Be careful what you wish for

Isaac Bashevis Singer’s A Tale of Three Wishes is a charming story about three children who think they have squandered their wishes made when the Heavens open at night on Hoshanah Rabbah, only to learn that they must work for what they want. Shtetl life, folk religion, Jewish customs and values are in this apparently simple story. Although the mysterious watchman they meet is not named, I am convinced that he is the Prophet Elijah, who appears in many Jewish folktales as the stranger who sets things right and then disappears. (More on him in future blogs.) The story starts by noting what a Jewish town needs. Which leads to the question, what do we need in a modern Jewish community? School? Synagogue? JCC? Mikveh? Kosher Butcher? Library? Cemetery? Sunsets? Chocolate?

“The Magician” by I.L. Peretz – An Elijah story

I am drawn to Elijah stories. These are essentially stories in which a stranger comes to town and fixes things. Passover, when we hope that Elijah will come to our Seder and tell us that the Messiah is on his way, seems an ideal time to (begin to) talk about these stories.

“The Magician” by I.L. Peretz is a typical Elijah folktale. A poor magician arrives at a small town and causes all the fixings of a seder to appear out of nowhere for a poor couple. Before they eat anything though, they check with their rabbi to make sure it is OK. He explains how they can tell if it is, but by the time they return, the magician, who, they now realize, is Elijah, has gone.

My question: If they had not doubted and checked with their local source of Jewish law, would they have broken bread (well, matzah) with Eliyahu HaNavi? Did they miss a chance to bring the Messiah? And why did they refuse to go to a neighbor’s house and allow the neighbor the opportunity to perform the mitzvah of welcoming guests? Why insist on God providing? There is a joke about a man stranded by a flood who refuses three offers of help as the waters rise, each time saying that God will save him; he drowns. When he gets Heaven and and starts to complain about not being rescued, the response is that he had three chances to live. Or, there is the Midrash about Nachshon and how the waters of the Red Sea did not part until he stepped into them. In other words, it is not enough to rely on God to do everything for us; we must act.

The story can be found in The Seven Good Years and Other Stories of I.L. Peretz translated and adapted by Esther Hautzig and illustrated by Deborah Kogan Ray (Philadelphia, 1984). I talked to Ms. Hautzig at an Association of Jewish Libraries convention and asked if she had abridged the original Yiddish story to make it more suitable for young adults. She said that quite the contrary, she made the stories longer to explain the terms and way of life that most people no longer know. I.L. Peretz was one of the Jewish writers of the 19th century who created Yiddish literature. Another highly recommended story in this book is “Bontche Shweig” (Bontche, the Silent). There is also “The Treasure,” which is reminiscent of The Treasure, which I reviewed in an earlier post.

Of course, it is also traditional to read Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs aka the Song of Solomon. (Or for incredibly light reading about a world where everything works out for the best, there’s also P.G. Wodehouse’s “Jeeves and the Song of Songs,” with no obvious Jewish content whatsoever.)