 257, 286, 290, 349, 370–371, 375, 407, 463 n. 744, 509, 545, 551, 563, 563 nn. 893–894, 566–570, 573, 576, 583, 591, 598, 605, 611–612, 614–615 Bloom, Harold 2, 2 n. 3, 4, 13–17, 48, 50, 55 Bratslav 1, 3 n. 4, 5 nn. 7, 9, 23 n. 39, 27, 27 n. 2, 28–29, 30 n. 17, 32 n. 24, 36, 37–38 n. 40, 40–41, 42 n. 58, 43–45, 45 n. 70, 45 n. 72, 47, 51, 51 n. 95, 58 n. 48, 62, 63 n. 142, 64 n. 146, 69, 71, 73, 73 n. 28, 75, 77, 80–81, 84, 87, 87 n. 74, 88, 91–92, 165, 166 n. 190, 219 n. 276, 246, 278, 282–283, 283 n. 407, 285, 352, 355–356, 360, 362, 417, 463 n. 744, 475, 475 n. 759, 547, 550, 550 n. 862, 562, 565, 603, 634

Bratslav Hasidism 29, 32 n. 24, 38 n. 40, 40–41, 42 n. 58, 73, 73 n. 28, 75, 77, 88, 355–356, 547 Bratslaver 3, 3 n. 4, 5, 28, 59 n. 122, 91–92, 92 n. 93, 101 n. 22, 215 n. 263, 288 n. 423, 295 n. 434, 319, 352, 416 n. 666, 459, 460 n. 743 Breslov Research Institute 5, 5 n. 10, 28 n. 4, 49 n. 86, 242 n. 322 Brody 34 n. 30, 283 n. 407 Buber, Martin 47 n. 78, 67, 67 n. 1, 68, 79, 86 Canon 23–24, 592 Canonical 2, 23, 23 n. 39, 24, 24 nn. 41–42, 57 n. 114, 104, 128, 300–302, 341, 343, 459, 526, 541, 621, 624, 629–630, 634 Carnival 12–13 Chaikel, R. 30 Chastity 50, 154, 395 Childlessness 138, 146–147, 190, 238, 240–242, 244, 303, 306, 355, 363, 365, 373, 406, 543 n. 847 Christian 5 n. 8, 21 n. 32, 25, 72, 322 n. 495, 624 Christianity 215, 322 n. 495 Chronological 176, 226 n. 290 Chronology 28 n. 4, 71, 74 Clinamen 15–16, 17 n. 21, 48 Close reading 4–6, 84 n. 66, 416 n. 666 Cognition 7–8 Cognitive 7–9, 47 Comic 142, 169 Comical 12, 169 Commentary/ies 3, 5, 33 n. 26, 84–85, 87, 107 n. 44, 92 n. 93, 174, 215 n. 263, 218–219, 229 n. 295, 230, 250, 261 n. 366, 288 n. 423, 317 n. 477, 319, 327, 360, 360 n. 564, 410 n. 650, 416 n. 666, 417, 549, 552, 603 Confess 39, 195, 313, 475 Confession 28–30, 38, 39 n. 47, 40, 472, 475–476, 476 n. 762, 540, 625 n. 2, 631 Conne 61, 65, 72, 134, 137, 144, 158, 160, 165, 247, 259, 273, 309, 311, 313, 315, 368, 383–84, 407–408, 560, 622, 628 Connement 258, 310–311, 622 Contemplation 63, 136, 626

index Contemplative mysticism 40, 40 n. 48, 41–43, 43 n. 62, 71, 71 n. 19 Context 1, 3–4, 4 n. 5, 5, 11–13, 18, 25, 36, 53–54, 58, 69, 74, 77, 80, 84, 87–89, 98–99, 101, 104 n. 35, 113, 118, 142 n. 133, 147, 181–182, 226 n. 288, 254, 257, 285, 296, 321, 354 n. 555, 368, 415, 422, 467, 508, 557, 566, 613, 624 Controversy 30, 33–34, 34 n. 31, 35, 37–38, 43, 48, 51 n. 93, 54, 86, 283, 283 n. 409, 299 Court 32, 32 n. 26, 33, 33 nn. 27, 29, 35 n. 32, 43, 45, 51, 272, 288, 293, 295, 298, 304, 343, 382–383, 388, 465–466, 468–471, 497–500, 508, 508 n. 813, 513, 521, 524–527, 529–531, 534, 537 Creation 3, 44, 62, 65, 72, 76–77, 80, 108, 130, 146, 151, 154, 157, 171–172, 226 n. 288, 262 n. 367, 453, 459–460, 468, 473–474, 484, 490–492, 492 n. 783, 493–494, 500, 500 n. 801, 503, 505–506, 519, 527, 541, 547, 551–552, 557 nn. 878–879, 559, 562–563, 567, 569, 574, 575 n. 911, 584, 590 n. 932, 601, 605 n. 951, 616, 619–622, 627, 633 Cunz, Martin 32, 32 n. 24, 64–65, 123–124, 128, 552–553, 612 Cure 33, 176, 178, 189–193, 197–198, 206, 209–211, 217, 239, 242, 253–254, 323, 335–336, 346, 546, 564, 606–608, 611 n. 955 Custos liminis 107, 129–130, 133–134, 452 n. 734 Daemonization 16 Dan, Joseph ( ) 3–4, 4 n. 5, 5, 40 n. 48, 57–58, 58 n. 115, 59, 59 n. 122, 61–62, 62 n. 141, 76–86, 98–99, 107, 143, 320, 415–416, 547–549, 557, 562, 612–614, 634 Dance 291, 549–550, 613 Dancing 44, 290–293, 613 Death 3 n. 4, 4, 10, 14, 17–18, 32–33, 44, 50–52, 64, 70, 76, 91, 92 n. 93, 101 n. 22, 139, 174, 176, 178, 180, 180 n. 208, 194–196, 203, 205, 205 n. 252, 208–209, 214, 220, 220 n. 278, 222–223, 227, 236–237, 246–247, 250–251, 255–256, 270, 283, 289, 301, 304–305, 311–314, 316, 325 n. 507, 336, 370, 376–377,

645

381, 390, 393–394, 396, 408, 411, 454, 456, 501, 506, 550 n. 862, 553, 615, 623, 626, 635 Demon 1, 98, 111, 119, 130 n. 110, 176–179, 189, 191, 196, 196 n. 235, 197–199, 199 nn. 241–242, 200–201, 203–205, 205 n. 252, 206–207, 207 n. 254, 208–210, 210 n. 257, 211–214, 285 n. 418, 291, 312 n. 469, 319–320, 349 n. 540, 351, 355, 435–436, 439, 613 n. 963 Demonic 103 n. 32, 142 n. 133, 179, 198–199, 239, 304, 312–313, 396 n. 640, 425, 439, 439 n. 713, 454, 454 n. 736 Depression 548, 559, 616, 618, 623–625, 635 Deutsch, Nathaniel 45, 45 n. 72, 145, 373 Devekut 30–31, 41, 47–48, 97, 118, 118 n. 80, 209, 209 n. 256 Devil 1, 41, 103, 319, 321, 324, 348–349, 349 n. 539, 350, 350 n. 543, 351, 354–356 Diachronic 8, 11, 14, 19, 72 Dialectical 16–17, 21, 34, 42, 44, 47, 71, 90, 264 n. 374, 275, 555, 558, 588, 591, 625, 636 Dialectics 18, 72, 391, 589 Dialogic language 2, 11, 13, 18, 21, 23 Dialogue 2, 10–13, 16–17, 21, 42, 96, 162, 176, 184, 308, 310, 315–316, 435, 465, 517, 634 Dialoguing 11, 17 Didactic 75, 79, 83, 86 Didactical 4, 19, 62, 62 n. 141, 64, 74, 79, 81, 83, 99, 169, 547, 562, 564, 592, 617, 634–636 Dilthey, Wilhelm 68 Din 39, 107, 113, 145, 145 n. 153, 163, 163 n. 184, 164, 181, 196, 262, 469, 478, 486, 496–497, 500 n. 801, 537, 541, 567, 627–628 Disciple 28, 45, 45 n. 70, 46, 60, 68, 104, 138 n. 123, 143, 149–150, 174 n. 198, 215 n. 263, 238 n. 307, 250, 280, 282, 285, 352, 470, 475, 476 n. 762, 543 n. 844, 603 Discourse 3, 7–9, 13, 18–19, 21–23, 25, 53–54, 83, 117, 130, 267, 338 Discursive 1, 70, 88, 315–316, 338, 635 Disguise 219, 323, 348, 388, 403, 408,

646

index

418–419, 464, 466, 472, 484, 522, 554, 583 Doctor 140, 166–167, 169, 197, 209–210, 238–239, 241–242, 242 n. 322, 253–254, 256, 283 n. 407, 318, 329, 330, 334, 344, 346, 351 n. 546 Dov Baer 31 n. 21, 32, 32 n. 26, 33, 33 n. 29, 34, 35 n. 32, 40, 527 n. 831 Dov of Cheryn 305 Dubno 283 Ecstasy 41 Eden 112, 120, 143, 332, 381 n. 623, 454, 454 n. 736, 458 n. 739, 513, 551, 557 n. 878, 569 Edenic 112, 120, 137, 381–382, 385, 386, 401, 408, 569, 580, 580 n. 917, 612, 614 Elimelekh of Lizhensk 527 n. 831 Elior, Rachel (  ) ix, 34–35, 35 n. 33, 36, 68 n. 3, 124 n. 98, 346 n. 534 Elstein, Yoav (  ) 64, 75, 75 n. 40, 76, 96, 105, 130 En Sof 39, 72, 80, 107, 130, 264, 547, 575 n. 911, 619 Enigma 86 Enigmatic 85–86, 130, 261 n. 366, 370, 384, 438, 464, 489, 492, 527, 549 n. 861, 570 Enlightenment 49, 324, 447 n. 725, 547, 562 Epic language 12 Epos 12–13 Eschatological 285, 554 Esoteric 35, 53, 57, 77, 81, 84, 454, 551 Ethical 4, 61, 79, 80–81 Ethics 46, 61, 79, 83, 482, 486 Evil 1, 40–41, 44, 47–48, 50, 58–59, 76, 83, 83 n. 64, 97, 97 n. 3, 98–100, 100 n. 19, 103, 103 n. 32, 105, 108–109, 111–112, 112 n. 56, 113–114, 114 nn. 68–69, 115–117, 119, 121, 130 n. 110, 134, 136, 141, 144, 152, 154, 157, 159–160, 163–164, 164 n. 185, 165, 165 n. 186, 166, 169, 171, 173, 183, 196 n. 235, 198, 198 n. 239, 199, 199 n. 240, 200, 202–203, 205, 205 n. 252, 206–207, 210, 212–215, 228, 228 n. 294, 239–241, 241 n. 319, 252–253, 255, 258–259, 265 n. 376,

267–268, 271–274, 278–279, 283, 283 n. 409, 285, 285 n. 418, 289, 291, 294–295, 297–302, 304, 312 n. 469, 313, 315–316, 319, 321, 324, 326, 341 n. 531, 348–350, 350 nn. 542, 544, 351–356, 361, 368, 368 n. 592, 369, 381–383, 393–394, 394 n. 637, 396, 401, 407–408, 414–415, 418, 418 n. 674, 420 n. 679, 421–425, 427, 431 n. 696, 436 n. 709, 442, 446 n. 724, 454 n. 736, 460–461, 468, 468 n. 751, 469–470, 477, 481–482, 499–500, 500 n. 801, 513, 516, 518–520, 528, 532, 549 n. 861, 551, 565–566, 582–583, 599, 609–611, 611 n. 955, 614, 617, 620–621, 623–633, 635 Exegesis 55, 61, 91 Exile 39, 49, 49 n. 86, 64, 76, 98, 100–103, 108, 117, 123–124, 136, 141–142, 145, 151, 154, 156, 158, 161–162, 170–173, 179, 212, 217, 219, 221 n. 280, 222, 229 n. 295, 235, 237, 250, 283, 296, 300, 312–314, 358–359, 361, 365, 367, 367 nn. 590–591, 368, 371, 375 n. 612, 377–378, 380–381, 381 n. 624, 385, 389, 393, 393 n. 635, 397, 397 n. 641, 398–400, 402–403, 407–408, 411, 414, 423, 426, 426 n. 688, 427–430, 435, 435 n. 704, 442, 460, 471, 514, 516, 530, 541, 551, 553, 596 n. 935, 610, 621–624 Fairy tale 1, 1 n. 1, 58, 65, 69, 75, 129, 220, 379, 402 n. 644, 405, 438 n. 712 Faith 31–32, 35–36, 40, 40 n. 48, 41, 41 n. 54, 42, 48, 52, 59, 63, 71, 71 nn. 19, 22, 72–73, 73 n. 27, 74, 84, 87, 89, 93, 97, 100–101, 112–113, 128, 140, 152, 156, 169, 177–179, 186, 188–190, 193–196, 198–199, 199 n. 242, 201, 203, 205–207, 207 n. 254, 208–210, 212–214, 217–218, 220, 220 n. 278, 221, 224, 229 n. 295, 235–237, 248 n. 341, 262 n. 367, 268 n. 382, 296, 302, 308, 308 n. 463, 311 n. 466, 319–320, 322, 322 n. 496, 323, 323 n. 501, 324, 327, 332–333, 337, 347, 349, 353 n. 552, 354 n. 555, 355–356, 373, 384, 386, 409, 428, 463, 479, 485, 519, 547–548, 550, 555, 558–559,

index 560 n. 887, 562, 565, 574 n. 908, 588, 591, 600, 603–604, 604 n. 944, 605, 613, 613 n. 963, 614, 616–617, 621, 625, 625 n. 2, 626–627, 630 n. 3, 631–632, 635 Fast 29–31, 50, 96, 115, 117, 119, 329 Fasting 50, 118–119, 472–473, 475–476, 540, 631 Faust 322, 322 n. 495 Fear 34 n. 30, 35, 48, 109, 114, 114 n. 68, 125, 162, 167, 169, 184, 193, 196, 202, 204, 205 n. 252, 206–207, 216–218, 223–224, 230–232, 236, 241, 268 n. 382, 269, 276–277, 290, 308–309, 319, 324, 326, 337, 343, 347–348, 350, 352 n. 551, 353, 362 n. 581, 363, 365–366, 368, 372, 375, 378–379, 384, 393, 395–396, 400, 402, 405, 414 n. 657, 426–427, 431–433, 436, 438, 440, 443, 454, 464, 478, 481–483, 485–486, 489, 499, 504, 509–510, 518, 533, 537–538, 540, 556, 567, 570, 588, 590, 600, 603–604, 604 n. 948, 605, 607, 609, 617, 625, 627, 632 Female 31 n. 21, 107, 109, 116, 144, 146, 151, 157, 160, 172, 250–252, 370–371, 374, 382, 396, 420 n. 679, 546, 568, 593–597 Feminine 145, 145 n. 153, 151, 165, 244, 296, 424 Femininity 623, 627 Figurative language ix, 2, 5, 9, 22–23, 176, 634 Folklore 58 Folktale 58, 305 Follower 3, 3 n. 4, 21, 23, 28, 30, 30 n. 17, 31 n. 21, 32 n. 26, 33, 33 n. 29, 34, 35 n. 32, 37–39, 39 n. 47, 45, 45 nn. 70–71, 46–47, 49–51, 63, 67–68, 70, 75–76, 78, 83–84, 90–91, 134, 287, 299, 416, 460 n. 743, 464, 468, 474–476, 476 n. 762, 478–479, 482–484, 488, 513, 530, 535, 540, 602 n. 939, 603, 625–626, 631, 635–636 Frank, Jacob 48 Frankist 37–38 n. 40, 50 Freud, Sigmund 13–14, 18 Freudian 168, 283–284 Fusion of horizons 17, 22–23 Gadamer, Hans-Georg

22

647

Gadamerian 17 Gadlut 277–279 Gap 299, 516, 588, 591, 596–597, 602, 604 n. 944, 617–618, 632–633 Garments 51–53, 257, 318, 412, 444, 447 Gedulah 263, 275 n. 393 Gehenna 193–194, 210, 351 n. 546 Gehinnom 351–352, 352 n. 549 Gender 92 n. 95, 145, 145 n. 150, 149, 165, 166 n. 190, 168, 172, 381 Genette, Gerard 20, 20 n. 30 Genre 1, 8, 58, 69, 216, 338, 402 n. 644 Gentile 100, 141, 152 n. 162, 205 n. 252, 235, 237, 282, 285 n. 416, 286–289, 294–295, 298–302, 344–346, 347 n. 537, 354, 361–362, 362 n. 581, 365, 375 n. 613, 398–399 n. 642, 503, 507, 513–514, 615, 625, 629, 632, 635 Gevurah 103, 107, 163, 163 n. 184, 226 n. 288, 262, 486, 486 n. 777 Gilgul 62, 80 Golem 215, 215 n. 262, 219, 227–228, 228 n. 292 Gonta Massacres, the 52 Govrin, Michal 83, 83 n. 61 Grave 29, 32, 35, 52, 178, 195–196, 209, 501, 533, 541, 621, 624, 627 Green, Arthur ix, 27, 27 n. 2, 28–32, 34–38, 43–46, 46 n. 75, 49–50, 53 n. 104, 55, 62, 62 n. 141, 63–64, 69–70, 87–91, 142–143, 150, 212, 260–262, 276, 282–283, 299, 317, 322, 324, 550, 555, 588–589, 601, 603–605 Gries, Zexev 67, 67 n. 1, 68 n. 3 Grimm, Brothers 58 Grözinger, Karl Erich 60, 60 n. 123, 414 n. 657 Gulf 41, 588, 591, 597 Habad 34, 36, 40, 87 Haggadah 324, 326–327, 327 n. 512 Halakhah 54 Halakhic 54, 482 n. 774 Handicap 174, 182, 185, 191, 544, 553, 563, 586, 601, 612, 616 Happiness 115, 157, 167, 172, 290–291, 318, 334–335, 337, 340, 348, 355, 369, 404–405, 466, 494, 503, 507, 513, 521, 523, 525, 527–531, 540, 543–547, 549, 551, 555–557, 557 nn. 877–879, 558–559,

648

index

562, 565–567, 570–572, 576, 578, 583, 586, 591, 593–594, 596–598, 601, 605, 608, 611, 613 n. 963, 614, 616–618, 626, 633 Hasidic 1, 4 n. 5, 13, 27, 27 n. 1, 28, 30, 30 n. 17, 31–33, 33 n. 26, 34–37, 37 n. 38, 40 n. 48, 42 n. 61, 45, 48, 53, 59–60, 68–69, 76, 79, 83, 85–86, 88, 102, 118, 129, 134, 147, 150 n. 156, 196, 209 n. 256, 224, 262, 275, 287, 316, 332, 332 n. 495, 345 n. 534, 416, 470, 535, 557, 565, 576, 598, 616, 632 Hasidism ix, 1, 1 n. 27, 2–3, 27, 29, 32, 32 n. 24, 33, 33 nn. 26–27, 34, 34 nn. 30–31, 35, 35 n. 33, 36, 38, 38 n. 40, 39 n. 46, 40, 40 n. 48, 41, 41 n. 54, 42, 42 nn. 58, 61, 44 n. 68, 45 n. 71, 47–48, 54, 58 n. 119, 62 n. 140, 67–68, 68 n. 3, 69–71, 73, 73 n. 28, 74, 74 n. 32, 75, 77, 84, 88, 104 n. 35, 114 n. 68, 118, 218, 243, 283 n. 409, 296, 303–305, 306 n. 459, 307 n. 460, 308, 316, 355–356, 441, 446, 469, 507, 525, 547, 559, 564 n. 895, 565, 602 n. 939, 604, 615, 623–624 Hasidism of faith 41, 41 n. 54, 42, 71, 84, 604 Hayyey MoHaRaN 3 n. 4, 92 n. 93, 112 n. 58, 113 nn. 61–62, 152 nn. 164–165, 218 n. 275, 224 n. 284, 242 n. 322, 280 n. 398, 285 nn. 415–416, 303 n. 450, 357 n. 559, 410 n. 649, 463 n. 744, 475 n. 759, 563 n. 892 Hayyim Haykl of Amdur 30 n. 17 Healed 174, 187, 191, 193, 209, 239, 253, 255–258, 345 n. 534, 474, 608, 610, 612 Healing 33, 187, 190, 196, 209, 213 n. 259, 239, 254–256, 258, 270, 278–279, 336, 346, 354–355 n. 534, 610–611, 617 Heidegger, Martin 71 Heresy 50, 54, 141, 305, 322, 322 n. 496, 324, 353 n. 552, 416, 467, 547, 549 n. 861, 556, 559, 562 Hesed 39, 99, 226 n. 288, 263, 478, 488, 497, 537, 541, 567, 583, 627–628 Hidush 57, 61 High Priest 247, 519–520 n. 826 Historic 64, 579–580 Historicity 23

Historiography 62, 80, 619–620, 622, 635 History 10, 23–24, 34 n. 30, 55, 58 n. 119, 68 n. 5, 69, 72 n. 25, 74 n. 33, 77, 88–89, 101, 103, 154, 220, 224 n. 284, 235, 256, 284, 364 n. 585, 371, 374, 390, 402 n. 644, 418, 436, 453, 456, 461, 465, 468, 492, 501, 526, 574, 631 Hitbodedut 28–29, 44–45, 45 n. 70, 68 n. 7, 113, 118, 152, 473, 476, 540, 631 Hod 107, 226 n. 288, 498, 568–569 Hokhmah 28, 135, 144, 151, 163, 244, 246, 326, 496–497 Hokhmah UxTevunah 288 n. 423, 562, 562 n. 888 Holiness 44, 178, 208–209, 211, 417, 469, 534, 541, 551, 564, 633 Holy Land 31–32, 34, 106, 117, 255, 375 n. 612, 410 n. 649, 553 Homily/ies 1–3, 30, 36, 45, 52, 52 n. 100, 53–56, 62, 67 n. 2, 69, 70 n. 15, 81, 88–89, 112 n. 58, 149, 186, 188 n. 225, 545, 545 n. 849, 546, 548, 571–573, 576, 584, 586, 592, 594, 598 Honor ix, 74 n. 33, 160, 163, 221, 256, 379, 412, 444, 447, 452, 458, 466, 480, 482, 501–502, 505, 505 n. 805, 508, 529, 531, 540, 555–556, 558–559, 566–568, 571, 583 Horodezsky, Samuel Abba 58 n. 119, 69, 79 House of David 27 Hoyf 287 Human perception 47–48, 56 n. 79, 72, 279, 505, 559, 560, 562, 603, 604 n. 945, 605, 616–617, 619–620, 622, 625, 635 Humble 86, 260, 263–266, 268, 275, 277–278 284, 463, 504, 554, 600, 603–605, 617, 632 Humility 39, 51 n. 93, 574 n. 908 Huss, Boaz 23 n. 39, 25 Idel, Moshe 39 n. 46, 45 n. 71, 47 n. 78, 134 n. 117, 187 n. 223, 229 n. 297, 308 n. 464, 346 n. 534, 422 n. 681 Idol 117, 225, 227–228, 470–471, 480, 482, 484, 499, 519, 537 Idolatry 219, 464, 467–468, 477, 481, 492, 513–514, 517, 540

index Illness 69, 148, 176, 189–190, 318, 337, 543 n. 844, 590 n. 932 Imagery 2, 46, 57, 80–82, 110–111, 116, 120, 125, 130 n. 109, 149, 152, 168, 171, 176, 190, 216, 218, 226, 258–259, 277 n. 396, 287, 353 n. 552, 356, 367, 370, 386, 394, 431 n. 697, 514, 515 n. 819, 516, 530, 562, 634 Imagination 8, 12 n. 7, 54–55, 57, 63 n. 142, 64, 67, 70, 75, 123, 331–333, 519 n. 332, 549, 605, 605 n. 953 Imaginative faculty 53, 53 n. 104, 54, 57, 63, 63 n. 143, 70, 333, 356, 622, 626 Immanence 43, 43 n. 62, 48, 107 n. 43, 133, 554, 615, 620 Immanent 31 n. 21, 47 n. 79, 48, 128, 133–134, 151, 154, 157, 261, 270, 278–279, 301, 307, 333, 355, 548, 551, 564, 623 Impurity 40, 50, 106, 109, 111, 136, 240, 254–257, 621 Innite 47–48, 55, 58 n. 119, 63, 108, 133, 135, 138 n. 124, 277, 279, 319, 463 n. 745, 493 n. 784, 516, 531, 534, 559, 562, 567, 575, 575 nn. 911, 914, 576, 588, 591, 604, 610, 616–617, 619, 621–622, 630, 632 Innity 39, 47, 57, 113, 152, 263–264, 278–279, 513, 574–576, 588, 591, 596, 602–604, 604 n. 945, 605, 605 n. 951, 617, 619, 620–621, 632 Inuence 2, 2 n. 3, 3, 8, 14–16, 17 n. 21, 28, 28 n. 6, 32, 33, 33 n. 27, 42, 49, 54 n. 104, 56, 62 n. 140, 68 n. 7, 70 n. 17, 71 n. 19, 72, 81, 84, 89, 104, 145, 153, 162, 177, 202, 229 n. 295, 236, 269, 293 n. 432, 298 n. 445, 341 n. 531, 350 n. 544, 377, 401, 410 n. 649, 418, 420, 423, 446 n. 723, 469, 472, 489, 547, 557, 581, 595 n. 935, 621, 627 Informative 2, 4, 6, 23, 55, 171, 619, 634–635 Injustice 106, 136, 398, 408, 426–428, 621 Intersect 11, 56, 370–371, 397, 443, 514, 592, 597, 605 Intersection 11, 18, 249, 394, 570 Intertext 76, 112 n. 56, 118 n. 77, 123–124, 175, 187 n. 224, 188, 193, 218, 222 n. 281, 225, 249–250, 266, 268–270, 284, 290, 326–327, 332, 353–354, 397, 436, 513, 536, 537

649

n. 843, 565 n. 899, 566, 570, 573, 576, 583, 587 n. 926, 590–592, 598, 612, 615 Intertextual 23–24, 54, 92, 108, 120, 191, 213, 232, 256, 279, 291, 293, 299, 344, 367, 375, 394, 418, 469, 482 n. 774, 576, 621 n. 1, 634 Intertextuality 1, 9, 11, 17, 20, 20 nn. 30–31, 24, 117, 182, 634 Intrapoetic 16 Intratext 175, 615 Intratextual 559, 579, 581, 595 Islam 286 Jester 33, 265, 280–281, 284, 286 Jew 78, 102, 152, 217, 219, 221–222, 230, 236–237, 247, 285 n. 416, 295, 304, 315, 326 n. 510, 329, 401, 499, 615, 624, 632 Jewish 2, 5, 5 n. 7, 13, 23, 23 n. 39, 24, 25 n. 44, 27 n. 2, 28, 30 n. 17, 31 n. 21, 34 n. 30, 38 n. 40, 40 n. 48, 43, 45 n. 70, 49, 51 n. 93, 53, 57–58, 61, 62 nn. 140–141, 65, 68, 68 nn. 3, 5, 73 n. 28, 74 n. 33, 75, 85 n. 72, 89, 91, 100, 107 n. 44, 108, 145–147, 160, 166 n. 190, 181–182, 187 n. 223, 188, 193, 210, 215, 215 n. 262, 216–218, 218 n. 275, 220–222, 224, 224 n. 285, 227–228, 228 n. 294, 232–233, 235, 236 n. 241, 237, 240, 245, 261, 283, 298, 306, 306 nn. 459–460, 313, 320–321, 325, 325 n. 507, 326, 326 n. 510, 327–328, 332, 336, 338, 349 n. 540, 350, 354, 355–356, 360, 362 n. 581, 364 n. 585, 365, 367 n. 590, 368, 371, 390, 394, 420, 422, 447 n. 725, 460 n. 743, 496, 515 n. 819, 526, 550–551, 558, 570, 624–625, 632, 634 Joke 176–177, 197–198, 198 n. 239, 199, 203–204, 261, 264–265, 265 n. 376, 270–273, 286, 288, 290–291, 323 n. 500, 331, 333, 339, 353–354, 578, 582 Joker 199, 260, 271–272, 273 n. 388 Journey 31–32, 32 n. 24, 143, 166, 187, 190, 265, 280, 284–285, 286 n. 420, 295 n. 434, 319, 329, 336, 355, 400, 410 n. 649, 441 n. 717, 524, 550 n. 862, 552, 553 n. 873 Joy 15, 28, 31, 39, 44, 48, 115, 157–158, 160, 165 n. 186, 167, 177, 242, 245, 247–248, 276, 283

650

index

n. 409, 324, 331, 333–335, 339–340, 387, 515, 549–550, 567–569, 572, 597, 615 Judaism 13, 24–25, 68, 117–119, 182–183, 216, 219, 220 nn. 278–279, 228, 236, 281, 286, 288, 295, 297, 300–304, 308, 312, 314–316, 325, 325 n. 507, 326 n. 510, 328–329, 347, 350, 351 n. 546, 355–356, 371, 374, 399, 399 n. 642, 496, 507, 558, 562, 565, 615, 620, 623–625, 629, 632, 634–635 Judgment 6, 19, 25, 39, 97 n. 3, 118, 145, 145 n. 153, 163, 164 n. 184, 181, 201–202, 232, 244, 415, 469, 478, 483–486, 488–489, 493, 498, 500 n. 801, 513, 535–537, 540–541, 559, 567, 590 n. 932, 624, 627 Jung, Carl Gustav 102 Jungian 28 n. 6, 51 n. 93, 142, 142 n. 134, 144, 283 Justice 272, 399, 427–428, 482, 486 Kabbalah 31 n. 21, 34, 40–41, 46 n. 75, 53, 62–63, 77, 79–80, 83, 98, 107, 109–110, 113, 135, 151, 171, 231, 233, 235–237, 264, 276 n. 394, 345 n. 534, 391, 422, 450, 461, 492 n. 783, 500 n. 801, 547, 613, 627, 630 Kabbalistic 2, 34, 36, 49, 53–55, 61, 69, 74–75, 77, 79–80, 82, 84, 126, 188, 235, 264, 265 n. 376, 381 n. 623, 391, 416, 434, 452, 469, 549, 551, 575 n. 911, 582–583, 590 n. 932, 619 Kaplan, Aryeh 5, 5 n. 10, 6, 28 n. 4, 84 n. 66, 91–92, 102, 123, 129, 144, 151, 159, 165, 176, 180, 205, 215–216, 218, 238, 240, 243–250, 260, 262–263, 271, 280, 283, 286, 296, 299, 303–304, 317, 322, 327, 338, 353–354, 357, 361, 365, 379–380, 388–389, 394, 396, 410, 417, 445, 470, 487, 497, 500, 516, 531, 552, 562, 564 Karo, Joseph 60 Katnut 277–279 Kehillot 34 n. 30, 306 Kelippah 114 n. 69 Kelippot 39, 44, 114, 114 n. 69, 144, 158, 160, 245, 247–248, 258, 296, 374, 379, 384, 470–471, 507 Kenosis 16, 50

Keter 103, 151, 497, 513 Kierkegaard, Søren Aaby 71–74, 323, 323 n. 501 Kirsch, James 28 n. 6, 51 n. 93, 142 n. 134 Klein, Melanie 18, 18 n. 23 Knesset Israel 99, 101, 109–110, 117–119, 126, 128, 136–137, 142, 150, 153–154, 172–173, 190–191, 211–212, 214, 255, 258, 301, 360, 360 n. 564, 361 n. 569, 374, 377, 377 n. 615, 382, 386, 391, 396–400, 402–403, 405–406, 408–409, 458, 462, 565, 569–570, 595–596, 596 n. 935, 597–598, 605, 615, 617, 621–623, 631, 633 Knowledge ix, 3, 5, 16, 53, 55, 67, 77, 92–93, 97, 125, 128, 141, 143, 156, 179, 202 n. 250, 221, 225, 227, 231–233, 242–243, 264, 276 n. 394, 282, 322 n. 495, 323, 327, 335–336, 341 n. 531, 342, 345, 349 n. 540, 354, 405, 414, 443, 450, 452, 471, 480, 485–486, 490, 493 n. 784, 500, 506, 513, 530, 551, 557 n. 878, 559 n. 885, 575 n. 911, 583, 595, 616, 629, 633 Koah haMedammeh 63 Kokhavay Or 92 n. 93 Kook, Yehudit ( ) 83, 97–98, 102, 123, 140–141, 169, 319, 414–416, 416 n. 666, 420, 421, 426–427, 431, 433–434, 436, 440–441, 456, 467–468, 470 n. 574, 498, 500, 508, 548, 562, 579, 604, 612–613 Kristeva, Julia 1–2, 9, 9 n. 3, 10–11, 13, 17–18, 18 n. 23, 19–21, 23–24, 54, 56 Kristevan 24 Lacan, Jacques 15, 18, 19 Land of Israel 32 n. 24, 106 n. 42 Language event 11, 21 Legend 59–60, 227–228 Legitimacy 35 n. 32, 544, 551, 558, 616 Legitimate 93, 145 n. 153, 168, 309, 431, 578, 635 Legitimize 67, 72, 87, 90, 482, 525, 536, 616, 621, 624 Legitimizing 2, 24, 619, 634–635 Levi Yithak 37, 51 Liebes, Yehuda 38 n. 40, 49–50, 183, 391

index Likkutey {Amarim 34 Likkutey Etsot 308 n. 463, 433 n. 700, 613 n. 962 Likkutey Halakhot 470 n. 754, 500 n. 794, 534 n. 836 Likkutey MoHaRaN ("  ) 8, 30 n. 13, 46, 46 n. 74 52, 54–57, 60, 61 n. 134, 63 n. 143, 65, 74, 76, 106 n. 42, 112 n. 58, 114 n. 70, 116, 123, 123 n. 95, 157 n. 171, 158 n. 173, 160 n. 181, 186–187, 187 n. 224, 188, 212, 218 n. 275, 229, 245 n. 333, 246 n. 334, 247 n. 339, 293, 308, 352 n. 550, 371, 374 n. 611, 383 n. 627, 414, 414 n. 657, 473, 473 n. 756, 474 n. 757, 475 nn. 760–761, 476 nn. 763–765, 481 n. 772, 493 n. 784, 558 n. 881 Lilith 112–113, 116, 119, 145, 191, 198, 253, 255, 257–259, 315, 374, 396 n. 640, 420, 420 n. 679, 424, 424 n. 686, 425, 460, 583 n. 924, 609, 623, 627–629 Linguistic/s 7, 9–10, 13, 17, 157, 161, 199 n. 242, 310, 503, 551, 551 n. 868, 564 Literary approach 4, 80 Literary studies 9 Love 29, 31, 39, 103 n. 32, 105–106, 108–109, 118 n. 77, 139, 147–148, 152, 159, 206–207, 241, 249–252, 258, 274, 308, 322, 325, 334, 339, 368–370, 382–384, 407, 415, 425, 447, 495, 497, 498 n. 791, 499, 506, 549 n. 861, 559 n. 885, 565, 567–570, 583, 585, 588, 590–592, 596, 607, 609–610, 615, 623 Luria, Isac 44, 60, 79, 165 n. 188, 293, 388 Lurianic 28, 34 n. 30, 40–41, 48–49, 62–63, 65, 77, 80–81, 83–86, 99, 107–110, 113, 114 n. 68, 118, 135, 145, 165, 171, 179, 186, 217, 226 n. 288, 323, 350 n. 544, 415, 422, 453, 467, 469, 471, 500, 500 n. 801, 547, 553 n. 873, 557, 557 n. 879, 562, 605 n. 951, 613–614, 620, 628 Maxaseh 1 n. 1, 59 Madness 93, 390, 454 Maggid of Mezhirech, the great 32 Magic 215 n. 262, 227, 241 n. 319, 248 n. 341, 345 n. 534 Magical 176–177, 192, 202 n. 250,

651

217, 226 n. 288, 247, 248 n. 341, 345, 345 n. 534, 461 Magid, Shaul 32 n. 24, 52, 52 n. 101, 53–57, 70, 94, 123 n. 95, 293, 341 MaHaRaL of Prague 27 Male 96, 107, 109, 109 n. 49, 110–117, 120–121, 144, 146, 151–152, 160, 165, 168–169, 171, 196, 251–252, 258, 313, 325, 358, 366, 370, 374, 382, 396, 408, 420 n. 679, 424, 530, 546, 593–594–597, 622, 627 Malkhut 99, 109 n. 49, 117, 157, 165, 255, 262–263, 304, 498, 604 Mark, Tzvi ( ) 63 n. 142, 93–94, 248 n. 341, 264–265, 271, 286–287 Marrano 215, 215 n. 261, 216–217, 219, 219 n. 278, 220, 220 n. 278, 221–222, 222 n. 281, 224–225, 230, 230 n. 300, 234–237, 329 Marriage 117, 139, 144, 146–149, 156–157, 160, 164, 166–167, 169, 306, 358–359, 373–378, 382–383, 385–386, 399, 408, 506, 544–545, 549, 554, 561, 565, 614, 616 Martyr 52, 246 Masculine 161, 168, 244, 296 Masculinity 168 Mashiah ben David 49, 51, 165, 259, 360 n. 568, 374, 460, 462, 468, 497–498, 530, 542, 611, 615, 617, 628–630, 632, Mashiah ben Yosef 49–50, 244, 258, 300, 308 n. 463, 360 n. 568, 468, 497, 535, 541–542, 611, 629 Maskil 322 Master 5 n. 7, 27 n. 2, 31, 39 n. 47, 40, 45–46, 53 n. 104, 58 n. 118, 60–61, 62 n. 141, 85, 87, 94, 112 n. 58, 174, 200, 202, 202 n. 250, 204–205, 207–208, 213–214, 228 n. 293, 242, 245, 248, 257, 278, 304, 318, 330–331, 336–337, 345, 345 n. 534, 366, 393 n. 635, 414, 418, 429, 436, 441, 443–445, 460 n. 743, 463, 463 nn. 744–745, 464–479, 481–484, 487–494, 494 n. 785, 497–498, 498 n. 791, 499, 501, 504, 506–507, 508 n. 813, 509–513, 516–518, 520–528, 530–532, 534–535, 535 n. 840, 539–542, 553 n. 873, 608, 610, 613 n. 963, 620, 625, 625 n. 2, 634–635 Mayse-bikhl 59, 59 n. 121

652

index

Meaning 1, 7–10, 16, 21–23, 31, 31 n. 21, 46, 54–55, 62, 71, 77, 79, 82, 85, 90, 92, 108, 112, 116, 124, 135 n. 120, 141 n. 129, 153, 157, 165 n. 189, 173–174, 176, 181, 194, 202–203, 215, 218, 219 n. 278, 225, 243, 247, 260, 262, 266–267, 268 n. 382, 280, 287, 298–299, 301, 303, 313, 317, 321, 325 n. 507, 326, 326 nn. 508, 510, 327, 340–341 nn. 529, 531, 355–357, 363, 370, 394, 410, 413, 416 n. 664, 421, 447 n. 724, 448, 452, 455–459, 463, 467, 492, 494 n. 785, 499, 506, 508, 508 n. 813, 513–514, 526, 543, 550, 551, 566, 567, 580, 607, 634 Mediate 11, 32, 35, 140, 239, 244, 481, 627 Mediation 239 Mediator 36, 36 n. 35, 42 Medical 334, 336 Medicine 178, 209–210, 318, 329–330, 335 Medvedevka 29–30, 305 Medzhibozh 27–29, 31, 33, 33 n. 27, 34, 34 n. 32, 35, 37 Megillat Hasidey Bratslav 37 n. 40 Melancholy 14, 16, 323, 401 Menahem Mendel of Kotzk 41 n. 54 Menahem Mendel of Rimanov 41 n. 54 Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl 31 n. 20 Mendes-Flohr, Paul 67, 67 n. 1, 68 n. 3 Mercy 39, 108, 145, 165 n. 186, 232, 236, 400, 403, 447 nn. 725–726, 478, 483, 490, 495, 497–498, 545, 561, 567, 584–589, 591, 595, 610–611, 617, 632 Merkavah 36, 124, 126 Messiah 32, 41, 47, 49, 49 n. 86, 50–51, 54, 61, 63, 70, 78, 90, 99, 101, 143, 218, 218 n. 272, 228 n. 294, 243 n. 324, 257, 269, 282, 296, 298–300, 302–303, 303 n. 450, 304–305, 312, 314, 314 n. 472, 316, 360, 360 nn. 564, 568, 361–362, 377, 377 n. 615, 379–380, 381 nn. 623–624, 382 n. 625, 388, 389 n. 632, 390–391, 399 n. 642, 402, 418, 459–460, 498–499, 508 n. 813, 514–515, 515 n. 819, 516, 530, 535,

539, 542, 543 n. 844, 544, 546, 552–553, 570, 611–615, 617, 621–623, 626–627, 629, 635 Messianic 4, 47–48, 50–51, 53–54, 61–63, 75, 78–83, 89, 93, 99, 101, 101 n. 22, 103, 136, 142–143, 145, 172–173, 179, 186, 192, 202, 218–219, 247, 257–259, 278–279, 284, 288 n. 424, 298–301, 303–305, 312–314, 316, 346 n. 534, 360 n. 564, 362, 377 n. 615, 380, 390, 399 n. 642, 401, 406, 409, 416, 416 n. 664, 447 n. 726, 462, 468, 501, 516, 526, 541–542, 544, 547, 552–553, 553 n. 873, 570, 590 n. 932, 598 n. 936, 611–612, 614–615, 619, 623, 628–630, 632–633, 635–636 Messianism 70, 70 n. 15, 298 n. 445, 299, 623, 630, 632 Messias 32 n. 24, 553 Metaphor 22, 45 n. 74, 46, 80, 323 n. 501, 475 n. 760, 573 Metaphoric ix, 2, 22 Mezherech/Mezeritch 31 n. 21 Midrash 25 n. 44, 52 n. 101, 53, 55, 124, 124 n. 96, 193, 268, 269, 332 n. 516, 492 n. 783, 595 n. 913 Midrashic 53–56, 188, 269, 579 n. 915, 601 Midrashim 59–60 Minkin, Jacob S. 38, 38 n. 42, 70 Minyan 470, 470 n. 753, 534, 534 n. 836 Mishnaic 59 Mitnaggedim 34, 34 nn. 30–31, 35, 70, 79, 99 Modern 8, 45 n. 70, 53, 60, 68–69, 71, 80, 91, 105, 181, 194, 218 n. 275, 256, 283, 319, 343, 355, 505 Modernity 355, 414 n. 657 Monistic 40 Monologic 12–13, 18–20, 54, 310 Mordechai of Neskhiz 35–36 Moshe Hayyim Ephraim of Sudlikov 27, 33, 33 n. 27 Music 44, 115–117, 144, 157, 160, 162, 164, 248, 291, 385, 408, 446 n. 723, 447 n. 724, 590–593, 596 n. 935 Musical 114, 155, 157, 159, 161, 240, 242, 245, 382–385, 400–401, 594 Mystical 2, 23, 23 n. 39, 25, 25 n. 44, 34, 40, 43 n. 63, 46, 53, 57, 67, 69, 75, 83, 93, 100, 103 n. 31, 104,

index 117, 134, 145, 148, 153, 180, 247, 248 n. 341, 256, 264–265, 275, 313, 316, 368, 371, 416 n. 665, 450, 452, 459, 468, 497, 526, 548, 558, 623, 634–635 Mysticism 31 n. 21, 40–43, 43 nn. 62–63, 71, 89, 108, 124, 160, 181, 188, 193, 228, 228 n. 294, 245, 248 n. 341, 298, 313, 350, 368, 394, 420, 447 n. 724, 496 Myth 53, 90, 379, 467, 469, 500, 552, 620 Mythic 59, 129 Mythical 64, 90, 241, 619–620, 622, 635 Nahman of Horodenka 27, 33 n. 26 Nahman of Tsherin 3, 57 n. 114, 77–79, 81, 99 Napoleon 410 n. 649 Narrative 1 n. 1, 86, 90, 101, 104, 105 n. 37, 108, 110–111, 113, 118, 136, 141, 169, 171, 179, 210, 213, 219 n. 278, 220, 238, 240, 250, 261, 262 n. 368, 266–267, 270, 292, 322, 356, 363, 365, 379, 386, 397, 399 n. 642, 419, 424, 441, 492–493, 544, 547, 550–551, 562, 579, 618–619, 627 Navritch 283 n. 407, 295, 295 n. 434 Netsah 226 n. 288, 568 Nielsen, Kirsten ix, ix n. 1, 174, 174 n. 197, 292, 292 n. 427, 350, 350 n. 542, 431, 431 n. 697, 581 Nietzsche, Friedrich 14–15 Niggun 248 n. 341, 415, 595 n. 935 Non-Jew 255 Non-Jewish 58, 61, 65, 215, 217, 220, 220 n. 278, 227–234, 236–237, 326 n. 510, 623–624 Nonsense 127, 129, 132, 342, 344, 506, 540, 546, 592, 594, 598 Nothingness 86, 150 n. 156, 264–265, 277, 327, 572, 576 n. 914, 619 Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg) 58 n. 119, 402 n. 605 Novel 11–12, 12 n. 7, 13, 165 n. 189 Ostrog 283 n. 407 “Other” 13, 19–21, 56 Panentheism 47 n. 79, 558 Panentheistic 47, 558, 630

653

Pantheism 47 n. 79, 558 Pantheistic 47, 558, 630 Paradox 42, 72–73, 89, 263, 264 n. 374, 266, 323 n. 501, 554 Paradoxical 41–42, 71–74, 84, 89, 264, 264 n. 374, 323, 323 n. 500, 333, 550, 588, 603 Pardes 390, 454, 461 PaRDeS 103, 103 n. 31 Partner-text 17, 72 Penitence 50 People of Israel 79, 100–103, 112, 123, 126 n. 102, 134, 136, 150, 152–154, 172–173, 190, 229 n. 295, 241, 253, 360 n. 564, 364 n. 585, 394, 399, 401–402, 406, 514, 516, 537, 558, 569, 619, 621–622, 628 Perception ix, 4, 7–8, 20–21, 23, 44, 47, 47 n. 79, 48, 71 n. 22, 72, 76, 83, 122, 150 n. 156, 153, 248 n. 341, 264, 277, 277 n. 396, 279, 304, 319–321, 327, 446 n. 723, 453, 467, 476, 481, 489, 491–492, 502–506, 508–509, 517–518, 528, 530–531, 535, 538–539, 548, 559–560, 562, 574 n. 908, 575, 580 n. 918, 603, 604 n. 945, 605, 616, 617, 619–622, 625, 630, 635–636 Performative 2, 4, 6, 23, 55, 105, 105 n. 37, 134, 136, 619, 622, 624, 626, 630, 634–636 Pesach 326, 327 n. 512 Philosopher 21, 22 n. 34, 191 n. 230, 322–323, 329, 346 n. 535 Philosophy 68, 141, 264, 318, 320, 325 n. 507, 328–329, 341, 353 n. 552, 416, 508, 508 n. 811, 611 Physiognomic 270, 278 Physiognomy 268–270, 278–279 Piaget, Jean 7, 9 Pidyonot 30 Piekarz’, Mendel ('  ) 3, 37, 61, 74–75, 78, 89, 99, 143 Pinhas of Korets 32, 33 n. 27, 35 n. 32 Poem 15–16, 17 n. 21, 92, 383–384, 387–390, 584–587, 589, 617, 632 Poet 4, 13–17, 17 n. 21, 20, 64, 92, 345 n. 534 Poetic 9–10, 12 n. 7, 13–15, 15 n. 15, 17–18, 18 n. 23, 19–21, 23, 61, 64 Poetry 10, 14–16, 17 n. 21, 383, 385, 387, 408

654

index

Popular Hasidism 33–36, 40, 60 n. 939 Popular tales 58, 62, 77 n. 45, 80 Practice 2, 20, 24, 28–31, 33, 38–39, 39 n. 47, 40, 44, 48, 54, 64, 68 n. 7, 113, 118–119, 215 n. 262, 216–218, 219 n. 278, 220, 220 n. 278, 227, 228 n. 295, 236, 297, 373 n. 609, 475–476, 476 n. 762, 530 n. 833, 565, 590 n. 932, 615, 626, 634 Praise 14, 21, 60, 74, 86, 225, 228 n. 293, 275, 277, 277 n. 396, 297, 319, 323 n. 501, 330–332, 332 n. 516, 458 n. 739, 471–473, 475–476, 478, 482, 495, 497, 539–540, 542, 545, 557 n. 878, 558, 558 n. 883, 584, 586, 586 n. 825, 589–592, 597–599, 611, 615, 617, 624, 631–633 Pray 30, 177–178, 204, 207, 209–210, 219, 219 n. 278, 241–243, 245, 256, 306, 313–314, 367, 391, 466, 471, 480, 482, 487, 494, 507, 512, 517, 523–525, 534 n. 836, 540, 564, 591, 597, 610–611 Prayer 31, 33, 34 n. 30, 36, 37, 39 n. 47, 40–44, 49, 58 n. 118, 59, 61, 64, 70, 75 n. 36, 76, 87, 87 n. 74, 94, 103, 207–208, 219, 220 n. 278, 239, 261, 295, 297, 303, 306–307, 314 n. 473, 315, 345–346 n. 534, 367, 463 nn. 744–745, 464–479, 482–484, 487–494, 484 n. 785, 497–498, 498 n. 791, 499, 501, 504, 507–508, 508 n. 813, 509–513, 516–518, 520–528, 530–532, 534–535, 535 n. 840, 539–542, 588, 590, 590 nn. 932–933, 596–598, 613 n. 963, 615, 617, 625 n. 2, 631–633 Prayerbook 34 n. 30 Precursors 2, 4 14–17, 17 n. 21, 44, 48, 50, 53, 59 246–247, 247 n. 337, 298, 302, 391, 508 n. 813, 635 Primordial 32 n. 24, 54, 57, 63, 65, 80, 101, 107, 123, 128, 130, 137, 172, 179, 262 n. 368, 293–295, 298, 300–302, 341, 356, 402 n. 644, 458, 492–493, 493 n. 784, 494, 499–500, 505, 516, 539–541, 557 n. 879, 574, 579–580, 616, 619–621, 621 n. 1, 622, 626, 629–630, 630 n. 3, 632–633, 635 Privileged text 2 Prophecy 63, 218, 226 n. 288, 332,

465, 492, 519, 536, 568, 605, 605 n. 953 Prophet 2, 117, 124, 134, 213 n. 259, 375 n. 612, 534, 566, 568–569, 605 Psychoanalysis 88–89 Psychological 7, 14, 55, 75, 89, 106 n. 39, 142, 142 n. 134, 144, 218 n. 275, 254, 283, 417, 417 n. 669, 446 n. 723 Psychology 10, 21 Purim 303 n. 450 Purity 29 n. 10, 50–51, 106 n. 42, 232, 232 n. 304, 246–247 n. 337, 371, 373–374, 394, 407, 621 Rabbi 3 n. 4, 33 n. 27, 38, 59, 87, 207 n. 254, 255, 268, 303–304, 306–307, 309–310, 312–314, 314 n. 473, 315–316, 345 n. 534, 390, 601 Rabbinic 34 n. 30, 53, 59, 61, 305, 564 n. 895 Rabbinical 2, 23, 255, 634 Rapoport-Albert, Ada 27 n. 1, 30, 30 n. 17, 33, 38–39, 476 Rationalism 58 n. 119, 97, 349–350, 540, 544, 559 n. 885, 562, 615–616 Rationalistic 304, 314, 319–320, 349, 353 n. 552, 355–356, 543, 559, 616 Realities 70, 426 n. 688 Reality 7–8, 18, 22–23, 41, 47, 64, 72, 86, 90, 93, 97, 100, 102, 118 n. 80, 130, 133–134, 136–137, 150 n. 156, 154, 180, 199, 220 n. 278, 235, 239, 279, 289, 304, 312, 314, 321–322, 324, 327, 348, 364, 386, 415–416, 418, 432, 438 n. 712, 442, 447 n. 724, 473–474, 547, 553, 579, 603 n. 942, 614, 618, 624–625, 630, 634–636 Rebbe 3 n. 4, 29–30, 91, 460 n. 743, 470, 602 n. 939, 603 Reception 24, 292, 576 Rectication 50–51, 64, 76, 96–97, 106, 106 n. 42, 136, 354, 356, 416 n. 664, 417, 423–424, 442–443, 468, 527 n. 832, 566, 582–583, 620, 622–624, 626, 630–631 Rectify 32, 50, 65, 106, 137, 144, 157, 412, 422, 424, 428, 442, 508, 582, 594, 613, 624, 629, 631 Redeem 2, 4, 44, 99, 247 n. 337, 296, 526, 535, 540–541, 551, 603, 630–631

index Redemption 2, 4, 8, 15, 29–31, 41–42, 46 n. 76, 47 n. 79, 48–49, 51, 57, 58 n. 116, 59, 61, 63–64, 68, 78–82, 84, 87, 89–91, 93, 97–102, 110, 114 n. 68, 121, 127, 129 n. 107, 135, 135 n. 121, 136–137, 142–143, 145, 150, 165, 171, 179, 183, 196, 202, 205 n. 253, 209, 212, 214, 241, 241 n. 319, 243, 243 n. 324, 255, 262, 265 n. 376, 296, 299, 302, 305 n. 458, 306, 313–316, 320, 323, 347 n. 537, 354, 360–362, 373–375, 375 n. 613, 379, 384–386, 391, 399, 399 n. 642, 401–402, 402 n. 644, 405 n. 647, 416, 418, 459, 468, 468 n. 751, 469, 474–476, 517, 524–526, 540–541, 549, 552, 554, 609–610, 614–615, 617, 622, 626–627, 629–633, 635–636 Redemptive 15, 17, 29 n. 10, 83, 85, 103 n. 32, 197, 212, 214, 219, 239, 246, 299–300, 315, 355, 377, 408, 598 n. 936 Reincarnation 62, 80 Religion 43 n. 63, 146–147, 216–217, 219, 219 n. 278, 220, 225, 235–237, 244, 286, 343, 456, 464, 470, 480, 482–486, 488–490, 518, 520, 522, 528, 615, 620, 623–624 Religious 1, 3, 8–9, 24, 24 n. 41, 28, 30–32, 34, 36, 38, 51–52, 61, 64, 74, 81, 84, 88–89, 92, 174, 179, 182, 187, 194, 217, 220, 220 n. 278, 224–225, 228–229, 236, 240, 242, 242 n. 322, 322 n. 495, 244, 255, 258, 265, 265 n. 376, 282, 307, 312–313, 321–322, 327, 336, 343, 346, 355, 363, 367, 425, 425 n. 665, 428, 484, 603, 624, 634–635 Reshit Hokhmah 28 Retell 67, 83, 87 Revolution 7, 18, 18 n. 23, 24, 635 Revolutionize 54 Ricoeur, Paul 2, 5 n. 8, 21, 21 n. 32, 22, 22 n. 34, 23, 24, 24 n. 42, 25, 55 Rimzey Maxasiyot 215 n. 263, 299 n. 447 Romantic Period, the 58, 58 n. 119, 402, 446 n. 723 Romanticism 58 n. 119, 402 Rosh haShanah 363 n. 582, 460 n. 743 Roskies, David G. 58 n. 118, 59, 61, 94, 103, 106–107, 110, 128, 219,

655 240–241, 303, 305, 317, 324, 418, 463, 471, 500, 555, 588

Sabbatai Sevi 37 n. 40, 48, 50 n. 89, 54, 143, 183 Sabbatean 37–38 n. 40, 50, 119, 183 Sabbateanism 34 n. 30, 37, 38 n. 40, 49, 50 n. 88, 119 n. 85, 305 n. 455 Sabbath 29, 83, 97, 102, 107 n. 43, 196 n. 235, 280 n. 398, 283 n. 407, 285, 454 n. 736, 515, 534, 550, 552 Sacred text 54, 85, 91 Sadness 14, 44, 547, 559, 562, 616, 618, 623, 625, 635 Samael 64, 76, 96, 111, 112 n. 56, 113, 113 n. 66, 115, 144, 154, 200, 200 n. 245, 207 n. 254, 266 n. 378, 303 n. 450, 281–282, 295, 297–299, 302–303, 313–316, 394, 623, 629–630 Satan 298, 350 n. 542, 394 Satanic 97, 284 Saussure, Ferdinand 9 Schatz Uffenheimer, Rivka 42, 42 n. 61 Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel Ernst 58, 58 n. 119, 69, 69 n. 10 Scholem, Gershom Gerhard 31 n. 21, 68, 71–74, 86, 89, 145, 227 Schwartz, Howard 45 n. 70, 58–59, 59 n. 121, 91, 102, 107, 130, 552 Scriptural 2, 23 n. 39, 25, 25 n. 44, 40, 53 Scripture 2, 17, 23, 25, 53–54, 59, 91, 103, 256, 338, 390, 459, 493, 516, 526, 634–635 Secular 38, 61, 65 n. 148, 156–158, 168, 177, 181 n. 209, 182–184, 189, 191, 191 n. 230, 193, 201–203, 210, 214, 217, 220 n. 279, 224–226, 235–236, 322, 322 n. 495, 326 n. 510, 343–344, 346, 350, 355, 473, 507, 524, 526, 536, 544, 546, 548–549, 556, 559, 611, 613 nn. 963–964, 623–624, 632, 635 Secularism 158, 165, 173, 177, 181 n. 209, 201–202, 207, 235–236, 556, 560, 620, 623–624 Sefer haMidot 31, 31 n. 19, 118 n. 81 Sefer haZohar 2, 28, 60, 61 n. 134, 65, 70, 104, 108, 109 nn. 48, 50, 111–112, 112 n. 57, 113, 113 n. 66, 114, 114 n. 67, 115, 115 nn. 71–72, 116, 116 n. 75, 117, 118 n. 77, 119

656

index

n. 84, 124, 124 n. 97, 130 n. 108, 142 n. 133, 151, 152 n. 162, 154 nn. 168–170, 158, 158 n. 174, 159, 159 nn. 176–178, 160, 162, 162 n. 182, 164, 164 n. 185, 165, 165 n. 186, 169 n. 192, 173 n. 196, 180 n. 208, 181 nn. 210–211, 186 n. 222, 187 n. 224, 190 nn. 226–227, 191 nn. 228–229, 192 n. 231, 193, 193 n. 237, 195, 200, 200 nn. 244–245, 205, 205 nn. 251–252, 208 n. 255, 229, 229 n. 296, 232 n. 303, 241, 241 n. 321, 245 n. 331, 249, 249 n. 344, 250, 252, 253 nn. 346–347, 256–258, 258 nn. 357–358, 266, 266 nn. 377–378, 267, 267 n. 381, 268–269, 273, 276–278, 278 n. 397, 279, 292 n. 429, 307, 307 nn. 461–462, 315 n. 475, 326, 332, 352–353, 367, 367 n. 589, 368 n. 593, 375 n. 612, 393–394, 394 nn. 635, 638, 397, 397 n. 641, 398, 405 nn. 646, 648, 420 nn. 676–677, 679, 424 nn. 685–686, 433 n. 698, 434 n. 701, 441 n. 717, 447, 450 nn. 730–731, 456, 458 n. 739, 478 n. 768, 481 n. 781, 489 n. 782, 493, 493 n. 783, 513, 513 n. 815, 514, 514 n. 817, 515, 515 nn. 818–820, 519 n. 825, 537–538 n. 843, 558 n. 883, 565 nn. 898–899, 566, 570, 573, 573 n. 906, 576, 582 n. 923, 583, 583 n. 924, 591–592, 595, 598, 602 n. 940, 604 nn. 946, 949, 605, 611–612, 614–615, 621 n. 1, 634 Serah 31 n. 21, 107, 145 n. 153, 151, 153, 164, 181, 200, 232, 246, 270, 296, 307, 326, 470 n. 753, 486, 486 n. 777, 498, 513, 535, 542, 566–567, 569, 627 Serot 50, 99, 103, 107, 135–136, 151, 153, 154, 163–164, 219, 226 n. 288, 244, 263, 270, 345 n. 534, 370–371, 407, 470 n. 753, 471, 476, 496–497, 534 n. 836, 551, 566–567, 576, 610, 627 Serotic system 31 n. 21, 39, 49, 97, 99, 107–111, 113, 129–130, 133, 135–137, 145 n. 153, 151, 153, 157, 160, 164, 164 n. 185, 171, 181, 188–190, 193, 195, 200, 213, 244, 255, 257, 263, 275 n. 393, 296, 307, 308 n. 463, 313, 315, 368, 384, 386,

396, 415, 433, 458, 462, 475, 497, 500 n. 801, 537, 596, 604, 610, 612, 616–617, 621, 623, 631 Self-annihilate 39–40, 46, 128, 150 Self-annihilation 39, 41, 46, 134, 134 n. 118, 150, 150 n. 156, 261–262, 475, 540, 630 Self-critical 8, 12, 54, 169 Self-criticism 12 Self-destruction 205 n. 253, 228, 628, 633 Self-destructive 620, 623, 628–629 Semiotic 18, 20–21 Semiotic “chora” 18 Semiotic chora 18–20, 64 Sex 105, 165, 249, 394, 506, 530 Sexual 29, 29 n. 10, 31, 45 n. 72, 49, 49 n. 86, 50, 50 n. 89, 51, 51 n. 93, 64, 76, 96–97, 105–106, 106 n. 42, 111, 116, 116 n. 73, 119, 152, 246–247 n. 337, 369, 373–374, 391, 394, 394 n. 637, 416, 582, 621 Sexuality 407 Shavuot 51 Shefa 48, 87, 109, 136, 153, 157, 168, 171, 181, 189–190, 200, 248 n. 341, 263, 308, 370, 394, 406–407, 415, 420 n. 679, 447, 458, 558, 567, 583, 596, 604, 610–611, 621, 623, 626–627 Shekhinah 31, 31 n. 21, 39, 42, 44, 44 n. 68, 48–49, 49 n. 86, 50, 61, 64, 76, 78, 81, 97, 97 n. 3, 98–103, 107–109, 109 n. 49, 110–112, 114, 116–118, 118 n. 77, 119, 121, 121 n. 89, 122, 124–126, 128, 133–138, 141–142, 142 n. 133, 143–145, 145 n. 153, 150–154, 156–157, 160–161, 163–165, 168, 171–173, 188, 190–193, 195–196, 196 n. 235, 198, 199 n. 240, 200, 214, 232, 240–241, 244–246, 249–253, 255–257, 259, 262, 266, 276, 278, 291, 296–297, 300–301, 304–305, 307–308, 313, 316, 360, 360 n. 564, 361–362, 367, 370, 374–375, 380, 382, 382 n. 624, 383–384, 386, 390–391, 393–394, 396, 396 n. 640, 397, 397 n. 641, 398–401, 405–409, 415, 420, 420 n. 679, 424, 447, 447 n. 726, 450, 452, 458, 462, 468, 475, 496–498, 500 n. 801, 506, 514, 514 n. 817, 515, 515 n. 819, 539, 541–542, 565–569, 591–592, 595–596, 596

index n. 935, 597–598, 602, 604–605, 609–612, 614–615, 617, 619, 621–624, 626–629, 631–633, 635 Sheol 250–251, 353 Shevirah 62, 80, 99, 103 n. 32, 135 n. 119, 142, 164 n. 184, 219, 471, 547, 549, 554 Shevirat haKelim 47, 47 n. 79, 61, 65, 80, 101, 107, 109, 111, 152, 402 n. 644, 422, 453, 467–468, 468 n. 751, 470, 500, 500 n. 801, 505, 508, 513, 539–542, 547, 557 n. 879, 562, 613, 620–621, 621 n. 1, 622–623, 631, 633 Shimeon bar Yohai 2, 388 Shirayim 565 Shivhey haBeShT 304 n. 451 Shivhey haRaN 242 n. 322 Shlomo Ephraim 49, 51, 64, 76, 101 n. 22 Shmuel Horowitz 92 n. 93 Shneur Zalman of Liadi 34, 34 n. 30, 35–36, 40 Shpolar Zeide, the 33 Shulkhan Arukh 28 Sickness 254, 383, 590 n. 932 Signicance 12, 19, 68, 105 n. 37, 182, 186, 191, 205, 207 n. 254, 225, 234 n. 306, 249, 252, 268, 271, 303, 333, 352, 354, 384, 438 n. 712, 476, 500, 535, 566 Signication 19–20, 23, 117 Signifying process 17–19 Sihot haRaN 242 n. 322, 327 n. 513 Simeon ben Baer 28 Simplicity 36, 317, 319–321, 324, 327, 337, 339–341, 347–349, 356, 364, 364 n. 585, 547, 559, 562, 574 n. 908, 613 n. 963, 616, 625–626, 631, 635 Sin 31, 39, 42, 48, 49 n. 86, 50, 50 n. 89, 51 n. 93, 63–64, 76, 96–97, 97 n. 3, 105–106, 106 n. 42, 109, 116–117, 119, 119 n. 85, 135–136, 151, 161, 175, 186, 191, 195 n. 235, 203, 251, 253, 256–257, 269–270, 279, 283, 297, 299, 333, 351, 355 n. 558, 364, 375, 391, 405–409, 411–412, 415–417, 423–428, 433 n. 700, 435, 435 n. 706, 437–438, 442, 452–453, 454 n.736, 467, 475, 476 n. 762, 477, 481 n. 770, 484, 493, 506, 514, 514 n. 817, 516–517, 519, 524, 526–527, 527 n. 832, 536–537, 539, 541, 554,

657

582, 590 n. 932, 621–622, 624, 627–628, 630–632 Sippurey Ma’asiyot 1, 3, 5–6, 9, 21, 23, 25, 57–58, 58 n. 119, 64, 73, 75–76, 84–85, 87, 91–92, 92 n. 96, 93–94, 104, 120, 220 n. 278, 245, 288 n. 423, 303 n. 450, 306, 315, 418, 549, 553 n. 873, 603 n. 942, 614, 634 Sippurey Maxasiyot Hadashim 57 n. 114 Sippurim Niaim 57 n. 114, 92 n. 93 Sitra haRa 113, 115, 154, 164 n. 185, 207 n. 254, 228 n. 294, 267, 349, 420, 425, 519, 540 Skeptic 67, 92 n. 94, 224, 332, 343 Skeptical 59 n. 122, 229 n. 295, 454 n. 736, 526 Skepticism 304, 311, 321, 343, 348, 611 Sosia 283 n. 407 Split reference 2, 22–23, 55, 109, 111, 150, 157, 634 Steinsaltz, Adin 87, 87 n. 74, 99–100, 122–123, 126–128, 130, 317, 320–321, 324, 336, 338, 354, 357, 360, 369, 377, 379–380, 384, 386, 390–391, 394, 396, 401–402, 410, 416–417, 420–421, 424, 433, 435–436, 440–441, 445, 450, 453–454, 456, 458–459, 468–469, 487, 497–500, 550–552, 557, 563–564, 611–614 Sternhartz, Nathan 3, 30 n. 13, 37 n. 40, 44, 52 n. 100, 58, 61, 67, 77–78, 81, 85, 92 n. 93, 98, 135, 138 n. 123, 159 n. 175, 162 n. 183, 174 n. 198, 175 n. 200, 181 n. 212, 215, 215 nn. 260, 263, 238 n. 307, 260 n. 360, 280 n. 398, 285, 357 n. 559, 436 n. 711, 467–468, 470 n. 754, 500, 500 n. 794, 543 n. 844, 544, 546, 552–553, 595, 597, 612 Story/ies 1 n. 1, 32, 59–60, 62, 62 n. 141, 63, 83 n. 64, 85, 89–91, 92 n. 93, 93, 103, 122, 127, 131, 136, 167, 179, 218, 222 n. 281, 238 n. 307, 292 n. 429, 294, 299, 304, 304 n. 451, 305, 305 n. 458, 322–324, 327–328, 340 n. 530, 344–345, 378–379, 387, 390–391, 404, 417, 435, 442, 465, 469–470, 491, 494, 500–501, 504, 517, 543 n. 844, 547, 549–550, 552, 554–555, 557 n. 877, 562, 575 n. 911, 576,

658

index

581, 597–598, 602 n. 939, 607, 610–611, 613, 616–617 Storytelling 1 n. 1, 62, 210 Structural 75, 106, 269, 548–550, 609 Structuralism 75 n. 40 Sturm und Drang 402 Suffering 29, 31, 39, 108, 142, 169, 189, 191–193, 213 n. 259, 283, 283 n. 407, 310, 318, 334–335, 417, 433 n. 700, 438, 460, 526, 621–622 Sukkoth 111 n. 54 Symbol 19, 24, 50–51, 53, 77, 80–83, 97–99, 125–126, 126 n. 100, 168–169, 217, 263, 300, 336, 416, 416 n. 665, 431 n. 696, 434, 436 n. 709, 454, 454 n. 736, 468, 468 n. 751, 471, 548, 570 n. 902, 574 n. 910, 590 n. 932, 630, 632 Symbolic 2, 18–20, 22, 44 n. 68, 54, 88, 110 n. 52, 218 n. 272, 224 n. 285, 247, 256, 284, 285 n. 416, 353 n. 552, 384, 435 n. 706, 459, 468, 470 n. 753, 519 n. 826, 526 Synchronic 8, 11, 19, 72 n. 25, 74 Synchrony 11, 18, 20 Talmud 28, 36, 59, 229 n. 295, 345 n. 534, 349 n. 540, 352, 364, 377 n. 617, 513 Talmudic 228 n. 295, 299, 344, 390, 482 n. 774 Tanya 34–35 Telling of tales 4, 21, 83, 91, 112 n. 58 Telling tales 1, 1 n. 1, 3, 7–10, 32 n. 24, 51, 57, 60–62, 65, 70, 88–89, 91–92, 338, 550 n. 862, 605, 635 Temple 103, 117, 124, 143, 222 n. 281, 229 n. 295, 375 n. 612, 393 n. 635, 514, 516, 520 n. 826, 526, 534 Tension 2, 22, 33, 111, 141, 141 n. 129, 248 n. 341, 302, 624 Tensive 22, 55, 106, 634 Tessera 15, 48 Text 2, 5–6, 9–11, 18, 20, 20 n. 30, 21–23, 23 n. 39, 24–25, 53–57, 81, 85, 91, 95, 105–106, 138, 174, 184 n. 218, 256, 260, 263 n. 371, 267, 269, 273, 280, 295 n. 434, 317, 321, 332, 343, 346, 352 n. 551, 354, 357, 362 n. 581, 375, 399 n. 642, 414, 421, 434, 441, 459, 492, 521, 558,

562, 566, 570, 586 n. 925, 602 n. 939, 604 n. 945, 610 Theologian 3 Theological 4, 8, 25, 43, 56, 80–81, 86–87, 91, 103, 145, 168, 216, 218, 414, 547, 550, 553, 613, 618–619, 635 Theology/ies 2–3, 13, 24, 32, 36, 40, 52, 56, 62, 69, 72, 84, 91, 278, 295, 301 n. 449, 316, 468, 553 n. 873, 558, 634–636 Theosophical 263, 619 Theosophy 34 Thetic 18–20 Theurgic 63 Tif xeret 61, 108, 113, 126, 171, 188, 190–191, 198, 241, 244, 249, 253, 296, 304–305, 313, 316, 370, 393–394, 447, 452, 567–568, 591–592, 596, 602, 623 Tikkun 32 n. 24, 43–44, 46–50, 50 n. 89, 51–52, 60–61, 63–65, 65 n. 148, 76–80, 99, 101, 103, 109–110, 112–113, 114 n. 68, 118, 142, 152, 158–159, 164–165, 168–169, 171, 173, 193–195, 197, 202, 210, 212, 214, 219, 240, 263, 279, 300, 350 n. 544, 354, 368, 383–385, 401, 407–408, 414 n. 657, 415–416, 416 n. 664, 417, 422, 431, 442 n. 700, 436 n. 709, 438 n. 712, 443, 446, 447 n. 724, 450, 452–453, 454 n. 736, 461, 468–469, 471, 498–499, 501, 508, 524, 526, 531, 535, 539–542, 547, 549, 554, 557 n. 879, 583, 590 n. 932, 591, 595 n. 935, 614–615, 619, 622, 624–630, 630 n. 3, 631, 633–635 Tikkun haKelali 50 n. 89, 637 Tikkun haNeshamot 51, 354 Tikkun hazot 49 Tikkuney Zohar 28 Tisha b’Av 118 Torah 32, 32 n. 24, 34, 34 n. 30, 50, 53–55, 57, 63–65, 97–98, 102, 104, 111–112, 114 n. 67, 123, 123 n. 95, 126, 126 n. 100, 128, 136–137, 140–141, 143–144, 158–160, 162, 164, 172–173, 175, 181–182, 185–187, 187 n. 224, 188, 196, 196 n. 235, 198 n. 237, 203, 208–209, 250, 264, 286–287, 288 n. 423, 292–295, 298, 300–302, 304,

index 315 n. 475, 319, 341, 343, 351 n. 546, 355 n. 558, 356, 379–380, 393, 409, 441 n. 717, 450 n. 729, 459, 467, 481 n. 770, 483–484, 488, 492, 492 n. 783, 493, 493 nn. 783–784, 494, 499, 507, 514–516, 525–526, 530, 534, 538 n. 843, 539, 541–542, 548, 569–570, 582 n. 923, 586 n. 925, 590 n. 932, 604 n. 945, 611 n. 955, 621, 621 n. 1, 622, 624, 626, 629–630, 630 n. 3, 632–633, 635–636 Toyte Hasidim 3 n. 4 Transcendence 42, 72, 279, 554, 615, 620 Transcendent 25, 48, 71–72, 83, 90, 129, 133–134, 134 n. 117, 135, 137, 154, 163, 172, 246, 252, 261, 263, 264 n. 374, 268 n. 382, 270–271, 279, 289, 297, 301, 422, 446, 456, 459, 470, 492–493, 496, 499, 513, 539, 542, 554, 567–568, 576, 586 n. 925, 589, 619, 621, 627, 630–633 Transform 11, 17, 19, 21, 24, 29, 41, 44, 62, 64, 80, 93, 98, 109–110, 112, 115–116, 130 n. 110, 133, 150, 180–182, 188, 207, 253, 255, 257, 269, 287, 292–293, 300–301, 310, 393, 402, 415, 446 n. 724, 469, 536, 541, 553, 623, 627, 631, 633–634 Transformation 24, 29, 117, 165, 292 n. 427, 606 Transpose 20, 24, 176, 182, 186, 249, 252, 268–269, 297, 352, 354, 476, 500, 566 Transposition 1–2, 20, 24, 108, 116, 191, 225, 266, 299 Travis, Yakov 51, 51 n. 95 Tropological 51, 62–63, 105 Tropology 1, 7, 72 n. 25 true zaddik, the 31, 60, 78, 81, 304, 416, 579 n. 915, 604 Tsimtsum 41, 80, 101, 103 n. 32, 107, 107 n. 44, 135, 135 n. 119, 151–152, 164 n. 184, 261, 262 n. 368, 319–320, 332, 422, 453, 504, 547, 614, 620, 622–623 Tuberculosis 52, 283 n. 407, 550 n. 862 Turner, Victor 83 Uman 52, 543 n. 844, 550 n. 862, 612 Usyatin 28, 31

659

Vessel 39 n. 46, 107–108, 132–134, 232, 256, 264, 308, 308 n. 463, 470, 500, 500 n. 801, 547, 562, 614, 628 Vidui 28, 30, 30 n. 17 Viduinik 30 n. 17 Vigil 29, 49 Vikuah Minsk 35 Vision 15, 22, 29, 36, 83, 118, 168, 179, 180 n. 208, 213 n. 259, 263, 281–282, 298, 321, 365, 471, 546, 575 n. 913, 576 n. 914, 577, 580–581, 595 Visionary 15, 36, 219 Walking 28, 104, 104 n. 35, 110, 112, 112 n. 56, 113, 121, 149, 181, 186, 190, 197, 199, 200, 204, 213, 217–218, 232, 250, 292, 296, 328, 392, 400–401, 435, 437, 439, 448, 490, 503, 517, 519, 521, 523, 577–578, 607 Wedding 139–140, 147, 159, 170, 387, 405–406, 503, 545, 545 n. 849, 549–550, 554, 561, 565–566, 570–571, 573, 575, 579–580, 605, 612, 614–615 Weiss, Joseph ( ) 3, 37 n. 40, 40, 40 n. 48, 41–43, 51 n. 93, 61, 71, 71 n. 21, 72–73, 73 n. 29, 74–75, 78, 81, 84, 88–89, 93, 99, 143, 320, 333, 604 White, Hayden 1, 1 n. 1, 7–9, 51, 62, 72 n. 25 Wiskind-Elper, Ora 87 n. 75, 92–93, 102–103, 130, 136, 145, 176, 179–180, 215, 218, 260, 263–264, 280, 283–284, 297, 303–304, 312, 317, 323, 333, 357, 362, 370–371, 379–380, 384, 386, 401, 410, 418, 435, 459, 470–471, 492, 500, 525–526, 553–555, 557, 562, 573, 575, 589, 611 Wolfson, Elliot R. 44 n. 68, 45 n. 72, 296 Wolterstorff, Nicholas 25, 25 n. 46 World-to-come 39–40, 43, 109, 135, 145, 165, 173, 240, 247–248, 306, 316, 353, 405, 474, 476, 539, 540, 546, 553 n. 873, 570, 590 n. 932, 612, 616, 622, 631 Worship 34–37, 53, 93, 113, 117, 152, 217, 227, 232–233, 265, 265 n. 376, 271, 287, 323, 464, 480, 482, 487,

660

index

489, 513, 517–518, 521, 524, 532, 537, 540, 591 Writer 11, 18, 56 Yechezkiel Trachtenberg 283 n. 407 Yehiel Mikhel of Zloczow 33 n. 27 Yemey MoHaRNaT 92 n. 93, 303 n. 450, 543 n. 844, 544 n. 848, 612 n. 958 Yesh 47–48, 131, 134 n. 118, 137, 275, 279, 422, 446, 505, 622, 630, 632 Yesod 44, 50, 99, 103, 107, 200, 226 n. 288, 232, 262, 296, 304, 497, 535, 567–569, 612 Yetser haRa 119, 121, 125, 313, 315, 349, 460, 609, 611 n. 955, 621 Yetser haTov 474 Yom Kippur 36, 118, 251, 297 Zaddik 3 n. 4, 29, 29 n. 10, 30–31, 37, 39–40, 42–43, 45 n. 71, 47–48, 50, 52, 54, 57, 58 n. 119, 60, 62–64, 72, 76, 78, 80–81, 83, 86–87, 134, 134 n. 117, 149–150, 189, 192–193, 195, 214, 219, 220 n. 278, 232, 238–240, 242–247, 248 n. 341, 249, 256–258, 261, 265, 273 n. 388, 286–287, 296, 299, 302–304, 305 n. 456, 307–308, 308 n. 463, 309–312, 312 n. 467, 313, 313 n. 470, 314 n. 473, 315, 332, 340 n. 530, 346 n. 534, 354

n. 555, 402 n. 644, 416, 431, 438 n. 712, 454 n. 736, 468, 475, 518, 550, 554, 565, 579 n. 915, 581 n. 918, 598 n. 936, 602, 604–605, 611, 615, 625 Zaddik haDor 2–4, 25, 42, 44–46, 49–50, 51 n. 93, 60–63, 72, 81, 87, 90–91, 103–104, 123, 128, 137, 143, 183, 197, 214, 258, 296–297, 300, 302, 308 n. 463, 313 n. 470, 355, 355 n. 558, 356, 468, 493 n. 784, 508 n. 813, 516, 526, 535, 541–542, 611, 626, 629–635 Zaddikey haDor 2, 15, 44, 48, 143, 246–247, 293, 361, 388, 501, 627, 634–635 Zaslov 282, 283 n. 407, 285 Zexir Anpin 107, 118, 133, 144, 171, 240 Zeitlin, Hillel 32 n. 24, 69, 69 n. 13, 70 Zevi Aryeh of Olek 35–36 Zevi Elimelekh of Dinov 41 n. 54 Zlotopolye 36, 38, 40, 43 Zodiac 217, 223, 230–231, 234 Zoharic 53, 60, 107–109, 112, 112 n. 56, 113, 116, 171, 205 n. 252, 249, 253, 258, 266–268, 270, 273, 353, 397–398, 441 n. 717, 493, 514, 566–567, 570, 570 n. 902, 576, 583, 592, 598, 602, 602 n. 941, 605, 612

REFERENCES TO THE HEBREW BIBLE

Genesis/Gen. 1 1.2 1.26–28 1.28 2.16–17 3.18 3.24 6–9 9.11 11.1–9 15 16.1 16.12 17.11 18–19 19 21.31 22.3 24.14 24.15–25 24.67 25.26 25.27 26.2–5 28.10 28.13–15 28.17 29.10–12 38 38.9–10 41 Exodus/Ex. XXXII 2.15–22 2.23–3.10 3 4.1 4.24–26 9.3 9.8 10

293 506 500 477 n. 767 506 120 112 513 n. 814, n. 843 506 n. 806 478 n. 769 157, 160 n. 365, 365 n. 146 n. 154, n. 320, 374 286 n. 421 153, 565 n. 493 399 n. 642, n. 807 370 n. 601 296 311 n. 465 370 n. 598 370 n. 599 288 n. 423 324 370 n. 600 371 n. 602 371 n. 603 248 371 n. 604 399 n. 642 506 218, 232 n.

538

181 586 241 n. 610 897 506

302

128, 240, 379, 506, 609, 617, 632 165 n. 186 371 n. 606 371 n. 606 202 n. 246 243 n. 326 152.167 244 n. 327 601 n. 937 168 n. 191

15.1 19.5 19.20–21 20 20.12 20.13 21.10 21.14 22.9–14 30 32 32.16 33.20 34.1 34.28

436 n. 708 520 n. 826 128 253 n. 348 379, 379 n. 618 506 506 506 431 n. 697 297 n. 438 291 n. 426 292 n. 428 262 n. 368 293 n. 431 516 n. 821

Leviticus/Lev. 1.16 13 13–14 15.1–18 16.10 18.6–19 21.6–8

255 n. 352 255 254–255 506 111 106, 106 n. 40 534 n. 838

Numbers/Num. IX IX,1 4–6 4.11 4.19 5.4 5.20 8.3 8.3–6 8.10 12.9 12.12 17 17.23 20 20.8 28.53 32 32.1 33.3 35.33–34

196 n. 235 268–269 253 n. 348 538 n. 843 229 n. 295 149 538 n. 843 506–507 332 n. 517 506 255 n. 354 255 297 n. 439 519 n. 826 202 n. 246 202 n. 247 168 n. 191 202 n. 246 106 n. 40 244 n. 327 506

662

references to the hebrew bible

Deuteronomy/Deut. XI, 17 196 n. 235 4–6 253 n. 348 4.11 538 n. 843 4.19 229 n. 295 5.4 149 5.20 538 n. 843 8.3 506, 507 8.3–6 332 n. 517 8.10 506 27.20–23 106 n. 40 28.53ff 168 n. 191 32 202 n. 246 32.1 106 n. 40 33.3 244 n. 327 Joshua/Josh. 3.7–8 6.15 20

253 582 243 118

n. n. n. n.

348 923 326 82

Judges/Judg. 3.7–8 6.15 20

582 n. 923 243 n. 326 118 n. 82

1 Samuel/1 Sam. 1 146 n. 154, 241 n. 320, 374 n. 610 1.11 147 1.28 147 7 118 n. 82 21.6 534 n. 838 2 Samuel/2 Sam. 6 613 1 Kings/1 Reg. 12.28 17 21 2 Kings/2 Reg. 1.10 2.1–11 5.27 Isaiah/Is. XIX XXII XLV LVII 1

37 168 n. 191 118 n. 82 134 134 255 n. 354 100, 112, 152, 174, 243 n. 326, 494 200 n. 245 514 493 267 175

1.2–3 1.19–20 1.21–27 1.25–26 5.25 6.3 6.5 6.9–10 6.10 7.10–12 9.5 10 10.17–21 11.6–10 23 31 31.1 31.1–3 31.3 31.6–9 34 37.37–38 40.25 40.3 40.31 43.17 44.2 44.17 45.18 45.20 47.13 49.23 49.3 50.3 52.1 53.4–5 54.1–5 54.7 62.2–3 Jeremiah/Jer. XIII 1.5 2.6 8.6 10.2 15.7 25 31.14 31.14–16 51.5

174 537 256 257 n. 356 244 n. 327 534 n. 837 243 n. 326’ 314 n. 474 474 n. 758 310 485 n. 775 112 112 n. 59, 152 604 n. 945 583 n. 924 469, 471, 487, 536 487 n. 780 536 487, 494, 519 537 258 537 534 n. 837 202 n. 248 575 n. 913 435 n. 707 151 n. 157 482, 486 n. 778 506 482 228 n. 295 418 558 n. 883 394 n. 635 534 n. 838 590 n. 932 569 100 558 n. 882 152 n. 162 151 n. 157, n. 838 11 435 n. 707 228 n. 295 146 n. 154, n. 320, 374 202 n. 249 515 n. 819, n. 838 515 n. 819 534 n. 837

534

241 n. 610 534

663

references to the hebrew bible Ezekiel/Ez. 1 2.1–6 11.19 34 36.26 Hosea/Hos. 2 2.16–17 9.12

124, 213 n. 259 386 n. 630 124 37 n. 40 431 n. 697 352 n. 550, 353 168 n. 191 111 146 n. 154, 241 n. 320, 374 n. 610

Joel 1–2

118 n. 82

Amos 2.15

436 n. 708

Jonah 3

118 n. 82

Nahum

31 n. 20

Habakkuk

267

Zephaniah/Zeph. 3.8–9

226 n. 288

Zechariah/Zech.

435 n. 707

1 Chronicles/1 Chron. 14.10 244 n. 327 2 Chronicles/2 Chron. 26.18–21 255 n. 354 Psalms/Ps. 1

1.1 1.3 1.6 2 2.9–12 3 3.8

49 n. 86, 290 175, 175 n. 200, 176, 179, 181, 181 n. 212, 182, 184–185, 188, 190, 193, 196, 199, 205–206, 208, 213, 386 186 194, 213–214 193 219, 219 n. 276, 226 n. 288, 232, 232 n. 304, 233 232 283–284, 289–293 292

11 22.10–11 24.4 31.6 35 43.4 52 52.1 52.3–10 61

69.14–15 71.22 73.11 77.1–7 78.21–27 78.70–72 83.18 89 90 90.2–4 101.7 103.5 119 123.1–2 126 147.6

386 n. 630 151 n. 157 293, 293 n. 430 244 n. 327 118 n. 82 507 206 207 206, 213 587 n. 926, 590, 590 nn. 932–933, 591–592, 596–597 352 n. 351 534 n. 837 534 n. 838 596 n. 935 396 n. 639 581 n. 919 102 558 n. 884 573 573 275 n. 390 575 n. 913 65 443 65 230 n. 299

Job 1:1 30.19–20 38

324, 352 n. 551 324 352 n. 551 386 n. 630

Proverbs/Prov. 5 7 21.31 25.4–5 26.18–19 30.21 30.21–23 31.15

205 424 n. 686 141, 315 n. 475 436 256 270 n. 383 115 205 n. 251 108

Ruth

361, 399 n. 642

Song of Songs/Cant. 2.1 2.32 3.8 5.10–16 8.3 8.6

118 458 124 193 258 251 250

n. 77, 250 n. 739 n. 96 n. 359

664 Eccles. 10.7

references to the hebrew bible

435

Lamentations/Lament. 1 515 n. 819 2.11 168 n. 191 Esther I I 10–11 1 2.22 2.9 6.1 Daniel/Dan. 2

116, 144, 218, 222 n. 281 116 n. 74 116 n. 73 116 n. 73 222 n. 281 144 n. 143 218 185, 218, 225–226, 233, 235 225–226, 226 nn. 288, 290,

2.2 2.20–23 2.32–33 2.38–40 3 3.15 3.25 3.29 4 4.7–9 4.17–19 4.22–23 7.11–14 9–10

227–228 218, 228 n. 295 225, 228 n. 293 225 226 n. 289 233 233 233 n. 305 233 185–187, 191, 213 185 185 n. 219 185 n. 220 185 118 n. 82

Ezra 10

229 n. 295 118 n. 82

Nehemiah/Neh. 9

118 n. 82