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A Shmues With Isaac Bashevis Singer (Part II)

Mark S. Golub (Sh'ma 9/163, December 8, 1978)

(Part I of this interview may befound in the last issue of Sh'ma)

Golub: Why do you think it is that the mitzvot (commandments) do not lead to a certain kind of higher ethical life?

Singer: I will tell you why. Because the mitzvot between man and God are very easy to keep. Let's say you eat matzoh; shmurah matzoh (the specially prepared matzah), you make a benediction. But to tell a man, "Don't compete with another man; don't swindle; don't desire another man's wife, these are very difficult commandments. They go against the very essence of the nature of the body. The body is greedy, and is angry, and is lecherous by nature-and so on and so on. So in other words, the people do always the things which are easy they keep - they even overdo them; and what is really difficult they neglect. This is true among Jews, Christians - among all religions.

Golub: Have you ever known a tzaddik?

Singer: Yes. I will tell you that my parents were tzaddikim.

Golub: They were?

Singer: Absolutely! And since I'm a critical person, I wouldn't just sit there and give compliments to my parents.

My father was ready to give away his last penny. And sometimes he did things which were foolish. Once he had 60 rubles, which then was a fortune. You could give a dowry to a girl with 60 rubles. So a poor man came to him and complained that he's in a bad situation. He gave him away the 60 rubles which was his whole capital. Everything he had!

My mother was also very charitable, but not as much as my father because she knew that she had every day to give her children to eat, you know. I have seen my mother give away bread and potatoes in a time of famine when we, ourselves, went around hungry all day long. This was in the time of the First World War. And there I saw she took out these potatoes and these pieces of bread - which were for us a question of life and death - and gave it to a man who needed it even more.

And not only this. My father never said a bad word about anybody. He was a real saint. When a woman came in to ask a ritual question, he immediately turned away, because it's written in The Book that if you look at a woman, you may desire her. And if you desire her she may be somebody else's wife. So the best thing is, don't look. And he kept it. My mother also kept every mitzvah.

But they were not the only tzaddikim I knew. I knew quite a number of people who were saints. And I always measure saint-ness about human relations, not the relations of God because there it's easy to be a saint.

Golub: You have a healthy respect for the yetzer ha'ra (the evil urge).

Singer: I don't applaud him.

Golub: No, no I don't mean it that way. I mean that you understand the power

Singer: Of course. The yetzer ha'ra is actually the human body - the human nerve system - the human character which tells you, "Grab as much as you can. Today you are alive, tomorrow you may not be alive." The usual way the yetzer ha-ra persuades people. And if it doesn't go easy, people are ready to swindle a little bit - to bend the law - all kinds of things. And this is the measurement where you see, really, who is a pure man and who only just follows the routine.

Golub: As we know, there is a great deal of mysticism in your writing - there's a great deal of demonology in your writing. Is this a literary tool, or are you -

Singer: It's both. It's a tool and it's also a belief. I believe in higher powers and in lower powers. I feel that we are surrounded with powers of which we have no inkling, but they are here just the same. Just as the people didn't know before the microbe was discovered that we take a little mud from the soil, there are millions of creatures in it. So if you would have told it to somebody they would say that you are fanatic - that you invent. So we don't know what powers might still be discovered. So, we're not at the summit of knowledge. I'm sure that there are powers of which we don't know, or sometimes we feel their presence, but we cannot define them. And this I call a mystic. Not a man who says, "I have seen angels and demons." Because these things you don't see them so often; you may get a glimpse of them once in a lifetime. But a mystic is a man who feels that our reality is terribly limited, and there are greater realities - more profound. This is the way of my kind of mysticism.

Golub: You say you have never doubted the existence of God.

Singer: No!

Golub: What about the existence of Satan?

Singer: Well I will tell you. Satan I call "human nature." We are born satans. And God wants to make us the opposite of satan. But sometimes I mention demons just instead of saying "a bad man." I would rather say that he played around with the demons, or something. Also, there may be powers - there may be demons. How do we know that they don't exist?

Golub: It is different asking the question than knowing the answer.

Singer: Of course.

Golub: What is your favorite story in the Torah?

Singer: Favorite story in the Torah? Is there a single story in the Torah which is not beautiful? They all are. Absolutely all. The story of Sodom, or the story of Joseph and his brothers, and the story of Lot, and Jacob and Rachel, Isaac and Rebecca - it's all beauty.

Golub: What about the Akedab (the binding of Isaac). Is that a disturbing story to you?

Singer: No, it's not a disturbing story. I mean, I would be very much disturbed if I would see a man with a knife going to slaughter his son waiting for an angel to say, "Don't do it." But as you read it, it's beautiful. Beautiful. And also the idea that God had to tempt Abraham to see if he really - you know, as if the Almighty wouldn't know the truth, He needed proof, which is in a way a primitive way of thinking. But it's beautiful anyhow. From a literary point of view, it is sheer beauty. Most of it because it is so short.

Golub: You know, there is a line in Enemies, one of your later books, in which Tamara says to Herman, "A woman who demands such sacrifices doesn't deserve them." Of course she's talking about when Masha wants Herman to leave Yadwiga just before Yadwiga is about to give birth.

Singer: Yes, yes.

Golub: There are some people who feel that a God who would demand the sacrifice at Mount Moriah does not deserve them.

Singer: But He didn't demand the sacrifice. At the last moment He sent an angel to tell him not to do it.

Golub: That's not fair. Did Abraham know beforehand?

Singer: He didn't.

Golub: So He made the demand.

Singer: Well, listen. If this would be the only question about the Almighty -- We can ask a million questions about Him. Since He's a silent God -- He doesn't talk to all of us every morning and every evening -- so we have to live with it, that He is silent. And we, ourselves have to answer ourselves, or to say that we don't know the answer.

But I will tell you. The best thing: since he's a silent God, we should be silent people. We should not keep on criticizing Him. If you are given a book, and this book has twenty billion pages, and you read only one sentence, you cannot sit down and write a review about this book. And this is the way we see God. We get such a little part of His creation that any criticism is silly.

Golub: You know there is a big argument about whether Isaac Bashevis Singer is a pessimist or not.

Singer: Yes, I will tell you what I am. When it comes to the bigger things, about the universe, I'm kind of an optimist. I say most probably the Almighty knows what He's doing, and He has created such a large universe and so many galaxies. Creation was not done by a fool, or by a person who doesn't know what he's doing. Neither did Creation come from an accident, as they say, "'evolution,' 'a physical accident,' 'a chemical accident'" -- it's a lot of nonsense! There is a plan behind the whole thing, and consciousness, and greatness - great wisdom.

But when it comes to humanity, I'm kind of a pessimist. I don't feel that human beings will ever really reach these ideals which they have been preaching for thousands of years. Again and again, you know, it seems that the yetzer ha-ra, somehow, the body, dominates the soul -- not the soul the body. This in itself may have some purpose.