JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

ialik, Ḥayyim naḤman
is primary – the external manifestation, or the inner conception
of the soul (of art). This was Bialik’s most prolific period
and “Ha-Berekhah” was followed by his most enigmatic and
experimental work, “Megillat ha-Esh” (“The Scroll of Fire,”
1905). The work is a prose poem which fuses elements drawn
from Jewish legend (aggadah) and Jewish mysticism. Its overt
theme is the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem,
and the exile which followed. The destruction of the Temple
appears to represent the destruction of the poet’s soul on
one level and that of the religious faith of an entire generation
on the other. The youths, marooned on the island, as they
are transported into exile may symbolize spiritual isolation;
at the same time the two youths represent the struggle between
faith and despair which is the poem’s central theme. The
chosen youth himself is caught between the call to preserve
the last spark of redemption and the lure of eros, the girl.
Torch in hand, he moves toward the girl and plunges into
the abyss.
Silence
After “Megillat ha-Esh” Bialik fell into a period of silence, writing
few poems and becoming occupied with manifold cultural
activities: public lectures, essays, criticism, translating,
and editing. The growing tension and the stark dichotomies
in his poetry point to an inner crisis; the lonely poet can no
longer find solace either in his individual talent or in his God.
The radical split of personality in the autobiographical prose
poem “Safi’aḥ” (1908), in which the child’s inner self is abandoned
by its double, who accompanies the crowd, marks the
farthest development of Bialik’s ambivalent attitude to tradition
and religion. Baruch Kurzweil has shown that the change
in the motif of return in “Lifnei Aron ha-Sefarim” (“Before
the Book Case,” 1910) marks a turning point in Bialik’s poetry.
The poet desperately realizes that his attempt to return
and to repent fails because there is no one to return to, and
no condition of dialogue with God or the world. The flame of
the study candle has died, the people’s past is a graveyard that
offers nothing, and the returning son, despairing, welcomes
death and departs. Bialik’s poetry now becomes acutely personal.
The poet, sensing his strangeness in the world, retreats
and longs for death. Having lost the purity of childhood and
the grace of the chosen, he is preoccupied with death – a broken,
useless twig, dangling from its branch (“Ẓanaḥ lo Zalzal”
(“A Twig Fell”), 1911). Before his death Bialik wrote the cycle
“Yatmut” (“Orphanhood” poems, c. 1933) in which the existential
predicament is fused with the poignancy of his own
orphaned childhood.
Berlin and Palestine
Bialik lived in Odessa until 1921 when Maxim Gorki interceded
with the Soviet government to permit a group of Hebrew
writers to leave the country. Bialik went to Berlin, which
had become a center of Jewish émigré writers, engaging in
publishing and editing, until he settled in Tel Aviv in Palestine
in 1924 where he spent the rest of his life. He died in Vienna
where he had gone for medical treatment.
Essays
A series of essays written between the years 1907 and 1917 secures
Bialik’s place as a distinguished essayist. In it he charts
the course of modern Jewish culture: the state of Hebrew literature,
the condition of Hebrew journalism, the development
of language and style, the existential function of language, and
the role of authority in culture. “Ha-Sefer ha-Ivri” (“On the
Hebrew Book,” 1913) propounds his basic idea of selecting and
collecting the best of classic Jewish literature.
Cultural Role
After 1905, he became more active in public affairs, devoting
his abundant vigor, vision, and charm to the preservation and
advancement of Jewish culture. He participated in Zionist
Congresses (1907, 1913, 1921, and 1931) and the Congress for
Hebrew Language and Culture (1913). His cultural missions
took him to the United States (1926) and to London (1931).
From 1928 on, ill health forced him to spend his summers in
Europe and these trips became occasions for the promotion
of Jewish culture. He was active in the work of the Hebrew
University, served as president of the Hebrew Writers Union
and of the Hebrew Language Council, and initiated the popular
Oneg Shabbat, a Sabbath study project.
Editor and Translator
Bialik was the literary editor of several periodicals, Ha-
Shilo’aḥ (1904–09), Keneset (1917), and Reshumot (1918–22),
and he founded Moznayim in Palestine (1929). Together with
Rawnitzki he compiled a selection of rabbinic lore, Sefer ha-
Aggadah (1908–11) and the collected works of the medieval poets
Solomon ibn *Gabirol (1924) and Moses *Ibn Ezra (1928).
In 1932 he published a commentary to the first order of the
Mishnah. His masterful translations of Don Quixote (1912) and
Wilhelm Tell (1923) are an integral part of his work. After his
death some of Bialik’s lectures and addresses were collected in
Devarim she-be-Al Peh (2 vols., 1935) and part of his huge correspondence
was published in Iggerot (5 vols. 1938–39).
For English translations of his work see Goell, Bibliography,
index.
[Samuel Leiter]
Evaluation
Bialik’s literary career is a watershed in modern Hebrew literature;
when he arrived on the scene, Hebrew poetry was
provincial and by and large imitative. It could not free itself
of the overwhelming biblical influence which had dominated
it for centuries and, except for the poetry of a few, the stylized
florid biblical meliẓah (ornate phrase) had a stifling effect on
the creativity of the Haskalah poets. At the same time most of
these poets slavishly imitated in subject and in genre the European
models – mainly German romantic poetry. Bialik, who
more than any other Hebrew poet since *Judah Halevi had a
thorough command of Hebrew and the ability to use the many
resources of the language, forged a new poetic idiom which
enabled Hebrew poetry to free itself from the overwhelming
biblical influence and yet, at the same time, retain its link
with “the language of the race.” While his Hebrew remained
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