Two Tales: Betrothed & Edo and Enam (26 page)

As usual, the dead man’s orders were not carried out. On the contrary, his books are printed in increasing numbers, so that the world is already beginning to know his works, and especially the Enamite Hymns with their grace and beauty. While a great scholar lives those who choose to see his learning, see it; those who do not, see nothing there. But once he is dead, his soul shines out ever more brightly from his works, and anyone who is not blind, anyone who has the power to see, readily makes use of his light.

Annotations to “Edo and Enam”

In attempting to uncover the complexities of the kabbalistic sources woven throughout “Edo and Enam” (and the rest of Agnon’s canon) the reader will find a very useful research tool in Elchanan Shilo,
HaKabbalah BeYetzirat Agnon
(Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan Univeristy Press, 2011).

Meshulam Tochner identifies the names Edo and Enam as echoing the roots of the Hebrew words
ye’ud
(destiny) and
ma’ayan
(source).

101. Riots of 1929 / Series of violent demonstrations and riots in August 1929 set off by a dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to Jerusalem’s Western Wall, resulting in many Jewish deaths (most severely the massacre of 67 in Hebron) and widespread property damage. Agnon’s home in Talpiot was marauded during these riots.

Agnon’s library after the 1929 riots

103. Cadence of a woman’s song / This is potentially a reference to the theory advanced by Shlomo Dov Goitein, who suggested that the Biblical Song of Songs was composed by a female court, but ascribed to Solomon, as was customary. He published this theory in the wake of his ethnographic studies on the Yemenite Jewish community and the Biblical cadences of its female poetic singers. Goitein (1900–85) was a distinguished historian, specializing in Jewish life under Medieval Islam, and was a close friend of Agnon. This topic is discussed, most recently, in Ilana Pardes,
Agnon’s Moonstruck Lovers: The Song of Songs in Israeli Culture
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2013), pp. 60–65. Pardes’ study focuses on the presence of the Song of Songs in the intertextual matrix of the two stories in this volume – “Betrothed” and “Edo and Enam”.

S.D. Goitein

105.
Faust
/ Faust, protagonist of a classic German legend, is a frustrated scholar whose pact with the Devil grants him unlimited knowledge in exchange for his soul. Goethe’s
Faust
is an early 19th century play in two parts.

106. Solomon Ibn Gabirol / (c. 1021–1058) Among the greatest Hebrew poets and philosophers of Spanish Jewry. The legend of Ibn Gabirol’s creating a female servant (à la legends of the Golem) is recorded in Joseph Solomon Delmedigo’s 17
th
century work
Matzref LeHokhmah
(9b) and cited in Agnon’s anthology
Sefer, Sofer ve-Sippur
, p. 244 (2000 edition).

Statue of Ibn Gabirol in Malaga, Spain

109. Mandate government / The British Mandate over Palestine administered civil affairs from 1920–1948.

109. Gederah / A town in central Israel.

111. Your happiness is where you are not / Closing line to Mordechai Zvi Maneh’s 1884 poem
HaNoded
(“The Wanderer”). Maneh (1859–86) was a lyrical Hebrew poet of the First Aliyah period, who wrote longingly for the Land of Israel, although he died of tuberculosis before he could leave his native town of Radoshkovich (in today’s Belarus). My thanks to Dr. Shuli Marom for help in identifying this line.

111. Gamzu / The character’s name is likely a reference to the 1st century long-suffering Rabbi Nachum Ish-Gamzu, whose response to the many calamities which befell him (including blindness, similar to our character’s loss of one eye), “
gam-zu le-tovah
” (“This, too, is for the best”) became him moniker (Ta’anit 21a).

Wilhelm Gesenius

112. Gesenius’ textbook / Wilhelm Gesenius (1786–1842), a German orientalist and Biblical critic, was the author of multiple lexicons and grammar books concerning Biblical Hebrew.

112. Twelve pounds / The Palestinian Pound (
lira
) was the currency in use during the British Mandate, linked in value to the British Pound Sterling, and then maintained in the early years of the State of Israel. Adjusted for inflation to 2011, twelve
lirot
would have been worth about $900.

One Palestine Pound

113. Going to the south… / Ecclesiastes 1:6.

114. Seven locks… seven keys / Likely based on idea of seven keys to the seven gates of the Temple courtyard; Tosefta Shekalim 2:15.

114.
Yiddal, yiddal, yiddal, vah, pah, mah
/ The enigmatic lyrics of Gemulah’s song have remained a mystery for critics of this story. Tochner interprets the “
Yiddal
” song as a acronymic hint to the concluding phrase in Song of Songs 4:16: “Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out;
let my beloved come to his garden
(
Yavo Dodi Le-gano
)
and eat his sweet fruit
(
Ve-yokhal Peri Megadav
) – with the word for “garden” (“
gano
”) echoing the meaning and root of the name Dr. Ginat.

114. Gemulah / Cf. Rosh Hashanah 26a, in which R. Akiva interprets the word “
gemulah
” as connoting a woman “separated from her husband”. The kabbalistic-allegorical interpretation of the story points out the resonance between Gemulah and “
gemilut hessed
” (lit. performance of acts of kindness) which is kabbalistically identified by Tikkunei Zohar (114b) with the
Shekhinah
(God’s divine presence).

115. Dr. Rechnitz / The protagonist of Agnon’s novella “Betrothed”, which opens this volume.

117.
Hakham
/ Hebrew for Sage, as in a Rabbinic Sage, but here can also mean a scholar or academic.

118. Nature of man has changed / An idea advanced by the early medieval rabbis, but evidenced already in the Talmud.

118. All depends upon one’s star / Mo’ed Katan 28a.

118. Our star makes us wise, or makes us rich / Shabbat 156a.

118. Ibn Ezra / R. Abraham Ibn Ezra (Spain, 1089–1164), was a preeminent medieval Biblical commentator, philosopher, grammarian, and poet. The statement quoted here appears in the Commentary to Exodus 15:17.

118. The Lord hath made everything for His own sake / Proverbs 16:4.