Only Yesterday: Tragic Endings and Enigmatic Epilogues

S.Y. Agnon’s “Only Yesterday” leads its reader through hundreds of pages of plot, only to arrive at a tragic ending. As in so much of Agnon’s work, the novel presents a cunningly intricate study of the multifarious ways in which the past inevitably exerts its pull over the present and the future. Ultimately, it is a cautionary tale about the loss of balance in one young man and its possible loss in an entire people at a pivotal point in the Jewish return to the Land of Israel. The various readings of the novel’s epilogue and the fate of tis characters will help us look back over the sprawling work to consider its message and meaning for our own time.

Rabbi Jeffrey Saks is Director of Research at Agnon House.
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