68/ “A woman of valor who shall find?” Proverbs 21, which is read at the Sabbath table before the sanctification of the wine.
68/ “He maketh the winds His messengers” Psalm 104:4.
68/ A black satin robe and a round shtreimel of sable This was the special garb of pious householders in Eastern Europe for the Sabbath. The shtreimel is a hat with fur trim.
69/ “The Lord is my shepherd…” Psalm 23; “The earth is the Lord’s…” Psalm 24, both recited at the beginning of the noontime Saturday meal.
69/ Like that child in the Talmud Shabbat 119a.
72/ When I reached the house I walked around it on all four sides An allusion to the pious custom of walking around the walls of Jerusalem, based on the fact that the house as a domestic dwelling and the Temple in Jerusalem are represented by the same Hebrew word bayit.
Two Pairs
76/ Dead…raised by the prophet Ezekiel The rabbinic comment on Ezekiel 37 is found in Sanhedrin 92b.
76/ King Saul’s daughter Michal Eruvin 96a; Yerushalmi Berakhot 1 (p. 4c); Mekhilta Bo 17.
77/ Tana Devei Eliyahu A midrashic work of uncertain date.
Notes
79/ Maimonides…Book of Love The second of the fourteen divisions in the Mishneh Torah, the great twelfth-century law code written by Moses Maimonides. Its contents cover the laws of blessings and prayers.
80/ Bind them as a sign upon your arm Deuteronomy 11:18.
81/ When all the synagogues…reassembled in the Land of Israel Megillah 29a.
81/ The conflagration In 1924 fire destroyed Agnon’s home in Homburg, Germany, destroying his collection of rare books as well as manuscripts of unpublished writings. This traumatic event echoes within Agnon’s work; see “A Whole Loaf” in this volume.
82/ King/fing The Hebrew letter khaf in malkenu (king) has been changed to peh.
Hill of Sand
97/ Nevei Tsedek At the time of the Second Aliyah, Nevei Tsedek was one of the Jewish quarters of Jaffa. It later became part of Tel Aviv.
97/ It’s a Rembrandt The picture is most likely a reproduction of Rembrandt’s The Bride and Groom (1665).
98/ Poem by Heine Heinrich Heine (1779–1856), German poet and essayist, born a Jew, converted to Christianity, but returned to a positive view of Judaism toward the end of his life. The poet Hayim Nahman Bialik translated some of Heine’s work into Hebrew.
100/ “Your words uphold the stumbler” See Job 4:4.
100/ Bialik Hayim Nahman Bialik (1873–1934), a major Hebrew writer of the modern period who became known as the Hebrew national poet; he was born in Russia and lived in Odessa, Berlin, and Tel Aviv.
101/ Sanin The main character in the Russian novel of the same name, written by Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev (1878–1927). The novel, first published in 1907, created a sensation and was considered by many to be pornographic.
102/ Forel Auguste-Henri Forel (1848–1931), Swiss psychiatrist, known for his investigations of brain structure.
104/ Ninth Zionist Congress Held in Hamburg, December 26–30, 1909. The decision to begin cooperative settlement in the Land of Israel was taken at this congress, the first to be held in Germany.
105/ Mrs. Ilonit Ilonit is a term applied to a woman who is unable to bear children.
106/ Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (1772–1811) A hasidic Tzaddik who became known for mystical teachings that took the form of enigmatic tales. These were collected and recorded by his disciple Nathan ben Naphtali Hertz Sternhartz. Rabbi Nahman’s tales constitute a major influence on modern writers, including Agnon.
111/ Dr. Pikchin His name is fashioned from the adjective pikhi, meaning someone who keeps his eyes open.
116/ Jacobsen’s Niels Lyhne Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847–1885), Danish botanist and writer. Niels Lyhne (1880) is a novella about a young man who wants to be a poet. Full of longing for a full life, he remains a dreamer who fails to grasp the reality around him. Niels Lyhne was translated into Hebrew by P. Ginsburg in 1921.
118/ “A land wherein you will eat bread without scarcity” Deuteronomy 8:9.
Notes
122/ The complete Brockhaus The lexicon, a model for later encyclopedias, that was developed in the course of the nineteenth century through the efforts of the German publisher Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus (1772–1823). By 1890, the lexicon, known as Der Grosse Brockhaus, had gone through many editions and was available in a Russian translation.
124/ Yaakov Malkov’s inn This is a reference to an actual person who owned a hotel in Jaffa in the early years of this century. Malkov appears as well in Agnon’s novel Temol Shilshom (Only Yesterday).
126/ The founding of Tel Aviv The growth of Jaffa’s Jewish population during the Second Aliyah necessitated expansion beyond the city’s limits and its existing Jewish communities. On April 11, 1909, the Ahuzzat Bayit (Housing Property) Society assigned lots for a new development, intended originally as a suburb of Jaffa. On May 21, 1910, the suburb was named Tel Aviv.
Knots Upon Knots
131/ Joseph Eibeschütz Agnon gives to this figure one of his own given names and the family name of the famous rabbi Jonathan Eibeschütz (1690/95–1764), a kabbalist and talmudist. Eibeschütz was suspected of leanings toward Sabbateanism, the cult that developed around the false messiah Sabbatai Zvi. His opponent in a rift that divided Ashkenazic Jewry was Jacob Emden (see note below).
132/ Gates of Mercy Shaarei Hesed, one of the Jewish quarters of Jerusalem (outside the Old City) that existed prior to World War 1.
132/ Heshvan The eighth month of the Jewish calendar (shortened from the original name Marheshvan), falling within the range of October to November. On the seventh of Heshvan, the prayer for rain is inserted into the Amidah portion of the service in the Land of Israel. The rains that fall at the end of the story are thus seasonal, as well as indicative of the narrator’s isolation.
132/ Samuel Emden Here too Agnon gives the character one of his own given names and the family name of a great rabbi, Jacob Emden (1697–1776), an authority on Jewish law, a kabbalist, and an anti-Sabbatean polemicist. In a drawn-out feud Emden argued that Jonathan Eibeschütz had circulated Sabbatean amulets.
A Book That Was Lost
137/ Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim The Shulhan Arukh is a code of laws compiled by Joseph Caro. It was first printed in Venice in 1565 and became accepted over time as the standard code of Jewish law. The section of it known as Orah Hayyim concerns the daily commandments, the Sabbath, and festivals.
137/ Magen Avraham A commentary on the Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim, written by Abraham A. Gombiner (ca. 1637–83).