At the end of his book on Jewish mysticism Gershom
Scholem tells the following story, which he
learned from Yosef Agnon:
"When the Baal Schem, the founder of Hasidism, had a
difficult task before him, he would go to a certain place
in the woods, light a fire and meditate in prayer; and
what he had set out to perform was done. When a generation
later, the
MaggidofMeseritz was faced with the
same task, he would go to the same place in the woods,
and say: “We can no longer light a fire, but we can pray.”
And everything happened according to his will. When
another generation had passed, Rabbi Moshe Leib of
Sassov was faced with the same task, [and] he would go
to the same place in the woods, and say: “We can no
longer light a fire, nor do we know the secret meditations
belonging to the prayers, but we know the place in
the woods, and that can be sufficient.” And sufficient it
was. But when another generation had passed and Rabbi
Israel of Rishin was called upon to perform the task, he
sat down in his golden chair, in his castle, and said: “We
cannot light the fire, we cannot speak the prayers, we do
not know the place, but we can tell the story of all this.”
And, once again, this was sufficient."
(From The Fire and the Tale, Giorgio Agamben)
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- (1) Stories can be labyrinthine
Can we turn AnthemOfLolonbia into stories to pass on?
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