I got this story from my father before he passed away...
My grandson David will have his bar mitsvah next spring. No one in our family has under-gone that rite in at least 300 years — certainly not since we Levins settled in Old Israel, the Israel on planet Earth, soon after the European holocaust.
My friend Eliahu asked me not long ago how I feel about David’s bar-mitzvah, whether the idea of it angers me, whether I see it as a disturbing element. No, I replied: my grandson is a Jew after all, and at his young age of twelve decides that he wants a bar-mitsvah, then he has a year to study his forthcoming preparations for his thirteenth birthday.
These are times of transition and upheaval, as all times are. David is not bound by the attitudes of his ancestors.
‘Since when is a Jew not bound by the attitudes of his ancestors?’ Eliahu asked.
‘You know what I mean,’ I said.
Indeed he did. We are bound but yet free. If anything governs us out of the past it is the tribal bond itself, not the philosophies of our departed kinsmen. We accept what we choose to accept; nevertheless we remain Jews, I come from a family that liked to say — especially to gentiles - that we are Jews but not Jewish, that is, we acknowledge and cherish our ancestral heritage but we do not care to entangle ourselves in outmoded rituals and folkways.
This is what my forefathers declared, as far back as those secular-minded Levins who three centuries ago fought to win and guard the freedom of the land of Israel. (Old Israel, I mean.) I would say the same here, if there were any gentiles on this world to whom such things had to be explained.
But of course in this New Israel in the stars we have only ourselves, no gentiles within a dozen light-years, unless our neighbours the Kunivaru are gentiles. (Can creatures that are not human rightly be called gentiles? I’m not sure the term applies. Besides, the Kunivaru now insist that they are Jews. My mind spins. It’s an issue of Talmudic complexity, and God knows I’m no Talmudist. Hillel, Akiva, Rashi, help me!) Anyway, come the fifth day of Sivan my son’s son will have his bar-mitzvah , and I’ll play the proud grandpa part in this act as pious old Jews have done for six thousand years, and who was counting - nobody knows.
All things are connected. That my grandson would have a bar-mitsvah is merely the latest link in a chain of events that goes back to - when? To the day the Kunivaru decided to embrace Judaism? To the day the dybbuk entered Seul the Kunivar? To the day we refugees from Earth discovered the fertile planet that we sometimes call New Israel and sometimes call Mazel Tov IV? To the day of the Final Pogrom on Earth?
Reb Yossele the Hasid might say that David’s bar-mitzvah was determined on the day the Lord God fashioned Adam out of dust.
But I think that would be overdoing things.
The day the dybbuk took possession of the body of Seul the Kunivar was probably where it really started. Until then things were relatively uncomplicated here. The Hasidim had their settlement, we Israelis had ours, and the natives, the Kunivaru, had the rest of the planet; and generally we all kept out of each others way.
After the dybbuk it all changed. It happened more than forty years ago, in the first generation after the Landing, on the ninth day of Tishri in the year 6302. I was working in the fields, for Tishri is a harvest month.
The day was hot, and I worked swiftly, singing and humming. as I moved down the rows of crackle-pods, tagging those that were ready to be gathered, a Kunivar appeared at the crest of the hill that overlooks our kibbutz.
It seemed to be in some distress, for it came staggering and lurching down the hillside with extraordinary clumsiness, tripping over its own four legs as if it barely knew how to manage them. When it was about 100 metres from me it cried out,
‘Shimon! Help me, Shimon ! In God’s name help me !’
There were several strange things about this outcry, and I perceived them gradually, the most trivial first. It seemed odd that a Kunivar would address me by my given name, for they were a formal people.
It seemed more odd that a Kunivar would speak to me in quite decent Hebrew, for at that time none had learned our language.
It seemed most odd of all — but I was slow to discern it — that a Kunivar very voice, dark and resonant of my dear dead friend Yossef Avneri.
The Kunivar stumbled into the cultivated part of the field and halted, trembling terribly. Its fine green fur was pasted into hummocks by perspiration and its great golden eyes rolled and crossed in a ghastly way.
It stood flat-footed, splaying its legs out under the four corners of its chunky body like the legs of a table, and clasped its long powerful arms around its chest. I recognized the Kunivar as Seul, the sub-chief of the local village, with whom we of the kibbutz had occasional dealings.
‘What help can I give you?’ I asked. ‘What has happened to you, Seul?’
‘Shimon — Shimon — ‘ A frightful moan came from the Kunivar. ‘Oh, God, Shimon, it goes beyond all belief ! How can I bear this? How can I even comprehend it?’
No doubt about it. The Kunivar was speaking in the voice of Yossef Avneri.
‘Seul ?’ I said hesitantly.
‘My name is Yossef Avneri.’
‘Yossef Avneri died a year ago last Elul. I did’nt realize you were such a clever mimic, Seul.’
‘Mimic? You speak to me of mimicry, Shimon? It’s no mimicry. I am your Yossef, dead but still aware, thrown for my sins into this monstrous alien body. Are you Jew enough to know what a dybbuk is Shimon?’
‘A wandering ghost, yes, who takes possession of the body of a living being.’
‘I have become a dybbuk.’
‘There are no dybbuks. Dybbuks are phantoms out of mediaeval folklore, ‘ I said.
‘You hear the voice of one.’
‘This is impossible,’ I said.
‘I agree, Shimon, I agree.’ He sounded calmer now.
‘It’s entirely impossible, I don’t believe in dybbuks either, any more than I believe in Zeus and the Minotaurs , werewolves, gorgons, or golems. But how else do you explain me?’
‘You are Seul the Kunivar, playing a clever trick.’
‘Do you really think so? Listen to me, Shimon: I knew you when we were boys in Tiberias. I rescued you when we were fishing in the lake and our boat overturned. I was with you when we met Leah whom you married. I was godfather to your son Yigal. I studied with you at the university in Jerusalem. I fled with you in the fiery days of the Final Pogrom. I stood watch with you aboard the Ark in the years of our flight from earth.
Do you remember Jerusalem? The Old City, the Mount of Olives where we stood many a time, the Tomb of Absalom, the Western Wall?. Am I a Kunivar, Shimon, to know about the Western Wall?’
‘There is no survival of consciousness after death.’ I said stubbornly.
‘A year ago I would have agreed with you. But who am I if I am not the spirit of Yossef Avneri? How can you account for me any other way.? Dear God, do you think
I want to believe this, Shimon? You know what a scoffer I was. But this is real now.’
‘Perhaps I’m having a very vivid hallucination,.’
‘Call the others, then, if ten people have the same hallucination, is it still a hallucination?
Be reasonable, Shimon! Here I stand before you, telling you things that only I could know and you deny that I am — ‘
’Be reasonable?’ I said. ‘Where does reason enter into this?. Do you expect me to
believe in ghosts, Yossef, in wandering demons., in dybbuks?. Am I some superstition-
ridden peasant out of the Polish woods? Is this the Middle Ages ?”,
‘You called me Yossef,’ he said quietly.
‘I can hardly call you Seul, when you speak in that voice.’
‘Then you believe in me!’
‘No.’
‘Look, Shimon, did you ever know a bigger skeptic than Yossef Avneri? I had no use for the Torah, I said Moses was fictional, I ploughed the fields on Sabbaths and even on Yom Kippur, I laughed in God’s nonexistant face. What is life, I said?
And I answered: that it was a mere chain of incidents and accidents, a transient biological phenomenon .yet I remember the moment of my death. For a full year I’ve wandered this world, bodiless because I lost the third dimension, and remaining in two dimensions — like a shadow that has no thickness, perceiving things but unable to communicate. And today I find myself cast into this creature’s body, and I know myself for a dybbuk. If I believe, Shimon, then for the sake of our friendship in the past have faith in what I tell you !’
‘You have actually become a dybbuk ?’
‘I have become a dybbuk.’ he said.
I shrugged. ‘Very well, Yossef. You’re a dybbuk. It’s madness, but I believe.’
I stared in astonishment at the Kunivar. Did I believe that I believed?. How could I not believe? There was no other way for the voice and knowledge of Yossef Avneri to be coming out of the throat of a Kunivar. Sweat streamed down my body. I was face to face with the incredible, and all my philosophy about the cycles of life, and the loss of, and subsequent recovery of the third dimension when the new cycle starts again appears shattered.
Anything was possible now. God may yet appear in a burning bush. The sun may yet stand still for nine hours. No, I told myself. Believe only one irrational thing at a time, I told myself. evidently there are dybbuks; well, then, there are dybbuks. But everything else pertaining to the Invisible World remains unreal until it manifests itself.
‘Why Yossef do you think this has happened to you?.’ I asked..
‘It could only be as a punishment.’ he replied.
‘For what, Yossef?’ I asked.
‘My experiments. You knew I was doing research into the Kunivaru metabolism in our hospital didn’t you?’ he replied.
‘Yes, certainly. But — ‘
’Did you know that I performed surgical experiments as well on live Kunivaru in our hospital? That I used patients, without informing them or anyone else, in studies of a forbidden kind? It was vivisection, Shimon.’
‘What?’
‘There were things I needed to know, and there was only one way I could discover them. The hunger for knowledge led me into sin. I told myself these creatures were ill, that they would shortly die anyway, and that it will benefit future patients if I opened the ones in front of me, you see, besides, they were not human beings, and our knowledge about them has to start, Shimon, they were only animals — very intelligent animals, true, but still only — ‘
’No, Yossef, I can now believe in dybbuks more readily than what you are revealing now. You, doing such a thing? My calm rational friend, my scientist, my wise one?.’
I shuddered and stepped a few paces back from him. ‘Auschwitz !’ I cried.‘Buchenwald Dachau! Do these names mean anything to you Yossef ?. “They weren’t human beings.” the Nazi surgeon said. “They were only Jews and our need for more scientific.knowledge is such that— “ That was only three hundred years ago, Yossef. And you, a Jew. A Jew of all people, to— ‘
’I know, Shimon, I know. Spare me the lecture. It was breaking my heart to carry on with research. I sinned terribly, and for my sins I was given this grotesque body, this gross, hideous, heavy body, these four legs which I can hardly cooordinate, this crooked spine, this foul hot furry pelt. I still don’t believe in a God, Shimon, but I think I believe in some sort of compensating force that balances accounts in this universe, and my account is being balanced by a dybbuk grafted into me, oh, yes, Shimon! I’ve had six hours of terror and loathing today such as I never dreamed could be experienced. To enter this body, to fry in this heat, to wander these hills trapped in such a mass of flesh, to feel myself being bombarded with sensory perceptions of a being so alien—its been hell, I tell you that without exaggeration. I would have died of shock in the first ten minutes if I did not happen already to be dead . Only now, seeing you,talking to you, do I begin to get control of myself. Help me, Shimon.’
‘What do you want me to do”’
‘Get me out of here. This is torment. I’m a dead man; I’m entitled to rest the way the other dead ones rest. Free me, Shimon!’
‘How?’
‘How? How? Do I know? Am I an expert on dybbuks? Must I direct my own exorcism? If you knew what an effort it is simply to keep this body upright, to make its tongue form Hebrew words, to say things you’ll understand— ‘
Suddenly the Kunivar sagged to its knees, a slow, complex folding process that reminded ne of the manner in which the camels on Old Earth lowered themselves to the ground. The alien creature began to splutter and moan, wave its arms about; foam appeared on his wide rubbery lips.
‘God in Heaven. Shimon .’ Yossef cried , ‘set me free!’
I called for my son Yigal and he came running swiftly from the far side of the fields, a lean healthy boy, only eleven years old but already long-legged, strong-bodied. Without going into details I indicated the suffering Kunivar and told Yigal to get help from the kibbutz.
A few minutes later he came back leading seven or eight men — Abrasha, Itzhak, Uri, Nahum, Aryeh and others. It took the full strength of all of us to lift the Kunivar into the hopper of the harvesting machine and transport him to our hospital. Two of the doctors — Moshe Shiloah and someone else — began to examine the stricken alien, and I sent Yigal to the Kunivaru village to tell the chief that Seul had collapsed in our fields.
The doctors quickly diagnosed the problem as a case of heat prostration. They were busy discussing the sort of injection the Kunivar should be given when Yossef Avneri breaking a silence that lasted since Seul had fallen, announced his presence within the Kunivar’s body.
Uri and Nahum had remained in the hospital room with me; not wanting this craziness to become general knowledge in the kibbutz, I took them outside and told them to forget whatever ravings they had heard. When I returned, the doctors were busy with their preparations and Yossef was patiently explaining to them that he was a dybbuk who had involuntary taken possession of the Kunivar,
‘The heat has driven the poor creature insane,’
Moshe Shiloah murmured, and rammed a huge needle into one of Seul’s thighs.
‘You know that voice,’ I told the doctors, ‘something very unusual has happened here.’
But they were no more willing to believe in dybbuks than in rivers that flow uphill.
Yossef continued to protest, and the doctors continued methodically to fill Seul’s body with sedatives and restoratives and other potions. Even when Yossef began to speak of last year’s kibbutz gossip— who had been sleeping with whom; who had illicitly been peddking goods from the community storehouse to the Kunivaru— they paid no attention. It was as though they had so much difficulty believing that a Kunivar could speak Hebrew that were not attentive enough to make sense out of Yossef’s words and brushed them aside to be Seul’s delirium. Suddenly Yossef raised his voice for the first time, calling out in a loud, angry tone:
‘You Moshe Shiloah ! Aboard the Ark I found you in bed with the wife of Teviah Kohn, remember? Would a Kunivar have known this hidden detail out of your life?.’
Moshe Shiloah gasped, reddened and dropped his hypodermic.
The other doctor was nearly as astonished.
‘What is this? ‘ Moshe Shiloah asked. ‘How can this be?’
‘Deny me now !’ Yossef roared. ‘Can you deny me? And when you and — ‘
’No, no Yossef, of course we believe you. It’s only that dybbuks on Mazel Tov IV were not expected as we brought none in the Ark, and now Yossef we are faced with a reality of having to exorcise it out of you — ‘
Moshe Shiloah answered as if Yossef’s uncovering details were not important now.
The doctors faced the same problems of acceptance that I had had, that Yossef grappled with. We were all of us rational men in the kibbutz, and the supernatural had no place in our lives. But there was no arguing the phenomenon away. There was the voice of Yossef Avneri emerging from the throat of Seul the Kunivar, and the voice was saying things that only Yossef would have said, and Yossef had been dead more than a year.
Call it a dybbuk or call it by any other name. We the rational ones can not ignore Yossef’s presence back in the kibbutz and in this form. Locking the door, Moshe Shiloah said to me that we must find a way quickly to deal with this somehow.
Tensely we discussed the situation. It was, we agreed, a delicate, difficult and above all an urgent matter.
Yossef, back from the dead, raging and tortured, demanding to be exorcised and allowed to sleep the sleep of the dead; unless we placated him he would make us all suffer for the skeletons in our cupboards. In his pain, in his fury, he might say anything, he might reveal things about our private lives that we have forgotten; a dead man is beyond all of society’s rules of common decency. We could not expose ourselves to that. But what could we do about him?
Chain him in an outbuilding and hide him in solitary confinement? Hardly.. unhappy Yossef deserves better of us than that; and there was Seul to consider, poor supplanted Seul, the dybbuk’s unwilling host. We could not keep a Kunivar in the kibbutz, imprisoned or free, even if his body did house the spirit of one of our members, nor could we let the shell of Seul to go back to the Kunivaru village with Yossef as a furious passenger trapped inside. What to do? Separate soul from body: restore Seul to wholeness and send Yossef to the limbo of the dead. But how? There was nothing in the pharmacopoeia about dybbuks. What to do?
I sent for Shmarya Asch and Yaakov Bentzion, who headed the kibbutz council that month, and for Shlomo Feig, our rabbi, a shrewd and sturdy man, very unorthodox in his orthodoxy, almost as secular as the rest of us. They questioned Yossef Avneri extensively, and he told them the whole chain of events from research to scandalous secret experiments to the end; his post-mortem year as a wandering spirit, his sudden painful incarnation within Seul.
At length Shmarya Asch turned to Moshe Shiloah and snapped.
‘There must be some therapy for such a case.’
‘I know of none’
‘This is schizophrenia,’ said Shmarya Asch in his firm, dogmatic way. ‘There are cures for schizophrenia. There are drugs, there are electric shocks treatments, there are — you know these things better than I, Moshe.’
‘This is not schizophrenia,’ Moshe Shiloah retorted. ‘This is a case of demonic possession. I have no training in treating such maladies.’
‘Demonic possession?’ Shmarya bellowed. ‘Have you lost your mind?’
‘Peace, peace, all of you.’ Shlomo Feig said, as everyone began to shout at once.
The rabbi’s voice cut sharply through the tumult and silenced us all. He was a man of great strength, physical as well as moral, to whom the entire kibbutz inevitably turned for guidance although there was virtually no one among us who observed the major rites of Judaism. He said ‘I find this as hard to comprehend as any of you. But the evidence triumphs over my scepticism. How can we deny that Yossef Avneri has returned as a dybbuk? Moshe, you know no way of causing this intruder to leave the Kunicar’s body?’
‘None at all,’ said Moshe Shiloah.
‘Maybe the Kunivaru themselves know a way,’ Yaakov Bentzion suggested.
‘Exactly.’ said rhe rabbi. ‘My next point. These Kunivaru are a primitive simple folk. They live closer to the world of magic and witchcraft, of demons and spirits, than we do whose minds are schooled in the habits of reason. Perhaps such cases of possession occur among them, as surely the have more interest in Seul than the dybbuk. Perhaps they have techniques for driving out unwanted spirits. Let us turn to them, and let them cure their own.’
Before long Yigal arrived, bringing with him six Kunivaru, including Gyaymar, the village chief. They wholly filled the little hospital room, bustling around in it like a delegation of huge furry centaurs; I was oppressed by the acrid smell of so many of them in one small space, and although they had always been friendly to us, never raising an objection when we appeared as refugees to settle on their planet, I felt fear of them now as I have never felt before.
Clustering about Seul, they asked questions of him in their own supple language, and when Yossef Avneri replied in Hebrew they whispered things to each other unintelligible to us. Then, unexpectedlly, the voice of Seul broke through, speaking in halting spastic monosyllables that revealed the terrible shock that his nervous system must have received with the invasion of the dybbuk; then Seul voice faded and Yossef Avneri spoke once more with the Kunivar’s lips, begging forgiveness, asking for release.
Turning to Gyaymar, Shlomo Feig said, ‘Have such things happened on this world before?’
‘Oh, yes, yes.’ the chief replied. ‘Many times. When one of us dies having a guilty soul, repose is denied, and the spirit may undergo strange migrations before forgiveness comes. What was the nature of this man’s sin?’
‘It would be difficult to explain to one who is not Jewish,’ said the rabbi hastily, glancing away.’the important question is whether you have a means of undoing what has befallen the unfortunate Seul, whose sufferings we all lament.’
‘We have means, yes,’ said Gyaymar the chief.
The six Kunivaru hoisted Seul to their shoulders and carried him from the kibbuts; we were told that we might accompany them if we cared to do so. I went along, and Moshe Shiloah, and Shmarya Asch, and Yaakov Bentzion, and the rabbi, and perhaps some others.
The Kunivaru took their comrade not to their village but to a meadow several kilometers to the east, down in the direction of the place where the Hasidim lived.
Not long after the landing of our Ark, the Kunivaru had let us know that the meadow was sacred to them, and none of us had ever entered it.
It was a lovely place, green and moist, a gently sloping basin crisscrossed by a dozen cool little streams. Depositing Seul beside one of the streams, the Kunivaru went off into the woods bordering the meadow to gather firewood and herbs. We remained close to Seul.
‘This will do no good!’ Yossef Avneri muttered more than once, ‘A waste of time! A foolish waste of energy.’
Three of the Kunivaru started to build a bonfire; two sat nearby, shredding the herbs, making heaps of leaves, stems, roots. Gradually more of them appeared until the meadow was filled with them: it seemed that the whole village, some four-hundred Kunivaru, was turning out to watch or to participate in the rite.
Many of them carried musical instruments, trumpets and drums, rattles and clappers, lyres,lutes,small harps, percussive boards, wooden flutes, everything intricate and fanciful of design; we had not suspected such cultural complexity.
The priests— I assume they were priests, Kunivaru of stature and dignity— wore ornate ceremonial helmets and heavy golden mantles of sea-beast fur. The ordinary villagefolk carried ribbons and streamers, bits of bright fabric, polished mirrors of stone, and other ornamental devices.
When he saw how eleborate a function it was going to be, Moshe Shiloah, an amateur anthropologist at heart, ran to the kibbutz to fetch camera and recorder. He returned breathless just as the rite commenced.
And a glorious rite it was: incence, a grandly blazing bonfire, the pungent fragrance of freshly picked herbs, some heavy-footed quasi-orgiastic dancing, and a choir punching out harsh, sharp edged arrythmic melodies. Gyaymar and the high priest of the village performed an elegant antiphonal chant, uttering long curling intertwining melismas and sprinkling Seul with sweet-smelling pink fluid out of a baroquely carved wooden censer, never have I beheld such a stirring pageantry. But Yossef’s gloomy prediction was correct; it was all entirely useless. Two hours of intensive exorcism had no effect.
When the ceremony ended— the ultimate punctuation marks were five terrible shouts from the high priest— the dybbuk remained firmly in possession of Seul.
‘You have not conquered me.’ Yossef declared in a bleak tone.
‘It seems we have no power to command an earthborn soul.’ Gyaymar said.
‘What will we do now?’ demanded Yaakov Bentzion of no one in particular. ‘Our science and their witchcraft both fail.’
Yossef Avneri pointed towards the east, towards the village of the Hasidim, and murmured something indistinct.
‘No!’ cried Rabbi Shlomo Feig, who stood closest to the dybbuk at that moment.
‘What did he say/’ I asked.
‘It was nothing,’ the rabbi said ‘It was foolishness. The long ceremony left him fatgued, and his mind wanders. Pay no attention.’
I moved closer to my old friend. ‘Tell me, Yossef !’
I said,’ the dybbuk replied slowly, ‘that perhaps we should send for the Baal Shem.’
‘Foolishness!’ said Shlomo Feig, and spat.
‘Why this anger?’ Shmarya Asch wanted to know.
‘You Rabbi Shlomo, you were one of the first to advocate employing Kunivaru sorcerers in this business. You gladly bring in alien witch doctors, rabbi, and grow angry when someone suggests that your fellow Jew be given a chance.to drive out the demon? Be consistent, please, Shlomo!’
Rabbi Shlomo’s face grew mottled with rage. It was strange to see this calm, even-tempered man becoming so excited. ‘I will have nothing to do with Hasidim!’ he exclaimed. ’I think this ia a matter of professional rivalries.’ Moshe Shiloah commented.
The rabbi said, ‘To give recognition to all that is most superstitious in Judaism, to all
that is most irrational and grotesque and outmoded and mediaeval? No! No!’
‘But dybbuks are irrational and grotesque and outmoded and mediaeval’ said Yossef Avneri. ‘Who better to exorcise one than a rabbi whose soul and mind is still rooted in the very mediaeval beliefs that recognized the dybbuk in the first place?’
‘I forbid this!’ Shlomo Feig spluttered. If the Baal Shem is summoned I will,,,I will — ‘
‘Rabbi,’ Yossef said, shouting now,’ this is a matter between my tortured soul against your offended pride. What would you have done if I was the rabbi, and you the one with the dybbuk. Give way! Give way! Give way! Get me the Baal Shem!’
‘I refuse!’
‘Look!’ called Yaakov Bentszion, the dispute had suddenly become academic.
Uninvited, our Hasidic cousins were arriving at the sacred meadow, a long procession of them, eerie prehistoric-looking figures clad in their traditional long black robes, wide brimmed hats, heavy beards, dangling side-locks; and at their head marched their tzadik, their holy man, their prophet, their leader, Reb Shmuel the Baal Shem!.
_ (Vav) = 6 ; _ _ (Lamed) = 30
It was certainly never our idea to bring Hasidim with us when we fled out of the smouldering ruis of the Land of Israel. Our intention was to leave Earth and all its sorrows behind. If there is a God, then there is one and only one for the Universe and that includes Earth and Mazel Tov IV. We planned to start afresh, anew, in another world, wiping the slate of creation, which repeats itself anyhow, and having no burden of past debts to pay back.
On our new world where we could at last build an enduring Jewish Homeland, free for once to shape our destiny without handicaps and most of all free of religious extremists, fanatics among our own kind whose presence had long been a drain on our vitality.
We needed no weepers, no moaners, no mystics, no ecstatics, no leapers, no chanters; we needed only workers, farmers, machinists, engineers, builders. But how could we refuse them a place in our Ark? It was their good fortune that they appeared in front of us from nowhere as we were readying to count down.
The nightmare that had darkened our sleep for three centuries had been made real; the Homeland devastated and in flames for the third time in our long history. Our armies of men and youth knocked out of ambush, Phillistines wielding long knives strode through our cities, our friends watched on...
Our Ark ready to leap starwards.. We were not cowards but simply realists, for it was folly to think we could do battle any longer, and if a fragment of our nation were to survive, it would only do so far from that bitter world Earth, where we were the chosen people;sitting astride on the cross roads of commercial traffic for the benefit of unfriendly neighbours; we were chosen for punishment.
So we were ready to go and here were suppliants asking for succour, Reb Shmuel Baal Shem and 35 survivors of his sect. How could we turn them away, knowing that they would certainly perish? They were human beings, they were Jews, for all our misgivings, we let them come aboard.
And then after 12 years we developed that gut feeling we are getting home and then we found its fourth planet to be sweet and fertile, and we thanked God in whom we did not believe for our good luck that He granted us, and we cried out to each other Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov (good luck) .and someone looked in the Bible and remembered that Mazal had a meaning of star as well as luck, thus our landfall was on Mazel Tov IV. Here we had no enemies, no Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Romans, Cossacks, Nazis or Arabs, only the Kunivaru, a kindly people of a simple nature who solemnly studied our pantomimed explanations and replied in gestures, saying, be welcome, and we built here our kibbutz.
But we had no desire to live close to those people of the past, the Hasidim, and they had scant love for us, for they saw us as godless Jews, worse than gentiles, and they went off and built their muddy dwellings calling it a village to the east,and there was scarecely any contact between us. Sometimes on clear nights we hear their lusty singing meaning they were happy.
I could understand Rabbi Shlomo’s not wanting Baal Shem intervening in our affairs. These Hasidim represented the mystic side of Judaism, the dark uncontrollable Dionysiac side, another one of the skeletons in the tribal closet and no body kept count of how many; Shlomo Feig might be amused or charmed by a rite of exorcism performed by furry centaurs, but when Jews took part in the same sort of worship, and the bottom line in all these acts is the wine and food as a reward.
Then , too, there was the ugly fact that the sane, sensible Rabbi Shlomo had no followers at all among the sane, sensible secularized Jews of our kibbutz, whereas Reb Shmuel’s Hasidim looked upon him with awe, regarding him as a healer, a miracle worker, a seer, a saint.
Still,Rabbi Shlomo’s understanable jealousies and prejudices aside, Yossef Avneri was right; dybbuks were vapours out of the realm of the fantastic, and the fantastic was the Baal Shem’s kingdom.
He was an improbably tall, angular figure, almost skeletal, with gaunt cheekbones, a soft, thickly curling beard, and gentle dreamy eyes. I suppose he was about fifty years old, though I would have believed it if they said he was thirty or seventy or ninety. His sense of the dramatic was unfailing; now— it was late afternoon— he took up a position with the setting sun at his back, so that his long dhadow engulfed us all, and spread forth his arms, and said. ‘We have heard reports of a dybbuk among you’.
‘There is no dybbuk !’ Rabbi Shlomo retorted fiercely.
The Baal Shem smiled. ‘But there is a Kunivar who speaks with an Israeli voice?’
‘There has been an odd transformation, yes,’ Rabbi Shlomo conceded. ‘But in this age, on this planet, no one can take dybbuks seriously.’
‘That is, you cannot take dybbuks seriously,’ said the Baal Shem.
‘I do!’ cried Yossef Avneri in exasperation. ‘I ! I ! I am the dybbuk! L, Yossef Avneri, dead a year ago last Elul, doomed for my sins to inhabit this Kunivar creature. A Jew, Reb Shmuel, a dead Jew, a pitiful, sunful miserable Yid. Who;ll let me out? Who’ll set me free?’
‘There is no dybbuk ?’ the Baal Shem said amiably..
‘This Kunivar has gone insane.’ Said Shlomo Feig.
We coughed and shifted our feet. If anyone had gone insane it was our rabbi, denying in this fashion the phenomenon that he himself had acknowleged as genuine, however reluctantly, only a few hours before.
Envy, woumded pride and stubborness had unbalanced his judgement.
Yossef Avneri, enraged began to bellow the Aleph, Beth, Gimmel, the Shema Yisrael creed, and anything that might prove his dybbukhood.
The Baal Shem waited patiently, arms outspread, saying nothing. Rabbi Shlomo, confronting him, his powerful stocky figure swarfed by thr long legged Hasid, maintained energetically that there had to be some rational explanation for the metamorphosis of Seul the Kunivar.
When Shlomo Feig at length fell silent, the Baal Shem said, ‘There is indeed a dybbuk in this Kunivar. Do you think, Rabbi Shlomo that dybbuks ceased their wanderings when the shtetls in Poland were destroyed by the Nazis? Nothing is lost in the sight of God, Rabbi. Jews go to the stars; the Torah and the Talmud and the Zohar have gone also to the stars; dybbuks too may be found in these strange worlds, Rabbi, may I bring peace to to this troubled spirit and to this weary Kunivar ?’
‘Do whatever you want’ Shlomo Feig muttered in disgust and strode away scowling.
Reb Shmuel at once commenced the exorcism. He called first for a minyan. Eight of the Hasidim stepped forward. I exchanged a glance with Shmarya Asch, and we shrugged and stepped forward too, but the Baal Shem smiling, waved us away and beckoned two more of his followers into the circle.
They began to sing; to my everlasting shame I have no idea what the singing was about, the words were Yiddish of a Galitzianer dialect, a cold chill ran down my spine, when the flash hit me hard, I sang it before, in a previous lifetime at exorcisms. They sang for ten or fifteen minutes, the Hasidim grew more animated, clapping their hands, dancing about their Baal Shem; suddenly Reb Shmuel lowered his arms to his sides, silencing them, and quitely began to recite Hebrew phrases, which after a moment I recognised as those of the Ninety-first Psalm of David.
The Lord is my refuge and my fortress, in him I will trust. The psalm rolled melodiously,just as I sang it in that previous lifetime, to its comforting conclusion, its promise of deliverance and salvation. For a long moment all was still. Then in a terrifying voice, not loud but immensely commanding, the Baal Shem ordered the spirit of Yossef Avneri to quit the body of Seul the Kunivar. ‘Out! Out ! In God’s name exit and off to your eternal rest!’
One of the Hasidim handed Reb Shmuel a Shofar. The Baal Shem put the ram’s horn to his lips and blew one single titanic blast.
Yossef Avneri whimpered.
The Kunivar that housed him took three awkward, toppling steps.
‘Oy, mama, mama’ Yossef cried.
The Kunivar’s head snapped back; his arms shot straight out at his sides; he tumbled clumsily on his four knees. An aeon went by. Then Seul rose, smoothly this time, with natural Kunivaru grace— went to the Baal Shem, and knelt, and touched the tsadik’s black robe. So we knew the thing was done.
Instant later the tension broke. Two of the Kunivaru priests rushed towards the Baal Shem, and then Gyaymar, and then some of the musicians, and then it seemed the whole tribe was pressing close to him, trying to touch the holy man. The Hasidim, looking worried, murmured their concern, but the Baal Shem, towering over the surging mob, calmly blessed the Kunivaru, stroking the dense fur of their backs. After some minutes of this, the Kunivaru set up a rythmic chant, and it was a while before I realized what they were saying. Moshe Shiloah,and Yaakov Bentzion caught the sense of it at the same time that I did, that we burst into smiles and laughter and the laughter died down.
‘What do their words mean?’ the Baal Shem called out.
They are saying,’ I told him, ‘that they are convinced of the power of your god. They wish to become Jews.’
For the first time Reb Shmuel’s poise and serenity shattered. His eyes flashed ferociously and he pushed at the crowding Kunivaru, opening an avenue between them.
‘Such a thing is an absurdity!’
‘Nevertheless, take a good look at them. They worship you, Reb Shmuel’
‘I refuse their worship.’
‘You worked a miracle right in front of their eyes. They believe what they saw.. Can you blame them for adoring you and hungering after your faith?’
‘Let them adore’ said the Baal Shem, ‘But how can they become Jews? It would be a mockery.’ I shook my head
‘What was it that you told Rabbi Shlomo ?, Nothing is lost in the sight of God. There havealways been converts to Judaism; we never invite them, but we never turn them away if they are sincere, eh, Reb Shmuel? Even here on Mazel Tov IV, we are still in the same Universe as old Earth; there is continuity of tradition, and tradition says we harden not our hearts to those who seek the truth of God. These are good people: let them be into Israel.’
‘No,’ the Baal Shem sais. ‘A Jew must first of all be human.’
‘Show me that in the Torah.’
‘The Torah! You joke with me. A Jew must first of all be human. Were cats allowed to become Jews? Were horses?’
‘These people are neither cats nor horses, Reb Shmuel. They are as human as we are.’
‘No! No!’
‘If there can be a dybbuk on Mazel Tov IV’ I said ‘then there can also be Jews with six limbs and green fur,’
‘No! No! No! No! ‘
The Baal Shem had had enough of this debate. Shoving aside the clutching hands of the Kunivaru in a most unsaintly way, he gathered his followers and stalked off, a tower of offended dignity but lacking in what it takes to complete a human, bidding us no farewells.
But how can true faith be denied? The Hasidim as individuals offered no encouragement — the generations of ‘conditioning’ in the shtetls of Poland squeezed their horizons to zero— they depended on the guidance of a Baal Shem who did their thinking— they just followed with tragic consequences.
The Kunivaru had a wider horizon in their views and they came to us; they learnt Hebrew, read and write, and we loaned them books, and Rabbi Shlomo gave them basic religious instruction, and in their own time and in their own way, they entered into Judaism. All this was in the first generation after the Landing. Most of those alive then are dead now — Rabbi Shlomo Reb Shmuel the Baal Shem, Moshe Shiloah, Shmarya Asch. I was a young man then. I know a good deal more now, and if I am no closer to God than I ever was, perhaps He has grown closer to me. Our fingers have not met yet !.
We are much closer to the Kunivaru, too, than we were in those days; they no longer seem as alien beings to us, merely neighbours whose bodies have a different form. The younger ones of our kibbutz are especially drawn to them. The year before last, Rabbi Lhaoyir the Kunivar suggested to some of our boys that they come for lessons to their Talmud Torah, their religious school, that he runs in the Kunivaru village.
Since the death of Shlomo Feig there has been no one in the kibbutz to give such instruction.
When Reb Yossele, the son and successor of Reb Shmuel the Baal Shem, heard this, he raised strong objections. If your boys will take instruction, he said, at least send them to us and not to green monsters.
My son Yigal threw him out of the kibbutz. We would rather let our boys learn the Torah from green monsters, Yigal told Reb Yossele, than have him indoctrinated by Hasidim.
And so my son’s son has had his lessons at the Talmud Torah of Rabbi Lhaoyir the Kunivar, and next spring he will have his bar mitzvah.
Once I would have been appalled by such goings on.
When the views of one’s horizon remain constricted, and one does ‘lift himself up by his boot-straps’ and take a good look at the boundaries of his constricted horizon, and then venture into the next horizon, and the next...then there is hope for a new world.
Mazel Tov 4 was in a science fiction of David.
Catch 22 – A situation characterized by obstacles that defeat all attempts of the victim to escape from it.
The novel CATCH – 22 by J. Heller in 1961. Catch 22 was a best seller for many years and 12 reprints. And the term ‘catch 22' is even in foreign dictioneries.
He also wrote “God Knows” - the story of King David narrated by himself in modern day parlance. no holds barred.
In Krakow a student in a Yeshivah developed a list of twenty two names in Hebrew, each starting with one of the twenty two letters of the Hebrew alphabet– read: right to left
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
but the system is still shrouded in mysticism
In this study, it is possible to put, ‘any’ three of the twenty two letters, each of which signifies an obstacle (from which there is no escape), in such a way, that the chosen three serve as a ‘key’ to force an escape from the remaining nineteen obstacles.
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