Shelom ‘Olamim—Eternal Peace by S.Y. Agnon: Yishuv-Era Society on the Brink of Statehood

This 1942 satire is set in the period of Israel’s emergent statehood. Agnon delivers a critique of pre-statehood society and leadership at the nadir of drought, wrapped up in self-importance and internal rifts over inconsequential matters while the very existence of the people is threatened from without. While there is room for historical or theoretical examinations of such a story, this article adopts a literary approach for its methodology. It employs textual analysis to highlight a cluster of literary devices including a leitmotif, reverberations of classical Hebrew texts, and exaggerations. Together they animate the scathing satire in this period piece and trigger its irony. To deploy the irony in Shelom ‘Olamim–”Eternal Peace” Agnon installs each rhetorical device and echo in an inverted or perceptibly flawed fashion, and magnifies minutiae to hyperbolic proportions. In so doing he crafts a game of nahafokh-hua topsy-turvy puzzle, making his medium the message. The puzzle and its pieces carry the storyteller’s caustic criticism of the inverted priorities and unwarranted hubris of the leaders of yishuv-era society on the brink of statehood. In contributing a thesis based on textual analysis, an allegorical translation of the ambiguous Hebrew title, and fresh translations of selected excerpts, this article offers English-readers access to the humor and irony embedded in Agnon’s multivalent Hebrew writing and word play.

INTRODUCTION

“Eternal Peace” (henceforth Shelom ‘Olamim), published in the early 1940s, is a timeless gem that could have been written as recently as this morning.¹ This story is the second of four satires grouped by Agnon together with a preface as The State Book, or The Book of State (henceforth Sefer Hamedina).²

This article identifies a cluster of literary devices which, together with myriad exaggerations of minutiae, functions as the key to an interpretation of Shelom ‘Olamim. In my view these disparate elements share an important characteristic: that is, Agnon deliberately applies each in an overturned, subverted, or detectably faulty manner. Furthermore, I assert that Agnon does so in order to inscribe his story with nahafokh-hu: an upended or otherwise wonky puzzle in print that makes his medium the message. In short, Agnon criticizes ’anshei hamedina—the statesmen and leaders such as politicians, entrepreneurs and journalists—for their collective pomposity, failures in metaphysical and interpersonal relationships, and for espousing priorities that are simply upside down. The puzzle itself and the literary devices which are its pieces, bolstered by hyperbole, comprise the characteristically Agnonian irony that in this instance carries the storyteller’s scathing assessment of the leaders of the yishuv on the eve of statehood.³

First, this article distinguishes and foregrounds the function and implications of a pivotal leitmotif in positioning Shelom ‘Olamim in the broader framework of Sefer Hamedina. Second, it presents a capsule version of Shelom ‘Olamim with observations as a basis for the discussion that follows. Third, it identifies and analyzes the contribution of a cluster of literary components—to which the leitmotif also contributes—and ironic exaggerations that together convey the speaker’s satirical appraisal of the leaders, their priorities and proclivities.

In addition to the leitmotif mentioned, the literary devices to be examined include a central intertextual conversation with Parashat ‘Eqev in Deuteronomy; allusions to the motif of the Tabernacle (henceforth mishkan) described in Exodus, and to Creation by conceptual extension; directionality introduced through verticals and horizontals in physical, metaphysical and interpersonal relationships; irony in the story’s ambiguous title; and satire in portrayals of the inflated sense of self exhibited by the characters: statesmen, committee chairpersons, food storage magnates, newspaper journalists, and poets. As we shall see, Agnon’s embellished accounts are meant to take pointed jabs at the self-important workings of the forerunners of Israel’s legislature, important figures in commerce, and The Academy of the Hebrew Language.

LEITMOTIF IN SEFER HAMEDINA

To begin with, Agnon harnesses an inconspicuous leitmotif which eventually proves essential to the interpretation of Shelom ‘Olamim and its companion pieces. The narrator employs numerous words derived from the verb root ‘.s.y. denoting...