{"id":67131,"date":"2019-12-17T16:23:29","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T14:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=67131"},"modified":"2023-07-14T15:25:05","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T12:25:05","slug":"and-the-crooked-shall-be-made-straight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/and-the-crooked-shall-be-made-straight\/","title":{"rendered":"And The Crooked Shall Be Made Straight"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[841,373],"acf":{"old_id":"67131","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":42746,"related_cahpter":"374","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Agnon\u2019s imaginative, provocative and paradoxical use of a famous verse","content":"

In 1911 a young 24 years old author, sat for four intensive days in his apartment in Neve Tzedek, the first neighborhood outside of Jaffa, producing a riveting novel. The writer, who decades later, in 1966, received the Nobel Prize for Literature, used a verse from today\u2019s chapter to name his book \u201c<\/span>V<\/span><\/i>ehaya Ha\u2019akov Lemishor<\/span><\/em>\u201d, loosely translated as \u201cthe crooked becomes straight\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The complex, \u201ccrooked\u201d story follows a childless couple who initially, have everything (except a child), lose their fortune, and the husband, Menashe-Chayim, leaves home to wander as a beggar collecting funds. When he finally decides he has enough money to get back home, another beggar requests his greatest treasure: not the hard-earned money but a recommendation letter the rabbi wrote for him, encouraging people to give him tzedakah. Menashe-Chayim agrees, sells the letter and buys goods to trade and sell back home. But in an inn along the way, he drinks a bit too much, and upon waking up discovers that his pack with his tefillin and money is all gone. Nevertheless, he gathers his strength and heads home.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the beggar with the sought-after letter is not so lucky and dies penniless. The shocked community decides to organize for him a respectful funeral. That\u2019s when they find the letter and send a message to Menashe-Chayim\u2019s town, notifying of his death. After some halachic debate, the rabbi allows Menashe-Chayim\u2019s wife to remarry, soon to have a child with her new husband.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s, of course, when Menashe-Chayim returns to town. Since he is dead, no one recognizes him. Then he learns that his beloved wife is married and a mom. He decides not to say anything not to interrupt his wife\u2019s newly found happiness and cause the child to be marked as a <\/span>mamzer<\/span><\/i>. Although a Cohen, he opts to spend the rest of his life in the cemetery, telling no one about this saga except for the cemetery\u2019s guard. After his death, the guard moves the nameplate from the misnamed beggar to Menashe-Chayim\u2019s actual burial place.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most readers are left with wonderment: This is the end?? This is how \u201cthe crooked becomes straight\u201d?? What about the usual happily ever-after we\u2019ve become accustomed to?? But maybe Shai Agnon, the author of this fantastical tale, says exactly that. Borrowing a verse from the first chapter of Isaiah\u2019s consolations, which hints at Jacob\u2019s \u201ccrooked\u201d journey through the use of the term <\/span>akov (Ya\u2019akov<\/span><\/em>) becomes <\/span>yashar (Yisrae\u2019l<\/span><\/em>) he reminds us, with a gentle smile, that while we are promised that \u201call will be well in the end\u201d, the journey is likely to be more complex and full of surprises, and that \u201cending well\u201d might not look quite like anything we expected or could imagine.<\/span><\/p>\n

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