The End of Storytelling

"Modern man no longer works on what cannot be abbreviated."

-Walter Benjamin

I should be working on my dissertation, Reading Money and Exchange in Talmudic Literature, but instead I'm "busy" writing on this blog that no one reads. I just read that Qaddafi's Little Green Book was just that, short and it seemed to one journalist that it would have taken no time at all to produce it. But Qaddafi was in power for over 40 years! Good riddance.

By contrast, I was told by a professor of renown, as a college student, all green but raring to go cut my teeth on some ancient Jewish text, to go slowly as it took Jacob seven years to gain the hand of Rachel in marriage. The reader should know that the Torah is an object of erotic veneration so to speak, and is bride to those who study Her. This same professor, the leading scholar outside of Israel on the Kabbalah and especially the Zohar, related that he had spent his years as a student simply transcribing manuscripts of Hebrew and Aramaic mystical tracts before he was ready for any writing on the level of analysis of these texts.

For the professor, the story could not be abbreviated and would lose its power if not conveyed by one who is "at home in distant places as well as distant times." But information can be distilled and must be verified to be palatable.

Walter Benjamin loved Buber's Hasidic tales; all of the dynasties of the Chasidishe Velt trace their lineage to the Ba'al Shem Tov, whose entire biography is woven together from the stories of his disciples - the one shred of "verifiable" evidence of his existence comes from a Polish tax log. And today, well, the descendants and adherents of a movement whose progenitor was a pipe-smoking, ragamuffin storyteller (who also had a knack for telling people which towns in Poland they should avoid), are the fastest growing segment of the Jewish population. Yes, this is only one side of the coin: the chapter title "Sermons, Stories and Songs: the Marketing of Hasidism," from Dynner's Men of Silk, is sure to whet your appetite for another take on the "story."

So in 1936 Benjamin announced that "the art of storytelling is coming to an end..." - but remember: that's the same year Faulkner published Absalom! Absalom!