FRANZ KAFKA AND REB NAHMAN: A COMPARATIVE ENCOUNTER
By Rabbi Moshe Reiss
INTRODUCTION:
Reb Nahman of Breslov (1776-1810) was born in the Ukraine in the late eighteenth century and was raised in an ultra-Orthodox Hassidic environment. Franz Kafka (1884-1924) was born in Prague in the late nineteenth century in an urban secular home. Both were obsessed with writing. There origins came from strikingly different cultures and yet stunning parallels can be drawn in both their lives and works. Both were master story tellers and both were forced to cope with `demons within them'. Both authors fashioned a similar literary genre often characterized by the creation of their own reality in which paradoxical and unexpected events occurred. The medium of their language and many of their tales have an antithetical and fragmentary nature.
The `demons within them' alienated them from the reality of their own
worlds and propelled them to strive for self definition. This struggle
was often centered around omnipotent figures whose existence was
central to their personal struggle. Their internal conflicts were
fought through the medium of storytelling. Both were plagued by
struggles with issues of identity, alienation, faith and doubt. Each
perceived himself as a victim.
Reb Nahman founded a religious sect known as the Breslover Hassidism.
Max Brod, Kafka’s friend and first biographer, equated Kafka to the
‘founder of a religion’.1 Both dedicated their lives to
writing. Both men suffered the last years of their lives fully
cognizant of their inexorable fate; impending premature death by
tuberculosis. Both authored volumes of tales yet precious little
was published during their lifetimes. Their destiny was to attain
posthumous fame. Both have exerted an enormous even lasting
influence - Franz Kafka on the literary world and Reb Nahman on
Judaism. This influence can be seen by recent biographies on each
of them and continued analyses of their writing. 2 Both had a faithful
disciple who edited, published and disseminated their writings or
teachings after their death; Max Brod for Kafka and Rabbi Nathan for
Reb Nahman. Both wrote hagiographically towards their ‘Rabbis’.
Franz Kafka was born in the midst of the age of enlightenment; an era
which produced Darwin, Marx, Einstein and Freud, and ended with World
War I destroying ‘old’ Europe. He was raised in an isolated Jewish
German-speaking assimilated family, in a country whose language was
primarily Czech. Being Jewish the Kafkas’ were rejected by the
Christian population and as German speakers rejected by Czechs. `The
Chosen People were forced into the role of Chosen Enemy by both
antagonists’ 3 Kafka tells us his father ran `down the Czechs, and then
the Germans, and then the Jews . . . and nobody was left except
yourself’. 4
As assimilated Jews the Kafka’s rejected the traditional Judaic law and
its commandments. Paradoxically, as with many other elements in his
life, Kafka simultaneously rejected and accepted Jewish law. To Felice
Bauer, his fiancée he wrote “I do not actually strive to be
good, to answer to a supreme tribunal”. 5 Notwithstanding his position
as a nonobservant Jew he nonetheless wrote: "Keeping the commandment is
not an outward thing. On the contrary, it is the very essence of the
Jewish faith." 6
His diaries and letters reflect an obsession with Judaism. However the
word Jew never appears in his numerous novels, stories and tales even
when the title was Abraham, Mount Sinai, the Synagogue or the
Temple. When asked "What do I have in common with Jews? I have
hardly anything in common with myself, and should hide myself quietly
in a corner satisfied with the fact that I can breath." 7 Kafka
was well aware that he lived at the beginning of rabid Anti-Semitism
that ended with the Shoah destroying European Jewry.
Few 20th-Century writers have exerted greater literary influence than
Franz Kafka. Yale University literary critic Harold Bloom suggests that
as Dante is the writer par excellence of the Catholics and Milton is
the writer par excellence of the Protestants, so Kafka may be the
writer par excellence of the Jews. 8
Reb Nahman was born in 1772 in the small Ukrainian city of Medzeboz
amidst a population that was rural, peasant and Catholic. The major
world events during his lifetime were the Napoleonic wars viewed by
many Hassidic Jews as beginning the apocalypse and precursor war
necessary before the coming of the Messiah. Reb Nahman, an
ultra-Orthodox Jew lived in a late medieval society and at the outset
of the age of enlightenment.
His great-grandfather Israel ben Eliezer known as the Baal Shem Tov or
BeSHT (meaning the holder of the good name) founded the ultra-Orthodox
Hassidic movement. 9 Hassidism stressed piety through joy and based its
theology on Kabbalism – Jewish mysticism. He revered his great-
grandfather, inherited his charisma and his abilities as a faith healer
and considered himself the BeSHT’s successor. Despite that Reb Nahman
was an ascetic and could well be termed an existentialist (in twentieth
century terms). His ultra-Orthodox sect the Breslover Hassidism
continues to grow both in Israel and the United States and his writings
are studied in numerous Seminaries.
Despite the very different subject matters both Kafka and Reb Nahman
shared remarkably similar styles. Underlying their lives was an
exquisite sensitivity to universal problems: both men suffered from
similar identity problems that alienated them from their respective
societies. Both sought to find the faith to solve their doubts. Both
writers exerted extraordinary impacts on their friends and associates
and continue to impact the literary and theological world today.
I am of course not claiming any form of identity between these two men
who lived in different eras and with different cultural backgrounds,
but perhaps a resemblance that helps us understand both. To quote Prof.
Geoffrey Hartman a Yale University literary critic "resemblance is not
identity, but sometimes mapping of resemblance is the closest we can
come to identity." 10
JUDAISM:
To discuss Reb Nahman’s Judaism would be superfluous inasmuch as his entire life was permeated with Hasidism.
Hence the focus of this section will be Kafka as a Jewish writer. Ernst
Pawel has posited that Kafka had a negative Jewish identity and was a
‘secular Talmudist and a rational Kabbalist. 11 Reb Nahman, by contrast
was the embodiment of positive Jewish identity, was a pious and erudite
Talmudist as well as a mystical kabbalist. In the course of his
lifetime he often wavered between self abhorrence and self adulation.
It would not be amiss to conclude that neither Kafka nor Reb Nahman had
a positive self image.
Kafka’s father emigrated to Prague from a Yiddish speaking community
arriving only three years prior to Franz’s birth. The name
Kafka-- which is the Czech for jackdaw --probably comes from the
Yiddish Yakov (Jacob) where the prefix was dropped and a German suffix
added. 12 Franz had a typical Yiddish name Amshel while his father
chose a clearly Germanic name Hermann for himself.
Kafka’s father’s outright rejection of Judaism became Kafka’s ultimate
weltanschauung. These ideas are pivotal to our understanding of Kafka
and his oeuvre. The majority of Kafka’s friends were assimilated Jews
who while rejecting ritual Judaism, cared deeply about Judaism as a
culture; many were in fact Zionists. Kafka admitted in his writings
that only with eastern European ritually observant Jews did he
experience a genuinely deep soul connection.
Kafka was hopelessly trapped and caught between his father’s rejection
of Judaism and his insatiable attraction to traditional Jewish life
which he loved and admired. One might suggest that his attraction was
fuelled indeed by his father’s original fervent rejection.
In Kafka’s important ‘Letter to His Father’ he criticizes his
father for having given him an ‘insignificant scrap of Judaism you
yourself possessed’. Your knowledge was ‘a mere nothing, a joke – not
even a joke’. 13 His father who only took him to synagogue on the High
Holy days could not even show him where in the prayer book a passage
was being read. Their Passover Seder ‘developed into a farce with fits
of hysterical laughter’. 14 He rejected his father’s assimilative
approach to Judaism. ‘Had you Judaism been stronger, your example would
have been more compelling too’. 15
Kafka wrote Brod that ‘German-Jewish literature is hopelessly suspended
between a Judaic past destroyed by these writers and a German present
which they could never make their own in truth’. 16
Three persons in particular can be singled out as figures who directly exerted a significant impact on Kafka’s Judaic experience—Yitzhak Lowy, Jiri Langer and Dora Diamant.
Yitzchak Lowy as the director of a Yiddish theatre presented
plays about ritually observant Jewish life in Eastern Europe. In 1910
Kafka attended these productions and from his diaries it is
unmistakably evident that they exerted a formidable impact on him. It
was not the quality of the plays nor the acting which impressed him -
on the contrary, it was the awareness of Jews publicly displaying their
Jewishness with pride and not experiencing paralyzing self
consciousness. Kafka declared, “the Hassidic stories are the only
element in which I ever feel initially at home, no matter what my
momentary mood may be.”17
Kafka’s friendship with Lowy became the vehicle for his introduction
into knowledge of Jewish ritual life. Inasmuch as Kafka was already
familiar with the Hebrew alphabet and was fluent in written and spoken
German, mastery of the Yiddish language presented a small challenge. He
learned to read Yiddish and subsequently learned to read and speak
Hebrew. Lowy read him Yiddish poetry and fiction; and he himself read
some Yiddish books as well as German translation’s of Yiddish books.
Kafka in fact introduced Lowy to the Zionist and Hebrew speaking Bar
Kokhba Society of the Charles University of Prague. The import of such
a dramatic move cannot be overstated; Kafka never spoke publicly. One
may gain some insight into this unique move in light of Kafka’s words
to Lowy, you are ‘the only one that spoke to my soul, the only one who
half understood me.18
In a letter written to Milena, his Czech translator (and possible
lover), he said "If I'd been given a choice to be what I wanted, then
I'd have chosen to be a small east European Jewish boy in the corner of
the room, without a trace of worry.” 19 His father’s typical opinion of
Lowy was summarized by "whoever lies down with dogs gets up with
fleas.” 20
Jiri Langer was a friend of Kafka who was raised in Prague to an
assimilated Jewish family but who made a dramatic conversion and fully
embraced a Hasidic way of life (a ba’al teshuva). His brother
Franticek, said of Jiri ‘my brother did not come home from Belz [the
Hasidic community he joined], to home and civilization, he brought Belz
with him.’ 21
Kafka’s world was vastly enlarged when he began to meet Hasidic Rabbis
who were instrumental in Jiri’s life. The first time he met an Hasidic
Rabbi with Jiri he noted the Rabbi eating with his fingers, a practice
which was totally unacceptable in Kafka’s polite bourgeois society. But
the effect on Kafka was magical and drew him to a totally different
place. He found himself reminiscing on his childhood and noted that
‘when his hand rested on the table for a moment you saw only the
whiteness of his skin, a whiteness such as remembered having been seen
before only in your childhood imaginings – when one’s parents, too were
pure’. 22 One wonders when Kafka thought his parents were pure?
Equally important for Kafka was his introduction in 1916, to the Rebbe
of Belz – once again by dint of his friendship with Jiri Langer. It is
remarkable to note the level of kinesthetic sensitivity to detail which
impacted on Kafka. His impressions of this meeting was recorded as
follows: ‘the sight of his back, the sight of his hand, which was on
his hip, the sight of the movement of that broad back – all this gives
a feeling of trust’.
In 1923, one year prior to his death Kafka met Dora Diamant, the daughter of a Gur hasid; they lived together during the last year of his life. Dora had been educated in strictly Orthodox Judaism in her youth –however, she had chosen to depart from ritually observant Judaism prior to her encounter with Kafka.
Kafka though non observant was fascinated with increasing his knowledge
and understanding of Judaism. Dora’s intimate knowledge with this
material made her irresistible to Kafka and she effortlessly assumed
the role of his teacher and mentor. Kafka had already mastered Biblical
Hebrew and was by then very familiar with eastern European Hasidic
tradition. (Jiri, many years later tells us that Kafka was one of the
few friends in Prague with whom he could actually speak Hebrew.) He and
Dora spent many blissful hours reading Torah together along with
Rashi’s medieval commentary - written in Rashi’s original cryptic
Hebrew script.
Tragically Dora was probably the only woman Kafka truly loved, but by
then he had already contracted fatal tuberculosis and knew his life was
limited.
Ritchie Robertson considers ‘The Castle’ Kafka’s last uncompleted work
to have numerous Biblical, Talmudic and Jewish historical and
particularly messianic allusions; in fact to be his most Jewish work.
23 Franz Rosenzweig wrote that ‘I have never read a book that reminded
me so much of the Bible as [Kafka’s] novel The Castle’. He continued
‘the people who wrote the Bible seem to have thought of God much the
way Kafka did’. 24
The Castle ‘is deeply indebted to Kafka’s knowledge of the Messianic
tradition. Through the figure of K. expresses the Messianic impulse,
examines it critically, and finally condemns it. K. resembles the
would-be-Messiahs of history, not only in the pun implicit in his
profession, but in four of his salient characteristics.’ 25 The pun
Robertson is referring to is ‘land-surveyor’ in Hebrew being ‘mashoah’;
Messiah being ‘mashiah’ in German. The four characteristics are: K. is
a questionable land surveyor and all previous Messiahs were
questionable – either false or failed; K. is aggressiveness and has
ruthless ambition, characteristics of false or failed Messiahs; the
last characteristic is K.’s being proclaimed in a vision by the child
Hans Brunswick as Messiahs are proclaimed by a prophet. 26
If Kafka was obsessed at least at the end of his life by Messianic
thoughts this compares to Reb Nahman who was equally obsessed.
In Reb Nahman’s tale The Rabbi's Son a Hassidic Rabbi confronts a
scholastic Rabbi. Great antagonism existed in the 18th and 19th
centuries in Eastern Europe between groups of scholastic-elitist Rabbis
and groups of Hassidic-pietistic Rabbis with their Tzadikim (righteous
charismatic leaders). The scholastic Rabbi in the tale was
blessed with son born to him in his old age. He said: "’My son will be
a great light against them; he will fight them entirely, with their
ignorant Tzadikim.’ The youth grew up to be a great scholar, but
weak in health. The youth pleaded ‘let me go see the Tzadik’.
Finally after the third time the Rabbi said ‘I will go with you to this
ignorant man’. En route the cart collapsed and the Rabbi
concluded ‘this is an evil journey’ and they returned home. Days passed
and the youth condition deteriorated and it became evident that he was
dying. The son insisted to his father ‘I must go and speak with the
Tzadik.’ Once again the Rabbi consented. Once again was an accident
impeded the journey. The Rabbi said ‘This Tzadik must surely be an
impostor’. The youth begged and convinced his father, who loved
him to undertake the journey once again. They embarked yet again and
stayed overnight in an inn. They met a merchant who declared he
had just met the Tzadik and he was an impostor. The Rabbi rebuked his
son ‘it is as I said’. They returned home and soon after the boy died.
The Rabbi had a dream where he met the merchant again and he turned out
to be the Satan. And he said ‘in your son there lived the power of the
lesser flame, and the power of the greater flame was in the
Tzadik, and if they two had come together on this earth, Messiah would
have descended! Nevertheless, I placed obstacles in your way, until
your son was dead’.” 27 Reb Nahman had a young son who died shortly
after his first birthday, whom he believed would be the Messiah.
In the early twentieth century Martin Buber became the interpreter of
Reb Nahman and made him known to Kafka and his friends. Reb Nahman was
thus another Judaic influence of Kafka. Joseph Kanofsky wrote about
both Reb Nahman and Kafka ‘Indeed the totality of his craft, the
integration of despair and hope, exile and redemption, assure us that
his tales share the same literary genesis as much of Judaic
literature.’ 28
ON WRITING:
Despite the myriad of facts amassed concerning Franz Kafka (from many biographies), he remains unknown to us as he was to himself. He witnessed a different and personal dimension of reality. The world to him was not linear rather it was convoluted and involuted. Kafka described the first son in his story The Eleven Sons: “he looks neither to the right nor to the left, not into the far distance; he runs around all the time, or rather revolves, within his own little circle of thoughts.” 29 He was painfully aware of every shade of every issue; hence he was perpetually indecisive. Arthur Cohen has said that for Kafka the world was discontinuous and dangerous always. 30 ‘He saw the world as being full of invisible demons which assail and destroy defenseless man’. 31
However his language stands in stark contrast; as when the father in
The Judgment said to his son. "I sentence you to death by drowning." 32
One could hardly imagine a more direct compact and unadorned syntax.
One cannot help but question the source of the reality behind these
words.
Both Reb Nahman and Franz Kafka are the antithesis of systematic
authors. Neither one elaborated a theological nor a philosophical
synthesis. Both wrote and spoke at different times allusively,
paradoxically, fabulistically, and from an idiosyncratic and
metaphysical point of view. For Reb Nahman writing and the
telling of tales was his way of teaching.
Reb Nahman wrote about his dreams and Kafka wrote about his ‘dreamlike
inner life’. 33 Arthur Green writes of Reb Nahman: "He frequently
gives one the impression of a creative artist straining against the
limitations of his medium, and seeking to extend its borders so that he
will have room in which to create." 34
Two knowledgeable critics use surprisingly similar terms in describing
these authors; Arthur Green in his psycho-biography of Reb Nahman and
Joyce Carol Oates (in a forward to Kafka’s stories) for Franz Kafka.
Green stated his “tales take place in a dimension of reality other than
our own.”35 While Oates wrote of Kafka; they “have as interior
obsessive landscape, and are carried along by the sheer flow of thought
of an alien consciousness.”36 Green commented that Nahman’s writing
“have an archaic tone that lends a certain simple dignity.”37 And Oates
they “are so undetermined by history and locality that they possess the
beauty of folk ballads. My wisdom is childlike yet as old as the race.
We experience a vast timeless and I indeed indecipherable drama.”38
Nahman’s writing “are meant to evoke a sense of the readers inner life
buried in the depths of his soul.”39 Kafka writing that they
“exert by degrees a remarkable inner power.” 40
Kafka’s felt his writing was critically important to his life. In
a letter written to Felice he said "My job is unbearable to me because
it conflicts with my only desire and my only calling, which is
writing. Since I am nothing but my writing and neither can, nor
wish to be, anything else . . . Everything that
is not writing bores me and I hate it . . . When I
arbitrarily write a single sentence . . . it already
has perfection . . . It is my form of prayer . .
. The joy of renouncing the greatest human happiness for the sake
of writing keeps cutting every muscle of my body.”41
Reb Nahman wrote all his imaginative tales toward the end of his life
(after 1806) when he considered his attempt to bring the Messiah had
failed. He understood the imaginative faculty as related to prophecy.
He quotes ‘I am imagined by the prophets (Hos. 12:11) and then states
‘the imagination is restored by prophecy and this leads to the
restoration of proper faith’. 42 The importance of the tales to Reb
Nahman’s current day disciples can be seen; in every Shabbat at the
third meal one passage is read in hushed reverence as if reading from
the Torah.
Writing was a religious and spiritual experience for both men.
Dora Diamond, the last of Kafka’s women friend’s was commanded by him
to destroy twenty of his notebooks at his request and she did so in his
sight. She managed to conceal others which were published decades after
his death. He instructed his literary executor Max Brod to destroy the
remainder he held which included the novels `The Trial’, `The Castle’
and ‘America’ (a title created by Brod) his diaries, letters and many
short stories. Kafka even asked Brod to write to people he had written
to burn his letters. Kafka’s need for perfection prevented him from
completing any of these three major works as well as many shorter
works. Fortunately for us Brod disobeyed his friend’s request. Kafka
was seeking an auto de fe of his books.
Reb Nahman forbade publication of his tales during his lifetime, yet he
loved telling them. He instructed his scribe, Reb Nathan to
posthumously publish only those tales he himself had edited and only
after his death. He also ordered his scribe to destroy his secret book
on how the Messiah could be hastened in his arrival. Reb Nathan
followed his Rabbi’s wishes. In the introduction to these published
tales in 1814 (after his death) his scribe Reb Nathan says: “It should
be clear to any intelligent person that when you hear statements from
my mouth it is not like he who sees them in a book, especially in such
allusory matters. Every time you open the book and read one word, my
spirit shall be called forth, and I shall be in your presence.”43
Max Brod said of Kafka that “he never spoke a meaningless word . . .
[and] in his presence the everyday world underwent a transformation’.
44 Kafka defined a writer as “the scapegoat of mankind. He makes it
possible for men to enjoy sin without guilt, almost without guilt” 45
It seems more likely that Kafka saw guilt without sin.
Kafka's short story The Judgment is a nightmarish story composed and
completed in a stroke of inspiration in one night, the eve of Yom
Kippur, the most sacred day in the Jewish calendar. It is a day
when work including writing is forbidden and only fasting and praying
for forgiveness is allowed. Given that Kafka usually obsessed over his
writing, and left most of his writings incomplete, it is extraordinary
for him to reach completion in one night. Was this writing his prayer
for forgiveness?
In the first half of the story, Gregor, the main character, obsesses as
whether to inform his friend in Russia about his engagement to Frieda.
He then enters the darkened room of his old dirty widowed father.
He opens his father's window shade and consults him as to whether to
inform his friend. His father says you don't have a friend in
Russia. His father then tells the son that he has already told
his friend. The story ends with the Father surprisingly stating
to his son ‘I sentence you to death by drowning’. The son blindly obeys
his father’s order. As he jumps from the bridge his last words are ‘My
Dear Parents, I have always loved you, all the same’.” 46
Kafka is reported to have tears in his eyes when he read this to his
friends. 47 Who but his real father had such irresistible power to
determine his life or death? The last verse of the story is as
extraordinary as the penultimate. “At this moment an unending stream of
traffic was just going over the bridge.”
The above tale would seem to emphasize that the world and perhaps even his own father were indifferent to his flight unto death. Kafka stated that he could not find "coherent meaning that one could follow . . . nor can I explain anything in it." 48 Kafka broke his relationship with his fiancée Felice after writing that story.
Kafka said in ‘The Letter to his Father: "The world was for me divided
into three parts: one in which I lived under laws which had been
invented only for me and which I could, I did not know why, never
completely comply with; then a second world, which was infinitely
remote from mine, in which you lived, . . . and finally a third world
where everybody else lived happily." 49 Of course the only way to
escape such a double bind is defined in The Judgment when the father
sentences his son to "death by drowning". Kafka called The Judgment his
favorite work. 50 While we see Kafka’s sense of guilt and inadequacy in
his Letter to His Father and The Judgment his sense of alienation seems
so profound as to suggest one who is incapable of relating to others
human beings. Hermann Kafka’s laws became his son’s. Franz like
Gregor was suffocated from the burden of his father’s judgment.
In discussing the dimension of fantastic literature Ora Wiskind-Elper
states that ‘both critic and author are really trapped in a tight,
small space between life and literature. 51 For her the
Jewish mystic ‘tells a story about the night as if he knew it
intimately’. 52 Kafka’s stories ‘take place in infinity’ 53 and
he tells us that `I am separated from all things by a hollow space, and
I do not even reach to its boundaries’. 54 He also tells us that his
`truth . . . glints through the mesh of what we call reality’.55
This trapped pursuit fits both Reb Nahman and Kafka. Perhaps for
both of them their vision represented a truer vision of reality.
IDENTITY:
It is not surprising that both Kafka and Reb Nahman struggled with issues of identity. For both the struggle began with unique relationships with a patriarchal almost omnipotent ancestor. Kafka’s relationship with his father was paramount in his life yet charged with massive ambivalence even hostility. Kafka feared his father. He composed a letter almost one hundred (handwritten) pages in length in which he expounds to his father Hermann, why he feared him. (The letter, a work of literature, is also a self portrait.) He addressed his father as "Dearest Father" but in fact gave the letter to his mother. Did he ever expect his father to receive the letter? His mother never gave it to her husband. He said of his father "He would not let me live in his world . . . is not fathers’ power such that nothing could resist his decree?" 56
Kafka’s oeuvre is rampant with recurring overtones of the conflictual
relationship with his father. This problem is clear in The Letter
to his Father, it reappears on numerous occasions in the form of
various characters in his fiction and resurfaces in his aphorisms,
parables, letters and diaries. In fact one could claim the entire
letter to his father is a plea for self definition. "My writing
was all about you. 57 [and an] attempt to get away from [you]” 58
A significant aspect of Kafka’s identity crisis lies within his
unresolved Jewish legacy. He said "But with their posterior legs they
were still glued to their father's Jewishness and with their waving
anterior legs they found no new ground." 59 He also wrote ‘Things will
not get better, things will never get better for me. Sometimes I think
I am no longer in the world but drifting around in some limbo. 60
Kafka composed a lengthy letter to Carl Bauer, his prospective
father-in-law in which he stated ‘I am taciturn, unsociable, morose,
selfish, hypochondriac, and actually in poor health. Fundamentally I
deplore none of this: it is the earthly reflection of a higher
necessity. What I am really capable of is not the question here, and
has no connection with it. 61 He sent the letter to his fiancée
Felice Bauer. Did he expect Felice to deliver it to her father?
She in fact never delivered it to her father. One could argue that the
two letters to the most important people in his life at that point in
time, were not intended to be delivered just to be written. His life
was about writing, not living.
Reb Nahman on the other hand revered his great-grandfather, the BeSHT.
At the tender age of seven he already adopted ascetic rituals around
the grave of his great-grandfather. He prayed at the grave and then
went to immerse and purify himself in the cold winter waters of the
nearby river. Throughout his life he continued these practices.
But Reb Nahman also had an older opponent who had known his great
grandfather known as the Zadie (to be discussed below). He saw Reb
Nahman as an ‘unfit guide’ and Reb Nahman and his disciples saw him as
a representative of Satan. Reb Nahman called him ‘a lying hypocrite who
imitate the true tzadik like a monkey’. 62 He even accused him as being
responsible for the enlightenment’s (the haskala in Judaic terms)
success in assimilating Jews to secularism. 63
Reb Nahman revered and loved his great-grandfather and Kafka
obsessively feared his father. Reb Nahman’s public love for the BeSHT
and his insistence that he succeeded his great grandfather created as
many problems for him as did Kafka’s hostility for his father. But on
the other had Reb Nahman’s hostility towards the Zadie had an enormous
impact of his life. His uncle Barukh (his mother’s brother) backed the
Zadie and thus another older associate, a father surrogate became an
enemy. Reb Nahman’s father Simha was largely missing in his
lifetime.
In both cases the ancestors exerted an enormous influence on the lives
of their descendants. Both acted as if their ancestor's powers were
God-like. He can see the effect of this ‘love’ versus ‘fear’ in the
following tales when we contrast The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and
The Turkey Prince by Reb Nahman.
Kafka’s story can be summarized as follows: A young man awakens one
morning to discover he has been transformed into an insect. From his
perspective he is the same person only his external shape has been
altered. He is the sole supporter of his family, which includes his
mother, father and sister. His family is horrified at his
appearance and wring their hands in helplessness. They attempt to hide
his new appearance. They refuse to enter his bedroom not even to feed
him. Finally his sister musters the courage to enter his room and she
feeds him. Neither mother nor father wish to see their son. They
eventually throw an apple at his back inflicting a mortal wound and
causing his death.” 64
Compare that to Reb Nahman’s tale of The Turkey Prince.
“A Prince wakes up one morning and thinks he is a Turkey. He becomes naked and sits under the dining table and only eats what is thrown to him. The King sends for the wise men, but they cannot cure him. Finally another wise man comes, takes off his clothing and goes under the table with the Prince. The wise man asked the Prince who he is? The Prince responds a Turkey. The wise man undresses and says I am also a Turkey. The two men sit under the table and when food is thrown they eat together with their hands. After a couple of days the wise man asks for a shirt and puts in on. The Prince asks why he is wearing a shirt. The wise man says a Turkey may wear a shirt. Then the Prince asks for a shirt. A day later the wise man asks for a pair of pants and then finally shoes. The Prince follows the wise man. Then one day the wise man gets up and eats from the table and the Prince follows.” 65
The difference between these two tales lies in the reactions of the
families to their son’s respective dilemmas. In Metamorphosis the son
is not the focus of the story. The sole focus is the reaction of the
family. They do not see the son an integral part of the family system
whose problem needs a solution. Their solution is the ‘final solution’.
Conversely Reb Nahman chose to place the son as the focus of the family
problem. The king (as opposed to Kafka’s father) is not self centered
and autocratic but first and foremost a father to the Prince. He will
spare no effort to find a solution for his son. The Kafka son body has
changed identity - to an insect – and to his family his new identity
shamed them in their own eyes. The home described in the story by Kafka
(as his sister told him) was in fact his home. They required his death.
Did Kafka indeed perceive his father and his family in such harsh
terms?
Conversely, the King is most supportive of his son and responsive to
both conventional and non-conventional attempts to cure him. He accepts
a ‘wise’ man who would join the Prince as a turkey. For Franz Kafka,
God represented by his father is unknown and inaccessible. While much
has been said of Kafka’s father one does not know whether he considered
his mother an ally of his father. He noted in his letter to his father
that ‘mother unconsciously played the role of beater during a hunt’
66He also noted in a short story that ‘I lost her [mother] when I was a
child’. 67 Was he thinking of his own mother? For Reb Nahman God may be
unknown; but accessibility was the goal and struggle and purpose of
life.
The last verse of The Metamorphosis is as follows: “And it was like a
confirmation of their new dreams and excellent intentions that at the
end of their journey their daughter sprang to her feet and stretched
her young body.” This can be compared to the last verse of The Judgment
noted above. Both suggest that regardless of life or death everything
is useless. For Kafka hope and success were impossible, failure the
only possibility.
FAITH AND DOUBT:
Jews wrestle with faith and doubt, like Jacob wrestled with an angel on the riverbank of the river Jabok, a variant of his own name. A midrash claims the angel is his shadow self (per Gustave Jung) and his twin brother Esau. The Hebrew Bible is a history of Jewish doubts including idolatry and prophets who proclaim the coming exile or apocalypse. For both Kafka and Reb Nahman doubt ceased to be a private matter and needed to find a public voice; that is why they needed, teaching and writing.
Both Kafka and Reb Nahman convey the struggle of finding the manifold
aspects of the truth. Kafka wrote "Whoever has faith cannot define it,
and whoever has none can only give a definition that lies under the
shadow of grace withheld. The man of faith cannot speak and the man of
no faith ought not to speak ". 68 Reb Nahman said "We cannot lose what
really belongs to us, even if we throw it away."69
Kafka looked for people with a faith in God he could not have. Max Brod
felt that Kafka had “a certain degree of understanding [that] one never
loses the way any more.” 70 In a short fragment Kafka
called Give it up! Kafka's fictional voice "asked [a policeman]
the way . . . [the policeman said] give it up! Give it
up!". 71 Despite that Kafka wrote “Man cannot live without a permanent
faith in something indestructible in himself”. 72 Reb Nahman once said
‘the end of knowledge is that we do not know’. 73
Guilt is never to be known as Kafka shows In Before the Law,
The Problem of the Law and The Judgment, In The Trial
guilt can never be appealed but acquittal is always appealed to the
highest court that is inaccessible. He sought justice perhaps through
his Judaic roots but found exile and discontinuity.
In The Penal Colony "guilt is never to be doubted" 74 and in fact
Justice is by definition distorted. In this short story there is a
punishment apparatus that inscribes the disobeyed law on the back of
the prisoner. It was designed by the old commandant who has since died
but his officer disciple is considering reinstating the machine. He
puts himself in the machine to inscribe ‘Be Just’; he would slowly die
as the machine wrote his penance. However the machine malfunctioned,
mutilates him and destroyed itself. Kafka proposes that writing ought
to be seen as art but the machine failed. The faith of the officer had
failed. Is writing intended as a punishment? For Kafka absolute moral
values could no longer live in the modern world.
This is also the basis of The Trial written at the same time as WWI was
breaking out. Josef K., the protagonist, is arrested and warned
by the inspector in a black suit (representing a higher authority) not
to concern himself with his innocence. He should reflect about himself
- on his own identity. His own identity may be the sin.
By protesting his innocence he confirms his guilt. Months later in the
Cathedral Joseph K once again discusses his case with a priest and
again is warned to not to seek outside help. The Priest tells Josef K.
the story of the ‘Doorkeeper’. "Before the law stands a doorkeeper with
a Tartar beard and black uniform. . . To this doorkeeper there comes a
man from the country and prays for admittance to the law. But the
doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment . .
. Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps
to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway to the
interior. Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and says `If you
are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto' . . .
These are difficulties the man from the country has not expected; the
law, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times and to
everyone . . . The country man stays for years until he dies. As
he is dying the doorkeeper says to him `No one else could ever be
admitted here since this gate was made only for you I am now going to
shut it'". 75
Who is responsible for the ‘country man’ wasting his life in front of
the official? According to the priest, the ‘doorkeeper is simply an
official unfree under the law. Officials cannot exist in
freedom’. 76 His job is to forbid Josef K. from entering into the Law.
Does the Law represent an absolute truth beyond understanding? Who
represented the doorkeeper - this higher authority - Kafka's father?
Kafka’s father is the one person who could guard the door and
intimidate Kafka. Kafka defined his father as ‘the ultimate authority’,
‘the towering authority’ and said ‘everything that you shouted at me
was virtually a commandment from heaven’.77 And yet Kafka writes
us that he ‘admire[d his] father. 78 (He even dedicated his book A
Country Doctor, Short Tales to his father. 79) He apparently
‘loved, hated, admired and feared his father’. 80 Can the doorkeeper
represent the angels with fiery flashing swords who prevent humankind
from returning to Paradise? Kafka said there is ‘plenty of hope - for
God - no end of hope - only not for us’ 81
According to Kafka’s most recent biographer he and Felice met in a
hotel in a town on the German-Austrian border at the end of 1914.
Felice was evidently ready for sex, or she would not have permitted
herself to go to a man's hotel room, but Franz was not. What he did
instead, astonishingly, was to read out loud to her, from the
manuscript of The Trial, the episode "Before the Law." Stach tartly
observes: "Was he not also standing before an open gate? And not
entering. Instead he read her a story about entrances, doorkeepers, and
waiting in vain." 82
Reb Nahman wrote ‘a person enters the service of the Lord and begins to
ascend from step to step and suddenly it seems to him as if he has been
cast out from holiness to the very edge of the earth and the farthest
sea. For at such time he is about to enter into the end of perfection,
because he has already come to such a rung that he is close to holiness
and went to enter into holiness and yet he cannot enter until he will
have passed through all the evil places where he had once been and
corrected them.’ 83
In The Problem of Our Laws Kafka wrote a tale about nobles who scrupulously administer the traditional law. But none of the people know the law. "The laws are very ancient . . . There is wisdom in that - who doubts the wisdom of the ancients laws? - But also hardship for us; probably that is unavoidable . . . The sole visible and indubitable law that is imposed upon us is the nobility, and must we ourselves deprive ourselves of that one law?" 84
The question is, whom do the nobles represent? Could they be God, the
Torah or the Rabbis? The law in the Torah is explicitly known. Is
Kafka suggesting that faith in the law is more important than our
ability to obey it?
Reb Nahman believed his soul was unique; that it transmigrated from
Moses to Simeon bar Yochai (the reputed author the Zohar - the key
Kabbalistic text), to Isaac Luria (H’Ari – the founder of modern
Kabbalah), and the BeSHT his great grandfather. Each of these was
considered a unique soul – the Tzadik Hador, the greatest of their
generation – and thus he a young man at the time considered himself in
their category. He once claimed that by his thirteenth age – his bar
mitzvah age – he had already exceeded his great grandfather’s holiness.
85 At another time he called himself the ‘even shetiya’ the
foundation rock at the center of the world where according to Jewish
lore Adam was created and Abraham attempted his sacrifice of Isaac. 86
He almost certainly considered himself a Messiah, perhaps the Messiah
ben Joseph. That Messiah under Jewish lore must die before the true
Messiah ben David arrives.
Among the Rabbis from the older generation he conflicted with was Aryeh
Leib of Shpola (1725-1812) a man who had met and known his great
grandfather. Reb Nahman was born after his great grandfather had died.
He was known affectionately as the ‘Zadie’ the grandfather in Yiddish.
Reb Nahman went to live in a village in the region considered under the
spiritual guidance of the Zadie. It was an obvious provocation and
resulted in an enormous row. The Zadie started a movement to ban and
excommunicate Reb Nahman reminiscent of the excommunication of the
BeSHT by his opponents, which Reb Nahman undoubtedly knew. (Reb Nahman
tried in turn to have the Zadie excommunicated; he also failed. 87)The
Zadie asked ‘is Nahman a fit guide?’ (Reb Nahman’s disciples considered
the Zadie a disciple of Satan. 88) In fact many of the Hassidim of the
BeSHT tried to disinherit Reb Nahman from what he believed was his
rightful role as successor to his great grandfather. The movement to
ban Reb Nahman failed; although Reb Nahman and his followers were
persecuted by the supporters of the Zadie and others. Some Rabbis did
not want the great grandson of the BeSHT banned while others saw the
martyrdom impact to be exactly what Reb Nahman sought.
Reb Nahman told an account of a dream or nightmare: “I was in my house
and no one came to see me. It seemed strange to me. I went into the
second room but there too, there was not a soul. I went to the
farmhouse and to the house of study, but no one was there either . .
. I went [out] and saw people were standing in circles,
whispering together; some were mocking me, others laughing at me, and
some being rude. `What is this all about?' `How could you have done
such a thing? Is it possible that you have committed such a monstrous
sin'? I decided to journey to some other country . .
. `I am an outcast, I shall [at least] have a share in the World
to Come'. And [the Old Man] replied: `A share in the World to Come!
Even in Hell there would be no place for you to be buried! Because you
have committed such a profanation of the Divine Name! ... Later the Old
Man returned carrying a book in his arms. ... I opened the book and
could not understand it at all. It appeared to me as written in a
different script and in another language . . . And I threw my
head backward with great bitterness . . . [When his men came
back they said] that even a man who had transgressed the Torah
eight hundred times, if he had cast his head back with such
bitterness, his sins would certainly have been forgiven him." 89
The nightmare quality of this dream appears to be straight
forward. The great Tzadik and scholar was paradoxically unable to
read the Torah. How else could one conceive of the ‘book’? He
profanes the `Divine Name’ and transgresses the `Torah’ eight hundred
times. Consequently, he could not inherit a share in the World to Come.
The ‘old man’ (the higher authority) who in the dream tells him he
cannot partake in the world to come, is of course the “Zadie’.
He said about himself ‘either he is, God forbid just as those who
oppose him say he is or if not he is a true Tzaddik. In that case he is
uniquely awesome and wondrous to an extent which cannot be encompassed
by the human mind. 90 Reb Nahman wrote ‘each man is given barriers to
his faith, the greater the man the greater the obstacle.’ 91
Kafka once stated that, to his father he was ‘in truth a disinherited
son’. 92
In a short story called Paradise Kafka refers to death which was to
result from eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. "Men did not
die, but became mortal . . . We are guilty not only because we have
eaten of the tree of knowledge but also because we have not eaten of
the tree of life." 93 Since the Fall we have been essentially equal in
our capacity to know Good and Evil . . . But only on the far side off
this knowledge do the real differences begin. . . . nobody can be
content with knowledge alone, but must strive to act . . . But he is
not endowed with the strength for this, hence he must himself,
even at the risk of in that way not requiring the necessary strength,
but there is nothing else he can do except make this last attempt. . .
. indeed the whole visible world is perhaps nothing other than a
motivation of man’s wish to rest - an attempt to falsify the fact
of knowledge, to try to turn knowledge into the goal. 94
in A Hunger Artist the protagonist is a carnival performer's whose
artistry is to starve in front of people. This story is follows.
"During these last decades the interest in professional fasting has
markedly diminished. It used to pay very well to stage such
performances under one's own management, but today that is quite
impossible. We live in a different world now. He sits in a cage. He
finally says he will try to have people understand the `Art of
Fasting'. So he goes on for weeks. Finally his overseer says ‘are
you still fasting . . . he says forgive me, everybody', . .
. of course says the overseer ‘we forgive you'. `I always
wanted you to admire my fasting,' ‘We do admire it,’ ‘Well but you
should not admire it’ . . . because I have to fast' I cannot help
it,' . . . because I could not find the food I liked. These were
his last words." 95
Kafka has an insatiable inner hunger that cannot be quenched by
external nourishment. Is the hunger artist in attempting to find ‘food
I like’ seeking his identity by taking it inside and tasting and
digesting it? Did he find it impossible to find his Jewish identity
outside as a result of his father’s assimilative secular life? Or is he
concerned that keeping it outside he will not be able to digest it?
Could he find it, eat it and transform it? Kafka as his tuberculosis
progressed could not in reality eat, it had affected his throat.
In a tale written by Reb Nahman he instructs four of his disciples to
bring him the fruit picked from the first tree they encounter.
Upon sighting the first tree "One of the four turned to the others and
warned them: `Most certainly this tree has been enchanted, as must be
the fruit. If we attempt to pick it we too, may become enchanted. Even
to touch it is dangerous.' The second nodded his head in agreement:
`Yes, it is possible we have stumbled on the tree that bears the
forbidden fruit. If we pluck it we may bring a great sin down on
ourselves'. But the third protested this conclusion: `Reb Nahman has
directed us to bring back the fruit of the first tree we come across.
This is the tree, whose fruit is no doubt a great blessing that must
not be ignored.' For a while after this there was silence, then the
fourth Hassid spoke: `I, for one, do not believe this tree and its
fruit exist in this world; therefore, it is an illusion, and we must be
dreaming.'" 96
Both Reb Nahman and Kafka attribute the `fall' to Adam and Eve eating
the fruit of the tree of knowledge as a fall from grace. Reb Nahman's
tale is more specific and more parabolical. He asks his four
disciples to pick the fruit and bring it to him; thereby reversing the
role of Adam and Eve as well as suggesting his role to be the redeemer
who restores humanity to grace. But in Reb Nahman’s absence how
are they to be certain of choosing the right tree.
According Joseph Weiss a mid twentieth century interpreter of Reb
Nahman true faith can only exist in God’s absence. Perhaps only by
being alienated (even from God) can one understand God.
Kafka wrote a short tale about Prometheus in which he said there
are four legends about him. “According to the first he was clamped to
the rock . . . for betraying the secret of the god's to men
. . . according to the second Prometheus goading by the
pain . . . pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock
until he became one with it. According to the third his treachery was
forgotten in the course of thousands of years, forgotten by the god's
the eagles, forgotten by himself. According to the fourth
everyone grew weary of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the
eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily."97
This story is about memory and its importance despite the weariness of
everyone involved, the gods, the eagles, and the wound, yet Kafka
remembered. But what is he remembering?
Reb Nahman wrote about memory in The Seven Beggars. It begins as
follows: "I am a very old man, and at the same time entirely youthful.
I have not even begun to live, and yet I am very old . . . [Then
the blind beggar] . . . said each of them should tell
an old story, the story that represented the earliest thing that he
could remember, from that very point where his memory began.
There were both old and young people there, and they gave to the eldest
among them the honor of beginning. He said `what can I tell you? I
remember when they cut the apple from the branch.' No one quite
understood what he meant by that but the wise men agreed that this was
indeed a very ancient memory. The second elder, who was just a bit
younger than the first, was then given the honor. `Is that an old
tale?' He said. ` I remember that one too, but I also remember when the
candle was yet burning.' They agreed that this memory was older than
the first, but were puzzled to find that it was the younger man who had
the older memory. Then they called upon the third, who was still
younger. `I remember,' he said `when the fruit began to be formed.'
They agreed that this was a still older memory. The fourth, who was
still younger, said `I remember when they carried the seed to plant the
fruit.' The fifth claimed that he remembered the sages who contemplated
the seed. The sixth remembered the taste of the fruit before it entered
the fruit. The seventh remembered the aroma before it entered the
fruit, and the eight recalled its appearance in that same way.
And I (said the blind beggar who was telling all this) was yet a child,
but I was there too. I said to them; ` I remember all these events. But
I also remember nothing'. And they answered: `this is indeed an older
memory than all.'. . . The younger a person seemed, the older he really
was. . . . And the oldest among them was the youngest of them
all." 98
The blind beggar himself is designated as the ‘great eagle’ whose
wings, according to Isaiah ‘shall not grow tired nor weary’ (Is.
40:31). The blind beggar was called a very old man, and at the same
time entirely youthful who had not even begun to live.
Reb Nahman for whom understanding is self understanding was the
youngest of this group of Hasidic masters but felt he was the greatest,
the Tzadik Ha’dor (the righteous one of the generation). Kafka’s tale
about the mythological figure Prometheus; Reb Nahman creates a
mythological figure who is himself, the very old man who is entirely
youthful.
Kafka said of himself ‘I shall never grow up to be a man, from being a
child I shall immediately become a white-haired ancient. 99 This is
also a story of memory, but more hopeful than Kafka's, for whom
everything was weariness. Reb Nahman’s tale is the remembering of the
time before the `fall' when we were all in the Garden of Eden. The
oldest memory is of nothing but we proceed from there to today.
In Kafka's parable called On Parables the first person said "If you
only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and
with that rid of all your daily cares. Another said: I bet that
is also a parable. The first said: you have won. The second said: but
unfortunately only in parable. The first said: no, in reality: in
parable you have lost." 100
CONCLUSION:
Kafka was alienated from himself, from his father and from the world. He wrote in diaries in 1922 ‘It would be very unjust to say that you deserted me; but that I was deserted and sometimes terribly so, is true’. 101 He does not say who deserted him (he is referring to his father) but his alienation is clear. Reb Nahman was alienated from the Hassidic community (the creation of his great-grandfather) and from this world. Arthur Green suggests that Reb Nahman developed a theology based on the principle of conflict as an underlying force in the universe. 102 ‘The more a person is pursued, the closer he is to God’. 103 Max Brod suggested that Kafka believed in a theology of conflict.104
Reb Nahman authored a parable entitled The Wise Man and the
Simpleton, whereby two protagonists are the recipients of identical
messages from the King. The simpleton responds quickly and receives his
reward. The wise man responds to the man who had brought his letter:
`Wait here tonight and let us discuss this matter' . . .
The wise man with his philosophic mind, set to thinking about it and
said ` Why should the King be sending for an unimportant fellow like
me? Who am I that the King, out of all his vast Kingdoms, should send
for me? Compared with the King I am a nobody; how can it possibly make
sense that the King should send someone after a person as small as I
am? If I were to say that it is because of my wisdom - certainly the
King has his own sages, and he himself is also a very wise man. So why
is the King sending for me?' He became very much confounded by
the letter and finally concluded by saying `It is now very clear in my
mind that there is no King in the world at all. The world is full
of fools who think there is a King. How is it possible that they
should all have subjected themselves to one man, thinking that he is
the King, when in reality there is no King at all?” 105
The King may be viewed as representing God or the Messiah. Is Reb
Nahman using the wise man ironically or does it represent his own
conflicted mind? Or despite his obvious intellectualism did he fear
thinking and preferred that he and his follows be simpletons in
unquestioning faith and disregard the doubt he himself had? During his
day enlightenment skepticism and rationalism was taking Jews away from
ritual observance. They considered themselves wise men. There is a
‘wisdom which is really no wisdom at all.’ 106
Kafka wrote a parable called An Imperial Message. ‘The Emperor, so a
parable runs, has sent a message to you, the humble subject, the
insignificant shadow cowering in the remotest distance before the
imperial sun; the Emperor from his deathbed has sent a message to you
alone. He . . . has whispered the message to him . . . The messenger
immediately sets out on his journey; a powerful, an indefatigable man;
now pushing with his right arm, now with his left arm, he cleaves a way
for himself through the throng; if he encounters resistance he points
to his breasts, where the symbol of the sun glitters; the way is made
easier for him than it would be for any other man. But the multitudes
are so vast; their numbers have no end. If he could reach the open
fields how fast he would fly . . . But instead how vainly does he wear
out his strength . . . never will he get to the end of them and if he
succeeded in that nothing would be gained; he must next fight his way
down the stair . . . the courts would still have to be crossed . . .
and after the courts the second outer palace . . . and once more
another palace; and so on for thousands of years and if at last he
should burst through the outermost gate - but never, never can that
happen - the imperial capital would lie before him, the center of the
world. 107
Who is this dying Emperor - a dying God - and what is his message? The
messenger may be a simple man like Reb Nahman but for Kafka no one can
succeed. As Kafka wrote “What is the Talmud if not a message from the
distance.” 108
Reb Nahman created another tale called A Letter in which “a Prince is
separated from his father, the King. He yearned for reunion with his
father but was too far away. Then one day he received a letter from his
father. Oh, if only I could see my father again he cried. If only I
could touch him. If only He would stretch out his hand to me. I would
gladly take his hand and kiss each finger. Oh, my father, My father! My
light! If only I could touch your hand. . . . a thought came to him. Do
I not have my father’s letter? And is this letter not written by his
hand? And is not the handwriting of the king something akin to his
hand? He treasured and fondled the letter and said happily over and
over again: The handwriting of the king - the hand of the king.” 109
In Kafka’s ‘Imperial message’ the letter cannot be delivered; what is
the content of the message that can not be delivered? In Reb Nahman’s
letter, the son touches the letter, relates it to his loving father,
but we are not told that he read the letter; is the message irrelevant?
Both of these men for whom language and writing is critical to their
lives find their messages cannot be delivered.
Can the Emperor and the King in fact be a God who is inaccessible?
Both of these men saw absolute moral values that did not seem to
operate in the real world. Both were alienated from this world and
despite faith in some absolute did not know how to achieve peace in
this world. Reb Nahman believed in ritual Judaism but it did not make
his life shalom. He suffered greatly but did not as Job achieve an
epiphany with God. Kafka’s finally found some peace with non-ritual and
cultural Judaism as exemplified with Dora Diamond but it was too late
for him; he about to die. Kafka’s believed his tuberculosis which
eventually killed him was due to his morally damaged life. Reb Nahman
believed that his early death (the result of the same disease) was
caused by his attempt to bring the messiah before its time.
Dora perhaps Kafka’s sole intimate woman friend who accompanied in the
last year of his life until his death said of him: "everything was
linked with cosmic causes . . . this kind of attitude, this
insistence on the totality of life, is found in the East. There are
certain spiritual requirements in the East that have to be met if
people are to live fruitful lives. Kafka sensed that. The West
has forgotten it. That is why God has forsaken the West. And that
seems to [be]. . . why we are so interested in Kafka today; because he
knew that God has forsaken us." 110
Reb Nathan described Reb Nahman’s death as follows: "But the true
significance of his death cannot be comprehended at all.
Whosoever understands even a small amount of his greatness from his
works, conversations and tales ... will understand that it is utterly
impossible to speak of such a wondrously unique passing from this
world. What shall I say? How can I speak? What shall I return to God
for being worthy of standing there when his soul departed? If I had
come into the world for this alone... [Dayanu]
... it would have been sufficient." 111
As Kafka lay dying he begged his friend Dr. Klopstock, "’Don't leave
me’." Klopstock replied ‘I am not leaving you’, Kafka then retorted
‘But I am leaving you’."112
When Reb Nahman death became evident his disciples approached him in
despair "what are we going to do without you?" He replied “I am not
leaving you.”113
In the words of Marco Roth Kafka’s parables are self consuming. 114 A
parable according to Kafka is to understand that the incomprehensible
is truly incomprehensible. Reb Nahman said ‘I am a secret, but I
am the kind of secret that remains a secret even after it is revealed.’
115 Both men hid their teachings; Reb Nahman said the world is full of
blind men and when their eyes awake an excess of light would destroy
their new fold vision.
Who were these two men? Both knew they would die young before the Messiah ben David representing a ‘tikkun’ a correction in this world and possible even peace for them. Going to the edge of the void neither could find a middle ground in life and thus had no exit; perhaps their early death’s became inevitable. As a result of their writing centering on their own minds and souls they were ‘riddles without an answer’.
1 Brod, Max, The Biography of Franz Kafka, Seiker and Warburg, London,
1948, pg. 41.
2 The latest Kafka biography ‘Kafka: The Decisive Year’ by Reiner Stach was published on January 1, 2006.
3 Pawel, Ernest, The Judaism of Franz Kafka, Journal of the Kafka Society, Temple University, June 1986, pg. 80.
4 Kafka, Franz, Dearest Father, Stories and Other Writing, Schocken Books, N.Y., 1954, pg. 145.
5 Kafka, F., Letters To Felice, Schocken Books, N.Y., 1973, pg. 545.
6 Felice, pg. 502.
7 The Diaries of Franz Kafka, ed. Max Brod, Volumes I and II, Schocken Books, N.Y., 1965, Vol II, pg. 11.
8 Bloom, Harold ed., Franz Kafka, Chelsea House Publishing, N.Y., 1986 pg. 15-16.
9 Kafka knew of the BeSHT as we see in his Letters to Friends and Editors, Schocken, N,Y., 1977, and knew of Reb Nahman from Martin Buber’s publication’s in 1906. Buber and Kafka were colleagues if not friends.
10 Hartman Geoffrey, and Budick, Sanford, eds., Midrash and Literature, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1986, pg. X.
11 Ernst Pawel, The Judaism of Franz Kafka, Journal of the Kafka Society, December 1986, pg. 82.
12 Robertson, Ritchie, Kafka: Judaism, Politics, and Literature, Clarendon Press, Oxford , 1985, pg. 4.
13 Dearest Father, pg. 77
14 Op cit pg. 79.
15 Op cit pg. 83.
16 W.H. Sokol in Bloom, Kafka, pg. 175
17 Kafka, Franz, Letters to Milena, Schocken Books, N.Y., 1954, pg. 208.
18 Brod, Biography, pg. 91.
19 Milena pg. 208
20 Glatzer, Memory, pg. 34
21 Langer, Jiri, Nine Gates to the Chasidic Mysteries, Jason Aronson, Northvale, N.J., 1961, pg. xvii.
22 Diaries, 14 Sept, 1915, quoted in Robertson, Ritchie, Kafka: Judaism, Politics and Literature, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987, pg. 22.
23 Robertson, Kafka, pgs. 227-272.
24 Glatzer, Nahum, N., Franz Rosensweig; His Life and Thought, Schocken Books, N.Y., 1953, Pg. 160.
25 Robertson, pg. 232.
26 Robertson, pgs. 228-235.
27 Kaplan, Aryeh, Rabbi Nachman’s Stories, Breslov Research Institute, N.Y., 1983, pg. 154-159.
28 Joseph Kanofsky, ‘Kafka, Nahman of Bratslov and the Juaic Lierary Imagination, Symposium, 524, Winter 1999.
29 Glatzer, N.N., Franz Kafka, The Complete Stories, Schocken Books, N.Y., 1946, pg. 419.
30 Stern, D., and Mendes-Flohr, eds., An Arthur Cohen Reader, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1998, pg. 517.
31 So stated Milena Jesenska, a woman friend, in her obituary of Kafka’s death. Memory, pg. 251.
32 Complete Stories, pg. 87.
33 From Kafka’s diary, quoted in Kafka, Franz, Letter to the Father, Vitalis, Prague, 1998, afterward by Thomas Anz, pg. 85.
34 Green, Master, pg.343.
35 ibid.
36 Kafka, Franz, The Complete Stories and Parables, ed. N.N. Glatzer, Forward by Joyce Carol Oates Quality Paperback, N.Y., 1983, Pg. 3.
37 Green, Master, pg. 343.
38 Oates, pg. 3.
39 Green, Master, pg. 343
40 Oates, pg. 3.
41 Felice, pg.311
42 Green, pg. 342.
43 Band, A., The Tales of Nahman of Bratslav, Paulist Press, N.Y., 1978, pg. 31-32.
44 Brod, Biography, pg. 55.
45 Letters to Friends, pg. 335.
46 Glatzer, Complete Stories, P. 87-88.
47 Brod, Biography, pg. 111.
48 Felice, P. 265.
49 Dearest Father, pg. 148.
50 Letters to Friends, pg. 126
51 Ora Wiskind-Elper, Tradition And Fantasy In The Roles Of Reb Nahman Of Bratslav, S.U.N.Y., Albany, 1998, pg. 121.
52 Wiskind-Elper, pg. 120.
53 Erich Heller, The Castle, in Bloom, Kafka, pg. 134.
54 A letter by Kafka quoted by Heller, in Bloom, Kafka, pg. 133.
55 Brod, Biography, pg. 42.
56 Franz Kafka Diaries, ed. Max Brod, One volume edition, Schocken, N.Y., 1964, pg. 407.
57 Dearest Father, pg. 177
58 Brod, pg. 23.
59 Heller, in Bloom, Kafka, pg. 3.
60 Letters to Friends, pg. 102.
61 Memory, pg. 94.
62 Green, pg. 109.
63 Green, pg. 109
64 Complete Stories, pg. 89-139.
65 Greenbaum, Avraham, Under The Table, Tsohar Publishing, Jerusalem, 1991, pg. xvi-xvii.
66 Letter to the Father, pg. 47.
67 Complete Stories, pg. 456
68 Janouch, G., Conversation With Kafka, Praeger, N.Y., 1953, pg. 92.
69 Wisdom, pg. 271.
70 Brod, Biography, pg. 136.
71 Glatzer,Stories, pg. 456.
72 Op cit, pg. 135.
73 Green, pg. 294.
74 Complete Stories, pg. 145.
75 Told as a short story and in the novel The Trial, Complete Stories, pg. 3-4. In the novel the story continues with the discussion of the Priest.
76 Rolleston, J., Ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Trial, Prentice -Hall, Englewood, N.J.. 1976, Article by Ingeborg Henel, The Legend of the Doorkeeper and Its Significance for Kafka’s Trial, pg. 43.
77 Letter to the Father, pg. 14, 19 and 20.
78 Felice, pg. 310.
79 Letters to Friends, pg. 194.
80 Hall, C.S. and Lind, R.E., Dreams, Life and Literature: A Study Of Franz Kafka, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1970, pg. 49.
81 Brod, Biography, pg. 61.
82 Stach, Kafka, Quoted by Robert Alter, The new Republic, The Trials, March 9, 2006
83 Weiss, Joseph, Studies in Eastern European Mystics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985, pg. 265.
84 Glatzer, Complete Stories, pg. 437-438.
85 Green, pg. 111.
86 Green, pg. 119.
87 Green Pg. 110.
88 Green, pg. 109.
89 Green, Master, pg. 198-199.
90 Green, pg. 106.
91 Weiss, pg. 267.
92 Letter to the Father, pg. 53.
93 Glatzer, Complete Stories pg. 462.
94 ibid.
95 Complete Stories, pg. 268-277.
96 Schwartz, Howard, Captive Soul of the Messiah, Cauldron Press, St. Louis, 1979, pg. 54-55.
97 Op cit pg. 432.
98 Kaplan, Tales, pg. 354-438.
99 Brod, Biography, pg. 33.
100 Glatzer, Complete Stories pg. 457.
101 Lauar Quinny in Bloom, Kafka, pg. 221.
102 Green, Master, pg. 115.
103 Green, Master, pg. 245.
104 Brod, Biography, pg. 29-30 and 141.
105 Band, Tales, pg. 155-159
106 Green, pg. 313
107 Complete Stories, pg. 4-5.
108 Quoted in Bloom, Kafka in a letter to Dr. Robert Klopstock, pg. 8.
109 Schwartz, Howard, Gates to the New City, Jason Aronson, Northvale, N.J., 1983, pg. 353.
110 Memory, pg. 239
111 Green, Master, pg. 282.
112 Brod, Biography, pg. 165.
113 Kaplan, Until, pg. 204.
114 Marco Roth in reviewing Reiner Stach’s ‘Kafka: The Decisive Year, N.Y.T. January 1, 2006.
115 Mark Zvi in Jerusalem Post, April 19, 2008.