The Life of Sarah...The Death of Pearl
There's a poem I've been reading recently, a long form epic poem originally written in Yiddish, about a Jewish blacksmith who settles down in rural Kentucky, in the mid-19th century. It's part of a project called 72 Miles, which I'm about to release, but this week I couldn't get away from a scene in the story that seems ripped from the headlines of this week's Torah portion, Chayei Sarah — The Life of Sarah.
Go deeper with my sources for this episode on Sefaria
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There’s a poem I’ve been reading lately. A really long poem, originally written in Yiddish by the now largely unknown author I.J. Schwartz, about a Jewish blacksmith who makes his home in Kentucky, in the 19th century.
Between 1918 and 1922, Israel Jacob Schwartz was living in Lexington, KY while trying to set up a millinery shop, making hats for the fine southern men and ladies. It wasn’t going that well, but at the same time he was working on a new project, an epic poem about his newly adopted country, about the land and the people that surrounded him in central Kentucky.
Born in 1885, I.J. Schwartz was the second son of a prominent rabbi in Kovno, Lithuania. He was highly educated, and in 1906 he immigrated to New York City to attend high school. By the time he moved to Lexington he was already a relatively famous Yiddish poet. He published Yiddish translations of great English language works including works by Milton, Whitman, and Shakespeare. And shortly after moving to Lexington he began work on what would become his greatest work, a collection of poems he titled Kentucky that, at its core contains a long form epic poem titled New Earth. It tells the life story of Josh, a Lithuanian Jew, newly arrived in Kentucky with his wife Sarah and son Yankele, who soon adopts the Americanized version of his name, Jake. The poem, and the larger collection, sat on a shelf for years, until it was lovingly translated by Gertrude Dubrovsky, z”l, in partnership with Schwartz himself, shortly before his death in 1971.
It’s a long story, far too long to share here, and it’s packed with references to iconic Jewish stories and experiences, like the death of Sarah in this week’s Torah portion. Of course, in Kentoki it’s not Josh’s wife that dies, but his young child, his first daughter, Pearl, who struggles to make it through her first 19th century winter in rural Kentucky.
The father put on his best garment,
Washed his contoured face,
And slowly let himself out the door.
He came back alter with two or three old respected neighbors.
The little body had alreadyy been washed
And wrapped in white sheets.
Burning candles were at its head.
The mother stood silently,
In a fit of mute sorrow,
Clutching at her swollen belly,
Her whole body trembling.
Overnight, the little devil Jake
Became the old Yankele again,
The poor little boy from the small Jewish town,
His face pale, pinched, and drawn.
He recited Psalms through choking tears.
His little voice trembled shook
In a heart-breaking lament and prayer.
When the neighbors came into the stifling air of the house of death,
Heavy dread engulfed them.
Looking down threateningly
From the moist winter wall
Were the gray beards and strange stern eyes.
The silent, stiff, pain contorted body
And Jakey’s small voice int he strange song
Caused great fear
Among the guests. The tall Jew
Suddenly became foreign and distant
He was not at all the same man who dealt in scrap.
He was stern, like the pictures on the wall,
With fixed, dry, red eyes.
Unconsciously the neighbors’ hands lifted to make the sign of the cross.
For most of the story, Schwartz takes care to show how hard Josh works to earn the trust and respect of his neighbors. Without overtly referencing the rampant anti-Semitism of Eastern Europe, Schwartz depicts Josh as always smiling, winking, making his way kindly through every interaction, even before he’d learned English properly. But here, in the face of grief, Schwartz breaks his own character back down, pointing out all the details about Schwartz, his family, their home, and their bodies that make them different from their neighbors. It’s here, that Schwartz models the story of Abraham and Sarah that we read this week.
Genesis 23:1-4
Sarah’s lifetime—the span of Sarah’s life—came to one hundred and twenty-seven years. Sarah died in Kiriath-arba—now Hebron—in the land of Canaan; and Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her. Then Abraham rose from beside his dead, and spoke to the Hittites, saying, “I am a resident alien among you; sell me a burial site among you, that I may remove my dead for burial.”
Abraham isn’t actually new to the community at this point. He’s been living there for a while, like the fictional Josh in 19th century Kentucky, but this is the first death his family has experienced in that time, the first moment of rawness for his neighbors to witness.
Rabbi David Kimhi, better known as the Radak, a French commentator from the late 12th and early 13th century, expands on Abraham’s request, in first-person assuming Abraham’s own voice, in his writings on Genesis.
I describe myself first and foremost as a stranger, seeing that I have come from another country. Yet I also describe myself as a resident, seeing that I have lived among you for many years and I intend to continue to remain among you. This is why I am asking you to give me some place within your country as an inalienable place to be mine and my son’s after me. At the moment I ask for only enough to bury my dead.
Radak emphasizes not only Abraham’s long time residence, but also his intent to remain in the land for generations to come, which is why it’s so important to Abraham to acquire a parcel of land for Sarah’s burial, and for his own in time, and Isaac’s, and Rebekah’s even though we haven’t met yet, and so on for eternity. At least that was the plan.
As for Josh, well the request he makes of his neighbors is taken, almost word for word, from this week’s Torah portion.
The Jew began to speak quietly,
In a voice hoarse with sorrow,
His pale lips scarcely moving.
His eyes pained and despairing.
His black chapped fingers
Pointed in the air and
Towards the corner where the pale child
Was lying, laid out on white benches.
The yellow light made a circle
Around the small head.
“My dead child lies before you. I look for a place
To bury my baby, my little one.
I am a stranger here among you.
May God help you you have till now
Been of help to me in my need.
Show your mercy to my dead one too.
Grant me a grave for my child.”
And his words with they
Trembling sounds touched all hearts;
Someone wiped a fresh tear,
And another kept groping
In his tobacco pouch
With thick heavy fingers
Searching, searching for what he could not find,
His eyes buried deep in the pouch.
For a while all was quiet and dead.
They heard the flickering of the death-candles.,
The Jew with his hands spread in the air,
His head raised,
His eyes red.
The neighbors, their white heads bare,
Bowed in the face of death.
And then the eldest of the neighbors
Stepped forward, stopped,
And in a quiet voice answered softly:
“The cemetery is open to you.
Choose a place there among the rows,
And dig a grave for your dead child.”
In Schwartz’s poem, the neighbors take the place of the Hittites in this week’s Torah portion, with the eldest neighbor playing the role of Ephron, while Josh acts out Abraham’s part.
Genesis 23:5-11
And the Hittites replied to Abraham, saying to him, “Hear us, my lord: you are the elect of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places; none of us will withhold his burial place from you for burying your dead.”
Thereupon Abraham bowed low to the landowning citizens, the Hittites, and he said to them, “If it is your wish that I remove my dead for burial, you must agree to intercede for me with Ephron son of Zohar. Let him sell me the cave of Machpelah that he owns, which is at the edge of his land. Let him sell it to me, at the full price, for a burial site in your midst.”
Ephron was present among the Hittites; so Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, the assembly in his town’s gate,*the assembly in his town’s gate Lit. “all who entered the gate of his town.” So NJPS, with a note: “I.e., all his fellow townsmen.” saying, “No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field and I give you the cave that is in it; I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead.”
The Jew bowed humbly,
His face expressed thankfulness,
And quietly he spoke again:
“Yes, one last wish. Like draw to like.
When my last house strikes
I would like my body to rest
Among my own, my flesh and blood;
Our faiths are different.
Yet we are all dust from the same dust,
And we all serve the same God.
And God will reward you for the favor.
I ask a separate piece of ground
To start my own cemetery;
And if I am destined to live
I will repay this enormous debt.”
Tears streamed from his pained eyes,
Running into the creases of his lips,
Losing themselves in the deep hair of his bear.
So Abraham accepts Ephron’s terms, and he buries Sarah in the Cave of Machpelah. “Thus the field with its cave passed from the Hittites to Abraham, as a burial site. Thus ends the story of Sarah, before the Torah continues its tale, with the story of Isaac meeting Rebekah at the well, of Abraham’s second marriage, and ending this week’s parsha with the death of our first patriarch.
As for the fictional Josh, his story goes on for decades after the death of his daughter, Pearl. You can read the rest in Schwartz’s novel, there’s a link in the show notes. But this section, the story of Pearl, and one hard winter in rural Kentoki, ends like this:
After he had chopped the little grave
Through heavy ice and frozen earth
In a remote rise of the field,
The well of tears dried up.
His eyes took on
Again the dry, sharp lustre
When he lowered the child
Into the yellow pit,
And the first hard clods
Feel on the white boards,
A frozen, muffled sound
In the cold white stillness,
Only then did his wife find a voice.
Bent over the grave, she shook
With every new shovel of dirt.
Her fountain of tears opened
And her frozen voice broke through,
Forcing itself tearfully into the grave.
She vegged the child’s forgiveness
And struck herself on the chest.
The words poured from her heart,
“Run, my child, run,
And intercede in our behalf before the Holy Matriarchs.
Tell them of our hard bitter life,And beg them to intercede for us;
That Yankee should grow up to be a good Jew,
That your father and your mother should
Not know sorrow and misfortune anymore.”
The grave kept filling up,
It was filled to the white edge.
The alien field stretched
White and quiet, bedded in snow:
Small white hills here and there,
Glassy crosses for headstones,
And fir trees that reflect
Coldness with their deep green and snow.
Over the white hills and blue valleys,
Over green frozen lakes,
Near yet far, a winter sky,
Hung quietly, trustfully,
A cold even sun
Cast pink signs up on the snow
From blue strips beneath white clouds.
And with that, I wish you Shabbat shalom. Thanks for listening.
