Cinderella (5)

 

I would like to explain the meaning of Job's faith by means of a contrast between two situations in modern literature.  I will bring the first example from a short story by a well-known author, who inherited the Jewish tradition from his parents' home.  This tradition has not disappeared despite the power of the evil inclination.  He himself is very aware of this struggle, and does not want to lose his Jewish roots.  I am speaking of Isaac Bashevis Singer.  I will refer to one of his stories, entitled "Zeidlus the First."  Zeidlus is of course a Latin play on the Yiddish name Zeidel.  Singer tells us of a man named Zeidel, a learned Jew whom Satan attempts to lead astray.  All of his initial efforts fail.  The regular temptations do not work on Zeidel.  However, the temptation of pride is too strong for Zeidel to resist.  How does one tempt a Jew with pride?  If you convert, says Satan, you will go far; you will become Pope Zeidlus the First.  Zeidel falls into the trap.  However, his life does not turn out exactly the way Satan promised him. 

 

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov teaches that Satan is like the person who shows a child his closed hand and promises, "if you do such and such I will give you what is in my hand."  The child does what he is asked, and afterwards, when the hand opens, the child sees that it is empty. 

 

We will not go into all of Zeidel's adventures.  We will only say that he failed at everything, and when Satan appears at the moment of death to take his soul, and Zeidel sees him, he exclaims,

 

"Is it you Satan, angel of death?"

"Yes Zeidel," replies the Tempter, "I have come for you.  And it won't help you to repent or confess, so don't try."

"Where are you taking me?" he asked.

"Straight to Gehenna."

"If there is a Gehenna, there is also a God," Zeidel said, his lips trembling.

"This proves nothing," I retorted.

"Yes it does," he said.  "If Hell exists, everything exists.  If you are real, He is real.  Now take me to where I belong.  I am ready."

 

This idea, of the discovery of God beyond evil, is completely opposed to a message that appears in one of Ingmar Bergman's "philosophical" films, "The Seventh Seal."  In the film – which has a Christian background - a knight appears who asks the final questions, and in one of the dialogues of the film someone who has seen the angel of death claims that he looked into his eyes, but beyond them one could see nothing.  In contrast to this, the meaning of the story of "Zeidlus the First" is that beyond evil one can see good.  This is the great leap that we must take: the leap from the absurd into a meaningful existence.

 

     The Torah concludes with a commandment to study a song and remember it from generation to generation, so that it will exist forever.  This is the song of "Hearken" ("Ha'azinu").  The Torah explains that days will come when

 

"I will hide My face from them and they will be prey, and will be beset by many evils and troubles and they will say on that day, 'it is because my God is not with me that we have been beset by these evils'... And now, write this song for yourselves and teach it to the children of Israel, place it in their mouths, so that this song will be a witness for the Children of Israel." (Devarim 31:17-19) 

 

     A time of great suffering will come, and the nation will ask the question, is God indeed among us? Or in a more modern version, "Can one believe in God after Auschwitz?"  The Torah commanded us to study this song, so that we will know that despite the pain and evil, God is with us.  This is the song that comes to teach us that even in the midst of evil, God is with us. 

 

"How can one [man] chase a thousand and two [men] pursue ten thousand, if their Rock had not sold them, and God had not trapped them." (Devarim 32:30)

 

Despite everything, the world is not left to its own devices.  This is a prophetic promise given to us so that we will not give up hope.

 

     And here I will dare to make the terrible leap, towards the eyes of the Angel of Death.  In our generation we have learned something beyond what Rihal has taught us.  We can learn about the truth, as Rihal said, from the fact that God revealed himself at Mount Sinai and chose the nation that He loves, the Chosen People, and gave them the Torah.  However, to our sorrow, in history there is another way as well.  If Satan appeared, and I was indeed certain that he was Satan, I could learn, paradoxically, from him, that the Chosen People are the nation that Satan recognizes and announces to be his enemy.  History has shown us many anti-Semites, great and small.  However, Satan himself was none other than Nazism.  Nazism appeared and, pointing at the Jewish people, announced, "This is my enemy."  We have learned that the Jewish people are the Chosen People - from the evidence given by Satan.  Satan did not hate the Jews because we were opposed to his political ideas or because we disturbed his plans.  The child and the old man, who were powerless to harm anyone, were also Satan's enemies.  To some extent, the Holocaust was an Encounter at Auschwitz, parallel to the Encounter at Mount Sinai, in which Satan appeared and showed us the way to the great leap, the need to see beyond the empty eyes of the Angel of Death.  Beyond them there is something else.  It is not emptiness.  Zeidlus the First was right: "If you are real, He is real."

 

     The world understands this logic, even if only subconsciously.  We can understand this if we analyze different reactions to the Holocaust.  The anti-Semite complains that the Nazis did not finish the job.  We are also familiar with the attempts of Nazi sympathizers who want to deny the Holocaust, and sometimes we hear both claims at once.  This is one side of the range of responses.  However, on the other side we hear more sophisticated denials.  For many years we have been witnesses to an attempt, by the Poles for example, to deny the fact that the Jews were the victims of the Holocaust.  However, the most evident attempt in this area is without a doubt the establishment of the Carmelite monastery at Auschwitz.  Here we are faced with an attempt to rewrite history: Christianity was one of the victims of Auschwitz.  The Church did this, for example, by making a Jewish convert to Christianity into a Christian saint.  This is because, consciously or subconsciously, everyone whose conscience was not destroyed by Nazism understands that every honest person should have been at Auschwitz.  There Satan made the selection.  And whoever was not chosen by him to be wiped out, cannot possibly be the chosen one of God.

 

Cinderella and her sisters

 

Today we can understand this because of the perspective that we have on the first verses of the last chapter of the book of Job.  From this perspective, which stems from a sense that we are at the beginning of the Redemption, we ought to reread the end of the story of Cinderella.  How did Cinderella treat her sisters after her rise to greatness?  I leave the reader to do his own homework, but I promise him that a look at the various versions will be very interesting.  What God expects from Job is clear.  God expects Job to pray for his friends who have constantly directed their arrows at him.  This is a very difficult moral paradox.  However, it helps us to understand the secret of the ending of the book.  The redemption of Job represents the return of the Jewish people to their land.  The verse actually uses the phrase "returned his exiles" (42:10), which is essentially a national term.  Now we also understand another difficulty.  His first children are lost to him, yet Job's comfort - a comfort that does not erase the pain - is in his second children.  The Holocaust was an event that can never be forgotten, and we are left with problems that cannot be rationally explained away.  However, now we see the return of Job's exiles, and the prayer that he wishes for the whole world: may sins, not sinners, be obliterated.

 

Job's friends, Cinderella's sisters, are the other religions that point an accusing finger at Job: Job, you are suffering, this is proof that you have sinned, this means that God has rejected you.  The book ends with the meeting with the prince: "and God returned the exiles of Job" - this is the Redemption.

Translated by Gila Weinberg