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Friday, December 14, 1919
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Purely Commentary
By Philip
Slomovitz
A Mendele Mokher Seforim Tale: How His Son
Affirms His Jewish Identification, Performing
Hanuka Miracle that Testifies to Redemption
Youth Redeems Itself in Jewish Identification, Defined in Mendele's Narrative
Concern about youth identification with their people is not limited to this genera-
tion. It belongs to the ages. There is always an awakening. It usually develops with a
realization of the cultural and spiritual treasures handed down as legacies from time
immemorial and retained with pride. Often there are pressures from the outside, the
bigotries that provide realization of the urgency to be linked with destiny, with people-
hood, into the fellowship of Israel.
Mendele Mokher Seforim enriched his gifts to his people with an essay he called "A
Miracle of Hanuka." It could be called a confessional. It should be treated as a prized
contribution to Jewish experience.
Mendele is known as the Father of Yiddish Literature. Mendele Mokher Seforim,
Mendele the Book Seller, is the pen name of Shalom Abramowitsch, who was born in
Kopel, Lithuania, in 1836 and died in Odessa in 1917. His writings are among the gems in
Jewish literature.
"A Miracle of Hanuka" is about his son. The story commences with an explanatory
note about a young lad who was studying in a non-Jewish environment, who had not
received the traditional Jewish education. The story commences:
Fedye is my eldest son. Right from his birth I tried to educate the man in him, to
prepare him not merely for the narrow life within the confines of his people and his
religion, but for a completely universal life, with no distinction between sacred and
profane, or between Israel and other nations. If he was to burden himself with the yoke of
Judaism and afterwards cast it off— better not take it on in the firsLplace. No burdening
and no unburdening. Thus, my Fedye was brought up ignorant of the law and religion of
Israel, speaking and behaving as a son of the peoples of the world.
)
The tale proceeds to describe how
Fedye one day came home in a visibly
depressed state. He went to his room and
remained there, failing to appear for his
meal. His father went up and found him,
head buried in his pillow. He questioned
him:
"What is the matter, son?" I asked
him, greatly moved. Angrily he sighed,
and said, "Why do you ask? Don't you
know that I am amongst enemies there?
They have been mocking me all the time
and today they teased me more than ever
about eating blood during the Festival of
Matzot, for they say it is the Jews'
Passover today . . ."
Thereupon Mendele ruminates, tor-
tured by his conscience, and he expresses
it as follows in his Hanuka narrative:
I listened speechless — my mind in a
whirl. Strange sensations, feelings of
compassion and shame, of comfort and
regret, surged within me like the waves
of the sea, and my soul was thrown from
MENDELE MOKER SEFORIM
wave to wave, deeply shaken. I beheld
my beloved son's spiritual anguish, and my heart smote me, and I said to myself. "This
sorrow of your son's is caused by you. You estranged this soul from its own people, in
order to introduce it to the whole of Humanity. Humanity is not something independent
and self-sufficient; it is a name comprising all the nations of the earth. It is like saying,
"What are the trees to me? I have only the forest!"
And even if we assume that it is as you think, the way you have seen to attain human
perfection lies through a different people, which you have chosen for your son, and not
through your own people, as though that was, God forbid, a way filled with darkness and
the shadow of death. See then, what has happened to this son of yours, for whom you
sought happiness and good from outside your own nation! Where is his happiness? Where
is his joy? He has been uprooted from his people, and the other nation does not take him
in.
He is left dangling in mid-air, his world gloomy even in his youth. Boys of his age,
who grow up like plants in the midst of their people, drawing nourishment from Israel's
source, retain a host of pleasant, happy memories of customs and events in family life
and in the life of the community in which their childhood is spent, which soften the
bitterness of life until old age.
Remember the days of your youth, remember the Pesach Seder in your parents'
house. A spirit of grave and beauty pervaded everything there — the table and the vessels
on it. Your father and mother, the sons sitting around the table, you too, sat there
enjoying it all and filled with pleasure. Remember how happy you were during the
festivals, and how many toys you got as each one came around.
And now— now you secularize your holy day, and your son learns from them that it
is the Jews' Pesach today . . . how shameful! What disgrace! Unhappy is your son, for to
strangers he is a Jew, and even more unfortunate is he, for to the Jews he is a stranger!
"So it is also with the advent of the Messiah and with the people. A people that sits
and waits for the Messiah and does nothing — has indeed the spark of life and is destined
to live, but its life is still not a real life until it arises and acts, arises and goes to meet its
,Vessiah. When the nation strives to regulate its own affairs and develop its own inherent
talents, overcomes obstacles and paves a way through them for its spiritual possessions,
strives and marches towards its desired goal, it becomes great, and then the Messiah, its
deliverer, comes. Ample proof of this is to be found in the history of mankind. Every
nation will become great, if it only strives upwards. And even we, Children of Israel, —
our redemption and the redemption of Jewish life can only come to us through the
development of our national strength and spiritual resources, through the striving of our
soul towards a high idea. In proof of this, even this festival of ours today is in memory of
the great deeds of the Hasmoneans."
Fedye had hardly finished speaking when the house shook and the walls trembled
with the sound of the shouting and applause. My wife saw her son's glory and was glad;
all were praising him and saying, "Your mother should be proud!" And she heard and
was proud of him. And even I gloried in his honor. Many came up to me, shook my hand,
and said, "Be glad that you have produced such a son; may there be many such in
Israel!"
I stood dumbfounded, and pondered, "How many are thy deeds, Lord of the Uni-
verse, and how great are thy miracles, which thou performest in thy world! Who could
have told me that Fedye, my son, an 'assimilationist' from birth, who knew neither his
people nor his religion and had never in his life seen the shape of a Hebrew letter, would
become an ardent patriot of Israel! That he would 5e a fine speaker, a champion of
Judaism in his speech, and a savior of his people in his utterances!"
will notice that that evening was not spent by the youngsters in
From this
card-playing and wild talk, but they criticized and discussed the entire reconstruction of
Israel. Then I knew what Fedye and his friends were. They wanted to reform, not the
world, but their own nation, to breathe a new spirit into it —a knowledge of itself and its
glory and hope for its future; to revive its language, the language of its law and of its
prophets. They came, not to destroy, but to build and plant Israel in the soil of Israel.
How wonderful was the strength of my son who had returned whole-heartedly to his
people. Sons who from childhood were brought up in the faith and spirit of the people and
its law, who grew up to become renegades, for them there is still hope of reform. Perhaps
through the influence of their Jewish fathers and the teachings of their childhood, they
will return to the fold.
But what reform is there for sons whose fathers have themselves strayed, and caused
them to wander away to fresh pastures? When these do return it is indeed a miracle, and
that does not happen eiiery day. And Fedye's was an even greater miracle, for he
returned himself, and also caused me to return.
What a magnificent story and what a remarkable confessional — the easing of the
conscience of one of the very great writers of all time who had failed to give his son a
Jewish education and whose son redeemed himself. And by redeeming himself Fedye also
redeemed his family.
Fedye, it should be noted, did not anticipate a Jewish state when he spoke of Israel.
He was lecturing his friends about the People Israel. Yet, a story written more than
half-a-century before the birth of Israel, was in itself prophetic.
The Mendele Mokher Seforim narrative is a powerful lesson for all parents and an
encouragement for the children who take hold of themselves Jewishly to affirm the
identification that is so vital for peoplehood. What Mendele had recorded was, indeed. a
Hanuka miracle, and it is a miracle to be treated as reality. As such it provides great
cheer for a cheerful festival.
(Mendele Moker Seforim — Shalom Jacob Abramowitsch — 1835-1917
— wrote both in Hebrew and in Yiddish. He was among the major per-
sonalities in the Haskalah movement, as well as in Hibat Zion and in
Zionism. He left his influence in Hebrew and Yiddish literature and molded
the literary style in both. He is credited with being "The Father of Yiddish
Literature." Many of his works were controversial and he inspired social
reforms in the Jewish communities of Russia.)
Mendele's First Booklet in Hebrew
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Once, when my son went for a walk, I went into his room, glanced at the table, and
noticed three books and an open notebook lying on it.
I was astonished! I found what I would never have guessed! Two of those were holy
books and one was a book for learning Hebrew. The notebook was full of Hebrew letters
and nouns translated into Russian — in my son's handwriting! It was obvious that Fedye
was studying the Torah in the holy tongue! But how did this come about? Who had
encouraged him to do this, and who was his teacher? I was puzzled and did not know what
was behind it.
Fedye was inspired and spoke in a magnificent, strong voice .. .
700
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The author was, indeed, conscience-stricken. But time, and it passed quickly, offered
relief from despair, as Mendele continues his fascinating story:
It was not long thereafter that Fedye came to his father with a request. Could he
invite some friends to their home? It was Hanuka. The father, of course, consented.
Mendele thought the boys would come to play cards. But the invitation was cordial,
Fedye's mother joined in the invitation to the boys and "a generous meal was prepared."
Mendele then reports that "never did we have as much joy in the house as on that
evening." The young guests, boys and girls, students,°were "warm-hearted, happy, with
eager bright faces." Then came the excitement. As Mendele entered the room to join his
guests he found Fedye standing addressing the crowd, and there was a shouting of
"Bravo."
The story continues:
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The YIVO Library in New York is in
possession of a great rarity. Mendele
- Mokher Seforim's first booklet in He-
brew, Limdu Hetev (Study Dili enth'
published in Warsaw in 1862. It deals
with a love affair between an enlightened
young man and woman against the back-
ground of the conservative Jewish milieu
of the mid-19th Century.
The value of the YIVO copy is
enhanced by the fact that it bears a pre-
sentation in the author's hand to his
friend Kehos Prisin.