Isaac Bashevis Singer
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Dr. David Fialkoff, Editor / Publisher

Isaac Bashevis Singer, a Polish-born Jew, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978. He wrote and published in Yiddish, and later, on coming to America, translated his own works into English (with help).

He wrote about life in "the old country" and in America. I love everything of his that I have read, but the old world stories have particularly moved me.

His short novel Satan in Goray, about the disintegration of the religious and social order in a Jewish village in Poland following the revelation (in Turkey) of what turned out to be a false messiah in the person of Sabbatai Zevi, changed my life.

I read it feverishly, entering into its world, as I was questioning my own orthodox Jewish religiosity, perhaps not drawing the right conclusion from its cautionary tale.

These days, my friend Richard Adelman (The Insult of Biden's "Age") is sharing his wonderful library of books with me. The latest trove includes another of Singer's old world works, a novel, The Slave. The story follows Jacob, a religious Jew, who was sold as a slave during the sadistic, catastrophic Chmielnicki pogroms. Jacob was one of the "lucky" ones, not among the tortured and murdered in the more than 300 Jewish communities which were destroyed

Issachar Ber Ryback's "Pogrom Series"
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Anyone who wants to learn about the special suffering of the Jews need only read Singer's account of the debauched massacres. WARNING - the following gray box contains (paraphrased) graphic content:

Hamas wasn't quite as creative during their October 7th pogrom, but then they didn't have as much time, and they had television to entertain them after their inhuman cruelty.

I find that I am reading this Singer novel with a similar intensity as I read his Satan in Goray, although more slowly, a short chapter or two each night before turning out the light. And, curiously enough, the reading corresponds with another time of transition in my life.

On one hand, business is better than ever. Articles and advertising are flowing into Lokkal like never before. We are about to launch a remarkable digital map; we being my god-sent assistant, Luisa. On the other hand, my living situation is precarious.

Yes, my buddy J, generously offered me refuge from the rapidly deteriorating circumstance of my former 12+ year residence. Yes, the new house is nearly perfect, including a view out back that you might pay for at a resort. But J is four months behind in the rent, and if the German producer of the movie J he is directing, can't get his investors to meet together and advance J's next payment by July 31, eight days from now, then J, and I, will have five days to vacate these premises.

J is exceptional: charming, cultured, artistic, intelligent... Born of charming, cultured, artistic, intelligent parents, with an uncle who was a Mexican Supreme Court justice, he has many prominent friends and social connections, including movie stars, industrialists and spiritual types. So endearing is he that his well-aggrieved, elderly landlady, whom he met in court recently, could not help but smile and laugh at his mannerisms and outrageous, but plausible, familiarity.

Issachar Ber Ryback's "Pogrom Series"
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J told me, "the business of making movies is like a ferris wheel; sometimes you're up; sometimes you're down."

Come what may, I am grateful for the hospitality: the experience of living in this beautiful place, the opportunity to get to know J better. Over the years I have increasingly come to understand that my small, cramped attitude is incompatible with the large expansiveness of success; that worrying and micro-managing is antithetical to receiving abundance.

Along those lines: even as this ideal living situation (J's contacts could be instrumental in Lokkal's development) hangs in the balance, I remind myself that what is really mine cannot be lost. This new, richer world will not be taken away, no matter where I am living on the 5th of August. The book might end, but I will have already incorporated its essence as "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."

Yesterday, until nightfall, was a fast day for the Jews. The 17th day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz marks the breach of the walls of Jerusalem before the destruction of the Second Temple, 1,954 years ago. Last night as usual I read Singer before going to sleep, picking up where I had left off the night before, quickly coming upon a direct reference to this date on the Hebrew calendar:

I don't know what you make of such synchronicities in your life, but to me they are the universe reassuringly tapping me on the shoulder, the order and connectedness of things making itself known.

Earlier in the evening, while I was cutting up and then breaking my fast on a plate of watermelon, I took a call from an acquaintance, a woman who is selling her house here in San Miguel and moving back to New York City, or just outside of it. She told me that she avoids disappointment by telling herself that the things which do not manifest were not meant to be.

We Jews believe that our ancestors were giants. Our predecessors suffered and reached heights of spirituality that we cannot imagine. About difficulties, the kabbalists assert that "each descent is for the purpose of an ascent." There is a thrill associated with uncertainty, a thrill most of us choose to do without.

I feel myself being transformed. Like a caterpillar in a cocoon, it's a messy process. Unable to imagine butterfly wings, I worry how I will get around without my many legs.

I'm sure that there is a happy ending to Singer's novel and, Gd willing, to this chapter of my own story. And, it's true that, without the challenge, the tension along the way, a tale is not be worth telling.

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Dr. David Fialkoff presents Lokkal, our local social network, the community online and off, Atención robustly reborn for the digital age. If you can, please do contribute content, or your hard-earned cash, to support Lokkal, SMA's Voice. Use the orange, Paypal donate button below. Thank you.

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