On Rosh Hashanah It Is Inscribed
A tale of three (and a bit) Yomim Tovim
I think it nearly criminal — from a literary standpoint, of course — that no complete, exhaustive, critical biography of Leivick exists. Charles Madison’s Yiddish Literature: Its Scope and Major Writers (1968) and the Leksikon are necessarily curtailed by their format and the goal of inclusion of as many writers as possible, major and minor, in the case of the latter.
Shmuel Charney’s weighty tome, H. Leivick: 1888-1948 (1951), while still the longest, largest and most intense engagement with Leivick’s life and career, is incomplete by merit of its date of publication; Leivick wrote for almost another decade after its issue.
One must, therefore, reach across several volumes and articles to assemble a picture such as this one of Leivick’s arc from profound belief as a child to growing doubt and eventual rejection as a young man.
From Essays and Speeches, 1963:
[…] My father’s Cohen-hand. I may not look at it, because one may not look at the Cohens’ hands during dukhanen. But I cannot restrain myself and look. I am already more than ten years old. In two years, I will need to give the blessing myself. I can already spread apart the fingers of both my hands well, as Cohanim need to do for Y'varech'cha. To make a crown. I know that I may not look at my father when he covers his head with the tallis and arranges his hands into a crown. Once, though, I dare, and steal beneath his tallis and see how he lifts his hands.
Essays and Speeches again, at about eleven years old:
Of all the pious imaginings in boyhood, there had the strongest influence on me the image of the Days of Awe, which was so clearly set out in the prayers of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, how during those fearful days the entire heavenly host sat over a large records book, where the deeds of men in the previous year were recorded precisely, and sentenced them — the people.
This image appeared to me in all its details, how all of heaven sits, seated around the giant book, and how from its pages the deeds of each and every one who is found on the earth, and particularly— of every Jew, man and woman, old and child, from our shtetl, Ihumen, are read. On the pages is recorded everything that each of us has done; no least movement, no least thought omitted; no smallest bit of sin forgotten. No fold, no twist of your life skipped over. As soon as a name is called out, your page is immediately revealed and your accounting begins, the numbering of your deeds. The guardian angel of each, the one responsible for their fate, reads what is inscribed on the pages aloud for the entire heavenly host. His voice is resounding, severe and full of fear over the impression which the accounting of deeds makes. When he finishes, there begins the weighing and reweighing. The Prosecutor and the Advocate appear. No small thing— a life stands at stake. Everything depends on the total and on the essence of the deeds themselves, if the one being sentenced, the one inscribed on the revealed page should remain living in the coming year or should die. If to live — what sort of life? And if to die — what sort of death should be assigned him?
[…]
The sentencing itself occurs on the day of Rosh Hashanah — the setting down and characterisation of the deeds. The sealing is left until Yom Kippur.
Leivick as quoted in Shmuel Charney’s H. Leivick: 1888-1948 (1951, original article from 1939 missing in the NLI archive):
[…] and when the moment finally came, and I took my place the first time with my father and other Cohanim to dukhanen — Rosh Hashanah it was — my teeth chattered. And when I, in chorus with the other Cohanim, began to say ‘Y’varech’cha,’ it seemed to me that my voice tore apart the entire shul together with my throat. In truth, my voice strangled in my throat, and barely, just barely struggled through. An anxious sweat drenched me […]
And, perhaps most fatefully of all, from In Tsarist Katorga (1959). The ‘you’ being addressed here is Leivick’s father, Saul:
From one who was so frum, as I was, I — after days and nights struggling with myself, assailed by difficult and painful doubts and great unhappiness at the surrounding Jewish poverty and need and lack of rights — did not believe, stopped going to synagogue even on Shabbos and for holidays, and at Rosh Hashanah that year, I avoided appearing for the priestly blessing to bless the synagogue together with you and with the other Cohanim. You searched for me in the shul, but did not find me. Performed the blessing without me. You came home from shul haggard. And in the house it was Tisha B’Av. You sat at the table, pale and overcome, and Mother sat weeping. Now I think that I had no need to act so, should have considered your feelings, and should have had foresight that not only would it cause you mental anguish, but shame you in the eyes of all the Jews in the shul who would say: Saul the Cohen’s eldest son does not wish to perform the blessing, renounces the priesthood. I had no intention to do it on that particular day. I now admit before you that I acted bitterly wickedly. — But one thing you never understood, neither you, nor Mother, nor the other Jews around, that it was not simple stubbornness or mockery on my part and certainly not contempt for being a Cohen, but the result of an accounting of the soul which I had made in my own manner. As soon as I had fallen into doubts about faith, as soon as I was not fully a believer, how could my conscience allow me to ascend to the Holy Ark and perform the priestly blessing, to bless the congregation, when my heart was no longer in it? What right did I have to swindle the congregation with a blessing that was no longer in me? Certainly, to bless a congregation in the name of God is a great and sublime matter — certainly, therefore, there ought to be no doubt in me, and I ought not play at deceiving those who should not be.
Excerpts drawn from H. Leivick, Esayen un Redes (1963), H. Leivick, Oyf Tsarisher Katorga (1959) and S. Charney, H. Leivick: 1888-1948. As always, this isn’t for profit, but academic/personal use and reflection — if you like what I do, consider a donation to your favourite charity.
The title ‘On Rosh Hashanah It Is Inscribed’ is derived from that of one of the essays from which these selections have been excerpted.
A gut yor!