Narrative techniques in Patai’s Souls and Secrets

The most of the stories in Patai’s Souls and Secrets have a linear and direct storyline which deals with one event and in accordance with literary sources the stories could be considered as anecdotes elaborated into a novella form. In a smaller group of six texts one can find a more complex narrative form which couples several anecdotic stories by using mise en abyme narratives in the framework of the main narrative. In the stories A nótás szent (The Saint Who Loved to Sing) and Az újhelyi

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messiásváró (The Tzaddik Who Craved teh Messiah), (Velvele of Zbaraz) the portrait of tsaddik is depicted through inserted anecdotic narratives. In A furulyás ima (The Prayer of the Flute) and Mese a meséről (Story about the Story) the leading narrative could be considered as an explanation of two central Hasidic topics, the nature of prayer and storytelling. In both of these the narrator is the author’s master, Reb Shaye (Sáje) who teaches his students not only using abstract ideas, but also by storytelling, which is a very characteristic teaching technique of Hasidism.

Although Reb Shaye usually tells anecdotic stories, in three other stories the author uses a somewhat similar teaching technique typical for Hasidic preaching in which the explanation is not put under a veil of an anecdote, but into a form of an allegorical parable. This distinction can be defined by Gedalyah Nigals remarks: “while the parable centres on and in defined by its message, the Hasidic tale has an existence independent of its message since the religious and ethical conclusions are not made explicit but rather left to the understanding of the individual listener.”³⁹ In both short stories where parables are inserted (two of them in A nagy pör – The Great Conflict, one in Volt egyszer egy kutya – There Was Once a Dog) into the sermon in which the speaker (the rabbi), by using allegorical language, reflects the present situation and through his teaching he brings reconciliation to his community.

a. [Excursus: Narrative levels of Story about the Story – a case study]

The most interesting case of using narrative techniques is Story about the Story, where the narrator starts with describing his own youth and his experiences during two years of study with his master, his teaching methods while also adding some

39 Nigal, The Hasidic Tale, p. 8.

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examples and anecdotes as illustrations. The leitmotif of extradiegetic narrative in Story about the Story is the topic of storytelling, in which the narrator makes a remark about the occasion of the feast of third Shabbat meal spent among his students, after which (in a typical Hasidic way) Reb Shaye tells his stories after each zmirot (Shabbat song). The occasion when no story comes to mind to Reb Shaye is a starting point for telling the tale about the Forgotten Tale, which is the adaptation of a well-known Hasidic story.⁴⁰ The cunning of the change of narrative into metadiegetic narration is revealed by an elaborated inherited narrative also containing metadiegetic storytelling. Reb Shaye couldn’t remember any tale like in the case of Reb Avrumele, the wandering storyteller, who recounts stories about his master Baal Shem after his death. During the entire length of Shabbat in a house of a pious man, Reb Zhishe in the town of ‘Kaszov’ he (magically) couldn’t remember any story from his wide repertoire. In last moment before leaving he tells a strange story about a Christian priest (who was as we find out later of Jewish origin denied by him) and Baal Shem in a strange town, where he saved the Jewish community from pogrom. But nobody knows what Baal Shem told the priest, who agitated citizens against Jews. “Don’t question anything. Once you will get to know everything.” – Baal Shem said.⁴¹ The mystery and the end of the story is unveiled by narration of the pious man, Reb Zhishe, who, as we find out, was a priest in the story told by Arumele. After the meeting with Baal Shem, from who he found

40 The earliest Hasidic printed book, Shivhei ha-Besht does not contain the story, which can be later developed. For a version of this story see: Sharon Barcan Elswit, The Jewish Story Finder: A Guide to 668 Tales Listing Subjects and Sources, North Carolina and London:

McFarland & Company Jefferson, 2014, second edition, pp. 116-117.

41 „ – Ne kérdezz semmit. Majd egykor meg fogsz tudni mindent!...”

Patai, Lelkek és titkok, p. 115.

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out that his parents were Jews and he was forced to convert in early age (quite similar motive to Majerl [Mayerl] and A lembergi titok [The Secret of Lemberg] in Szabolcsi’s collection) he repented his sins and became a pious Jew. The remembering of the story and a completion of narrative is a sign of mercy: “Because the tzaddik said, that my sins will be forgiven when I will hear my story from another man.”⁴² The act of redemption in this healing story is an example of one of the fundamental Hasidic teachings inherited from Lurianic Kabbalah, the Tikkun, in our case fulfilled by storytelling. The matrioshka-like structure of metanarrative framings can be put into a scheme (Fig. 3):

As could be seen, the narrative turn between the intradiegetic and metadiegetic level of narration results in an important religious act. At the end of the story, narration returns to the first level, i.e. the extradiegetic narrator’s speech about Reb Shaye, which makes the narrative turn between intradiegetic and extradiegetic level strongly linked by use of another Hasidic principle, a teaching about gilgul

42 „Mert a caddik megmondotta, hogy ha hallani fogom mástól az én történetemet, jele lesz annak, hogy bűnöm meg van bocsátva…” Ibid.

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(transmigration of souls): “And we felt as if inside Reb Shaye lives the soul of Avrumele, the master of the tales, and we could be grandchildren of Reb Zhishe, and we had to hear this tale at the last moment, because of the heavenly purification of the soul of our grandfather.”⁴³

This statement proves that as in between the metadiegetic and intradiegetic narration the borders of narrative levels are crossed (the priest from the story about Baal Shem is the same person as Reb Zhishe), also the border of intradiegetic and extradiegetic narrative are crossed – however in a more abstract manner. For that reason, both cases could be defined as an occurrence of metalepsis. The author’s idea about the transmigration of souls of characters present in narrative levels suggests to the reader to interpret the phenomenon of metalepsis not only as a literary narrative-structure or as a product of a performative event of storytelling, but also as an example of gilgul, that is to say the mysterious transmigration of stories. The main topic of the short story is an explanation of the role of storytelling which represents the act of Tikkun as well as the act of passing down the tradition in which this text, now read by the reader, constitutes the last link of its chain – however the medium of storytelling is changed from orality to printed text of a book.