The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207 brill.

nl/rrj

A Story Is (Not) a Sugya in the Gemara:

On S.Y. Agnon’s Novels1

Dalia Hoshen
Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, Israel
daliahoshen@gmail.com

Keywords
Agnon, simple story, Midrash, Talmud

In S.Y. Agnon’s Until Now (Ad Henah) Dr. Mittel says:

But I tell you that a story is not a sugya in the Gemara, which must be reinforced from
all sides. If you were not pressed in time I would sketch for you all the details. When
you return from . . . and you cover the . . . and I am still alive I shall add the full details.
It seems to be but fiction like other futurisms but it is actually truth.2
‫ אלמלא אתה‬.‫אלא אומר לך סיפור אינה סוגיא בגמרא שצריכים שתהא מבוצרת מכל צדדיה‬
‫ ועדיין איני מת אוסיף‬. . . ‫ ותעבור על‬. . . ‫ לכשתחזור‬.‫בהול הייתי מצייר לך כל פרטי הדברים‬
.‫ לכאורה סיפור בדוי הוא כשאר כל סיפורי עתידות ובאמת אמת הוא‬.‫לך פרטי פרטים‬

Dr. Mittel’s statement that a story is not a sugya in the Gemara not only clearly
contradicts Until Now in its entirety and, indeed, Agnon’s other stories that
have a neo-talmudic structure, but also contradicts Dr. Mittel himself. After all,
he promises to sketch not only the outlines but also the precise details, which are
not random fictional gibberish but Truth. Thus, the term “a reinforced sugya”3
is reflected in the Agnonic story as a reinforced text, reinforced in details, and by
the process itself, which discusses details. As Dr. Mittel said previously:

as you may say why should the Germans stretch their legs as far as . . . after all there
is . . . and there is . . . and there are a few places. . . . (ibid.)

1
For a Hebrew version of this article see D. Hoshen, “S.Y. Agnon: A Simple Story,” in
Mabua 50 (2009), pp. 19–31.
2
S.Y. Agnon, Until Now (‫ עד הנה‬Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, 1952), p. 24.
3
In Hebrew: ‫סוגיא מבוצרת‬
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/157007011X587576
 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207 189

‫ והלא יש‬. . . ‫ והלא יש‬. . . ‫ והלא יש‬. . . ‫ושמא תאמר מה צורך להם לגרמנים לכתת רגליהם ל‬
‫כמה מקומות‬

Indeed, the Talmudic sugya too, by examining, explaining, and interpreting

its own details, embodies in itself the midrashic process, although the details
themselves are also independent Midrash units.
To examine the possibility that Agnon is writing in the genre of the Talmu-
dic sugya, we must pay attention to a few of its characteristics. We may not
relate only to its principal characterization as a textual genre, which spreads
out of its interpretative position towards details or components of texts.
Rather, it spreads out of the ontology of the very texts. This ontology is exposed
in the expounding process of the sugya, and is basically conceived as a midrashic
ontology.
Midrashic ontology means an exegesis of Scripture, which acts within the
epistemology of the inexhaustible text. Namely, the textual and semantic
potential of Scripture is never to be reached by the exegetic process.
This textual theory of Midrash is not merely literary but mainly philosoph-
ical. It concerns the view of the divine simultaneous logic in contrast to linear
human logic, both of which are reflected in Scripture.4
In spite of this textual inexhaustibility, the midrashic commentary strives to
connect to the unfulfilled drama, to truth. This is unlike post-modern phi-
losophies, which view this textual nature as a manifestation of falsehood and
as a charade of ontology and meaning, which prove to be non-existing in
reality.5
This dialectic between divine and human logic, between exegesis and inher-
ent exegetical limitation, characterizes the texts included in the sugya. In our
broad research into Agnon’s oeuvre, we attempted to establish a textual theory
in which we characterized the Talmudic texts by the following three
properties:6
First, as a Windows text, like the computer software, which presents a main
text or hyper-text that hides detailed information under certain signifiers,
which lead to separate vistas—the windows. Each window, which is a suffi-
cient text in itself, relates to the main text as well as to the other windows.
These textual relations are not revealed unless the reader activates them. This

4
For more about these logical differences as appearing in the Midrashim discussing the rev-
elation at Sinai, see Hoshen 2006, pp. 51–69.
5
For a comparison between western Philosophy and the Sages, see ibid. and, in detail,
Hoshen 2000, pp. 64–88, especially discussions in notes there.
6
See Hoshen 2000, pp. 64–121. Originally, these properties characterize the biblical text in
the Sages’ view, and eventually applied to their texts themselves, see Hoshen 2006, pp. 69–99.
190 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207

activation is also limited to the linear human mind, which cannot open all
windows simultaneously. According to this model, the Talmudic text is dense
and encompassing and leads towards the extra-textual foci, which spread an
aura of incompletion and inexhaustibility. This text germinates throughout its
strata, windowing seeds of intertextuality requiring disclosure and opening by
the creative reader.
Second, as a text that has obliterated the barrier between content and form,
neither being an allegoric medium for the other, but, rather, the parable
(mashal ) and its moral (nimshal ), the symbol and what is symbolized, Peshat
and Drash—all are attached to each other. This imparts to the text disorder,
incompleteness; the first opens it to a bi-directional reading from beginning to
end, and vice versa, the latter breaks up the textual surface, exposing the read-
ing to the windowed λογος of the text and integrates that reading in the
dynamic space of its inexhaustible ontology.
Third, as text crystallized in a hermeneutic genre.7 Apparently, this means
that every single text of the Talmudic literature is defined as midrashic. If so,
what is the point of the genre differentiation between Midrash Halakhah,
Aggada, or Talmud, a differentiation found in that literature itself? Indeed, the
genres of the talmudic text are determined by the stage of the text’s crystalliza-
tion in the hermeneutic dynamics, and this makes up the difference between
the genres.
If the text is crystallized in one of the early steps of the hermeneutic dynam-
ics, i.e., placed on the hermeneutic scale very close to Scripture, then it is
genred as midrash, because its hatching from Scripture is very clear. On the
other hand, if the text is crystallized later on the hermeneutic scale it is classi-
fied as Halakhah or Aggada, depending on its perspective: human (Halakhah)
or divine (Aggada).8
The Talmud or sugya genre is reflected by its response to the midrashic
textual parts included within it, at one of their stages of crystallization. This
response of the sugya does not only display the details and uncovers their
essence by the process of interpretation, but also queries their properties, and
directly shapes the flow of the sugya itself. The relation of the sugya to its
details stamps its character with their the midrashic stamp. This imprint char-
acterizes the midrashic texts by the ontology of the infinite meaning and its
simultaneous nature. This means that the total meaning cannot be exhausted,
understood fully, without the details, but the details too do not exhaust the

7
For this see Hoshen 2005, pp. 121–148.
8
See ibid., p. 125, n. 32; p. 126, n. 36, where we used common explanations for the terms
but explained them differently: Aggada from magid—sayer (narrator) of the text—God, and
Halakha or shemua—come from “to listen” (text listener) or “to walk”—human being.
 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207 191

meaning, and thus reflect back to the infinite meaning, which is again open to
a new interpretation.9
Tracing Agnon’s writing we conclude that it had already, in 1908, after his
first immigration to Ottoman Palestine (the Land of Israel), detached itself
from its contemporary Hebrew literature, both religious and secular, and
transmitted itself over one and a half thousand years back in time to the lit-
erature of the Jewish Sages.10
In the midrashic prologue to the story Agunot,11 Agnon creates a form of
modern Midrash, gravitating between textual foci of Song of Songs and the
story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis.12 That prologue pronounces the cov-
enant Agnon made early in his career with the midrashic literature, a covenant
he first applied in the story which follows that prologue.
From this primary binding, Agnon’s writing was perfected over twenty
years in a slow internal process towards the Midrashic model on its aforemen-
tioned properties, while producing a textual theory from his self-study of that
model.13
All that time Agnon was lacking recognition of the necessity of the Sages’
language for formulating his midrashic stories. At that stage Agnon was, so
to say, translating the textual midrashic ontology he was training with
into various linguistic styles: yreic,14 midrashic, modern or biblical Hebrew.15
Those who did not understand this process in Agnon called it stylization or
multi-style.16
However, in my opinion this was the very reason Agnon could not write a
novel until his second return to Mandatory Palestine:17 he had not yet reached
full comprehension of the essentiality of the linguistic form, which would
finally lead him unto the discovery of the midrashic organism of every size

9
About this Talmudic textual quality adopted by Agnon see Hoshen 2002, p. 332.
10
See Hoshen 2006, pp. 124–128, 147–157, about the rupture between Tchatchkes’ writing
(before assuming the pseudonym Agnon in Agunot 1908) and Agnon’s.
11
Published first in Ha’omer 2, n.1 (1908), 53–63.
12
See Hoshen1999, pp. 111–134.
13
For a tracing of this development, see Hoshen 2006, pp. 183–194.
14
This type flourished in the Responsa, and in Hassidic writings from 17th century on. It is
characterized by using compound broken verses from the Bible, and broken phrases from the
Sages’ literature. This style reflects a kind of pietistic (yreic) Judaism.
15
See Hoshen 2006, pp. 194–215. These linguistic attempts are expressed in compositions
like And the Crooked Shall be Made Straight (‫ והיה העקוב למישור‬Jaffa 1913), and In the Prime of
Her Life (‫ בדמי ימיה‬Germany 1923).
16
See Bialik’s rhyme on Agnon: ‘‫ ’לעגנון רב סגנון‬appears in his dedication for Agnon on his
children’s book: ‫קטינא כל בו‬. (Ketina [lit. weeny] Jack of all Trades).
17
We do not consider his burnt story as a novel (lost in the fire at his house, Homburg 1924)
BiTzeror Hahayim (‫)בצרור החיים‬,on this, see Meron 1992, pp. 401–402.
192 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207

(short stories or novels). But as soon as the fire of this discovery was kindled,
by the rewriting of The Bridal Canopy (Hachnasat Qala) in the thirties,18 the
new novel style, the midrashic sugya, the Talmud of the Midrash was born
simultaneously.19
Agnon’s novel recognition that the Sages’ midrashic language is not a garb
for the text but part of its very essence allowed him to release the onto-textual
process of the midrashic text he strove to design, from the gaps presented by
the non-midrashic styles. These stylistic gaps created a fossilized text whose
beating heart had to be carried by the author who is guiding the reader to skip
beyond the textual chasms and to follow in the footsteps of the text and its
onto-textual journeys.
With the textual liberation of Agnon’s recognition that he must use the
language of the Sages, the Agnonic text became a vigorous flowing midrashic
entity, in which the ontological process broke out of the stockade of subject
and content, and the blood from the textual heart reached all its limbs.
This eruption from the content layer to the stylistic one, and back, removed
the author’s hand from his composition’s throat, releasing its internal and
external dynamic fluency. The text was released from the yoke of allegory, and
the bridging of the chasm between content and form allowed bilateral fertil-
ization, which led to the extension of the text from the short story to the
novel, from midrashic text to sugya. The extended text followed the textual
windows, which were loaded by the style, on textual journeys. What was pre-
viously form became content. For instance, at a certain point in the text,
Agnon uses a talmudic source, apparently just for stylistic needs, and then
later on in the content dimension of the novel, he elaborates elements that
were originally in the sugya which discussed this source. In the new Agnonic
midrashic text the language becomes a potential reservoir of meaning and
style, the return to which was the source of the formation of the textual flesh
and bones.20
Accordingly, Agnon begins to write novels, not, as some say, to surrender
to the expectations of a novel-loving public. It neither reflects his alienation
from the European novel, with its clear ending nor does it cast aside the
constraints of the short story.21 Rather, one may examine the reason for the
emergence of the novel genre in Agnon against the background of its immi-
nent development. This development was based on his recognition of the

18
It was published first as a story in Miklat 2 (New York, 1920), pp. 75–85, 259–276,
401–416, and afterwards in 1931 as a novel in two volumes.
19
On this discovery of the midrashic form, see Hoshen 2000, pp. 253–266.
20
For example from The Bridle Canopy, see Hoshen 2006, pp. 219–222.
21
See Meron 1992, pp. 402–407.
 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207 193

essentiality of the midrashic style to the creation of an improved ontology of

the midrashic model with its aforementioned properties.
Simultaneously with this comprehension, there was a need to examine all
aspects of this model. In other words, the transition from The Bridal Canopy
as a short story to The Bridal Canopy as a novel is not merely a matter of the
discovery of the form but also a matter of the genre-shifting that followed it.
This shifting is from the short, self-contained midrashic genre to the spread-
out Talmudic genre. The Talmudic genre encompasses the Midrash and the
extensive study (talmud ) it develops around the Midrash while trying reflec-
tively to figure out this study-process itself. It seems to be wondering: what is
the nature of this living textual entity that I am loading with meaning and
that transmits far more than my meager hands can grasp? When I try to escape
by explanation, by commentary, I am returned back into the chasm of text
and meaning, which teaches one that there are many more interpretive jour-
neys ahead.
In The Bridal Canopy it seems that the sugya expands via an examination of
all three properties of the midrashic model. However, in the new, intense
writing period which followed, Agnon developed the midrashic texts consid-
erably. As a result, the artistic passion to examine their properties was intensi-
fied. The passion could no longer be satisfied by a single novel, but required a
separate Talmudic sugya for the inquiry into each property.
I suggest that the distribution of genres of the post-1931 Agnonic novel
should not be based on the European novel, whether as a picaresque novel or
as psychological novel, realistic novel, historical novel, etc., but on the basis of
the distribution of the properties of the midrashic text as follows:22

A Simple Story (Sipur Pashut 1935): the Talmud of the absorbed text, constructed on
the onto-textual chasm.
A Guest for the Night (Oreach Nata Lalun 1938): the Talmud of the different genres of
Midrash, Aggada and Halakhah.
Only Yesterday (Tmol Shilshom 1945): the Talmud of the unification between parable,
symbol and symbolized, content and form, text and midrash.

We shall attempt to exemplify this theory in the novel A Simple Story,23 the
second composed by Agnon after The Bridal Canopy. In both novels, Agnon
expanded a previous story. However, Agnon here does not succumb to the
pitfall of the old style as in The Bridal Canopy and rewrites the original story

22
See Hoshen 2006, pp. 243–270.
23
S.Y. Agnon, “A Simple Story,” in On the Handles of the Lock ( Jerusalem-Tel Aviv, 1953).
The page numbers refer to that version. The translated passages were based (with major varia-
tions) on A Simple Story, H. Halkin, trans., (New York, 1985).
194 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207

In The Prime of Her Life (Bedmi Yameha),24 written in a biblical style, in a new
midrashic style.
In A Simple Story, as in the other novels, there are textual crystallizations
characterized by one of the three principal properties of the midrashic model:
the Windows germination, the genre variations, and the unity between mashal
and nimshal.25 However, the principal development of the text in A Simple
Story, from a Midrash to a sugya, is based on the study of the first property.
This is the textual absorption, the chasm, and the baselessness-blima,26 in
which the plot develops for all its topics, and progresses.
The phrase Elokim Bashamayim (God in Heaven) appears in this novel
more than forty times, while rarely in Agnon’s other stories. Indeed, the omni-
present, omniscient God in Heaven exists not only at the beginning and end
of the story but at every step and every level.
This is true in respect to Bluma: God in Heaven gave her strength (94), and
to Herschel: God in Heaven knows what Herschel wished to tell her (82).
Regarding the whole world in general: God in Heaven is sitting in His heights
of Heaven, preparing happiness for his creatures (170), deeds in general: God
in heaven knows Man’s deeds and his actions (134), or the particular actions:
a new generation has emerged in Shebush—God in Heaven formed their
dreams and improved their deeds (188). Finally, it is also true regarding the
transition between parable and textual reality: God in Heaven knows whose
candle is extinguished. (152).
This divine presence of God in Heaven carries an existential expansion of
all activity, as if immersing in the eternal textual inexhaustibility, as the end-
ing of the novel reads:

Herschel and Minas’ story is over, but Bluma’s is not. Everything that happened to
Bluma Nacht would fill another book. And were we to write about Getsel Stein too,
who was mentioned here only in passing, and about all the other characters in our
simple story, much ink would be spilled and many quills would be broken before we
were done. God in heaven knows when. (172)
‫ כל מה שעבר עליה על בלומה‬.‫ אבל מעשי בלומה לא תמו‬,‫תם מעשה הירשל ומעשה מינה‬
‫ וכן שאר המשוקעים‬,‫ אף ענין גציל שטיין שהזכרנו כלאחר יד‬.‫נאכט הוא ספר בפני עצמו‬
.‫ כמה דיו נשפוך וכמה קולמוסין נשבר לכתוב את מעשיהם‬,‫בסיפורנו הפשוט‬
.‫אלקים בשמים יודע אימתי‬

24
Published in Hatekufa 17 (Warsaw, 1923), pp. 77–124.
25
Example of these last properties as applied to A Simple Story. See Hoshen 2006, pp. 250–
253.
26
We use the Hebrew noun of beli-ma because of the play with the name Bluma, and the
function the blima serves in the novel (see more later on).
 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207 195

When we return to the flow of the novel, we find that the divine presence,
which immerses the actions in an infinite ocean, lies at the basis of the novel’s
midrashic style. This style is forever naturally invading and retreating from the
simple phrases to the semantic chasm below, and back.

Herschel was conducting himself generously towards Bluma and never forgot that the
two of them were formed from the same stock (61)
.‫אף הירשל נוהג עמה בעין יפה ואינו שוכח שמחומר אחד נקרצו‬

We might have expected a detailed description of their common stock, but

the text does not abide:

If his collar was creased while being ironed, he does not complain about it, nor does
he ever give her his shoes to polish. (ibid.)
‫ ואין צריך לומר שאינו זורק לה‬,‫נקמט צוארון כתנתו בשעת הגיהוץ אינו בא עמה בטרוניא‬
.‫מנעליו שתצחצחם‬

Nevertheless, the textual surface of actions does not remain the simple mean-
ing, a plain surface, but is rather etched with a midrashic slash:

Herschel does not know how to sweeten his chastisement like his mother, nor does his
eye twinkle good-humouredly like his father’s. Herschel was young and he had not
learnt yet how to gain benefit by an eye-wink or by a soft mouth. (ibid.)
‫ צעיר הוא הירשל ועדיין‬.‫הוא אינו יודע להמתיק תוכחתו כאמו ואינו קורץ עיניו בחיבה כאביו‬
.‫לא למד להוציא טובת הנאה על ידי קריצת עין ופה רך‬

In spite of the ironic calming phrase “Herschel was young,” the seducing styles
we know from the midrashim regarding the slavery in Egypt,27 or the Satan,28
lend our ears to the sound of the chasm to be exposed at any moment:

How old is Herschel? Sixteen years old, and yet, he has recognized that this world, not
everything within it is good. (ibid.)

From the creased shirt and the unpolished shoes, we have come to the Midrash
of the troubles of the world:

27
See B. Sot. 11b.
28
See Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 22:4, Theodor-Albeck, ed., (Berlin, 1912–1929), vol. 1,
p. 212.
196 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207

There are those who say that the whole problem with the world is its being divided
into the rich and the poor. Indeed that is a problem. But it is not the main problem.
The main problem is that everything comes with pain. (ibid.)
‫ מכל‬.‫ אפשר שדבר זה צרה‬.‫יש אומרים שכל הצרה משום שהעולם חלוק לעניים ולעשירים‬
.‫ עיקר הצרה שהכל בא במכאוב‬.‫מקום לא עיקר הצרה‬

And with the exposure to this chasm, we can begin its studying and examin-
ing, i.e., creating the sugya:

This pain—Herschel does not know what it is. (ibid.)

This examination of the chasm’s mystery does not last long, and is constrained
by the relative midrashic style, which affords all issues a relativistic hue:

Perhaps he had eyes to see that the same people who were so good to him were not
always as good to others, which grieved him, and perhaps it was childhood, which
caused him to think irrelevant thoughts.
,‫אפשר שנסתכל הירשל וראה שאותם שמיטיבים לו מריעים לאחרים ועל זה היה מצטער‬
.‫ואפשר שילדות היתה בו לחשוב מחשבות שאינן צריכות לגופו‬

It seems that the second perhaps is, in itself, irrelevant, misleading, teaching a
fallacy to allow a person to miss the general principle, which is revealed to us
for a moment, of the relativity of the Good. However, its interjection is suffi-
cient to cover up the schism opening before us, to leave it as a seemingly open
question, which remains for further analysis, and thus the chapter is sealed.
This divine presence, omniscient and omnipresent, is the underlying depth
above which all actions, characters and text are viewed. From their inter-rela-
tions, the structure and the development of the plot progress.
Just so, from this incomplete existence, encompassing all actions, we are led
naturally, from the beit midrash (academy) to the shop, not as a parable, or
story within story, but as one who has lifted the fringes of his garment and
suddenly discovers that his feet are no longer on the ground but in thin air, or
as one who raises his eyes and sees water all round.
At the culmination of Herschel’s unsuccessful dedication to Torah, it says:

Not all Man’s plans, however, are approved by providence, especially when his inten-
tion is not whole-hearted. (66)
.‫ כל שכן כשאין כוונתו שלימה‬,‫לא כל מה שאדם מבקש לעשות מסכימים עמו מן השמים‬

Here the existential chasm at the basis of the story is disclosed, even though
by negation:
 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207 197

And such was the starting of Herschel in the store. Once upon a time his father went
away to heal his flesh at Karlsbad and his mother was left alone with two shop-boys.
She said to him: Come give us a hand until your father gets back. Herschel folded the
corner of the Gemara as though intending to return to it, and entered the shop. Never
did it cross his mind that he would not return soon. Yet the smell of the ginger, the
cinnamon, the raisins, the wine, the brandy, and all the other shops fragrances were
more pleasing to him than the smell of the Gemara. (66–67)
‫ מעשה ונסע אביו לקרלסבד לתקן את בשרו ונשתיירה‬.‫וכך היתה תחילתו של הירשל בחנות‬
‫ עשה‬.‫ אמרה לו להירשל עשה עמנו בחנות עד שיחזור אבא‬.‫אמו עם שני משרתיה בחנות‬
‫ על דעתו של הירשל לא עלה שלא יצא‬.‫הירשל קמט בגמרא כמי שדעתו לחזור ונכנס לחנות‬
‫ אלא שריח הזנגויל והקנמון והצמוקים והיין והקוניאק ושאר כל ריחות החנות‬,‫משם במהרה‬
.‫עריבים היו עליו מריח הגמרא‬

Reading this passage, we are not surprised that we emerge from sensual smells
to parabolic smells, and then students of the beit midrash are compared with
merchants, and all in the same moderate talmudic discourse:

Who were the students of the beit midrash in those days? (67)
?‫מי היו חובשי בית המדרש באותו הדור‬

As if undisturbed by the mixture of signifier and the signified we have just

traversed. And even upon arriving at the midrashic conclusion:

The halakhic debate was deferred for the trading debate, the beit midrash was replaced
by a shop. (ibid.)
.‫ ונתחלף לו בית המדרש בחנות‬,‫נדחה משא ומתן של הלכה מפני משא ומתן של מסחר‬

One does not feel the same artificiality or trespassing as when incongruous
parts are correlated by a moral or explanation. The whole deed is open to the
chasm over which it evolves, and the relation to this abyss places the meaning
of the actions in the scene conducted on top of the void. Thus, when it breaks
the surface, it is not surprising, as the chasm is not present beneath the surface
but forms it. The smell of the ginger, the wine and cinnamon are realized
through the denial of the all-encompassing divine presence. The reality of the
absence of that divine presence unites with the presence of its denial.
The construction of the novel on the bli-ma which means baseless, void,29 is
also paramount in the contents.

29
See Job 26:7: “He stretcheth out the north over the void (tohu) and hangs the earth upon
belima.” The commentators explained belima as nothing, void, baselessness, air, etc. Some of
them suggested that this word is actually split into two words: beli- with no, and ma- something,
substance.
198 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207

When Bluma came to the Horowitz household she dreamed of a horse-

driven wagon. When she climbed down from this wagon, there was nothing
to stop the horses from running and drawing the wagon to a disaster. The
concept of the blima appears here in the dream in terms of stopping and con-
trol, and is derived from the denying of the bli-ma nature of Bluma herself as
expressed at the end of the dream:

She awoke from her sleep as usual, but the day is not as usual. Other sounds came
from the street and other walls stared down at her . . . the room seemed to float in air.
Bluma, who had lived all her life on the ground floor, was now lying on the second
floor in the Horowitz house. She felt as one who lies limply. (57)
‫ והחדר‬. . . ‫ קולות אחרים נשמעים מן החוץ‬.‫ אלא שהיום אינו כדרכו‬,‫בלומה נינערה כדרכה‬
‫ בלומה שהיתה דרה בדיוטא התחתונה עכשיו שישנה בבית הורוביץ בקומה‬.‫מרחף באויר‬
.‫עליונה ראתה עצמה כמי שרבוץ ברפיון‬

Here we see the interplay of the concept: bli-ma with the name Bluma.30
What marks Bluma’s life in the Horowitz house is her being baseless, hanging
on bli-ma, hovering in the air with no stable ground beneath her, and
Herschel too:

One day Herschel entered Bluma’s room. Before he could say anything, the ground
quaked beneath him; he felt as if a cavern had opened at his feet, revealing all the
world’s treasures. Were he only to stretch out his hand, immediately they’ll be his. But
his arms became limp . . . Suddenly there was a great gap between them. (78)
‫ כאדם‬,‫ לא הספיק לדבר עמה עד שנזדעזעה הארץ תחתיו‬.‫יום אחד נכנס הירשל אצל בלומה‬
‫ אין לו אלא לפשוט את ידיו מיד הם‬,‫שנפתחה לפניו מערה ונתגלו לו כל כלי חמד שבעולם‬
.‫ באותה שעה ניתן תחום גדול ביניהם‬. . . ‫ אבל ידיו של הירשל נתרפו‬.‫ברשותו‬

Seemingly, he can bridge the chasm, which was disclosed by the quake, by
reaching out his arm, and immediately it will be his. However, as soon as the
text points us in the direction of the chasm, it also reveals its inexhaustible
meaning, and so its inconceivableness:

Hastily she reached up to arrange a disheveled hair, and then she gave him her hand
and signaled him to go. (ibid.)
.‫פתאום זקפה שתי ידיה וסידרה את שערה שנסתר מאליו ונתנה לו את ידה ורמזה לו שילך‬

30
J. Grinberg commented that Polish and Galician (the place Agnon came from) Jews pro-
nounce Bluma as Blima.
 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207 199

Not just the unruly hair, but the whole void with its disclosed treasures, were
discovered only through the interplay of cover and discover, drawing close
and repulsing, and although Herschel did not go and did not release his hand
from her hand, he knew:

had she not fled when she did, he would have had to flee. (79)

These chasms of a plot upon which the text is standing are not at arm’s length:

For a thousand years, he could have contemplated of her, every moment her image
would be revealed lovelier than before. (ibid.)
‫ כל שעה ושעה נגלתה לו דמות דיוקנה חמודה משהיתה‬,‫אלף שנים יכול היה לעמוד ולהגות‬
.‫קודם לכן‬

Nevertheless, the retention of his palm and the consuming focusing could not
continue for long. To this chasm, which forms the backbone of the story, we
return later in their second and last meeting:

Herschel was standing before Bluma. His legs collapsed, his mouth quivering, it seems
as he wished to tell her something. God in Heaven knows what Herschel wished to
say. (82)
,‫ דומה שביקש לומר לה דבר‬,‫ רגליו מתמוטטות ופיו התחיל מרתת‬,‫עמד הירשל לפני בלומה‬
.‫אלקים בשמים יודע מה ביקש הירשל לומר לה‬

We know, of course, that whatever he might have said, any semiotic crystal-
lization would have been submerged in that existence, which opened beneath
his collapsing feet. In spite of the contradiction and the inexhaustibility at the
centre of the relations in the novel, out of which the characters and their
actions are formed, we are exposed in the second meeting to a novelty in the
understanding of that contradiction:

How near he was to her and how far she was from him. And yet not so far. (ibid.)

The midrashic dialectic structure, a sentence and its inverse, places the distinc-
tion in the correct environment of an imperfect explanation. Herschel thought
that, as before, the path was by reaching out his hand, cancelling the schism
and its contradictions:

He needs simply reach out his arm and she would be closer than ever before. (ibid.)
.‫אינו צריך אלא לפשוט ידו והרי היא קרובה לו יותר מכל הימים‬
200 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207

But this hand-reaching leads exactly to the previous results:

He extended his hand . . . Before he had done so, however, she was gone. (ibid.)
.‫ לא הספיק לעשות כן עד שיצתה‬. . . ‫פשט את ידו‬

At this point, we observe a new development:

In her absence he felt her presence even more. The whole room was filled with her
scent, which was like a freshly fallen apple. He looked about, saw he was alone. . . . For
a thousand years his head was on Bluma’s bed . . . the whole cosmos was washed away,
only Herschel alone exists.
. . . ‫ כתפוח שנפל מן העץ וריחו נודף‬,‫ כל חללו של החדר ספוג ריחה‬.‫משיצתה הרגיש בה יותר‬
‫ רק הירשל‬,‫ כל היקום נמחה‬. . . ‫אלף שנים היה ראשו מונח על מטתה של בלומה‬
.‫בלבד קיים‬

Without opening all the windows, i.e., the textual seeds, and the materials
from which these text fragments are created, we may see that the submerging
into that vacuum which has no exhaustion within the closing of the hand does
not lead (as in post-modernism) to nihilism or to negation of the reality of the
relations, but to the contrary:

His very existence was aroused within him. (ibid.)

.‫כל עצם חיותו ניעור בקרבו‬

This positive view towards being is in spite of the fact that this sketch of crys-
tallization of Dasein (Existence) out of the chaos of the destruction of the
universe does not remove its intrinsic contradiction. This contradiction
appears above the revealed void and seals it by an action:

When he noticed it (her presence) he arose and left the room. (83)
.‫כיון שהרגיש בה נינער ויצא‬

At any rate, Agnon managed to shape the inexhaustible ontology into the very
heart of the story, in its positive function as it appears in the Talmudic text,
and not in its negative function as it appears in some literary theories.31 This
unfulfilled ontology is essential to the formation of the story, subject or
semiotic centre on its substantial contradictions, and not as the destruction of
the meaning.

31
See Hoshen 2000, pp. 73–89, 255–259, about the difference between the Talmudic-
Agnonic and philosophical approaches to textual theory, e.g., Deconstruction.
 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207 201

Following the development of the story, which is the sugya being woven
together through all the actions, the plot is seen for all its threads and holes.
Actions lack beginning and end. Like in a talmudic sugya we are positioned in
the centre of a discussion, and then require reconstruction of the previous
occurrences, all opening into the space within which they are formed. That is
how chapter thirteen begins:

What, are you here too? Yona Toyber asked Herschel in amazement. (125)
.‫אף אתה כאן? שאל יונה טויבר את הירשל בתמיהה‬

When we ask ourselves, what was this Yona Toyber, the matchmaker, doing
at Tsimlich’s house, at the meeting of the in-laws? Who brought him, who
knew of his existence at all? How can a chapter begin with him? Even beyond
that, the text does not bother to overtly ask the classical Talmudic question:
Tanna heikha qaei?32 i.e., Where is the tanna, the mishnaic scholar, placed?33
What is the basis upon which he is arguing? This is only understood later in
the details of the reconstruction. Truly, even this reconstruction, with a
slanted approach to the void beneath, lends it a feeling of incompleteness,
inverts it, by its side-ways relativity, towards the very existence from which it
stemmed, which by its incomplete circumference forms it into but one point
among many.
Just so, at the beginning of the fifth chapter:

Herschel was not yet of age when he found Bluma before him. This Bluma who was,
as if, his twin. (76)
.‫ זו בלומה שהיתה בבחינת תאומתו‬,‫עד שלא הגיע הירשל לפרקו מצא לפניו את בלומה‬

The flow of the story does not have a defined basis, a point from which the
story begins, but is forever relative, a time untold, not yet of age. One may say
that it is but a style, mimicking the Sages’ language. However, there is some-
thing else to it. The style is not an external mimicry, but guided by an episte-
mological comprehension of the unfulfilled, from which the novel is created.
When we try to focus on the event from the very indefinite point of when he
was not yet of age, we are now led onwards, to this “Bluma whom is blooming
as the lily of the valleys” (76).34 If we try to focus on her through the tale’s
substrate, from whence we have come, we find a loose existence.

32
This question of the Talmud on the first Mishnah that opens the canon of the Oral Law
characterizes the whole of the Sages’ culture. See Hoshen 2006, pp. 84–94.
33
See the beginning of B. Berakhot.
34
‘.‫’בלומה פורחת כשושנת העמקים‬
202 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207

You may look at her seven times a day, and still you could never look at her enough . . .
her body carried itself as a bird in flight. Just cast your eyes on her and you see nothing
but her shadow. (ibid.)
.‫ גופה נושא את עצמו כצפור המעופפת‬. . . ‫שבע ביום אתה מביט בה ולא ראית אותה כל צרכך‬
.‫עיניך נתת בה ואי אתה רואה אלא את צלה‬

When we return from the fluttering existence to the zero point in time, when
Herschel saw Bluma before him, we find a reduced object:

Herschel peeks and views Bluma. (ibid.)

.‫הירשל מציץ ומביט בבלומה‬

Peeks and views but not truly viewing, for when analyzing the view it slips
away, and we see that the loose grip of that point in time was lost too, for,

A skilful artist had sketched her portrait in his heart, and she was to be seen there in
all her beauty. (ibid.)
‫צייר גדול צייר את דמות תבניתה של בלומה וקבעה בלבו של הירשל ומשם היא נראית לו‬
.‫בכל יופיה‬

We no longer have Herschel, before or after being of age, but Herschel’s heart,
upon which a great Artist, the Artist of Creation, had sketched, and which was
forever reminding him of Bluma. The same chaos, which is the basis of the
beginning of the chapter, is also burdened by the wish to fulfill the unfulfilled
vacuum, within which the action is occurring:

If his prudence had not kept him, he would have entered her room, reaching out his
arms and grasping within them the wondrous mystery within her, whose sweetness
alarms his heart. (76)
‫אילולי בינתו מעכבתו היה נכנס אצלה ופושט את שתי ידיו ותופס בהן את הסוד הנפלא הלז‬
.‫ שמחריד את לבו במתקו‬,‫הגלום בה‬

But when it comes to action:

And yet his legs trembled when he was standing before her, yet his tongue is still stam-
mering when he talks with her. He does not know what his mouth is speaking, and
she does not know what he is saying. But the heart knows more than the mouth does,
and the ear hears more than the mouth may say. (78)
‫ הוא‬,‫ עדיין לשונו מגומגמת בשעה שמדבר עמה‬,‫עדיין רגליו מרתתות בשעה שעומד לפניה‬
‫ אבל הלב יודע יותר מן הפה והאוזן‬.‫ והיא אינה יודעת מה הוא אומר‬,‫אינו יודע מה שפיו מדבר‬
.‫שומעת מה שאין הפה יכול להגיד‬
 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207 203

We are exposed again to the vacuous existence we found in the Midrash,

which underlies the activities which open up to the divine presence, which the
mouth may not say, nor the ear may hear.35 Just as in the Midrash, this recog-
nition of the inexhaustibility does not negate the deeds, but lies beneath the
foundations of the vitality of the Creation and the being.36
At this very vacuum the story shifts, at the beginning of the eighth chapter,
when Bluma leaves the Horowitz household:

If one wants to see Bluma, one should stand up and watch Herschel’s heart, for in
the Horowitz house one does not see her. Bluma had found a place in another
home. (96)
.‫ שבבית הורוביץ אין רואים אותה‬,‫הרוצה לראות את בלומה יעמוד ויצפה בלבו של הירשל‬
.‫בלומה מצאה לה מקום בבית אחר‬

Thus, the novel’s plot develops, out of the quest and formation of the inex-
haustible existence, which is visualized in the novel’s chief heroes and central
subject, and the separation from this existence as embodied in the other char-
acters and their actions.
Looking at the climax of the story, it seems that it is there that Agnon
achieves the peak of his construction of the sugya principle, which we find in
chapter twenty-three:

After a period Herschel returned to the place he returned to. (192)

This place, we know well from the previous chapters, is Bluma’s street. This
place is presented against the background of an indeterminate substrate: “He
returned to the place he returned to,” as if this place was random, incidental.
However, from the continuation it seems that this preface does not strive to
diminish the deed or its relevance, for there is none more important in the
novel. It is the climax, from which the hero may escape only through insanity.
However, the preface creates an epistemological baseless zone, which precedes
and engulfs the forming of the following event.

The world was shrunken and Herschel could find only this street where Bluma
dwelled. (ibid.)
.‫נצטמצם העולם ולא נשתייר לפני הירשל אלא רחוב זה שבלומה יושבת בו‬

35
Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishma’el, Bahodesh 4, Horovitz-Rabin ed., (Frankfurt 1931), p. 215.
36
‘Being’ as in the philosophical term.
204 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207

The focus on the street and location is created by the limitation of the engulf-
ing existence. The whole world was shrunk. Nevertheless, the existence still
remains in the background, in a shrunken and closed presence, until it will
emerge from the crevice, from which the action will be derived.

Again Herschel was walking round Mazal’s house. (ibid.)

If initially, in the preface, it seemed as if the action which followed is detached

from the previous plot, the “again” leads us back, though in a special setting.
While previously Herschel was standing before Bluma’s window “like a man
who stands on the eve of Tisha b’Av, when the sky opens, and raises his eyes
to beg mercy for himself ” (186)37—just so here—“he raised his eyes to the
northern window where there was a lit candle” (192).38 However, here the
story is presented not only from Herschel’s side, and what his heart said, but
also from the side of that chasmal inexhaustible being: “God in Heaven knew
whose light it was” (192)39 and from the side of “the master who is sitting in
the house writing and erasing” (ibid.).40 Later on, the description of Herschel,

who walked to and fro, when his spirits were higher his paces were shorter, when his
spirits were lower his paces were longer. (ibid.)
‫ מצמצם פסיעותיו‬,‫ מאריך רוחו ומקצר פסיעותיו‬,‫ מהלך וחוזר לאחוריו‬,‫מהלך וחוזר לאחוריו‬
.‫ומאריך רוחו‬

seems to attempt to reduce the totality of the activity described, by the com-
bination of activity and its simultaneous reduction, “to and fro”. Both direc-
tions make room for the spirit, which upholds the action in a proportion,
which on the one hand eliminates the singularity of the action, but on the
other hand does not eliminate it totally.
This proportion is due, primarily, to a fuzzy recognition of the existence of
that spirit:

Bluma cannot stop/shut (blm) herself forever. Eventually she must emerge. (ibid.)
.‫ סוף סוף עתידה היא שתצא‬,‫אי אפשר שבלומה תבלום עצמה עולמית‬

37
‫’כאדם שעומד בליל תשעה באב שהשמים נפתחים בו ונושא עיניו למעלה כדי לבקש רחמים על‬
‘.‫עצמו‬
38
‘.‫’תולה עיניו בחלון הצפוני שנר דלוק שם‬
39
‘.‫’אלקים בשמים יודע אור זה של מי הוא‬
40
‘.‫’שכותב ומוחק‬
 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207 205

The non-emergence of Bluma relates to the global, heavenly bli-ma (with-

drawal), and her emergence too relates to the same encompassing being:

God in Heaven made Bluma emerge. (ibid.)

From the stage at which we observe her emerging, it seems that the activity
was actually reduced:

At that time, He was on one of his circuits of the house when he heard a gate swing
open. (ibid.)
.‫באותה שעה הקיף הירשל את הבית כדרכו ושמע שנפתח שער‬

This has nothing to do with Herschel’s habit specified later. Rather,

A wind came and opened the gate. (ibid.)

.‫רוח באה ופתחה את השער‬

And what gate?

It was the gate of the garden which Herschel was circling. (193)
.‫זה השער של הגן שהירשל היה מקיפו‬

Of course, we had never heard of this gate, nor of the garden, which was prob-
ably Mazal’s, but the following “and after the wind a sound (of Bluma’s foot-
steps”) (ibid.)41 associates it with the biblical situation of Elijah the prophet in
the cave at Mount Horev: “God is not in the wind, and after the wind . . . a
sound (of silence”) (I Kings 19:11, 12).42 Perhaps this was the gate of Heaven,
to which Herschel had been raising his eyes in his circuits. Perhaps this was
the gate of Eden, and the sound of Bluma’s footsteps in the garden after the
wind, coming to seal the gate, were like the divine presence (shekhina) in the
Garden of Eden, walking43 to the daily wind, after Adam and Eve’s sin,
described in the Midrash as bouncing upward.44
In this situation erupting with the opening and closing gate, Herschel’s
personality is somewhat blurred:

41
‘.‫’ואחר הרוח קול רגליה של בלומה‬
42
‘.‫ קול דממה דקה‬. . . ‫’לא ברוח ה‘ ואחר הרוח‬
43
In the Talmud (e.g., B. Ber. 43b) and Midrash (e.g., Midrash Zuta Shir Hashirim 1:4,
S. Buber ed., (Wilna, 1899), 10) we find the phrase: ‘‫ ’רגלי השכינה‬the Shekhina’s feet.
44
Bereshit Rabba, 19:8, Theodor-Albeck, vol. 1, 176.
206 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207

She saw a person standing there. Bluma asked that person: Who is here? (ibid.)
?‫ שאלה בלומה לאותו אדם מי כאן‬,‫ראתה בלומה אדם אחד עומד שם‬

When the text returns to Herschel:

Herschel answered: I am here. (ibid.)

Then,

She recoiled and retreated. (ibid.)

From here onwards, this cosmic presence, which shrank in the beginning of
the chapter in order to focus on Bluma’s street, now floods the hero and his
actions:

Rain began to fall, striking his face and sweat sprout from his body. (ibid.)
.‫הגשמים טיפחו על פניו וזיעה ביצבצה מגופו‬

Even though it seems that Herschel had been melting—

He stood like a man who had conquered a place and protected it. (ibid.)
.‫עמד כאדם שכבש לו מקום ושומר עליו‬

—his minimal space of existence was still preserved. “Silently, silently fell the
rain” (ibid.)45 invading this minimal space.

A prism46 was set over the whole world and you could hardly see yourself. (ibid.)
.‫פרוזמא נתונה על כל העולם ואי אתה רואה אפילו את עצמך‬

This man is going, vanishing from our eyes, absorbed in the encompassing
space that has been opened by the presence of the revealed chasm, this time by
bi-directional revelation:

45
‘‫’דמומים דמומים ירדו הגשמים‬
46
It seems as though Agnon combines the meaning of the Greek word prizma as a medium
one looks through (medium which distorts), and the Sages’ use of the Greek word, prazoma in
B. Men. 43a, which, in some manuscripts and commentators of the Talmud, appears as prozma,
meaning a womanly garment. Indeed, Halkin translates here in Agnon: “through a curtain.”
 D. Hoshen / The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14 (2011) 188–207 207

But Bluma’s image was floating before you just as the day she stroked your head when
you entered her room, and she had first escaped and then returned. (ibid.)
‫אבל איקוניא של בלומה מפציעה ועולה לפניך כביום שהחליקה את ראשך כשנכנסת לחדרה‬
.‫והיא ברחה וחזרה ובאה‬

At this stage the novel’s climax is consolidated:

Herschel rested his head on the handles of the lock and began crying. And so he was
standing by the gate and crying. (ibid.)
.‫ וכך היה עומד אצל הדלת ובכה‬.‫הניח הירשל ראשו על כפות המנעול והתחיל בוכה‬

This crying out of endless pining on the handles of the lock has no oblitera-
tion, ever; even though “all the rainwater collected in his shoes, the umbrella
slipped from his hands and fell, and the rain soaked him and his clothes”
(ibid.), and all his self became erased and shapeless, dissolving in the cosmic
spaces which penetrated him.
All that was left before this chaos is to preserve this pining, by a crying,
which will never be exhausted.

Bibliography
Agnon, S.Y., “Agunot,” in Ha’omer 2:1 (1908), pp. 53–63.
——, “The Bridle Canopy,” in Miklat 2 (1920), pp. 75–85, 259–276, 401–416.
——, “In the Prime of Her Life,” in Hatekufa 17 (1923), pp. 77–124.
——, Until Now ( Jerusalem, Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1952).
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