The Jewish Genius of S.Y. Agnon

S.Y. Agnon was awarded the Nobel Prize for Jewish literature in 1966, the first—and to this day only—Hebrew writer to win the award. In this first lecture, Rabbi Jeffrey Saks analyzes Agnon's Nobel Laureate speech, showing how Agnon used the address to explain how and why he wrote novels and stories, and what, to him, the purpose of Jewish literature really is. The speech is a landmark text for understanding how Agnon thought about his own life and work in the context of Jewish history and tradition.

One of the foremost tensions of Agnon's work was the transition from diaspora Jewish life to living in the Land of Israel. In this story, which is often illustrated as a children's book, Agnon tells of a boy who follows a magical goat through a cave that leads him to the Land of Israel, severing his relationship with his father. Rabbi Saks interprets this story as a warning of the perils of leaving behind Jewish tradition when returning to the Jewish people's ancestral homeland.

The Bridal Canopy is one of Agnon's most well-known and popular novels. Written in the form of a hasidic tale, it tells of the poor Reb Yudel of Brody, who experiences a series of events that get ever more miraculous, though they seem entirely natural to Yudel with his near-blind faith in God. In the lecture, Saks walks viewers through the story, its major themes, Agnon's use of irony in it, and how it compares to other great works like Don Quixote and Tevye the Dairyman.

This book, based in part on a trip Agnon himself took, charts the 10 months an immigrant to the Land of Israel spent in his old home town in Germany. Through this powerful story, Agnon provides a portrait of Jewish diasporic life in decline, a reflection on the Holocaust, and, Saks argues, a hopeful message that Zionism can provide Jews an "old new" home.

This collection of stories, published over the course of 20 years, is one of Agnon's defining works. In them, he conjures up a world of old Jewish nostalgia, confronting the complexity of what it means to deal with modernity as a traditional Jew. In this lecture, Rabbi Saks suggests that Agnon's portrayal of Jewish life can help readers of all backgrounds think about their connection to the past and their path in the future.