In 1960, the great Yiddish writer I.B. Singer published a short story, “Mishnayes,” about an aging and devout Polish Jew living in a house with his radicalized and secularized grandchildren. The story, originally appearing in the journal Di Goldene Keyt, was included in Singer’s Yiddish collection Gimple Tam, and was even translated (by Moshe Spiegel) during Singer’s lifetime under the title “The Gift of the Mishnah,” but it never saw publication in English. It has now been prepared for publication by David Stromberg, a Jerusalem-based writer, who contributes an essay on Singer running alongside:
Dusk was setting in. The frost-patterned window-panes reflected the twilight. The young men and women moved about like shadows, their lit cigarettes glowing in the dark like fiery signals. Reb Israel was overcome by lassitude. He struggled against sinking to the depths from which there might be no return, came to with a start, and found that the lamp had been lit. He tried to resume his studies, but in the dim illumination, the words of the tractate were blurred. Reb Israel kept an oil lamp handy, but his granddaughter had forgotten to refill its oil and to clean the sooty chimney. This had not been—God forbid—intentional on her part. She was simply absorbed in her dreams of the Revolution. Like bees around honey, the young fellows hovered about his short, stocky granddaughter with her beaming face and cropped hair. This way she could dominate her admirers, and preach to them, exhorting them to rally to the cause. His grandchildren were astute, Reb Israel reflected, there was no denying that fact. It was too bad that, instead of dedicating themselves to the study of Jewish scripture, they wasted their time on such affairs. . . .
A vision of the Holy Land now flitted across his mind. He envisioned the Temple, the court, the altar, the chambers, the sheep and oxen, the acolytes. He was unsure whether all these were a figment of his imagination or if he had seen them in a dream. He visualized knolls, edifices, narrow streets, flat roofs, pillars of dust, a setting sun. Oxen bellowed, sheep bleated. As a barefooted, long-haired prophet passed by, he was approached by young women wearing shawls, armbands, clasps and buckles. But now everything was desolate. Foxes roamed over the chalk stone earth. The sages, in their white gabardines, had retreated to caves, where they were being tried in the crucible, sustaining themselves on bread and water, or on a measure of carobs, as Reb Hanina ben Dosia had done. He, Reb Israel, had always yearned to go to Palestine and see those caves. . . .
Read more on Tablet: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/241008/isaac-bashevis-singer-gift-of-the-mishnah