The Shtetl: A CREATIVE ANTHOLOGY OF JEWISH LIFE IN EASTERN EUROPE
Translated and edited by Joachim Neugroschel
 
THE RELIGIOUS ROOTS
THE CREATION OF THE WORLD AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD
 
The core of Jewish life has always been its religion. Likewise, the life of shtetl Jews revolved around religious customs and traditions, and a historical awareness going back to Talmudic and Biblical times. The best bridge between the pre-Ashkenazi past and the shtetl reality is Tsene Rene, the so-called women's Bible in Yiddish. Jacob ben Isaac Ashkenazi composed this adaptation of the Pentateuch, the Haftorat, and the Five Scrolls in the sixteenth century. Although printed in Germany, it quickly spread to Eastern Europe; and so far, there have been two hundred and ten editions. The author retold the Biblical stories, interweaving his narrative with explanations, interpretations, anecdotes from various exegetical sources. According to the frontispiece, this Yiddish retelling was "designed to enable men and women . . . to understand the word of God in simple language." But since women were barred from learning Hebrew and studying the holy texts, the Yiddish Bible became more properly theirs, and formed a spiritual basis in their lives.

The Jewish religion was churned to its depths by Hassidism, a popular mystical movement launched in the eighteenth century. Appealing to the masses, making religion more accessible to them than scholarly erudition could, it became a major energy in Jewish life. Hagiographic stories about its founder, Israel ben Eliezer Baal Shem Tov (the Master of the Good Name) (c. 1700-1760) were gathered in 1814-1815 by Dov Ber ben Shmuel of Linits. The collection was titled: In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov.

It distorted the historical personage, creating a supernatural world of magical feats and deeds, although the historical references are certainly rooted in actual events. This enchanted world, with salvation and solution for every calamity that happened to Jews, was a universe of wishful thinking, ruled by a charismatic leader who was endowed with superhuman powers, providing an endless optimism for a highly vulnerable community.

A somewhat similar embodiment of wishful thinking was the Prophet Elijah, who became just about the most popular character in Jewish folklore. Known affectionately in Yiddish as Eli haNovi (novi being Hebrew for "prophet"), he was an expression of social protest, heeding the cries of the wretched and unfortunate against the oppressive elements within the Jewish communities. Disguised as a beggar, a poor man, or even a Gentile peasant, he invariably brought solace and comfort to the sick, the poor, the despairing. But the social criticism in the stories was tempered by the literary optimism of the happy endings.

A different kind of optimism, wrapped in convoluted, messianic allegories, permeated the tales of Rabbi Nakhman of Bratslev (1772-1811). A great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, he left an oral tradition of at least thirteen eerie, puzzling tales, which were set down by his son-in-law Nathan and published in a Hebrew/Yiddish edition in 1815. Unlike the multitude of Hassidic stories, which generally praise the supernatural feats of the rebbes, these tales of Nakhman's are more in a fairy-tale tradition of princes, princesses, enchanted castles, magicians, demons, magical voyages, mysterious forests, and the like. The rabbi as story-teller enters and creates Yiddish literature, hinting at mystical energies and eschatological forces. While the section from Tsene Rene describes the creation of the world, Rabbi Nakhman's A Tale of a Lame Man, inspired by the First Psalm, provides a hopelessly intricate enigma, whose messianic solution points to the end of the world and the ultimate salvation of virtue.

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