R. Jeffrey Saks — S.Y. Agnon’s Second Aliya 100 Years Later

100 Years Later After the fire which destroyed his home and library in Germany, S.Y. Agnon returned to Jerusalem following Sukkot 1924, right as the rainy season begins. This “second Aliya” (following his first arrival in 1908) set into motion a major new phase of his writing career and his return to traditional religious observance. “Tehilla,” one of his most beloved stories, is set exactly at the moment of his return, depicting an autobiographical projection of a first- person narrator, a mid-life author arriving in Jerusalem after years abroad, and his search for something of the old world (and Old City) he finds in that righteous title character—and his quest to find a way to have the old tradition take on meaning in the new world then forming in the Land of Israel. These themes in his writing and biography will be explored in an English talk with Jeffrey Saks on Zoom. “Tehilla” can be found in English in “Two Scholars Who Were in Our Town & Other Novellas” (Toby Press), and in Hebrew in “Ad Henah” (Schocken). Thursday, October 31 at 7:00 PM (Jerusalem time) = 1:00 PM (ET) Rabbi Jeffrey Saks is Director of Research at Agnon House. Some days later I went again to the City, this time to visit the aged widow of a rabbi; for I had promised her grandson before my return that I would visit her. That day marked the beginning of the rainy season. Already the rain was falling, and the sun was obscured by clouds. In other lands this would have seemed like a normal day of spring; but here in Jerusalem, which is pampered with constant sunshine through seven or eight months of the year, we think it is winter should the sun once fail to shine with all its might, and we hide ourselves in houses and courtyards, or in any place that affords a sheltering roof. I walked alone and free, smelling the good smell of the rains as they fell exultantly, wrapping themselves in mist, and heightening the tints of the stones, and beating at the walls of houses, and dancing on roofs, and making great puddles beneath, that were sometimes murky and sometimes gleamed in the sunbeams that intermittently broke through the clouds to view the work of the waters. For in Jerusalem even on a rainy day the sun yet seeks to perform its task—(S.Y. Agnon, “Tehilla”).

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