Textual Transmission as Textual Participation The Case of Materialism in S.Y. Agnon’s Perception of Language

One of the most fundamental notions of rabbinic Judaism is that concerning textual transmission. The Jewish text is always on the move— sometimes back and forth—from God to humanity, from generation to generation, from teacher to students. Textual transmission encompasses and even necessitates another idea, that of textual participation. A text does not simply change hands; it is always transformed in the process, and the agents of this process, by the very act of transmission, are those who reshape the text. This essay seeks to show the ways in which such notions are incorporated in the belletristic work of Shmuel Yosef Agnon.
Textual transmission, in the context of the present essay, is part and parcel of the broader notion of “linguistic materialism.” The material aspect of language is everything that reveals language to our senses. Linguistic materialism is perceived here as the idea that meaning is to be found, not only in words, but also in the concrete material of which language is made. Thus, in order for a text to be transmitted, one or more objects need to be exchanged. Sounds, ink, paper, parchment, letters, books: all are materialistic manifestations of language that enable the act of textual transmission.
Agnon was a conscious agent in the process of textual transmission. This is apparent, for instance, in his work as an anthologist. The anthologies compiled by Agnon are not merely a summing up of Jewish discourse on language and its derivatives. They are also doors, textual stations, as it were, through which one can traverse and evaluate the whole of his oeuvre. They serve, as will be seen, as a depository for relevant sources in the analysis of Agnon’s work. In addition, they are the very embodiment of his notion of textual transmission. Agnon was born in 1887 in Buczacz, Polish Galicia (now Buchach, Ukraine). When he was only 16, he published poems and short prose in various Jewish journals, in both Yiddish and Hebrew. In 1908, he emigrated to Ottoman Palestine, where he published several short stories in Hebrew; for his livelihood, he worked alongside Arthur Ruppin at the Palestinian office of the Zionist Organization. In 1912, both Agnon and Ruppin went to Germany. Although Ruppin returned after a while to Palestine, Agnon remained in Germany for 12 years. In the first years of his stay, he worked as an editor at the Jüdischer Verlag.1 He was not particularly interested in the “special occasion” anthologies produced by this publishing house.2 However, once he turned to subjects close to his heart, such as the High Holy Days, language (Hebrew) and books (Torah and everything emanating from it), he became a dedicated compiler of anthologies— as Gershon Scholem noted, anthology compilation was “much more than a mere sideline in his creative work as a writer.”3 According to Baruch Kurzweil, Agnon felt obliged to persevere in what he regarded as a sacred endeavor even though this necessitated a substantial amount of time and effort on his part; Kurzweil himself was “astounded by the enormous compromise and sacrifice evident in Agnon’s self- abnegation.”4
Following his return to Mandate Palestine, Agnon published three anthologies, Yamim noraim (Days of Awe; 1938, 1947) Sefer sofer vesipur (Book, Writer, and Story; 1938) and Atem reitem (You Yourselves Have Seen; 1959).5 In a response that was perhaps intended to assuage his own conscience or else to respond to a critic who might accuse him of wasting his artistic energy,6 Agnon told David Kena’ani: “There is power in the act of dissemination, as in the making of encyclopedias [and the anthologies].”7 Whereas Days of Awe is an anthology of sources concerning Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the other two tell the story of Jewish textual transmission: they are texts about texts. Agnon continued working on the latter two anthologies over the course of his career; after his death, updated versions of Sefer sofer vesipur and Atem reitem were published (in 1978 and in 1995, respectively). The new editions of the books encompassed a substantially greater number of sources and themes. Nevertheless, language remained the meta- subject of each. Concerning Sefer sofer vesipur, Agnon noted that it was “an assemblage of legends about books and authors,”8 whereas Atem reitem concerned itself with the gathering and Revelation at Sinai.9 One of the dominant themes in these anthologies is a materialistic notion of the Hebrew language, as described above. Indeed, this notion permeates not only the anthologies but Agnon’s work as a whole; it is so inherent in his worldview and literary practices that one cannot imagine the Agnonian universe without it. And yet, like gravity, its very omnipresence may cause it to go unnoticed, such that readers are likely to overlook the force it exerts on Agnon’s literary mechanisms.