_The Mendele Review_: Yiddish Literature and Language (A Companion to _MENDELE_) ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 02.033 10 December 1998 FROM CRADLE TO SACRIFICE On the Transmutation of a Song by Ariela Krasny [translated from Hebrew by Refael Alroy] *** Part Two: TMR vol 2. 033 D2. Sacrifice of the Kid D2a. "Dos tsigele" ('The kid') D2a. "Dos tsigele" ('The kid') D2b. "Khad-gadye" E. "From under the cradle" to the sacrifice -- fate or mission F. "Ovnt lid" Endnotes References ------------------------- D2. Sacrifice of the Kid The songs in this section describe the bitter lot of the sacrificed kid. However, in contrast to the pessimistic songs above, they carry the hope that the absent father will return, bringing with him "raisins and almonds," as well as belief in the future of his life path. D2a. "Dos tsigele" ('The kid') The kid of "Under the Baby's Cradle," absent from "My Lullaby" and "Under the Yellow Patch," appears again in "The Kid," but is different. It is childlike, itself in need of protection, condemmed to die -- it is the kid from "Khad-gadye": hot es tantsndik arayngetantst in dorn -- khay gelebt! un nokhdem vi mit letste trit aheym zikh koym dershlept. gelegn in farshnitkayt tseblutikt un tseglutikt, -- zol zayn mayn lid itst, halevay, treyst-vort vos dermutikt. ('Skipping lively, It danced into the thorns, And then, utterly exhausted, It barely dragged itself home. Mangled it lay, Bloodied and feverous, May my song serve As consolation and encouragement.')(15) In "Under the Baby's Cradle" the kid, full of hope and yearning, runs off to distant places and trades in raisins and almonds; in "My Lullaby" a wandering father strives to achieve, but fails. By contrast, in "The Kid," the kid no longer travels, trades, nor dreams. Rather it has the new, strange and alienated dream of approaching the gentile peasant. This naive kid believes that it can alter the "Khad-gadye" story, that its neighbors, who hate it, will be glad to admit it into their midst. Briefly an idyllic illusion flares and the kid frolics like a free spirit. But as soon as the kid is no longer content to stay within his own courtyard -- "to scamper and skip about in the yard and its surroundings" -- and wants to leap into the neighbor's courtyard, the quasi-idyll is broken off; the peasant neighbor disdains it. Leyvik's kid believed that at the neighbor's it would find the quiet and the repose for which it yearns. However, when it attempted to approach the neighbor's courtyard, it was caught in thorns and thistles, escaping bruised and bloodied. The dream was shattered, and the reality of "Khad-gadye" again struck it in the face. The idyllic mold that had been cast in "Under the Baby's Cradle" is shattered in this poem, and instead of trading in raisins and almonds, the loving and hopeful kid becomes a sacrificial victim: "Mangled it lay, bloodied and feverish." The kid's tale ends in the spirit of the sacrifice of "Khad-gadye," but it is not the end of the poem. The poet steps in and comments that, despite the story's tragic and painful events, there still is a glimmer of hope: "may my song serve as consolation and encouragement." This is because the kid of "Under the Baby's Cradle" has not been forgotten, and its ideals still serve as signposts in the poet's world:. ikh zukh itst dayne trit-tseykhns alts ofter un alts gerner -- vays tsigele, vays tsigele, kleyn-kindishe on herner. ('I'm now looking for your footprints With ever growing ardor -- White kid, white kid, So childlike without horns.') Notwithstanding this poem's dramatic nature, its many events and developments, its form does not reflect its content: the four lines of each stanza are organized throughout the entire poem to be alike in their length as well as in their rhyming.(16) By contrasting content and form, the poet possibly sought to point up the kid's tragedy as against it idyllic dream, fragmentation as against wholeness. D2b. "Khad-gadye" A sequel to the above poem, "Khad-gadye" presents the post-Shoa Jewish reality. The shtetl is no more, nor is the mother who shaped for her son a world with a past and a future; only the kid is left to watch over a bare cradle: zing, zing! in a land a nitoikn, in a hek vos gerufn zikh shtetl, vigt tsigele mit a fus a tloikn dos vigele fun shtrikl un bretl. dos kind iz nito inem vigele a khuts nor an onvunk fun zakhn. ('Sing, sing! in a nonexistent land, In a nook that was called shtetl, The kid with its cloven hoof rocks The cradle made of string and of slats. The baby's not in the cradle Save for a hint of mere things.') In "Khad-gadye" there is reflected the void that prevailed in the Jewish world after the Shoa, and that emphasized the eclipse of the shtetl culture. Yet the dirge turns into a song of hope for the future of the Jewish people. From the depths of the land of the incinerated, the speaker's persona looks upward toward the eternality of the Jewish spirit. The eternal Jewish melody turns into a leitmotif in Leyvik's Shoa poetry: tsu zingen dos eybike nignle durkh alerley gramen un kharuzem, -- khad-gadye -- dos shney-vayse tsigele, vos tate hot gekoyft far tsvey zuzem. ('To sing the eternal melody In all kinds of meters and rhymes, Khad-gadye -- the snow-white kid, That father bought for two zuzim.') In the face of indescribable tragedy, the poet will sing a melody of sacrifice, the melody of the kid that father bought for two zuzim: khad-gadye -- dos shney vayse tsigele, vos tate hot gekoyft for tzvey gildn -- shteyt alts nokh un hit dem kinds vigele zingt alts a nign a mildn. ('Khad-gadye -- the snow-white kid, That father bought for two guilders -- Still stands and guards the baby's cradle Still singing its mild tune.') This is the tune that accompanies the father in his search for raisins and almonds and it is the tune of the mother who sees the essence of her life in the upbringing of her children. It is the tune from the Haggadah and it is the poet's tune. It is a tune turned into an idea. This tune lives even when there is no baby in the cradle, or mother rocking it. The tune goes on, even when there is no one left to sing it. It goes on independently, taking over the qualities of those who had been singing it; it fills the void left by the mother: it rocks the empty cradle, around which dwells the desolation of death, and it sings of hope and of belief. It is a tune of yearning for a new life, for hope, and it is a tune of belief in a new future. This tune is not influenced by the here and now; nurtured by other interior worlds, it has the power to overcome surrounding death: ze, eybik iz oykh dokh dos vigele in elnd fun sofloze shoen,-- farshtipt zikh aleyn do dayn tsigele mit zikh in a velt fun nitoen. ('Lo, the cradle, too, is yet eternal In the misery of endless hours,-- Oppressed there alone is your kid With itself and a voided world.') By means of the tune and the image, the sound and the sight, this world, fantastic beyond everyday reality, is transmitted to the reader. This tune is a symbiosis of technique and essence, of the sounds, originating in the letter, the syllable, the word and the combination of these, and the essence -- the conceptual world behind the words. The kid's song is accompanied by the confrontation between actuality and utopia: at times this confrontation takes the shape of realistic and cruel pictures, as that of the kid entangled in the thorns, or that of the collapsing father, or the mother in the marketplace, or else the confrontation is expressed through beliefs and opinions. E. "From under the cradle" to the sacrifice -- fate or mission The poet's conception of the Jewish essence/fate/mission, on which his Shoa poems lean, crystallizes in the poem "Akeyde" ('Sacrifice').(17) The background of this poem is the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen., 22). The poet repeatedly compares the present situation of the Jewish Shoa victim to the bound Isaac. (18) The central theme is the Jew's spiritual strength in the diaspora, greater than that of the biblical Isaac, who goes with his father Abraham to the altar. Isaac is unaware of what to expect, whereas the Jew in the diaspora was not only aware of the fate awaiting him, but also was prepared to go to the sacrifice alone -- without help and without a father: der tate geyt nit bay mayn zayt, der tate shteyt nit oyf fun keyver, di shvere foystn fun der tsayt ikh muz aleyn in gang zayn goyver. ('My father does not walk beside me, My father does not rise from the grave, Alone must I overcome The heavy fists of time.') There are in the poem no complaints, no protests, no claims against God. The hero accepts the verdict and accedes to the fate assigned him. The conclusion he draws is an extremely hard one. To be worthy of being a Jew, scion of the Chosen People, he must ever anew go to the sacrifice: tsu vern eyner fun gots eyde -- badarf ikh vider fun dos nay zikh lozn geyn tsu der akeyde mayn guter mames shvel forbay. ('To become one of God's congregation -- I must once again from the start Let myself be led to the sacrifice Past my good mother's doorstep.') The sacrifice is repeated again and again in every generation, and in each one the sons must face up to this difficult experience and be prepared to go through all its stages. The poet knows that this readiness to be sacrificed again opens up for the Jew the Gates of Mercy and the way to obtaining the illumination that shines on those who have understood the essence of their fate and have accepted it. This is perhaps the moment of grace which points to that "ge'ula" which the father is looking for in his travels in "Under the Baby's Cradle": di yorn geyen -- tsu alie un ven mayn kop iz shoyn gro dergraykh ikh yene hele sho, vos loykht arop fun barg moriye. ('The years advance towards an ascent And when my head will be all gray I shall achieve that luminous moment That shines down from Mount Moriah.') The closed circuits of this well-organized poem suggest the feeling of being trapped with no way of escape. F. "Ovnt lid" Leyvik identifies with the ideas and symbols of "Under the Baby's Cradle" even when he challenges them. At times he is skeptical, but he never remains indifferent towards them. The Jew's faith in the "ge'ula" pervades Leyvik's poems. Through the hell-fire of the Shoa, experiencing the Sacrifice, it remains a model of the Jew's eternal belief in whose light generations of faithful Jews have been reared, and in which light the poet has written his many poems. The last poem to be discussed is not a lullaby, nor does it have any elements of a lullaby -- there is no singing mother and no child sung to. Yet it includes singers as well as those sung to, and the silvery-white fans, the poem's heroines, sing for everybody. The poet limns a cosmic picture, an outline for a poetics of a lullaby: iber ale shtiber, iber ale dekher, trogn zikh ariber zilber-vayse fekher, un zey fokhn, un zey trosn treyst, bitokhn tsu di vos klogn, -- un tsum shvakhn -- ru, -- un farmakhn oyg fun mide tsu. ('Over all the houses, Over all the roofs, Silvery-white fans Are being carried, And they wave, And they carry Consolation and security To those that mourn, -- And to him that is weak -- Rest, -- And close Eyes of the tired.') This is a mythological picture of fans flying over all the houses and all the roofs to grant to each what he lacks -- encouragement, security, serenity, rest. It would seem that these giant fans are symbols of soothing hands of motherhood. The second part of the poem picks up the tune of the mother's traditional "Ay lyu lyu" in the lullaby. The poet amuses himself with this tune as with a jigsaw, and creates different variations, each of which can serve as a distinct musical unit. Such a unit creates a mood in which affecting emotional moments abound, in contrast to the mood created in a unit constructed of words with semantic and conceptual content.(19) The poem's distinctive feature is the symbiosis of tune and word: e.g. the word _ale_ ('all') which serves both as a meaningful lexeme and a musical unit, becomes, as it were, a ball bouncing from function to function throughout the poem:(20) ale - lyu, ale lider -- ale lib; ale lipn -- ale tsu. ale lyu, ha - lu - li, ale do, ha - lu - li, ale hi, ale tsu-- ('All - lyu, All the songs -- All the love; All the lips -- All are shut. All the lyu, All are present, All are here, All are shut --') The form of the poem complements its contents. The very short lines and the truncated ones suit the lullaby rhythm. The rhyming, too, adds to the rocking rhythm and to the "ay- lyu- lyu" tune in all its variants. A sense of the perfection of the Creation, of pre-human existence, hovers over the poem. This is the world of the newborn, the world of the poet-artist, and possibly the poet relates to his art like a mother who sings a lullaby to her children. Leyvik's poems, like a mother's songs, console and encourage. Endnotes (1) For different versions of the song see Geffen 1986, pp. 18-22, and for translations see Raz 1984, p. 38; Lampel, ed., 1953/54, p 3; Bialik 1970/71, p. 83. (2) For the origins of the song see Geffen 1986, pp. 13-15, and for different versions and translations see Geffen 1986, pp. 247-53. (3) All Yiddish translations in the original Hebrew text are by the author. All English renderings are by the translator. (4) See e.g. Alterman 1952/53, p. 6, and Goldfaden 1883, pp. 11-12. (5) See Baruch 1985, pp. 19-23. (6) For biographical traits see Weiner 1992, pp. 13-17; Noy 1992, pp. 140-43; Shoham 1992, pp. 156-57. Leyvik did not experience the Shoa personally, yet his poetry is filled with the pain of the victims through identification and guilt-feelings over not having been among them, as evidenced in his book _In Treblinka bin ikh nit geven_. (7) On the overtly and covertly recurring motif of the longing for Zion, see Raz 1984, p. 38. (8) See e.g. Ezek. 36:38 -- flocks of men; Jer. 50:6 -- lost sheep; Zech. 11:4 -- flock of the slaughter; Ps. 50:17 -- Israel is a scattered sheep; Song of Sol. 1:8 -- and feed the kids [translations from King James version.] (9) Among the numerous variants of this song, some add a personal address to the child at the end. See _Yidishe folkslider in Rusland_, eds. S.M.Ginzburg and P.S. Marek 1990/1991, p. 39. One basic element of lullabies is the mother addressing the child personally with a term of endearment. See Mlotek 1978, p. 8: "Yankele mayn sheyner...mayn kluger khosn-bokher." (10) See Sadan, pp. 124-130. (11) On the mother's distress see Baruch 1985, p. 18. (12) These are recurring elements in numerous lullabies. The feminist note, expressed in the mother's protest over the father's absence as well as in the weaving of the dream of the baby's greatness, is repeated over and over in the popular Jewish lullaby. (13) See e.g. the lullaby that Yeshayohu Shpigl composed in the Lodz ghetto after the death of his little daughter (Shpigl 1978, p. 306). (14) For Leyvik as probing investigator see Bertini 1977, p.88. (15) This translation [i.e. the one in the Hebrew text] is taken from Geffen 1986, p. 40. (16) See Hrushovski 1976/77, pp. 112-27. (17) For the poet's credo see his essay, 1963, p. 47; also Segal 1949, pp. 525-26. (18) For the reflection of the period in the poet's work, see Huxley, 1933. (19) On this subject see Sekulets's introduction, 1959, pp. 41-43. (20) For musical elements as central functions in speech see Nov 1984. References Baruch, Miri. _Sugiot vesugim beshirat yeladim_ ('Problems and Categories of Children's Poetry'). Tel-Aviv: University of the Air, 1985. Bertini, K.A. "Acharit davar," _H. Leyvik, al tehumot holech veshar_ Tel-Aviv, 1977, p. 88. Geffen, Menashe. _Mitachat laarisa omedet gediya_ ('Under the Cradle Stands a Kid'), Tel-Aviv: Sifriyat Hapoalim, 1986. Ginzburg, S.M. and P.S. Marek, comps. and eds. _Yidishe folkslider in Rusland_, Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1990-91. Goldfaden, A. _Shulamis oder Bas Yerusholaim_, Odessa, 1883. Grade, Khaym, "Khad-gadye," _Doyres, lider un poemes_, New York: Ikuf, 1945, p. 145. Hrushovski, Benjamin, "Al habayit hatipusi beshir am beyidish," ('The Typical Stanza in a Yiddish Folksong') _Sefer Dov Sadan_, Jerusalem, 1976-77, pp. 112-27. -- --. "Haim yesh latslil mashmaut -- lebaayat haekspresiviut shel tavnit hatslil beshira," ('Is Sound Relevant? -- On the Problem of the Expressiveness of Sound-Pattern in Poetry," _Hasifrut_ (Tel Aviv) 1:2 (1967-68), pp. 410-20. Lampel, M., comp. _Machrozet shirey eres_ ('A String of Lullabies'), Tel-Aviv: Sifrey Tsabar, 1953/54. Leyvik, H. _A blat oyf an eplboym_, Buenos Aires, 1955. ---. _Ale verk fun H. Leyvik_, vol. 1, New York: H. Leyvik yubiley komitet, 1940. ---. _In Treblinka bin ikh nit geven_, vol. 1, New York, 1945. Mlotek, Khane. _Mir trogn a gezang_, New York: Arbeter ring, 1987. Nov, Yael. "Yesodot musikaliim kemafteakh lemashmaut vetokhen besifrut yeladim," ('Musical Elements as a Key to Meaning and Content in Children's Literature') _Research in Children's Literature_, eds. Miri Baruch and Maya Fruchtmann. Jerusalem: Otsar Hamore, 1984, pp. 77-101. Noy, Dov. ""Hersh Lekert bamitsiut, babalada haamamit ubamakhazehu shel Leyvik," " ('Hersh Lekert in Reality, in the Popular Ballad and in Leyvik's Drama'), _Shtudyes in Leyvik_, Bar-Ilan University Press, Ramat Gan, 1992, pp.140-43. Raz, Herzlia. "Shirey eres kebitui leachdut haam," ('Lullabies as Expression of National Unity'), _Research in Children's Literature_, eds. Miri Baruch and Maya Fruchtmann. Jerusalem: Otsar Hamoreh, pp. 28-45. [Hebrew] Sadan, Dov. "Tsimukim ushekeydim," ('Raisins and Almonds'), _Makhanayim_, vol. 53, pp. 124-30. Segal, Y.Y. "H. Leyvik (tsu zayn 60tn geboyrntog),", _Idisher kemfer_ (Nov. 1949), pp. 525-26. Sekulets, Emil. _Yidishe volks-lider_, Bukarest: Muzik Verlag, 1959. Shpigl, Yishayohu. "Nit kayn rozhinkes un nit kayn mandlen," _Tsvishn tof un alef_, Tel-Aviv: Yisroel bukh, 1978. Viner, Gershn. "Shtrikhn tsu der geshtalt," _Shtudyes in Leyvik_, Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1992, pp. 9-12. ***Translated from Hebrew by Refael Alroy ______________________________________________________ End of _The Mendele Review_ 02.033 Leonard Prager, editor Subscribers to _Mendele_ (see below) automatically receive _The Mendele Review_. Send "to subscribe" or change-of-status messages to: listproc@lists.yale.edu a. For a temporary stop: set mendele mail postpone b. To resume delivery: set mendele mail ack c. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. To unsubscribe kholile: unsub mendele ****Getting back issues**** _The Mendele Review_ archives can be reached at: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele/tmrarc.htm