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“the Hillel rabbi” at Yale, was an eager par-ticipant in my search for sources. Parts of the manuscript were read by Robert Alter, Carol Cosman, and Michal Govrin; Esther Fuchs carefully read the entire book. All of them contributed helpful sug-gestions and comments. And, as always, Benjamin Harshav makes it all possible.
    I attempted to discover allusions in the text to sources in the “Jewish library,” and to track down their accepted English translations. In only one instance did I deliberately deviate from the original: in Book Four, Chapter One, the author presents an elaborate wordplay using biblical and talmudic passages to interpret the dream of a Hasid. Agnon used Deuteronomy 32:42 and Shabbat 12, while I used Exodus 6:1 and Miqvaot 5:5 to achieve the same effect. If there is some other world, where translators can discuss “deviations” with authors, I hope Agnon will understand.
    Barbara Harshav
    s e p t e m b e r 1 9 9 9

    I xxxi

    N L Y Y E S T E R D A Y

I
    Like all our brethren of the Second Aliya, the bearers of our Salvation, Isaac Kumer left his country and his homeland and his city and ascended to the Land of Israel to build it from its destruction and to be rebuilt by it. From the day our comrade Isaac knew his mind, not a day went by that he didn’t think about it. A blessed dwelling place was his image of the whole Land of Israel and its inhabitants blessed by God. Its villages hidden in the shade of vineyards and olive groves, the fields enveloped in grains and the orchard trees crowned with fruit, the valleys yielding flowers and the forest trees swaying; the whole firmament is sky blue and all the houses are filled with rejoicing. By day they plow and sow and plant and reap and gather and pick, threshing wheat and pressing wine, and at eventide they sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, his wife and his sons and daughters sitting with him, happy at their work and rejoicing in their sitting, and they reminisce about the days of yore Outside the Land, like people who in happy times recall days of woe, and enjoy the good twice over. A man of imagination was Isaac, what his heart desired, his imagination would conjure up for him.
    The days of his youth departed in his yearning for the Land of Israel. Some of Isaac’s friends had already taken wives and opened shops for themselves, and they’re distinguished in the eyes of folks and are invited to all public events. When they enter the bank, the clerk sits them down on a chair; when they come to a government office, the dignitaries return their greetings. And others of Isaac’s friends are at the university studying all manner of wisdom that sustains those who possess it and magnifies their honor. While Isaac

    I 3
    shortens his life and spends his days and his years selling Shekels to vote for the Zionist organization and selling stamps of the Jewish National Fund. His father wished to extricate him from his folly and set him up in a shop so he would be occupied in trade and become a man, but as soon as he entered the shop, the whole shop turned into a branch of Zionism. Anyone who didn’t know what to do with himself went there. There were those who came to talk and those who came to listen, and those who just came and stood leaning on their walking stick and chomping on their beard, and the customers were dwindling and dropping away to other shops.
    Even though there is a Society of Zion in the city, the talk-ers were fond of that store, because at the Society, you have to pay monthly dues, while here you entered and didn’t pay. At the Society, everyone who comes in is dubbed a Zionist, and not everybody wants to be known as a Zionist, while here you were entitled to split hairs about Zionism to your heart’s content and nobody called you a Zionist. And why are they afraid to be counted among the Zionists? Because the Sages of the Generation did not yet grant their seal of approval to Zionism and were hostile to the