7 prayer recited upon Called in Hebrew tefillat haderekh, it is traditionally recited by travelers as they set out on a journey.
8 seven nuptial benedictions Seven benedictions are chanted at the marriage ceremony and at the ensuing wedding feast. During the week following the wedding, tradition mandates that a festive meal for the newlyweds be held each day. At the end of each meal, following the Grace, the seven benedictions are repeated. In order to ensure that the blessings remain fresh, it is customary to make sure there is present at each of the meals at least one “new face,” i.e., someone who did not attend either the wedding ceremony or any of the previous meals. If there is not, the seven benedictions are not recited, except for the blessing over a cup of wine at the conclusion of the Grace after the meal.
8 Kiddushin The talmudic tractate that treats the laws of betrothal.
8 tractate Ḥagigah Kaftor vaferaḥ is a Hebrew treatise on rabbinic aggadah by Yaakov bar Yitzchak Luzzato, Safed, ca. 1527–1587. In the Lemberg, 1891 edition, the tale is found on p. 66a. The talmudic tractate Ḥagigah deals with the laws of the festival sacrifices.
8 Aaron began to inquire It is unclear exactly what kind of inquiry Aaron is engaging in or who he is reading. Clearly it involves the philosophical speculation about first things and the problem of evil that was prevalent in the late seventeenth century.
9 qelipot Lit. shells or husks. The reference is to the complex notion in Lurianic Kabbalah of “the breaking of the vessels.” Qelipot signify the impurity and grossness that adhere to a person living in the unredeemed cosmos.
11 Behukotai The Torah portion comprising Leviticus 26:3–27:34, generally read during May.
12 melamed One who teaches Torah to children.
12 banned by the community The reference is to niddui, a temporary ban (as opposed to excommunication) that could be imposed by the rabbinic authorities to ostracize and discipline a recalcitrant member of the community. The practice goes back to rabbinic times but with modifications was applied by later Jewish communities. It has currency today only in ultra-Orthodox communities.
13 Fear no man Deuteronomy 1:17.
13 Rabbenu Tam’s tefillin Jewish law records a debate between Rashi (1040–1105) and his grandson, Rabbi Jacob Tam (usually referred to as Rabbenu Tam, ca. 1100–1171), over the order in which the parchments containing passages from the Torah are to be positioned inside the tefillin fitted on the head. Jews who are fastidious about the observance of this precept will don both Rashi and Rabbenu Tam tefillin on weekday mornings.
13 Mountains of Darkness See Babylonian Talmud tractate Tamid 32b: “The Tanna de-be Eliyahu taught: Gehinnom is above the firmament; some, however, say that is behind the Mountains of Darkness.”
14 Sabbath of Repentance The Sabbath of Repentance (Hebrew, Shabbat Shuvah) is the Sabbath between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Its name derives from the opening words of the prophetic reading that follows the Torah reading at the morning service: “Shuvah yisra’el” (Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God; Hosea 14:2.) It was customary on that Sabbath for the rabbi to present a major discourse or sermon on the theme of repentance to prepare the congregants for Yom Kippur.
15 Israel in the desert See Exodus 13:21ff., 40:34ff., Numbers 9:15–23.
16 Shas A Hebrew acronym for (1) shomer sefarim, which has the sense of book collector or bibliophile; and (2) “shishah sedarim” (six orders or parts), a Hebrew designation for the Mishnah, which contains six volumes. The term is used more broadly to denote the many tomes that contain the elaboration of the Mishnah in the sixty-three tractates of the Babylonian Talmud.
16 Akdamut hymn Composed by Meir ben Isaac Nehorai (eleventh century, northern France). The ninety-line piyyut is read by Ashkenazic Jews at the morning service on Shavuot just prior to the reading from the Torah.
17 Gehinnom has seven names Babylonian Talmud, tractate ‘Eruvin 19a.
18 twentieth of Sivan The day on which the Jewish community of Nemirov was destroyed in the Cossack uprising of 1648. It came to be designated as a minor fast day to mark all the Khmelnitski massacres. In the Middle Ages Rabbi Jacob Tam designated the same date as a day of mourning for the Jews burned alive in the blood libel in Blois, France, in 1171.
18 Strypa A tributary of the Dniester river in Galicia, now western Ukraine, on which Buczacz is located.
18 tashlikh ritual The water used for making Passover matzah must be “water that has stood overnight,” such that the dough will be sufficiently cool so as not to make it ferment quickly. The water must be drawn by a Jew from a river or well, placed in a clean vessel, and allowed to stand overnight or at least for twelve hours. Tashlikh (casting away) is the ritual performed on Rosh Hashanah afternoon or in the days following, in which one’s sins are symbolically cast away into a naturally flowing body of water.
19 My beloved knocks Song of Songs 5:2.
19 for Thou art with me Psalm 23:4.
20 from the hollow of the sling The reference here is to the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Shabbat 152b, where the two parts of a biblical verse (1 Samuel 25:29) are cited and interpreted: “R. Eliezer said, ‘The souls of the righteous are ensconced beneath the heavenly throne, as it is written, May the soul of my lord be bound up in the bundle of life in the care of the Lord. But the souls of the wicked are perpetually confined [to the hollow of a sling] and an angel stands at one end of the universe and another angel stands at the other end of the universe and they sling the souls [of the wicked back and forth] to one another, as it is written, But He will fling the souls of your enemies as from the hollow of a sling’.”
21 Ari Acronymic name of Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534–1572), Jewish mystic and a major theorist of Kabbalah.
21 raising up the souls The four letters of the Hebrew word mishnah can be transposed to the word neshamah (soul).
23 the Kanah and the Peli’ah Sefer ha-peli’ah and Sefer hakanah are works of cosmogonic and theosophic speculation. Their authorship is uncertain, as are their date and country of origin. Some scholars place them in Spain of the late fourteenth century. Both works are marked by a strong antinomian strain.
23 will find the door open to him Babylonian Talmud tractate Menaḥot 29b and in other places with variants.
23 what will be in the end The allusion is to Mishnah Ḥagigah 2:1: “Whoever gives his mind to four things, it were better for him had he not come into this world: what is above, what is beneath, what was beforetime, and what will be in the hereafter.”
24 the superhuman sons of God See Genesis 6:1–4.
24 over the surface of the deep Genesis 1:2.
24 the domain of the qelipot Elhanan Shilo, in a private correspondence, notes that Agnon’s language here is citing Naftali Bacharach in his book expositing Lurianic Kabbakah, Emek hamelekh, 16:11.