My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner

Along with this essay by Ruth R. Wisse on Chaim Grade’s novella “My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner,” Mosaic is pleased to present her original translation of the work, which is the first complete rendition of the story to be published in English. The publication history of the original story, and information about prior translations, can be found in Wisse’s essay, in which she also elaborates on her approach to the translation. —The Editors

1.

In 1937, I returned to Bialystok, seven years after I had been a student in the Novaredok yeshiva of the Musarists, a movement that gives special importance to ethical and ascetic elements in Judaism. When I came back, I found many of my old school friends still there. A few even came to the evening event where I spoke. Others visited me secretly; they did not want the head of the yeshiva to know. I could see on their scruffy faces that their poverty had brought them suffering and that the fire of their youthful zeal had slowly burned itself out. They continued to observe all the laws and customs meticulously, but the weariness of their spiritual struggles lay upon them. For years they had tried to tear the desire for pleasure out of their hearts, only to realize they had lost the war with themselves. They had not overcome the evil urge.