It was about a week after Pesach. My wife and I were sitting in the villa of Shmuel Yosef Agnon in the Talpiot section of Jerusalem. Time passed quickly in the company of the author We had come in the afternoon and by now darkness had descended. Suddenly Agnon rose from his seat. “I am sure that I will not forget to say the evening prayer, but I may forget to count the Omer.” Saying this he excused himself, recited the blessing and counted the Omer.
This is Shmuel Yoef Agnon, famous Hebrew novelist. Last week the Swedish Academy of letters announced that Agnon had been chosen to receive the Nobel Prize of Literature for the year 1966.
“I never care to correct inaccuracies in biographical accounts published about me. Only in one case did I feel compelled to do so. This was for the honor of my father of blessed memory,” Agnon told us. “When someone wrote that I had attended the Baron Hirsch elementary school in my hometown Buczacz, I had to protest. I did not attend a school. Moreover, my father paid money to have me exempt from school.”
Agnon was educated in the Cheder of Buczacz. He also studied with his father, Reb Sholeom Mordechai Czaczkes, a merchant and an outstanding Talmid Chacham. Young Shmuel Yosef was a prodigious student. Great rabbis of Eastern Galicia examined him and were impressed with his knowledge. Father, Reb Sholem Mordechai was very proud of him and he wanted him to become a rabbi. But the son did not follow the path his father had laid out for him.
While still very young, Agnon began to write poetry in Hebrew and in Yiddish. He wrote in the manner of his time. However, before long, he began writing prose in a style of his own. It was a style novel in Hebrew literature. Novel but not new. For it was a synthesis of the styles of the Talmud, Midrash, Moralistic and Hasidic literature. No less novel than his style were the presentation and treatment of his themes.
Agnon settled in Palestine in 1909. He returned there in 1924, after having spent eleven years years in German. He had lived in Jerusalem ever since.
During his long literary career, Agnon had written lengthy novels and numerous short stories. They depict the life of the Old Yishuv in the Land of Israel as well as modern Jewish life in that country and in Central Europe. However, most of his writings have been dedicated to a description of his native Galicia, especially of his hometown in Buczacz. He has portrayed the pious life of Buczacz of generations ago, the Buczacz of his youth and the town as he found it on a visit between the two World Wars. In his writings, come to life the physical and spiritual world of Galician Jewry, its rabbis, Chasidim, Mitnagim, people of all trades and classes. Never before has the deep piety and love of the Torah which once characterized our people, been described so vividly and with such deep psychological insight! You can almost “touch” the people and the atmosphere of the shtetls.
His writings have been translated into many languages. In English we find “Hakhnassat Kalla” (The Bridal Canopy) which relates the adventures of Reb Yudel on his travels through Galicia to collect dowries for his daughters. Smaller works, translated into English include “The Heart of Seas” a story describing the emigration of a group of early Galician Chasidim in the Land of Israel.
His unique style and literary presentation , at once classic and modern, have given rise to what seems to be a paradox. Agnon has been hailed by European and American critics as a modernistc writer with affinities to James Joyce and Franz Kafka. At the same time, the Jews of the Beth HaMidrah, people worlds removed from modern belles letters have acclaimed him as one of their own.
He does not regard himself as a modern writer. “I write like my father, like my grandfather; though the latter did not write stories but Halakha,” Agnon once said. And indeed, the world of his father and grandfather is also that of Agnon. He has never ceased studying the Talmud and Midrash. He is at home in the Rabbinic, Kabbalistic, Hasidic literatures. It is from these that he draws not only his language and style, pregnant with Jewish learning, but also his parables, symbols and ideas, heavy with the wisdom of generations.
He has also written scholarly books. Several years ago he published a marvelous bibliography of the writings of the rabbis and scholars of Buczacz throughout the generations.
Just wonderful is his “Yamim Noraim,” a treasury of traditions, legends and learned commentaries concerning Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and the Days of Repentance. The volume which has also appeared in a condensed English edition (“Days of Awe”) is a work both of scholarship and art. In compiling it, Agnon consulted more than one thousand books of our sacred literatures. He brought to this book not only his talents and learning but also his own awe of the Yamim Noraim.
In a previous long talk with the author, more than a year ago, a short time before Rosh Hashana, Agnon told me:
“Several days ago i was asked by a journalist to grant him an interview. I told him: in the month of Elul I do not give interviews– during this month, I interview myself.
At that time we had met at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Emuna Yaron. Mras. Agnon was helping her daughter who was ironing cloths. Agnon called to her. He wanted her at his side. He told her to stop what she was doing and join us for a L’Chaim and conversation.
Before taking leave, my wife hugged and kissed Mrs. Agnon gently. Agnon beamed and declared: “You are going back to New York and you will hear the sound of the Shofar on Rosh Hashana,” he sighed. “IF we do not hear before then the great Shofar of the Messiah!”
“Recently I have been thinking much about the great Shofar,” the 78 years old author continued with a pensive look in his mild, wide eyes. “I believe if we Jew would wish will all our hearts and souls for the coming of the Messiah and would not content ourselves with other palliatives, we surely would be redeemed.”
The Jewish Press , Friday October, 28, 1966