POINT OF VIEW
The Spirituality Of Heritage
In the history of old Jewish literature there was never any
basic difference between the poet and the prophet. Our ancient
poetry often became law and a way of life.
Some of my cronies in the cafeteria near the Jewish Daily Forward
in New York call me a pessimist and a decadent, but there is
always a background of faith behind resignation. I found comfort
in such pessimists and decadents as Baudelaire, Verlaine, Edgar
Allan Poe, and Strindberg. My interest in psychic research made
me find solace in such mystics as your Swedenborg and in our
own Rabbi Nachman Bratzlaver, as well as in a great poet of
my time, my friend Aaron Zeitlin who died a few years ago and
left a literary inheritance of high quality, most of it in Yiddish.
The pessimism of the creative person is not decadence but a
mighty passion for the redemption of man. While the poet entertains
he continues to search for eternal truths, for the essence of
being. In his own fashion he tries to solve the riddle of time
and change, to find an answer to suffering, to reveal love in
the very abyss of cruelty and injustice. Strange as these words
may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social
theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in
utter gloom, the poet - whom Plato banned from his Republic
- may rise up to save us all.
The high honor bestowed upon me by the Swedish Academy is also
a recognition of the Yiddish language - a language of exile,
without a land, without frontiers, not supported by any government,
a language which possesses no words for weapons, ammunition,
military exercises, war tactics; a language that was despised
by both gentiles and emancipated Jews. The truth is that what
the great religions preached, the Yiddish-speaking people of
the ghettos practiced day in and day out. They were the people
of The Book in the truest sense of the word. They knew of no
greater joy than the study of man and human relations, which
they called Torah, Talmud, Mussar, Cabala. The ghetto was not
only a place of refuge for a persecuted minority but a great
experiment in peace, in self-discipline and in humanism. As
such it still exists and refuses to give up in spite of all
the brutality that surrounds it. I was brought up among those
people. My father‚s home on Krochmalna Street in Warsaw
was a study house, a court of justice, a house of prayer, of
storytelling, as well as a place for weddings and Chassidic
banquets. As a child I had heard from my older brother and master,
I. J. Singer, who later wrote The Brothers Ashkenazi, all the
arguments that the rationalists from Spinoza to Max Nordau brought
out against religion. I have heard from my father and mother
all the answers that faith in God could offer to those who doubt
and search for the truth. In our home and in many other homes
the eternal questions were more actual than the latest news
in the Yiddish newspaper. In spite of all the disenchantments
and all my skepticism I believe that the nations can learn much
from those Jews, their way of thinking, their way of bringing
up children, their finding happiness where others see nothing
but misery and humiliation. To me the Yiddish language and the
conduct of those who spoke it are identical. One can find in
the Yiddish tongue and in the Yiddish spirit expressions of
pious joy, lust for life, longing for the Messiah, patience
and deep appreciation of human individuality. There is a quiet
humor in Yiddish and a gratitude for every day of life, every
crumb of success, each encounter of love. The Yiddish mentality
is not haughty. It does not take victory for granted. It does
not demand and command but it muddles through, sneaks by, smuggles
itself amidst the powers of destruction, knowing somewhere that
God‚s plan for Creation is still at the very beginning.
There are some who call Yiddish a dead language,
but so was Hebrew called for two thousand years. It has been
revived in our time in a most remarkable, almost miraculous
way. Aramaic was certainly a dead language for centuries but
then it brought to light the Zohar, a work of mysticism of sublime
value. It is a fact that the classics of Yiddish literature
are also the classics of the modern Hebrew literature. Yiddish
has not yet said its last word. It contains treasures that have
not been revealed to the eyes of the world. It was the tongue
of martyrs and saints, of dreamers and Cabalists - rich in humor
and in memories that mankind may never forget. In a figurative
way, Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the
idiom of frightened and hopeful Humanity.
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Nobel Prize Speech
December 8, 1978
