Only Yesterday: Beware of Dog!

In the background of Agnon’s “Only Yesterday” and its dialectical struggles, played out over the novel’s variety of settings, wide-ranging cast of characters, and dozens of brilliantly rendered episodes, stands the dog Balak—the novel’s perfect supporting actor. Balak has led generations of critics—as if pulled along at the end of a leash—to one interpretation after another of his symbolic significance. Most sees Balak as a kind of dark alter ego to the novel’s protagonist, Yitzhak Kumer, with the dog’s pursuit of the young man intensified after Yitzhak returns to traditional observance and weds the pious Shifra. Chained to Yitzhak like the rabid dog he has become, Balak delivers the fatal bite.

Rabbi Jeffrey Saks is Director of Research at Agnon House.
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