The Pagan Rabbi by Cynthia Ozick
"The Pagan Rabbi" by Cynthia Ozick is a thought-provoking short story that explores themes of identity, faith, and the clash between scholarly traditions and personal beliefs through the tragic narrative of Rabbi Isaac Kornfeld. After the rabbi's shocking suicide in a park, his lifelong friend, the unnamed narrator, seeks to understand the motivations behind this profound act. Their contrasting life paths—Isaac's success as a Talmudic scholar and the narrator's more mundane existence—highlight their differing approaches to faith and personal fulfillment.
The story delves into the complexities of Isaac's character, revealing his unconventional interests and behaviors that challenge the expectations of his role within the Jewish community. The narrator's visits to Isaac's widow, Sheindel, uncover layers of betrayal and confusion as she asserts that her husband was not a Jew in spirit, despite his scholarly pursuits. This assertion is tied to Isaac's increasingly bizarre fixation on nature and his rejection of Talmudic law, which culminates in a poignant suicide note that celebrates pagan imagery and sylvan spirits.
As the narrator grapples with the implications of Isaac's writings and life choices, he becomes increasingly involved in the mystery of his friend's identity and the reasons behind his tragic end. The story invites readers to reflect on the tensions between tradition and individual belief, as well as the profound impact of personal struggles on one's faith and relationships.
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The Pagan Rabbi by Cynthia Ozick
First published: 1966
Type of plot: Psychological
Time of work: The 1940's to 1960's
Locale: A large American city
Principal Characters:
Sheindel Kornfeld , a rabbi's widowThe unnamed narrator , the deceased rabbi's friend
The Story
After Rabbi Isaac Kornfeld commits suicide in an obscure city park, the unnamed narrator, his lifelong friend, wants to know why the rabbi has hanged himself, and visits the site. The narrator explains that his father and Isaac's were nominal friends who were, in fact, scholarly enemies. Both Isaac and the narrator attended the same seminary, but the latter dropped out, earning the silence and the hatred of his unforgiving father. Although they remained affectionate, if distant, friends, the two young men were perfect opposites. Isaac became a brilliant Talmudic scholar, published widely, married a Holocaust survivor, and had seven daughters. The childless narrator never returned to the seminary, became a furrier and later a bookseller, and divorced his gentile wife.
The narrator visits Isaac's widow, Sheindel Kornfeld, hoping to learn the reason for the tragedy. What he finds is a contemptuous, tearless widow who queries the bookseller concerning Isaac's interest in books on plants. The narrator is shocked by Sheindel's bold declaration that Isaac was never a Jew. She then relates her husband's increasingly bizarre behavior: his sudden insistence on lengthy picnics, the numerous second-rate fairy tales that he wrote and later burned, and his seemingly inexplicable passion for public parks. The narrator's first visit to Sheindel concludes when she commands him to study Isaac's small notebook in order to solve the mystery. In effect, he becomes the scholar to Kornfeld's text.
The late rabbi's writing proves to be just as baffling to the bookseller as was the suicide itself. Written in Greek, Hebrew, and English, it contains mostly quotations from the Bible and Romantic poetry, the latter displaying a marked emphasis on English Romantic views on nature. The bookseller returns to visit Sheindel with the intention of eventually marrying her. Sheindel produces an even more perplexing document—Isaac's suicide note. She says that it is a love letter and proceeds to recite it to the reluctant narrator. The letter discloses an imaginative, even irrational human being who is wholly at odds both with his vocation as a rabbinical scholar and also with the tenets of Judaism.
The lengthy suicide note, which may more accurately be described as a tract, is the antithesis of the rabbi's scholarly work. Its affirmation of sylvan spirits and its denial of the possibility of idolatry account for Sheindel's dry-eyed demeanor and her bold declaration that her husband was a pagan. As the narrator follows Sheindel's recitation, his role shifts from the reluctant listener to that of the active participant: He seizes the note from her when she can no longer continue. The bookseller is incredulous as Kornfeld's note progresses from a rejection of Talmudic law to a celebration of nature imagery, characterized by such mythical beings as dryads, naiads, and oreads. The rabbi practiced abstinence with his wife in order to copulate with one of these spirits, and claims in the note that he has done so. This dryad, whom Isaac calls "Iripomoňoéià," declares a book-laden old man to be Isaac's soul. When the latter chastised Isaac for abandoning the Law, the rabbi seized the old man's prayer shawl and hangs himself with it.
The tale concludes with the narrator parting from the unforgiving widow for good.
Bibliography
Bloom, Harold, ed. Cynthia Ozick: Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House, 1986.
Cohen, Sarah Blacher. Cynthia Ozick's Comic Art: From Levity to Liturgy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.
Friedman, Lawrence S. Understanding Cynthia Ozick. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.
Kauver, Elaine M. Cynthia Ozick's Fiction: Tradition and Invention. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
Lowin, Joseph. Cynthia Ozick. Boston: Twayne, 1988.
Pinsker, Sanford. The Uncompromising Fictions of Cynthia Ozick. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1987.
Rainwater, Catherine, and William J. Scheick, eds. Three Contemporary Women Novelists: Hazzard, Ozick, and Redmon, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983.
Strandberg, Victor H. Greek Mind/Jewish Soul: The Conflicted Art of Cynthia Ozick. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.
Walden, Daniel, ed. The Changing Mosaic: From Cahan to Malamud, Roth, and Ozick. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.
Walden, Daniel, ed. The World of Cynthia Ozick: Studies inAmerican Jewish Literature. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1987.