Shaul Tchernichovsky’s first idyll, Boiled Dumplings (Levivot Mevushalot), was composed in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1902 and has been celebrated for its coherence, vibrancy, bittersweet humor, and multiplex form, as well as for its engagement with weighty matters significant at the time of its writing.
Set among the pastoral fields of Ukraine, it opens with a lyrical description of a bright spring morning as the sun breaks through, the lark awakes, and Gittel, the old rabbi’s widow, rises from her warm bed. It is as if the universe, enveloped by a “dreamy calm,” has risen and is stunned by the splendor of the world: “It seemed as if the universe greeted her now with a charming smile / As if everything was glad, rejoicing at life’s abundant beauty.”
Gittel recites the morning prayer, observes the cat licking the milk, and descends to the basement to fetch the cheese and jugs of buttermilk essential for the dumplings she intends to make. Before long, this tranquil atmosphere is shattered with the appearance of the gentile Domaha, who hints at the crumbling of the old world and the emergence of a new order that the two women struggle to understand.
Domaha, who laments the disintegration of Christianity (“. . . faith has disappeared in the people. / Who comes to the monastery service / Two old men, three old women, while they are still alive . . . ?”), empathizes with Gittel’s grief over the dwindling of the Jewish generation. Domaha remarks that the Jews of the day are heretics, eating pigs, smoking on the Sabbath—in sharp contrast to when she was a child and the Sabbath was honored. The gentile woman tells Gittel that she feels guilty patronizing a Jewish shop on the Sabbath and reproaches Zalman, the Jewish trader, for daring to sell on that holy day.
The Jewish trader responds, good-naturedly, by telling Domaha’s son that his mother should become their rabbi. When Domaha leaves and Gittel sifts the flour, we realize that the epic serenity of the first lines is merely an outer one, concealing an elegiac core. Watching the specks of flour fall through the sieve, Gittel recalls the ups and downs, the suffering, hard labor, and moments of bliss she has experienced.
The poem’s second section illustrates the effects of dwindling faith by narrating the tragic fortunes of Razeleh, Gittel’s granddaughter. Gittel’s son leaves the small town for St. Petersburg, where his Jewish way of life is weakened by his having to adjust to the urban milieu. He stands in awe of the enormous developments encircling him. Affected by the overpowering metropolis, the rabbi’s son enrolls his daughter (Razeleh) in a Russian high school. His wife, too, accepts the break with tradition and delights in seeing their daughter excel in her studies.
Soon the poems of Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837), instead of the scriptural and midrashic texts, are what Razeleh imbibes. The poem here draws clear parallels between Gittel’s preparation of the dumplings and her ruminations about her granddaughter. Gittel’s dumplings, she notes, come out uniform like the students in the Russian gymnasium, who evolve into revolutionaries. In short, Razaleh over time had become quiet, forlorn, and noncommunicative.
In the end, embodying the defiant generation—stripped of nationalistic ideals and removed from the traditional anchor of home and faith—Razaleh had broken away from her studies and been swept up by the Russian Revolution. Razaleh’s doom—as the old woman learns from a letter sent from prison—is incarceration for opposing the oppressive regime of the czar. Shocked by the terrifying reality of this dismal result, Gittel faints.
As she lies unconscious on the floor, the room is bathed in rays of light that caress her cheeks and stir her into waking. Opening her eyes, she hears the boiling of the water in the pot and spies the dumplings nestled amongst the bubbles. The sunlight and the traditional cooking, we perceive, endure.
Works Cited
Ha’efrati, Yosef, editor. Saul Tchernichowsky: A Selection of Critical Essays of His Writings. Am Oved, 1976.
Sha’anan, Avraham. Saul Tchernichowsky: Monograph. Hidekel, 1984.
Yaniv, Shlomo. The Hebrew Ballad. Haifa University Press, 1986.