The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning

The Later Generations: The Folktale in Confrontation with a Changing World

6 The Later Generations The Folktale in Confrontation with a Changing World [A] The Hasidic Story as Folk Literature The tales that grew out of and around the Hasidic movement form one of the largest and richest veins to be mined in all of Jewish literature. They have taken both oral and written form concurrently during the last two hundred years—mostly in Eastern Europe prior to the Second World War, and thereafter in the United States and in Israel. Most evidence of this narrative’s character, dissemination, and meaning has survived in small booklets that were printed cheaply and poorly in Poland, mostly in the 1860s and thereafter. More than one hundred and ¤fty such booklets were published, a signi¤cant portion of them in several editions. Financial expedience lay behind this form of publication for, unlike other books, these apparently did not enjoy the support of the wealthy members of the community. Moreover, the low cost facilitated their purchase by those for whom these books were intended: members of the lower classes of Jewish society. Reckoning that each such booklet contained, on average , several dozen tales, we get a glimpse of the rich repertoire of tales to grace Hasidic circles.1 The richness of the Hasidic tale begs a fundamental question—whence this vast development? The answer is bound ¤rmly to the social and ideational character of the Hasidic movement. Indeed, scholars of Hasidism in recent generations underscore the tale’s centrality to Hasidic culture. Hasidic doctrine imbued the tale with religious value and a role in the modes of worship. From a social perspective, Hasidism strived to reach the broadest strata of the people— including the indigent and the uneducated. The tale has always been a most convenient and effective means in the hands of any new religious movement to disseminate its ideas. Two cardinal Hasidic notions were particularly well-suited to the tale: ¤rst, the teaching of the zaddik (i.e., righteous man, Hasidic leader). The zaddik’s primary roles were to mediate between God and the Jewish individual, and “to raise the sparks from among the rinds.” Such “deeds” (in Hebrew, ma’asim, hence the Hasidic term for the tales: “deeds of the righteous”) were made tangible and “documented”through their recounting—via the telling of tales. The zaddik thus becomes a kind of mythic ¤gure in the Hasidic tale, his actions revealed and documented in the plots of many diverse stories. Another fundamental notion of Hasidism expressed mainly in tales is that of devekut, i.e., a state of “attachment”to God. This state can be achieved, inter alia, through corporeal means—eating, drinking, rejoicing, dancing—and, especially , through the tale. The tales, as we shall see below, serve as one of the central means, according to Hasidic teaching, of reaching a state of attachment to God. No longer deemed something of an inescapable extravagance that had somehow to be reconciled,the tale,here,perhaps for the ¤rst time in the history of Jewish culture, acquired vital religious signi¤cance.2 Numerous expressions relating to the social and religious function of the tale appear in Hasidic writing. Some do not differ from the attitude toward the tale evinced by the Jewish culture that preceded Hasidism. One is known as the “sweetening parable,” that is to say, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Thus, when the aim is to preach to the people, to guide them along the “bitter,” arduous path of upholding burdensome precepts and prohibitions , a tale can lighten the load, make the “medicine” easier “to swallow.” This comparison came to Hasidism by way of the preachers and ethicists who predated the movement, and is one of the widespread images that crystallized the Hasidic attitude toward the tale. The therapeutic approach to the tale took root as early as the Middle Ages. The tale, by nature, is amusing and entertaining. It thus constituted a diversion from personal hardships and pain, and contributed to restoring the “balance ” between the various elements held to determine a person’s health (cold, warmth, moisture, and dryness), in other words, to curing illness. The prevalent , profound medieval concept of the connection between body and soul led to the description of many illnesses as psychosomatic, such that treating the soul was essential for recovery. The tale was considered by many physicians and thinkers, particularly in the Christian world, but also in medieval Judaism, to be one important avenue of such therapy.3 A tale attributed to...