The Logic of Jewish History

I intended to begin with the story by the Yiddish and Hebrew writer I.L. Peretz that we studied in the upper grades of the Jewish elementary school that I attended in Montreal. When the attack of October 7th gave this conference even greater urgency, I realized that despite the shift of focus I could begin with the very same story. Writing in Warsaw at the beginning of the 20th century, Peretz was greatly troubled by the rise of anti-Semitism in Poland and in the rest of Europe. To rally the anxious Jews of his time, he wrote modern folk tales; this story was one of them.

“The Three Gifts,” Di dray matones, begins “Once long ago,” with the death of a Jew somewhere in this world—anywhere, anytime. When the soul of this average Jew ascends to the heavenly court, it has neither enough good deeds to gain admission to heaven or enough evil deeds to be sent to hell, so this poor soul is condemned to eternal wandering in limbo. But he cries and pleads so bitterly that the gatekeeper suggests he might try to “win” his way into heaven by bringing its saints three gifts. The saints, he is told, “like nothing more than a common soul that’s managed to work its way up.” So the soul begins searching for what might be an appropriate gift.

But the world’s other inhabitants turn out to be as mediocre as he was. For many years he roams unsuccessfully until late one night he is attracted by the light in a window, and he sees masked robbers holding up a wealthy Jew with a knife at his throat, threatening to kill him if he makes a move. The Jew watches them calmly as they load his valuables until in a far corner they find a little bag, and then he lunges forward and they shove the knife into him, certain that they have found the most precious of his jewels. But it is only a bag of earth—the pouch of earth from Eretz Israel that the Jew had prepared to be put under his head at burial. The soul scoops up some of that bloodied earth for the first gift accepted by the heavenly saints.