And the Jewish women ... they knew how to go to war with Satan

The following text is an excerpt from A.S. Zaks' 'Khoreve Veltn' ­– Ruined Worlds ­– describing Jewish customs in the month of Elul - the month leading up to the High Holidays, and to Yom Kippur, the day of judgement. The Yiddish original is available here. The last two paragraphs describe the tkhines (supplications) and klogenishn (laments) said by feldmesterins [cemetery measurers], klogerins [professional mourners] and other women visiting the cemetery in Elul. This source describes poignantly two of the principle roles played by women in the religious life of the shtetl : leading the community in the expression of emotion, and communication with ancestry and with the spirit world. Zaks wrote this book in New York, in 1917, in response to the destruction that was being reaped in Eastern Europe, and on Jewish communities in particular, by World War One. In his introduction he described how,"like a flood, the war drowned in streams of blood and tears the hundreds of thousands of Jewish families who have, since time immemorial, been firmly established in the cities and towns of Zamut (Samogitia) and Lithuania." Writing 25 years before the Holocaust, he expressed his fear that while Jews as individuals may be able to survive and to emigrate, the Ashkenazi Jewish people and their culture, tied to the lands of Eastern Europe, would not survive this destruction. He wrote this book as a record of that culture, in the hope that it would aid in its survival, or at least in its memory.

In the month of Elul – A. S. Zaks.

To have an idea of how the pious Jews of the shtetl felt during Elul, one needs to imagine people on an unsafe boat in the middle of the sea, where any moment a strong wave might come and tip over the boat, plunging everyone on board or at least some of them into the abyss. Or imagine somebody who lives at the peak of a volcano, which could without warning start spitting fire and molten metal and destroy them along with all their long years of work.

In the month of Elul, every pious Jew and Jewess began to experience an odd restlessness, a strange sense of uncertainty in their own life and in the lives of their loved ones and those dear to them.

In the days of Elul, every Jew became a sort of Faust, deeply aware of their own powerlessness, knowing that over them Mefisto stood and mocked them …

And that Mefisto, Satan, Mekatreg, how the Jews of the shtetl feared him! Mah Ani v’mah khay? Who am I and what is my life?

And the Jew began to comprehend the whole comedy of life and the tragedy of death. You work, toil, you bustle around, one moment you are running here and there like a wild cat and suddenly, unexpectedly, as if from a hiding place – aha! The angel of death comes and brings all your ambitions, your life, all your desires and struggles to an end.

… So, on the first day of Elul, when the Jews heard the first sounds of the shoyfer – Tekiye, Terue, Shevarim, Tekiye – they got straight to work, the work of religious service. The men stayed longer in the house of study, said more psalms, made sure to give the correct weights and measurements in business transactions, not to speak badly of others or to gossip, and indeed gave a bit more money to charity than during the rest of the year, when judgement wasn’t looking at them so squarely in the eyes.

And the Jewish women! It goes without saying that they knew how to go to war with Satan. They couldn’t study, they didn’t count in a minyen, and they were forbidden from taking part in the symbolic flagellation on the eve of Yom Kippur. The only thing they could do, was cry. Nu, and boy did they cry. Cried for their own sins, for the sins of their husbands and children, and for the sins of the whole people of Israel.

In the month of Elul, Jewish women cried, poured out tears, gave charity in the name of Rabbi Meir the master of miracles, went to the ‘pure place’ [the cemetery], measured the cemetery, lamented at gravesides. Invoking the merits of the ancestors, they asked for mercy not so much for their own sakes, but for their little children, who are certainly pure and innocent and had not yet tasted the taste of sin.

When you cry until there are no more tears left, your heart becomes lighter, and after crying the Jewish woman really felt like a stone was lifted. She then started to console herself, that she is not - after all - alone, that God is after all a father, a God of mercy and compassion, and even if he doesn’t accept her plea – the prayer of a sinful woman – he will certainly have mercy in the merit of her grandfather, the tsadik [righteous man] may his memory be a blessing, and of her mother, the tsadikniyes [righteous woman] who are surely sitting in heaven with crowns on their heads enjoying the light of shekhine. They, the righteous ones, surely have some clout there in the world above, in the heavenly court, and will plead in her favour …

Cite this source : A. S. Zaks, 'In the month of Elul', Khoreve Veltn, Trans. Annabel Gottfried Cohen (1917) Cite the introduction: Annabel Gottfried Cohen, 'And the Jewish women ... they knew how to go to war with Satan', introduction to A. S. Zaks, 'In the month of Elul', Khoreve Veltn, Trans. Annabel Gottfried Cohen (1917), https://www.pullingatthreads.com/post/in-the-month-of-elul