My Quarrel With Hersh Rasseyner - A Short Story by Chaim Grade - 1952- translated from the Yiddish with an illuminating introduction by Ruth Wisse - 2020
https://mosaicmagazine.com/author/chaim-grade
Today's Story and the introduction can be read at the link above.
"For nearly a thousand years, European Jews thought, spoke, argued, and lived out their lives in Yiddish. It was the language of an entire civilization, built on the foundations of educational institutions, voluntary associations, and communal organizations that over time became the central repository of modern Jewish culture. It was in Yiddish that European Jewry confronted modernity—confronted, that is, the rise of nationalism, Enlightenment liberalism, Communism, and its own twin impulses for religious reform and religious orthodoxy. That this civilization was brimming over with vitality into the 20th century can be seen by the fact that it managed to simultaneously nurse a decidedly secular literary tradition and cultivate institutions of traditional Jewish learning arguably unsurpassed by any other Jewish community at any time in Jewish history. That all came to an abrupt end with Hitler’s war on the Jews. The destruction of the 1930s and 1940s posed enormous questions, and spurred investigation and answer by those who survived it. Chaim Grade, one of the most extraordinary modern Yiddish writers, offers a very pointed answer to the Holocaust in his 1952 story “My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner.” True Jewish continuity, Grade seems to say, was not to be found merely in the physical survival of Jewish communities, but in the survival of the theological, intellectual, and moral arguments that have always characterized Jewish life. The Jewish people is structured by its contentions and disputes, and not even the risk of physical annihilation can silence the abiding claims of obligation and freedom that press upon every Jew, then and now. The story is a true masterpiece, one of the finest expressions of modern Jewish culture. Mosaic is pleased beyond measure to bring you Ruth R. Wisse’s rendering of the first unabridged English translation of the text, along with her sparkling interpretive and introductory essay." From the preface by Mosaic
I quoted at some length from the preface as their account of the historical
importance of this work way surpasses my abilities and knowledge.
It relays a conversation of between
Two now older Jewish men who survived the Holocaust, one in a Concentration Camp and one escaped to Russia. Both were raised and educated in Vilna in Lithuanian. They encountered each other two years after the war was over, on a bus in Paris. Each had assumed the other died during the Holocaust. Both did lose all their families.
The man who was in a camp taught traditional teachings to a group of Jewish boys also imprisoned there. He was a very strong believer in the teachings of the Torah. The other man had lost much of his faith due to the Holocaust. He reasoned how can we be the chosen people, how can we not hate the Germans. He is an established poet, read widely by Europeans of a wide diversity. He takes pride in this and takes his self worth from the praise of what the other man sees as the corruption of the world.
Each man is challenged by the other,
Anyone who does not understand why understanding the meaning of the Holocaust obviously does not have any awareness of events in the Middle East now.
"“That is the outlook and the Musar path of ‘the old one,’ Reb Yosef Yoizl— may his merit be a shield for us—and thousands of Novaredok students steeped themselves in it day and night. We labored to make ourselves better, each of us filed and polished his own soul, with examiners gathering evidence of our improvement like pearls. But you laughed at us. Then came the German—may his name be blotted out—and murdered our sainted students. And now here we both stand before the devastated Community of Israel. But you face a khurbn of your own—the destruction of your faith in the world. That’s what hurts you and torments you, so you ask me: why weren’t the wise men of the Gentiles able to be good if they wanted to be good? And you find contradictions in what I said. But the contradiction you find is in yourself. You thought the world was striving to become better but you discovered that it was striving for our blood."
The conversation will require your full attention.
Chaim Grade Born in Vilna in 1910, Chaim Grade was a novelist and poet, known for such works as The Yeshiva. He settled in the Bronx following World War II, where he lived until his death in 1982.
Ruth R. Wisse Ruth R. Wisse is a research professor at Harvard and a distinguished senior fellow at the Tikvah Fund. Her most recent book is No Joke: Making Jewish Humor (2013, paperback 2015).
