A Treasury of Jewish Folklore (Bantam abridged edition) by Nathan Ausubel 1980





Nathan Ausubel’s A Treasury of Jewish Folklore, which now appears for the first time in a paperback edition, has enjoyed nearly forty printings during the four decades since its first publication. The Treasury occupies a place in hundreds of thousands of home libraries; a year in and year out it is given as a gift at moments of passage and celebration; speakers and writers continue to rely on it for the telling anecdote or the illustrative story. Why has Ausubel’s collection become a popular classic? The reason, I think, lies in the fact that this volume is much more than an anthology. Anthologies, by their nature, are usually makeshift affairs; they stand as apologies for some more comprehensive treatment of a subject that cannot yet be written or that no one has bothered to write. They arouse our expectations but quickly disappoint them, decomposing into a series of unresolved fragments that fail to amount to a real book. In contrast, generations of readers have found in Ausubel’s Treasury an imaginative unity that is decidedly not a substitute for something more complete. Ausubel has succeeded in realizing the aim he states in the introduction to this volume: to render a collective portrait of the Jewish people. Though he has given us an epic canvas peopled by myriads of diverse figures, the image on the canvas is a cohesive one, the unmistakable likeness of a single person. And given the complexity of the Jewish people, their historical experience and symbolic creations, this is indeed a remarkable and compelling achievement.Ausubel was able to accomplish this because of his conviction — one not very widely shared these days — that it is possible to draw a collective portrait of a people. This affirmation is based on the belief that there is a discoverable underlying unity to the historical experience not just of the Jews but of every great people. Ausubel harks back in this conviction to an older Romantic conception of the existence of a “folk mind.” The word “folk” here has very little to do with notions of the primitive, the quaint, or the undeveloped. Ausubel takes “folk” as a designation for an entire people, a historical nationality, like the French, the Finns, or in this case, the Jews. In this way of thinking each people has a folk mind, a national genius, which is a set of characteristics that especially mark that group and that remain constant throughout the flux of historical change. In Ausubel’s conception of the folk mind, there is nothing triumphal or chauvinist. His celebration of the passions and quirks of his own people is never at the expense of others.Folklore is the symbolic expression of the folk mind, and since Ausubel defines the folk mind so broadly, he understands folklore in a similarly catholic sense. In contrast to the scientific, anthropological approach to folklore currently in vogue, Ausubel finds his sources across the entire life of a people. Whereas the detached ethnologist respects as the authentic only material that can be gotten from the oral testimony of natives in exotic habitats, Ausubel draws on literary sources as well as oral, high culture as well as popular culture. And unlike the more analytical folklorist, Ausubel is actively and sympathetically engaged in his material, celebrating it as he records and collects, comments, and retells. This is, after all, hot material from some faraway tribe but the treasures of his own people.Part One: JEWISH SALT Such Odds! 2 The Realist 2 Higher Mathematics 3 Richer than Rothschild 3 A Lesson in Talmud 3 Hitting the Bull’s Eye 4 Lost and Found 5 So What? 5 Why Only One Adam? 6 His Fault 7 It Was Obvious 7 He Had Him Coming and Going 8 The Fine Art of Fanning 9 For Honor 10 No Target 10 Pain and Pleasure 11 The Rabbi’s Nourishment 11 Cheap 11 He Ran for His Health 12 World-Weary 13 Truth in Gay Clothes 13 What Is Greatness? 14 The Modest Saint 14 The Poor Are Willing 14 There Are Miracles and Miracles IS The Expert 15 No Loan! 15 A Quick Prayer 16 Schnapps Wisdom 16 He Should Have Taken More Time 16 It Pays to Be Ignorant 17 Equally Logical 18 The Life of a Jew! 18 Nebich! 19 The Modest Rabbi 19 The Secret of Power 20 Circumdsional Evidence 21 The Sled Story 21 A Rabbi for a Day 22 All Right 24 Why the Hair on the Head Turns Gray Before the Beard 24 The Way Anti-Semites Reason 26 The Relativity of Distance 26 viii CONTENTS Part Two: HEROES Introduction 30 1. WISE MEN Wise and Learned men The Last Trouble Is the Worst 57 Introduction 33 The Parable of the Wise The Romance of Akiba 36 Fishes 58 The Rabbi and the Know Before You Criticize 58 Inquisitor 40 The Man and the Angel of Shallow Judgment 41 Death 60 The Vanity of Rabbi Barking Dogs 60 Mar Zutra 42 The Rosebush and the Grief in Moderation 42 Apple Tree 61 The Virtue of The Parable of the Old Commonplace 43 Cloak 62 Why God Gave No Wisdom to Fools 43 Learning Knows No Class 44 The Ancient Art of Learning That Leads to Reasoning Action 44 The Parable of the Two Introduction 62 Gems 45 Always Two Possibilities 63 The Best and the Worst It Could Always Be Worse 63 Things 47 Wishes Must Never Be God’s Delicacy 47 Vague 65 An Author’s Life After Damning with Praise 65 Forty 48 A Brief Sermon 66 An Unpredictable Life 48 Mikhail Ivanovitch Makes Stale Ancestors — Stale a Discovery 66 Learning 49 The Cheapest Way 68 The Most Valuable Why Scholars Have Merchandise 49 Homely Wives 68 Learning and Knowing 50 The Arrogant Rabbi 69 Spinoza 50 Love of Perfection 69 Double-Talk 51 A Reason for Every Custom 51 Wise Judges Why Jerusalem Was Introduction 69 Destroyed 52 The Old Man and the Where Is Paradise? 53 Snake and the Judgment of Solomon 70 Whose Was the Blame? 72 Parables A Very Ancient Law 73 The Discerning Judge 74 Introduction 53 What’s in a Name? 75 Man Understands But Little 55 Equal Justice 75 The Poor Man’s Miracle 56 The Saving Voice 76 The Giant and the Cripple 56 He Didn’t Deserve His Fee 76 The Blessing For Whom the Cock Crowed Too Clever Is Not Clever Riddle Solvers Introduction Alexander’s Instruction The Wisdom of the Jews ix 77 How to Replenish a 78 Treasury 83 79 Rabbinical Arithmetic 84 The Real Son The Innkeeper’s Clever 84 Daughter 85 The Farmer’s Daughter 88 80 The Story of Kunz and His 80 82 Shepherd 92 2. MIRACLES Cabalists, Mystics and Wonder-Workers Introduction 95 Why Rabbi Israel Laughed Three Times 99 The Book of Mysteries 103 The Trial of Rabbi Gershon 109 The Poor Wayfarer 110 The Cabalists 111 The Rabbi Who Wished to Abolish Death 116 Asking for the Impossible 1 17 Rashi and Godfrey of Bouillon 119 Rabbi Amram’s Rhine Journey 120 The Hidden Saint 122 Messiah Stories Introduction 123 Joseph Della Rayna Storms Heaven 124 The Messiah Came to Town 136 Why the Messiah Doesn’t Come136 Skeptics and Scoffers Introduction 139 Conclusive Proof 139 The Right Kind of Judge 140 Leave It to the Rabbi 140 Deduction 142 Realistic Miracles 142 A Believer’s Truth 142 Miracles 142 The Farseeing Rabbi 143 Pipe-Dreams 143 The Gulden Test 144 A Fool Asks Too Many Questions 145 Part Three: THE HUMAN COMEDY Introduction 1. DROLL CHARACTERS 148 Schnorrers and They Got the Itch 168 Beggars On the Minsk-Pinsk Line 169 Introduction 152 The Schnorrer and the Farmer 169 The King of Schnorrers 153 CONTENTS X One Blind Look Was Enough 170 Price Is No Object 170 A Sure Cure 170 Every Expert to His Own Field 171 No Credit 171 He Spared No Expense 172 A Local Reputation 172 The Schnorrer-in-Law 172 Wags and Wits Introduction 173 He Worried Fast 174 The Choice 175 Mutual Introduction 175 Tit for Tat 175 The Jew and the Caliph 189 You’re as Old as You Feel 189 Mazel Tov! 189 Wrong Order 190 The Foresighted Traveller 190 Dramatic Criticism 190 Why Noodles are Noodles 191 The Big Blow 191 The Sacrifice Was Too Great 192 HERSHEL OSTROPOL1ER Hershel’s Conflict 192 Hershel’s Revenge on the Women 194 Reciprocity 196 How Hershel Almost Became a Bigamist 196, Hershel, as Coachman 197 The Poor Cow 199 A Perfect Fit 199 A Tooth for a Tooth 201 What Hershel’s Father Did 202 Gilding the Lily 202 When Hershel Eats 202 Hershel as Wine-Doctor 205 The Feast 206 The Way to Die 208 Fools and Simpletons Introduction 209 What Makes a Fool 211 Some of the Nicest People 211 Why Waste Money? 212 Philosophy with Noodles 212 Surplus 213 If It Were Anyone Else 213 It’s Terrible 214 Making It Easy 214 the wisdom of Chelm The Mistake 215 The Golden Shoes 215 The Chelm Goat Mystery 216 Innocence and Arithmetic 221 By the Beard of His Mother 222 The Great Chelm Controversy 222 Superfluous 223 Wet Logic 224 Can This Be I? 224 The Columbus of Chelm 224 Food Out of the Horse’s Mouth 227 A Sage Question 228 Chelm Justice 228 Pure Science 228 Overcoming Messiah 229 The Umbrella 229 Excavation in Chelm 229 The Worriers of Chelm 230 The Safeguard 230 The Discreet Shammes 231 A Riddle 231 Taxes 231 The Affair of the Rolling Trunk 232 The Secret of Growing 234