WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.700 I want to start today by putting you in a very 00:00:02.700 --> 00:00:05.740 specific and I think very uncomfortable pair 00:00:05.740 --> 00:00:09.800 of shoes. Imagine for a second, it is 1935. Okay. 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:12.539 You are standing on the docks of New York City. 00:00:12.679 --> 00:00:15.339 You're about 30 years old. And behind you, across 00:00:15.339 --> 00:00:18.760 the entire ocean, the shadow of Nazi Germany 00:00:18.760 --> 00:00:21.839 is just swallowing Europe. And you've left everyone. 00:00:22.140 --> 00:00:24.899 Everyone. You have left your wife, your child, 00:00:25.059 --> 00:00:27.219 your mother. Absolutely everyone you know is 00:00:27.219 --> 00:00:28.960 back there. And you've got nothing in your pockets. 00:00:29.469 --> 00:00:32.789 Basically nothing. No money, no real connections. 00:00:32.909 --> 00:00:35.350 And here is the real kicker. You know exactly 00:00:35.350 --> 00:00:37.350 three words of the English language. Take a chair. 00:00:37.490 --> 00:00:39.310 That's it. Take a chair. It's so absurd. It's 00:00:39.310 --> 00:00:40.950 not hello. It's not where's the bathroom. Not 00:00:40.950 --> 00:00:43.229 even I'm hungry. Nothing useful. Just take a 00:00:43.229 --> 00:00:46.289 chair. And yet this man who arise feeling like 00:00:46.289 --> 00:00:49.009 a ghost writing in a language that the entire 00:00:49.009 --> 00:00:51.789 world was screaming was dead or dying. Yiddish. 00:00:51.950 --> 00:00:54.750 Yiddish. He didn't just survive. He didn't just 00:00:54.750 --> 00:00:59.109 scrape by. He he conquered the absolute pinnacle 00:00:59.109 --> 00:01:01.909 of the literary world. It's genuinely one of 00:01:01.909 --> 00:01:04.200 the most unlikely success stories. in the history 00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:08.340 of art, really. We're talking about a man who 00:01:08.340 --> 00:01:11.200 became the only American Nobel laureate in literature 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:13.700 to have written primarily in a language other 00:01:13.700 --> 00:01:16.260 than English. We are talking, of course, about 00:01:16.260 --> 00:01:18.540 Isaac Bashevis Singer. And the more I read about 00:01:18.540 --> 00:01:21.019 him for this deep dive, the more I realized he 00:01:21.019 --> 00:01:24.439 is just this walking paradox. I mean, just think 00:01:24.439 --> 00:01:26.599 about the content for a second. He wrote about 00:01:26.599 --> 00:01:30.260 shtetls, these tiny, muddy, poverty stricken 00:01:30.260 --> 00:01:32.980 Jewish market towns in Eastern Europe that that 00:01:32.980 --> 00:01:35.180 literally do not exist anymore. They're gone. 00:01:35.689 --> 00:01:37.989 Wiped out. He wrote about demons, possession, 00:01:38.409 --> 00:01:41.590 rabbis, ritual slaughters, you know, ancient 00:01:41.590 --> 00:01:45.670 superstitions. And yet somehow by the 1960s and 00:01:45.670 --> 00:01:50.150 70s, he's a massive celebrity in modern secular 00:01:50.150 --> 00:01:53.250 rock and roll America. Yes. He's getting published 00:01:53.250 --> 00:01:55.709 in Playboy magazine right next to the centerfolds. 00:01:55.709 --> 00:01:57.469 He's in The New Yorker alongside John Updike 00:01:57.469 --> 00:01:59.510 and John Sheehy. Which is just, it's a bizarre 00:01:59.510 --> 00:02:01.909 image. That is the part that just blows my mind. 00:02:01.969 --> 00:02:04.769 You have this guy who looks like a confused grandfather. 00:02:14.360 --> 00:02:16.979 How does that even happen? Well, that's the question, 00:02:17.039 --> 00:02:18.900 isn't it? I think the mistake people make is 00:02:18.900 --> 00:02:21.139 thinking that Singer became famous by adapting 00:02:21.139 --> 00:02:23.879 to America. He didn't. Right. He didn't try to 00:02:23.879 --> 00:02:26.199 write the great American novel. Not at all. He 00:02:26.199 --> 00:02:29.039 became famous by diving so deep into his own 00:02:29.039 --> 00:02:31.800 specific vanished world that he hit something 00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:34.310 universal. He basically drilled down into the 00:02:34.310 --> 00:02:36.889 folklore of Poland and somehow found the modern 00:02:36.889 --> 00:02:39.250 condition of loneliness. And he did it with a 00:02:39.250 --> 00:02:41.370 style that I don't think people expect if they 00:02:41.370 --> 00:02:43.610 haven't read him. I think there's this this fiddler 00:02:43.610 --> 00:02:45.889 on the roof vibe associated with Yiddish literature. 00:02:46.069 --> 00:02:48.590 For sure. The sentimental tradition. Yeah, exactly. 00:02:48.750 --> 00:02:52.469 Cute, heartwarming. But Singer, his stuff is 00:02:52.469 --> 00:02:54.849 wild. It's full of sex. It's full of legitimate 00:02:54.849 --> 00:02:58.560 horror. deep moral ambiguity and people doing 00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:00.500 really terrible things to each other. Oh, absolutely. 00:03:00.740 --> 00:03:02.919 Forget Fiddler on the Roof. Singer is more like 00:03:02.919 --> 00:03:05.680 Dostoevsky meeting the Brothers Grimm in a dark 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:07.719 alley. Laughs. That's a great way to put it. 00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:10.479 He wrote about a world where God is silent, but 00:03:10.479 --> 00:03:14.020 the demons are very, very loud. So that's our 00:03:14.020 --> 00:03:16.590 mission today. We are going to try and figure 00:03:16.590 --> 00:03:20.349 out how Isaac Bashevis, singer -born ice curse 00:03:20.349 --> 00:03:23.050 zinger, went from being a rabbinical seminary 00:03:23.050 --> 00:03:26.110 dropout in Poland to a Nobel Prize winner in 00:03:26.110 --> 00:03:28.729 Florida. And we have to unpack his whole idea 00:03:28.729 --> 00:03:32.449 of private mysticism. His extremely controversial 00:03:32.449 --> 00:03:35.370 views on vegetarianism. Oh, we're definitely 00:03:35.370 --> 00:03:37.949 getting to that. And his complex, often really 00:03:37.949 --> 00:03:40.129 angry relationship with God. And we have to talk 00:03:40.129 --> 00:03:42.490 about the brother. You cannot understand Isaac 00:03:42.490 --> 00:03:44.509 without understanding the shadow of his brother. 00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:46.719 Absolutely. We will definitely get to the brother. 00:03:46.840 --> 00:03:49.139 But let's start at the very beginning, the origin 00:03:49.139 --> 00:03:51.479 story. Because Singer always said he grew up 00:03:51.479 --> 00:03:53.580 in the kitchen of literature. He did. He was 00:03:53.580 --> 00:03:56.539 born in Poland in a village called Leonsin. Now, 00:03:56.539 --> 00:03:58.879 the date itself is a bit of a moving target. 00:03:59.060 --> 00:04:01.099 He usually told people he was born on July 14, 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:06.000 1904. But that wasn't true. Probably not. Most 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.240 biographers and historical evidence, you know, 00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:11.340 they point to November 11, 1903. So why lie about 00:04:11.340 --> 00:04:14.080 it? The theory. and it's a pretty strong one, 00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:16.980 is that he fudged the date later in his youth 00:04:16.980 --> 00:04:19.800 to make himself appear younger to avoid the military 00:04:19.800 --> 00:04:22.660 draft. If you were a certain age, you got pulled 00:04:22.660 --> 00:04:24.920 into the army, and for a young Jewish boy in 00:04:24.920 --> 00:04:26.819 Poland at that time, that could be a death sentence. 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:31.220 So yeah, 1903 is likely the real year. But regardless 00:04:31.220 --> 00:04:33.699 of the exact date, the atmosphere in that house, 00:04:33.800 --> 00:04:36.339 and it just defined... everything he ever wrote. 00:04:36.420 --> 00:04:38.399 It really feels like he was living in a house 00:04:38.399 --> 00:04:41.160 divided against itself. That is the perfect way 00:04:41.160 --> 00:04:43.360 to describe it. To understand his writing, you 00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:45.680 just have to look at his parents. On one side, 00:04:45.720 --> 00:04:48.339 you have his father, Pinchas Mendel. He was a 00:04:48.339 --> 00:04:50.899 Hasidic rabbi. Yes. And when we say Hasidic, 00:04:50.899 --> 00:04:55.079 we mean this is intense mystical piety. His father 00:04:55.079 --> 00:04:57.079 lived almost entirely in the spiritual world. 00:04:57.139 --> 00:04:59.439 He believed in miracles. He believed that if 00:04:59.439 --> 00:05:02.040 you prayed hard enough, God would literally provide 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:04.139 your daily bread. He wasn't interested in money 00:05:04.139 --> 00:05:06.959 or worldly news. None of it. He was a man of 00:05:06.959 --> 00:05:09.079 faith, pure and simple. And then you have the 00:05:09.079 --> 00:05:13.740 mother, Beshav. Right. Beshav or Sheba. And she 00:05:13.740 --> 00:05:15.439 came from the same world. She was the daughter 00:05:15.439 --> 00:05:18.220 of a rabbi. But her personality was the polar 00:05:18.220 --> 00:05:20.600 opposite. She was rational. She was intellectual. 00:05:20.920 --> 00:05:23.160 She was deeply skeptical. So while the father 00:05:23.160 --> 00:05:26.180 was praying for a miracle, the mother was looking 00:05:26.180 --> 00:05:29.279 at the empty cupboard and asking, OK, but how 00:05:29.279 --> 00:05:32.259 are we actually going to eat? She was the realist, 00:05:32.259 --> 00:05:35.480 the anchor to the physical world. And Isaac takes 00:05:35.480 --> 00:05:38.100 his pen name from her, Beshevis. It literally 00:05:38.100 --> 00:05:41.300 means son of Beshev. It does. And you have to 00:05:41.300 --> 00:05:43.399 pause and think about how significant that is. 00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:46.019 In the traditional Jewish society of that time, 00:05:46.199 --> 00:05:49.339 everything is patrilineal. You are Isaac, son 00:05:49.339 --> 00:05:52.319 of Pinchas Mendel. Right. But he chooses, publicly, 00:05:52.579 --> 00:05:54.980 to identify himself by his mother. Why do you 00:05:54.980 --> 00:05:57.279 think he did that? Was it a kind of proto -feminist 00:05:57.279 --> 00:05:59.560 statement or was it just that he felt closer 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:02.139 to her skepticism? I think it was a deep acknowledgement 00:06:02.139 --> 00:06:05.279 that his artistic soul came from her. His father 00:06:05.279 --> 00:06:07.139 gave him the subject matter, the demons, the 00:06:07.139 --> 00:06:09.180 faith, the Torah, all the folklore. The raw material. 00:06:09.560 --> 00:06:12.699 Exactly. But his mother gave him the perspective, 00:06:13.019 --> 00:06:16.180 the critical eye, the ability to stand back and 00:06:16.180 --> 00:06:18.310 question all of it. His writing is really just 00:06:18.310 --> 00:06:21.589 a battlefield where his father's mysticism is 00:06:21.589 --> 00:06:24.189 constantly at war with his mother's skepticism. 00:06:24.269 --> 00:06:26.629 And he never resolved that war. He just wrote 00:06:26.629 --> 00:06:28.750 it down for 50 years. And this war wasn't just 00:06:28.750 --> 00:06:30.689 theoretical. It played out in their living room. 00:06:30.870 --> 00:06:35.069 In 1908, the family moves to Warsaw, to Crookmona 00:06:35.069 --> 00:06:37.600 Street. Now, I looked up descriptions of Crookmalna 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:40.819 Street in the early 20th century. It wasn't exactly 00:06:40.819 --> 00:06:42.879 Park Avenue. No, no. It was the heart of the 00:06:42.879 --> 00:06:45.300 Jewish slums. It was loud. It probably smelled 00:06:45.300 --> 00:06:47.480 of boiled cabbage and unwashed bodies. It was 00:06:47.480 --> 00:06:50.459 incredibly crowded. But for a young writer. It 00:06:50.459 --> 00:06:52.699 was a gold mine. Absolute gold. Yeah. Because 00:06:52.699 --> 00:06:54.879 his father wasn't just a rabbi who led prayers 00:06:54.879 --> 00:06:58.279 in a synagogue. He was a Dayan. Right. An unofficial 00:06:58.279 --> 00:07:00.639 judge. Right. What does that mean exactly? He 00:07:00.639 --> 00:07:03.550 means that in these communities, people. Didn't 00:07:03.550 --> 00:07:05.810 go to the Polish police or the secular courts 00:07:05.810 --> 00:07:08.110 if they could avoid it. It was alien, often anti 00:07:08.110 --> 00:07:10.829 -Semitic. They came to the rabbi. So the singer 00:07:10.829 --> 00:07:13.050 apartment at number 10 Croke Monastery became 00:07:13.050 --> 00:07:15.930 a courtroom. And little Isaac is just the fly 00:07:15.930 --> 00:07:18.230 on the wall. He's hiding under the table or listening 00:07:18.230 --> 00:07:20.810 from the next room. And just imagine what he 00:07:20.810 --> 00:07:23.889 heard. It wasn't just dry theology. It was messy, 00:07:24.050 --> 00:07:27.750 raw human drama. Right. A woman comes in claiming 00:07:27.750 --> 00:07:30.439 her husband is sleeping with a maid. A merchant 00:07:30.439 --> 00:07:32.399 claims his partner cheated him out of a bolt 00:07:32.399 --> 00:07:35.879 of cloth. A mother is weeping because her daughter 00:07:35.879 --> 00:07:38.519 wants to run off with a socialist, a revolutionary. 00:07:38.860 --> 00:07:41.399 This is the raw material for his memoir, In My 00:07:41.399 --> 00:07:44.079 Father's Court. Yes, and what he saw there, day 00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:46.459 in and day out, was the collision of the holy 00:07:46.459 --> 00:07:49.170 and the profane. He saw his father trying to 00:07:49.170 --> 00:07:51.629 apply these ancient, rigid black and white laws 00:07:51.629 --> 00:07:54.670 of the Torah to the messy, dirty, chaotic, gray 00:07:54.670 --> 00:07:57.050 lives of people on the street. He learned early 00:07:57.050 --> 00:07:59.329 on that human nature doesn't fit neatly into 00:07:59.329 --> 00:08:01.970 religious boxes. Not even close. But then the 00:08:01.970 --> 00:08:04.550 outside world breaks in. World War I starts. 00:08:04.750 --> 00:08:07.069 And that stability, even in poverty, it just 00:08:07.069 --> 00:08:09.250 shatters. The family gets split up. This was 00:08:09.250 --> 00:08:11.990 a time of real hardship, of starvation in Warsaw. 00:08:12.550 --> 00:08:15.529 Terrible. So to survive, Isaac's mother took 00:08:15.529 --> 00:08:17.870 him and his younger brother to her hometown, 00:08:18.209 --> 00:08:20.910 a place called Bia Garage. And this becomes the 00:08:20.910 --> 00:08:23.810 second crucial location in his mental map. And 00:08:23.810 --> 00:08:26.569 how was Bia Garage different from Warsaw? Well, 00:08:26.610 --> 00:08:29.050 Warsaw was a city. It had newspapers, political 00:08:29.050 --> 00:08:31.050 parties. You know, modernity was creeping in 00:08:31.050 --> 00:08:34.509 at the edges. Bia Garage was a true shtetl. It 00:08:34.509 --> 00:08:36.289 was like stepping back into the Middle Ages. 00:08:36.490 --> 00:08:40.940 So less politics and more. folklore much more. 00:08:41.139 --> 00:08:43.720 It was a place of timeless tradition, of deep, 00:08:43.799 --> 00:08:46.539 deep superstition. This is where he soaked up 00:08:46.539 --> 00:08:48.840 the stories of imps hiding in the cellar, or 00:08:48.840 --> 00:08:50.820 debugs possessing brides on their wedding day. 00:08:51.259 --> 00:08:53.500 He realized that the old world wasn't just a 00:08:53.500 --> 00:08:56.179 physical place, it was a mindset. So in Warsaw, 00:08:56.419 --> 00:08:58.940 he sees the modern Jewish struggle. In B -Garage, 00:08:58.940 --> 00:09:01.970 he sees the ancient Jewish soul. Precisely. And 00:09:01.970 --> 00:09:03.570 he lived there for several very formative years. 00:09:03.750 --> 00:09:05.509 So because he had lived in both the city and 00:09:05.509 --> 00:09:07.590 the village, he could write about both. He could 00:09:07.590 --> 00:09:09.970 write a story about a cynical intellectual in 00:09:09.970 --> 00:09:12.269 a Warsaw cafe, and the next day write a story 00:09:12.269 --> 00:09:15.450 about a demon in a 17th century hamlet. He had 00:09:15.450 --> 00:09:18.370 both worlds inside him. Okay, so he has the setting. 00:09:18.409 --> 00:09:20.350 He has the central conflict from his parents. 00:09:20.789 --> 00:09:23.830 But we have to talk about the catalyst. We cannot 00:09:23.830 --> 00:09:26.190 tell Isaac's story without talking about Israel 00:09:26.190 --> 00:09:29.309 Joshua Singer. We really can't. You can't. Israel 00:09:29.309 --> 00:09:31.730 Joshua was his older brother by about 10 years. 00:09:31.970 --> 00:09:35.149 And in the Singer household, Israel Joshua was, 00:09:35.230 --> 00:09:37.870 well, he was a supernova. So paint that picture 00:09:37.870 --> 00:09:41.049 for us, because Isaac, by all accounts, is this 00:09:41.049 --> 00:09:45.190 shy, redheaded, skinny kid. Who is Israel Joshua? 00:09:45.450 --> 00:09:49.070 Israel Joshua was tall, handsome, supremely confident, 00:09:49.190 --> 00:09:51.529 and a complete rebel. He was the first one to 00:09:51.529 --> 00:09:53.769 look at their father's intensely religious world 00:09:53.769 --> 00:09:56.799 and just say, no thank you. He broke away. Completely. 00:09:56.919 --> 00:09:59.340 He cut off his side locks. He put on modern clothes. 00:09:59.480 --> 00:10:01.580 He became a secular writer. And not just any 00:10:01.580 --> 00:10:04.460 writer. He became famous. A big deal in the Yiddish 00:10:04.460 --> 00:10:06.860 literary scene. So Isaac is watching his big 00:10:06.860 --> 00:10:09.100 brother become a kind of walk star. Exactly. 00:10:09.320 --> 00:10:11.299 Isaac worshipped him. He was his mentor, his 00:10:11.299 --> 00:10:14.080 idol. But can you imagine the pressure? You want 00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:15.779 to be a writer, but the position of the writer 00:10:15.779 --> 00:10:18.299 in the family is already taken by this larger 00:10:18.299 --> 00:10:20.779 -than -life figure. And Isaac, he didn't exactly 00:10:20.779 --> 00:10:23.549 launch with the same kind of success. No, not 00:10:23.549 --> 00:10:26.409 at all. In fact, Isaac spent his early 20s feeling 00:10:26.409 --> 00:10:29.309 like an absolute failure. He tried to please 00:10:29.309 --> 00:10:31.350 his father by enrolling in the Touched Kimoni 00:10:31.350 --> 00:10:34.250 Rabbinical Seminary in Warsaw. How did that go? 00:10:34.990 --> 00:10:37.909 Disastrously. He hated it. He hated the food. 00:10:37.990 --> 00:10:40.750 He hated the rigid schedule. He hated what he 00:10:40.750 --> 00:10:43.230 saw as the hypocrisy there. He dropped out pretty 00:10:43.230 --> 00:10:46.039 quickly. Okay, so plan B? Plan B was trying to 00:10:46.039 --> 00:10:48.620 make a living giving Hebrew lessons. He wasn't 00:10:48.620 --> 00:10:50.679 good at it. He was poor. He was terribly shy, 00:10:50.899 --> 00:10:53.419 socially awkward. He described himself during 00:10:53.419 --> 00:10:56.639 this period as essentially a ghost just drifting 00:10:56.639 --> 00:10:58.980 through life. So how does he get from drifting 00:10:58.980 --> 00:11:02.299 ghost to published author? The brother again. 00:11:02.519 --> 00:11:06.090 It's a classic nepotism hire. In 1923, Israel 00:11:06.090 --> 00:11:08.669 Joshua gets Isaac a job as a proofreader for 00:11:08.669 --> 00:11:11.309 a literary magazine in Warsaw called Literarisch 00:11:11.309 --> 00:11:14.250 Blader. A proofreader. It's not glamorous, but 00:11:14.250 --> 00:11:16.450 it is a foot in the door. It was the kitchen 00:11:16.450 --> 00:11:18.629 of literature he needed. He was correcting other 00:11:18.629 --> 00:11:20.809 people's grammar, sure, but he was also meeting 00:11:20.809 --> 00:11:22.769 all the important writers. He was listening to 00:11:22.769 --> 00:11:25.210 the debates. He was soaking it all in. And secretly, 00:11:25.309 --> 00:11:27.289 he was working on his own stuff. And eventually, 00:11:27.370 --> 00:11:29.769 he starts publishing. He wins a literary competition 00:11:29.769 --> 00:11:33.779 in 1925 for a story. And then he starts working 00:11:33.779 --> 00:11:36.200 on his first novel, Satan and Gorey. This comes 00:11:36.200 --> 00:11:39.080 out in 1933. I want to dig into this book because 00:11:39.080 --> 00:11:41.379 I feel like the title, Alone Satan and Gorey, 00:11:41.399 --> 00:11:43.419 tells you this isn't going to be a nice, heartwarming 00:11:43.419 --> 00:11:47.100 story. And the year, 1933, is so significant. 00:11:47.200 --> 00:11:49.919 Hitler is rising in Germany. The context is everything. 00:11:50.139 --> 00:11:52.879 The novel is set in the 17th century, specifically 00:11:52.879 --> 00:11:56.620 the year 1666. But to understand it, you have 00:11:56.620 --> 00:12:00.559 to know what happened 18 years earlier, in 1648. 00:12:01.509 --> 00:12:04.529 The Chmielnicki uprisings. What was that? It 00:12:04.529 --> 00:12:06.710 was a genocide. Cossacks swept through Eastern 00:12:06.710 --> 00:12:08.710 Europe and slaughtered tens of thousands, maybe 00:12:08.710 --> 00:12:11.309 hundreds of thousands of Jews. It completely 00:12:11.309 --> 00:12:13.990 destroyed the structure of Jewish life. It left 00:12:13.990 --> 00:12:16.129 the survivors traumatized, broken, and desperate 00:12:16.129 --> 00:12:18.289 for an answer. So the entire community is in 00:12:18.289 --> 00:12:21.389 a state of collective PTSD. Massive PTSD. And 00:12:21.389 --> 00:12:23.850 into that void, into that desperation, steps 00:12:23.850 --> 00:12:26.629 a rumor. The Messiah has come, a man named Sabbatai 00:12:26.629 --> 00:12:29.379 Zivi. He promises that all the suffering is over, 00:12:29.480 --> 00:12:31.480 that they will be transported to the Holy Land 00:12:31.480 --> 00:12:33.659 on clouds. And the town of Garay in the novel 00:12:33.659 --> 00:12:36.340 goes crazy for this. They lose their minds, and 00:12:36.340 --> 00:12:38.200 this is what Singer describes so masterfully. 00:12:38.460 --> 00:12:40.639 The community stops following the traditional 00:12:40.639 --> 00:12:43.399 laws. They engage in these hysterical, ecstatic 00:12:43.399 --> 00:12:45.519 rituals. They start breaking the rules of Judaism 00:12:45.519 --> 00:12:47.659 because they believe the end of days is here, 00:12:47.720 --> 00:12:50.220 so the old rules no longer apply. So it descends 00:12:50.220 --> 00:12:53.879 into chaos. A frenzy of sexual license, bizarre 00:12:53.879 --> 00:12:59.539 mysticism, and even cruelty. And the parallel 00:12:59.539 --> 00:13:03.179 to 1933 is just chilling. It's undeniable. Singer 00:13:03.179 --> 00:13:06.059 is writing this as he watches the rise of Nazism 00:13:06.059 --> 00:13:08.720 and you could also argue the rise of communism, 00:13:08.980 --> 00:13:12.059 these massive totalitarian ideologies that promised 00:13:12.059 --> 00:13:14.559 a new world but were delivering terror. He's 00:13:14.559 --> 00:13:16.960 showing how a traumatized society can so easily 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:19.580 slide into collective insanity. Exactly. He's 00:13:19.580 --> 00:13:21.679 saying, look at us. We are doing it again. We 00:13:21.679 --> 00:13:24.519 are looking for a false messiah to save us. It's 00:13:24.519 --> 00:13:26.600 a terrifyingly mature book for a young writer. 00:13:26.740 --> 00:13:28.899 It is. And it was a signal that he wasn't just 00:13:28.899 --> 00:13:31.120 a storyteller. He was a philosopher of history. 00:13:32.169 --> 00:13:33.769 Even with that success, he knew he was trapped. 00:13:34.110 --> 00:13:36.110 Israel Joshua had already seen the writing on 00:13:36.110 --> 00:13:38.250 the wall and moved to New York. He kept telling 00:13:38.250 --> 00:13:40.870 Isaac, you have to come. The threat was real 00:13:40.870 --> 00:13:44.190 and growing every day. And this brings us to 00:13:44.190 --> 00:13:47.309 the escape in 1935. And I want to pause here 00:13:47.309 --> 00:13:49.990 because this isn't a clean Hollywood break. He 00:13:49.990 --> 00:13:51.590 didn't load up the station wagon with the whole 00:13:51.590 --> 00:13:54.970 family. Yeah, this is the dark stain on the biography 00:13:54.970 --> 00:13:57.730 for many people. Isaac had a partner at the time, 00:13:57.769 --> 00:14:00.470 Runia, and they had a five -year -old son, Israel. 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:03.840 zamir but he didn't take them with him why not 00:14:03.840 --> 00:14:06.639 was it money was it a lack of visas or did he 00:14:06.639 --> 00:14:10.480 just not want them it's complicated and the sources 00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:12.879 are a bit contradictory their relationship was 00:14:12.879 --> 00:14:15.379 already falling apart Runia was a fervent communist, 00:14:15.460 --> 00:14:18.419 and Isaac, as we just discussed, was deeply skeptical 00:14:18.419 --> 00:14:20.960 of all ideologies. So they were politically opposed. 00:14:21.740 --> 00:14:23.480 Fundamentally. She wanted to go to the Soviet 00:14:23.480 --> 00:14:26.000 Union, which she saw as the promised land of 00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:28.039 communism. He wanted to go to America. So they 00:14:28.039 --> 00:14:30.659 split. She took the boy to Moscow. He got on 00:14:30.659 --> 00:14:32.440 a boat to New York. And he wouldn't see his son 00:14:32.440 --> 00:14:36.320 again for 20 years. Correct. And his son, Israel 00:14:36.320 --> 00:14:39.320 Zamir, later wrote a very powerful memoir about 00:14:39.320 --> 00:14:42.000 this called Journey to My Father. It was a wound 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:44.629 that never fully healed for either of them. Isaac 00:14:44.629 --> 00:14:46.429 carried a tremendous amount of guilt about it. 00:14:46.450 --> 00:14:50.490 But he also, he compartmentalized it. He got 00:14:50.490 --> 00:14:52.809 on that boat alone. So he lands in New York, 00:14:52.889 --> 00:14:55.830 take a chair, and we enter the lost in America 00:14:55.830 --> 00:14:58.789 phase. I think we assume that because he had 00:14:58.789 --> 00:15:01.830 a successful brother there, he was fine. But 00:15:01.830 --> 00:15:03.629 he wasn't, was he? He was miserable. You have 00:15:03.629 --> 00:15:05.169 to understand the psychological state he was 00:15:05.169 --> 00:15:07.929 in. He's in New York, a city that runs on English. 00:15:08.350 --> 00:15:10.389 He's a writer who can only write in Yiddish. 00:15:10.779 --> 00:15:13.039 And everywhere he looks, the children of Jewish 00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:14.899 immigrants are assimilating. They're learning 00:15:14.899 --> 00:15:17.179 English. They're becoming American. Right. He 00:15:17.179 --> 00:15:19.620 looks at his own language, the very tool of his 00:15:19.620 --> 00:15:22.200 art, and he sees a corpse. He literally thought 00:15:22.200 --> 00:15:25.139 he was writing for nobody. He had a massive writer's 00:15:25.139 --> 00:15:27.460 block. For roughly five or six years, he barely 00:15:27.460 --> 00:15:29.879 wrote anything of value. He was depressed, he 00:15:29.879 --> 00:15:31.860 was anxious, and he was financially dependent 00:15:31.860 --> 00:15:33.779 on his brother, which he must have hated. So 00:15:33.779 --> 00:15:36.220 what pulls him out of that hole? What changes? 00:15:36.600 --> 00:15:39.120 Two things happen. One is romantic, and one is 00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:42.220 tragic. The romantic one is that he meets Elma 00:15:42.220 --> 00:15:45.419 Wasserman in 1938. And she was very different 00:15:45.419 --> 00:15:47.779 from Runia. Totally different. She was a German 00:15:47.779 --> 00:15:50.320 -Jewish refugee, very middle class, very assimilated. 00:15:50.500 --> 00:15:52.639 She didn't even speak Yiddish. But they fell 00:15:52.639 --> 00:15:55.740 in love, got married in 1940, and she became 00:15:55.740 --> 00:15:58.639 his anchor. She organized his life. She believed 00:15:58.639 --> 00:16:01.019 in him. She gave him stability. And the tragedy. 00:16:01.320 --> 00:16:04.460 1944. Israel Joshua Singer dies suddenly of heart 00:16:04.460 --> 00:16:07.620 attack. He was only 50 years old. Wow. That must 00:16:07.620 --> 00:16:10.100 have been devastating. That was his rock. It 00:16:10.100 --> 00:16:12.659 was earth -shattering. Isaac was suddenly alone 00:16:12.659 --> 00:16:15.480 in the world, artistically speaking. But strangely, 00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:18.480 it was the shock he needed. With his brother 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:21.539 gone, Isaac felt this sudden, desperate responsibility. 00:16:22.039 --> 00:16:24.080 The torch had been passed. He had to carry it. 00:16:24.120 --> 00:16:25.720 He had to become the writer. And that is when 00:16:25.720 --> 00:16:28.600 he starts writing The Family Mascot. Yes. And 00:16:28.600 --> 00:16:30.779 The Family Mascot was his declaration of independence. 00:16:31.100 --> 00:16:33.720 It was this sprawling family saga serialized 00:16:33.720 --> 00:16:36.460 in the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper. And right 00:16:36.460 --> 00:16:37.820 out of the gate, he showed he wasn't going to 00:16:37.820 --> 00:16:39.960 play nice. I read about the controversy with 00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:43.200 that serial. The editor was not happy. Oh, he 00:16:43.200 --> 00:16:46.850 was furious. It wasn't just one thing. There's 00:16:46.850 --> 00:16:49.110 a famous scene where the protagonist engages 00:16:49.110 --> 00:16:52.269 in adultery, double adultery, actually on the 00:16:52.269 --> 00:16:55.490 night of Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur, the Day of 00:16:55.490 --> 00:16:57.929 Atonement. The holiest night of the Jewish calendar. 00:16:58.730 --> 00:17:01.049 You're supposed to be fasting and praying for 00:17:01.049 --> 00:17:03.389 your life, and his characters are sinning. That's 00:17:03.389 --> 00:17:05.809 provocative. The editor of the foreword, Abraham 00:17:05.809 --> 00:17:08.549 Kinnan, wanted to stop printing it. He said, 00:17:08.569 --> 00:17:10.829 this is filth. This is an insult to our readers. 00:17:11.130 --> 00:17:13.829 But the readers disagreed. The readers couldn't 00:17:13.829 --> 00:17:16.059 stop reading. The paper circulation actually 00:17:16.059 --> 00:17:18.640 went up. They were demanding the next installment. 00:17:19.079 --> 00:17:21.720 It was scandalous. It was shocking. But it was 00:17:21.720 --> 00:17:24.619 real. It spoke to the secret transgressions that 00:17:24.619 --> 00:17:26.980 everyone knew existed but no one ever talked 00:17:26.980 --> 00:17:29.319 about. That was the moment Isaac Bashevis Singer 00:17:29.319 --> 00:17:32.319 truly arrived. He wasn't just the brother of 00:17:32.319 --> 00:17:34.700 Israel Joshua anymore. He was a force of nature. 00:17:34.980 --> 00:17:38.079 But he is still trapped in Yiddish. The foreword 00:17:38.079 --> 00:17:41.799 is a Yiddish newspaper. How does he cross that 00:17:41.799 --> 00:17:44.960 bridge? into the english -speaking world because 00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:47.720 that is the technical leap that makes him a nobel 00:17:47.720 --> 00:17:50.420 prize winner this is a fascinating part of his 00:17:50.420 --> 00:17:53.240 process he realized that if his work was going 00:17:53.240 --> 00:17:56.759 to live on it had to be read in english but his 00:17:56.759 --> 00:17:59.240 own spoken english was always heavily accented 00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:02.579 and his written english was never perfect so 00:18:02.579 --> 00:18:04.920 he developed a system what was it he treated 00:18:04.920 --> 00:18:07.380 translation not as a simple conversion of words 00:18:07.380 --> 00:18:10.400 but as a recreation what does that mean in practice 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:13.619 well he would hire translator usually a young 00:18:13.619 --> 00:18:16.480 woman, often an aspiring writer herself. They 00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:18.519 would sit together in his living room. He would 00:18:18.519 --> 00:18:20.859 hold the original Yiddish text, and he would 00:18:20.859 --> 00:18:23.200 read it out loud to her in his own rough, literal 00:18:23.200 --> 00:18:25.819 English. Something like, he walked into the room, 00:18:25.859 --> 00:18:28.079 he felt sad. Okay, very basic. And she would 00:18:28.079 --> 00:18:30.640 polish it. She would say, maybe melancholy is 00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:32.759 a better word here, or let's structure the sentence 00:18:32.759 --> 00:18:35.259 this way for better flow. But as they worked, 00:18:35.460 --> 00:18:37.640 Singer would change the story on the fly. He'd 00:18:37.640 --> 00:18:40.039 edit it again. He'd realize, you know, this long 00:18:40.039 --> 00:18:42.799 paragraph about Jewish law. An American reader 00:18:42.799 --> 00:18:45.640 isn't going to get it. Let's cut it. Or I need 00:18:45.640 --> 00:18:48.000 to explain this superstition more clearly. So 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:49.779 the English version was actually a different 00:18:49.779 --> 00:18:52.259 draft of the book, a new version. Exactly. He 00:18:52.259 --> 00:18:55.259 called it a second original. The English versions 00:18:55.259 --> 00:18:58.480 are often tighter, leaner, and sometimes even 00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:01.220 clearer than the Yiddish originals. And here's 00:19:01.220 --> 00:19:04.329 the key. Once that English version existed, that 00:19:04.329 --> 00:19:07.089 became the source text for the French translation, 00:19:07.430 --> 00:19:10.009 the German translation, the Japanese translation. 00:19:10.309 --> 00:19:12.890 So if I buy a Singer book in Paris today, I'm 00:19:12.890 --> 00:19:14.769 actually reading a translation of the English 00:19:14.769 --> 00:19:17.400 translation of the Yiddish. Precisely. He used 00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:19.519 English as the gateway to the rest of the world. 00:19:19.619 --> 00:19:21.480 And the story that kicked that door wide open 00:19:21.480 --> 00:19:25.539 was Gimple the Fool. 1953. This is the big bang 00:19:25.539 --> 00:19:27.579 moment for him in America. So tell us the story 00:19:27.579 --> 00:19:29.660 of Dimple, because the title sounds like it could 00:19:29.660 --> 00:19:32.200 be a comedy, but it's really not. No, it's a 00:19:32.200 --> 00:19:35.019 tragedy that feels like a folktale. Gimple is 00:19:35.019 --> 00:19:38.579 the town baker in a small shtetl. And he's called 00:19:38.579 --> 00:19:40.859 a fool because he believes absolutely everything 00:19:40.859 --> 00:19:43.900 anyone tells him. Anything. If the villagers 00:19:43.900 --> 00:19:46.400 tell him the Messiah is coming tonight, he puts 00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:49.079 on his best clothes and waits by the road. If 00:19:49.079 --> 00:19:50.740 they tell him his parents have risen from the 00:19:50.740 --> 00:19:53.059 dead, he runs to the cemetery to greet them. 00:19:53.180 --> 00:19:55.700 And the town just mocks him for it. They prank 00:19:55.700 --> 00:19:58.579 him constantly. Relentlessly. They decide to 00:19:58.579 --> 00:20:00.859 marry him off to the town tramp, a woman named 00:20:00.859 --> 00:20:03.500 Elka. She is pregnant when they get married, 00:20:03.599 --> 00:20:06.299 and Gimbel knows it's not his child, but she 00:20:06.299 --> 00:20:08.980 convinces him it was just a premature birth four 00:20:08.980 --> 00:20:11.640 months after the wedding. That's a hard sell 00:20:11.640 --> 00:20:14.440 even for Gimple. But he accepts it. Yeah. He 00:20:14.440 --> 00:20:16.779 catches her with other men, and she always talks 00:20:16.779 --> 00:20:19.019 her way out of it. He chooses to believe her. 00:20:19.119 --> 00:20:20.680 And as you're reading, you're just sitting there 00:20:20.680 --> 00:20:23.259 thinking, you idiot. Stand up for yourself. See 00:20:23.259 --> 00:20:24.819 what's right in front of your eyes. There's a 00:20:24.819 --> 00:20:27.740 turn. There is. As the story goes on, you start 00:20:27.740 --> 00:20:30.740 to realize something profound. Gimple isn't stupid. 00:20:30.960 --> 00:20:34.339 He knows. He's not an idiot. But he has made 00:20:34.339 --> 00:20:37.039 a conscious choice that it is better to be a 00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:40.079 fool than to be a cynic. He says, essentially, 00:20:40.259 --> 00:20:43.640 I will believe because to not believe is to live 00:20:43.640 --> 00:20:46.019 in a world without trust, a world worse than 00:20:46.019 --> 00:20:48.680 this one. Wow. So his gullibility is actually 00:20:48.680 --> 00:20:51.920 a form of holiness, a spiritual discipline. Exactly. 00:20:51.960 --> 00:20:54.460 And this story, this little Yiddish folktale 00:20:54.460 --> 00:20:57.200 lands on the desk of Saul Bellow. Saul Bellow, 00:20:57.339 --> 00:20:59.900 future Nobel Prize winner himself, an absolute 00:20:59.900 --> 00:21:02.559 giant of American literature. Bellow reads the 00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:06.589 story in Yiddish and is just. blown away by it. 00:21:06.609 --> 00:21:08.730 He translates it himself. It gets published in 00:21:08.730 --> 00:21:10.950 the Partisan Review, which was the Bible of the 00:21:10.950 --> 00:21:12.930 New York intellectual scene at the time. So he 00:21:12.930 --> 00:21:15.130 gets the ultimate stamp of approval. Overnight, 00:21:15.150 --> 00:21:18.849 everyone is asking, who is this Isaac Bashevis 00:21:18.849 --> 00:21:21.849 singer guy? When you have Saul Bellow translating 00:21:21.849 --> 00:21:24.690 you, you are not an ethnic writer anymore. You 00:21:24.690 --> 00:21:27.269 are literature with a capital L. So now he's 00:21:27.269 --> 00:21:29.890 famous. And he starts pouring out these stories. 00:21:29.950 --> 00:21:31.890 And we need to talk about the content again because 00:21:31.890 --> 00:21:34.730 it just pushes so many boundaries. He writes 00:21:34.730 --> 00:21:36.829 about things that the Jewish community in the 00:21:36.829 --> 00:21:39.549 50s and 60s wasn't exactly broadcasting. He was 00:21:39.549 --> 00:21:42.549 fundamentally anti -nostalgia. He hated the idea 00:21:42.549 --> 00:21:44.430 that because the shtetl was destroyed by the 00:21:44.430 --> 00:21:46.730 Nazis, it had to be remembered as some kind of 00:21:46.730 --> 00:21:49.710 paradise of saints. He said, no, we were human. 00:21:49.829 --> 00:21:52.029 We had pimples, we had lusts, we were petty, 00:21:52.170 --> 00:21:54.730 and we were noble. Give us some examples of the 00:21:54.730 --> 00:21:57.700 taboo stuff he was writing about. Well, take 00:21:57.700 --> 00:22:01.200 Yentl the Yeshiva Boy. It's about a young woman 00:22:01.200 --> 00:22:04.539 who cross -dresses as a man so she can be allowed 00:22:04.539 --> 00:22:07.180 to study the Torah. That's a direct challenge 00:22:07.180 --> 00:22:09.259 to traditional gender roles. And that was written 00:22:09.259 --> 00:22:12.339 when? In the early 60s, way ahead of its time. 00:22:12.440 --> 00:22:15.380 Or a story called Zytel and Rickle, which deals 00:22:15.380 --> 00:22:17.559 with what is clearly a lesbian relationship, 00:22:17.779 --> 00:22:20.559 though he wouldn't use that modern term. He frames 00:22:20.559 --> 00:22:22.779 it through the lens of demonic possession and 00:22:22.779 --> 00:22:25.859 spirits, but the underlying sexuality is unmistakable. 00:22:26.140 --> 00:22:29.000 And then there's the really demonic stuff, Zeidlis 00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:32.299 the Pope. That's a wild one. It's about a brilliant 00:22:32.299 --> 00:22:35.359 Jewish scholar, a Talmudic genius, who is so 00:22:35.359 --> 00:22:37.539 arrogant, so obsessed with his own intellect, 00:22:37.740 --> 00:22:40.119 that the devil comes to tempt him. And what's 00:22:40.119 --> 00:22:42.759 the temptation? The devil says, you are too smart 00:22:42.759 --> 00:22:44.900 for these Jews. Your mind is wasted here. You 00:22:44.900 --> 00:22:47.599 should be the pope. And the man actually converts 00:22:47.599 --> 00:22:50.180 to Catholicism and becomes the pope, not out 00:22:50.180 --> 00:22:52.680 of faith, but out of pure intellectual vanity. 00:22:53.359 --> 00:22:55.940 It's a story about how intellect without humility 00:22:55.940 --> 00:22:58.819 leads to destruction. This connects to his whole 00:22:58.819 --> 00:23:01.960 idea of private mysticism. Because you read these 00:23:01.960 --> 00:23:04.980 stories and you have to wonder, did Singer actually 00:23:04.980 --> 00:23:09.039 believe in demons? Or were they just metaphors 00:23:09.039 --> 00:23:12.039 for the evil in human nature? That's the million 00:23:12.039 --> 00:23:14.119 dollar question, isn't it? He was asked this 00:23:14.119 --> 00:23:16.720 constantly in interviews. And his answer was 00:23:16.720 --> 00:23:19.529 always brilliantly elusive. He would say, I believe 00:23:19.529 --> 00:23:21.369 in them as literary entities, but then he'd get 00:23:21.369 --> 00:23:22.930 a twinkle in his eye and say, but I don't know 00:23:22.930 --> 00:23:25.029 that they don't exist. He was playing with us. 00:23:25.289 --> 00:23:28.509 A little bit. But his private mysticism was a 00:23:28.509 --> 00:23:30.829 real philosophy for him. He wasn't an Orthodox 00:23:30.829 --> 00:23:33.710 Jew in practice. He didn't really keep kosher. 00:23:33.730 --> 00:23:36.190 He didn't go to synagogue regularly. But he was 00:23:36.190 --> 00:23:38.309 certainly not an atheist. So what did he believe? 00:23:38.569 --> 00:23:40.849 He believed the universe was teeming with forces 00:23:40.849 --> 00:23:43.609 we don't understand. He felt that God was real, 00:23:43.650 --> 00:23:47.049 but that God was hidden. Distant. And silent. 00:23:47.250 --> 00:23:49.630 And silent. And this brings us to the shadow 00:23:49.630 --> 00:23:52.130 of the Holocaust. Singer didn't often write about 00:23:52.130 --> 00:23:54.549 the concentration camps directly. He felt he 00:23:54.549 --> 00:23:56.490 couldn't do it justice, that it was beyond art. 00:23:56.809 --> 00:23:59.210 But the Holocaust is the background radiation 00:23:59.210 --> 00:24:02.670 of everything he wrote after 1945. And it made 00:24:02.670 --> 00:24:05.210 him angry at God. He has that famous quote, I 00:24:05.210 --> 00:24:07.230 am angry at God because of what happened to my 00:24:07.230 --> 00:24:10.490 brothers. Yes, his younger brother Moshe. died 00:24:10.490 --> 00:24:12.490 somewhere in the Soviet Union. His mother died 00:24:12.490 --> 00:24:15.250 there too. The entire world he grew up in was 00:24:15.250 --> 00:24:18.029 incinerated. So his theology became a theology 00:24:18.029 --> 00:24:21.089 of protest. He's saying, God, you created a world 00:24:21.089 --> 00:24:23.589 where the innocents are slaughtered. I will acknowledge 00:24:23.589 --> 00:24:25.589 that you exist, but I don't have to like you. 00:24:25.650 --> 00:24:28.509 I don't have to approve. This anger at the slaughter 00:24:28.509 --> 00:24:31.009 of the innocent, it leads us directly to the 00:24:31.009 --> 00:24:33.269 most controversial aspect of his personal philosophy, 00:24:33.650 --> 00:24:37.049 vegetarianism. This is huge. For the last 35 00:24:37.049 --> 00:24:39.710 years of his life, Singer would not touch meat. 00:24:40.049 --> 00:24:42.589 At all. And this wasn't for health reasons. He 00:24:42.589 --> 00:24:44.230 wasn't trying to lower his cholesterol or anything 00:24:44.230 --> 00:24:46.789 like that. No. He had that famous line, I did 00:24:46.789 --> 00:24:49.029 it for the health of the chickens. Yeah. But 00:24:49.029 --> 00:24:50.869 it goes so much deeper than just a witty one 00:24:50.869 --> 00:24:53.650 -liner. For him, it was a profound moral and 00:24:53.650 --> 00:24:56.630 theological position. He saw a direct line between 00:24:56.630 --> 00:24:59.069 the violence humans inflict on animals and the 00:24:59.069 --> 00:25:00.990 violence humans inflict on each other. There 00:25:00.990 --> 00:25:02.930 is a quote from his story, The Letter Writer, 00:25:03.009 --> 00:25:05.049 that just stops me cold every time I read it. 00:25:05.069 --> 00:25:06.910 I want to read it here, but I have to warn you, 00:25:06.930 --> 00:25:09.980 the listener, it is heavy. Go ahead. It's essential 00:25:09.980 --> 00:25:12.680 to understanding him. He writes, in relation 00:25:12.680 --> 00:25:16.380 to animals, all people are Nazis. For the animals, 00:25:16.519 --> 00:25:19.559 it is an eternal Treblinka. Eternal Treblinka. 00:25:19.680 --> 00:25:21.519 I mean, I don't even know how to process that. 00:25:21.579 --> 00:25:24.440 He is explicitly comparing a chip and farm to 00:25:24.440 --> 00:25:27.039 a death camp. And he is doing this as a Jewish 00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:30.299 man who lost family to the Nazis. How did people 00:25:30.299 --> 00:25:32.559 react to that when he said it? It was explosive. 00:25:33.480 --> 00:25:36.259 Many, many people were deeply offended. They 00:25:36.259 --> 00:25:38.519 felt it trivialized the unique horror of the 00:25:38.519 --> 00:25:41.779 Holocaust. They said, how can you possibly compare 00:25:41.779 --> 00:25:44.220 a human soul to a cow? It's an argument you still 00:25:44.220 --> 00:25:47.099 hear today. Of course. But Singer stood his ground. 00:25:47.299 --> 00:25:50.279 He argued that the mindset is the same. It is 00:25:50.279 --> 00:25:53.160 the belief that might makes right. The belief 00:25:53.160 --> 00:25:55.119 that because I am stronger than you and because 00:25:55.119 --> 00:25:57.279 I have the power to kill you, I have the right 00:25:57.279 --> 00:26:00.019 to do with your life as I please. So for him, 00:26:00.079 --> 00:26:02.400 eating meat was accepting the fundamental logic 00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:05.380 of the oppressor. Exactly. He asked a very uncomfortable 00:26:05.380 --> 00:26:08.720 question. How can we humans pray to God for mercy 00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:11.259 when we show absolutely no mercy to the creatures 00:26:11.259 --> 00:26:13.960 in our power? He saw the slaughterhouse as the 00:26:13.960 --> 00:26:16.519 ultimate proof that the world is a cruel place, 00:26:16.680 --> 00:26:19.579 perhaps abandoned by a loving God. It's a consistent, 00:26:19.619 --> 00:26:22.759 if terrifying, worldview. The strong crushed 00:26:22.759 --> 00:26:25.740 the weak. The Nazis crushed the Jews. Humans 00:26:25.740 --> 00:26:28.450 crushed the animals. And in his stories, The 00:26:28.450 --> 00:26:30.690 demons crush the sinners. It's all part of the 00:26:30.690 --> 00:26:33.490 same brutal cosmic hierarchy. Given how dark 00:26:33.490 --> 00:26:36.250 and cynical that view is, it's all the more surprising 00:26:36.250 --> 00:26:38.750 that he became such a pop culture figure. But 00:26:38.750 --> 00:26:42.829 by the 1970s, he is everywhere. And then in 1978, 00:26:43.069 --> 00:26:46.269 he gets the call. Stockholm Calling. The Nobel 00:26:46.269 --> 00:26:49.150 Prize. It was the ultimate validation, not just 00:26:49.150 --> 00:26:51.150 for him, but for the entire culture of Yiddish. 00:26:51.250 --> 00:26:53.750 He gave his acceptance speech in both Yiddish 00:26:53.750 --> 00:26:56.130 and English. He called Yiddish the language of 00:26:56.130 --> 00:26:57.930 the frightened and the hopeful. It was a beautiful 00:26:57.930 --> 00:27:00.369 historic moment. It put a stamp of eternity on 00:27:00.369 --> 00:27:02.430 a language that Hitler and Stalin had tried to 00:27:02.430 --> 00:27:04.410 wipe from the face of the earth. And naturally, 00:27:04.490 --> 00:27:07.569 with the Nobel Prize comes Hollywood. Enter Barbra 00:27:07.569 --> 00:27:10.529 Streisand. We have to talk about Yentl. 1983. 00:27:11.549 --> 00:27:14.589 Barbra Streisand directs, produces, co -writes, 00:27:14.750 --> 00:27:17.730 and stars in the film adaptation of Singer's 00:27:17.730 --> 00:27:21.670 story, Yentl the Yeshiva Boy. It's a huge hit, 00:27:21.730 --> 00:27:25.289 a classic. But Singer, he hated it. Hated is 00:27:25.289 --> 00:27:27.250 an understatement. He loathed it. He wrote an 00:27:27.250 --> 00:27:29.789 absolutely scathing review of it in the New York 00:27:29.789 --> 00:27:32.190 Times. What was his beef? I mean, it's Barbra 00:27:32.190 --> 00:27:34.329 Streisand. It brought his work to millions of 00:27:34.329 --> 00:27:36.450 people. Well, first of all, she made it a musical. 00:27:36.809 --> 00:27:39.069 Singer said, I did not write a story about a 00:27:39.069 --> 00:27:42.190 singing yeshiva boy. He felt the songs trivialized 00:27:42.190 --> 00:27:44.789 the intense, sacred act of spiritual study. But 00:27:44.789 --> 00:27:46.990 more importantly, he felt she completely changed 00:27:46.990 --> 00:27:49.750 the ending to be about modern women's lib rather 00:27:49.750 --> 00:27:51.890 than what he saw as a spiritual tragedy. In the 00:27:51.890 --> 00:27:53.829 movie, she goes off to America at the end, right? 00:27:53.869 --> 00:27:55.529 Yeah. To be free and study on her own terms. 00:27:55.650 --> 00:27:58.369 Right. It's a triumphant, empowering, American 00:27:58.369 --> 00:28:01.509 immigrant ending. Papa, can you hear me? It's 00:28:01.509 --> 00:28:03.960 all very uplifting. But in Singer's original 00:28:03.960 --> 00:28:06.940 story, Yentl doesn't go to America. She wanders 00:28:06.940 --> 00:28:09.279 off to another yeshiva to keep living the lie 00:28:09.279 --> 00:28:11.859 because her soul is trapped. There's no place 00:28:11.859 --> 00:28:14.460 in the world for a woman with a man's soul. So 00:28:14.460 --> 00:28:18.480 it's a tragedy. A dark, complex tragedy. And 00:28:18.480 --> 00:28:21.019 Singer felt Streisand turned it into a schmaltzy, 00:28:21.099 --> 00:28:23.980 feel -good American success story. It goes back 00:28:23.980 --> 00:28:26.240 to what we said at the start. He wasn't Fiddler 00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:28.539 on the Roof. He did not want the happy ending. 00:28:28.859 --> 00:28:31.859 Never. He wanted the truth, and the truth for 00:28:31.859 --> 00:28:34.640 him is usually messy and unresolved. He had better 00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:37.259 luck with some other adaptations, though. Enemies, 00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:40.380 a love story. That's a fantastic film. Oh, Angelica 00:28:40.380 --> 00:28:42.859 Houston is amazing in that. And that story, that 00:28:42.859 --> 00:28:46.299 film, captures the singer vibe perfectly. It's 00:28:46.299 --> 00:28:49.059 about a Holocaust survivor in New York who ends 00:28:49.059 --> 00:28:51.190 up with three wives at the same time. It's a 00:28:51.190 --> 00:28:54.509 comedy of errors, but a deeply sad one. Exactly. 00:28:54.690 --> 00:28:57.410 It's funny, it's tragic, and it's about how trauma 00:28:57.410 --> 00:28:59.970 destroys your ability to live a normal moral 00:28:59.970 --> 00:29:02.529 life. It's pure Singer. And then there are the 00:29:02.529 --> 00:29:04.890 children's books, which is another pivot I just 00:29:04.890 --> 00:29:07.549 didn't see coming. Zlay to the Goat. It is strange, 00:29:07.630 --> 00:29:09.950 isn't it? The man who writes about adultery and 00:29:09.950 --> 00:29:12.529 demon popes also writes for kids. But he loved 00:29:12.529 --> 00:29:14.130 writing for children. He had this great line. 00:29:14.410 --> 00:29:16.230 Children don't read reviews. They don't give 00:29:16.230 --> 00:29:18.230 a damn about the critics. They don't read to 00:29:18.230 --> 00:29:20.289 find their identity. They read for the story. 00:29:20.700 --> 00:29:23.200 If the story's boring, they just walk away. Exactly. 00:29:23.220 --> 00:29:26.559 He respected that honesty. And Light of the Goat, 00:29:26.559 --> 00:29:28.480 which was illustrated by the great Maurice Sendak, 00:29:28.640 --> 00:29:31.819 is a masterpiece. It's about a boy and a goat 00:29:31.819 --> 00:29:34.160 who get trapped in a haystack during a blizzard. 00:29:34.319 --> 00:29:36.440 And they survive together. They save each other. 00:29:36.519 --> 00:29:39.420 It's gentle. It's mystical. And it treats the 00:29:39.420 --> 00:29:41.519 animal with the same soulfulness as the human. 00:29:41.980 --> 00:29:44.440 It fits his vegetarian philosophy perfectly. 00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:49.089 So we come to the final chapter. the 1980s he's 00:29:49.089 --> 00:29:52.549 in his 80s now he's rich he's famous where is 00:29:52.549 --> 00:29:55.150 he living what's his life like he's living in 00:29:55.150 --> 00:29:58.650 surfside florida just north of miami beach it 00:29:58.650 --> 00:30:01.390 is such a distinct image the old yiddish writer 00:30:01.390 --> 00:30:03.890 in a cream -colored suit walking down collins 00:30:03.890 --> 00:30:06.069 avenue under the palm trees he became a local 00:30:06.069 --> 00:30:08.569 fixture he would sit in drugstores and eat lunch 00:30:08.569 --> 00:30:10.670 he would walk along the beach and feed the pigeons 00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:13.240 People would stop him and ask for autographs, 00:30:13.240 --> 00:30:15.200 or sometimes they'd ask him to solve their personal 00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:17.579 problems, just like they used to ask his father 00:30:17.579 --> 00:30:20.359 on Crookmalma Street. The circle closes. In a 00:30:20.359 --> 00:30:22.819 way. And he kept writing. Until the very end, 00:30:22.819 --> 00:30:25.059 he was dictating stories, writing essays for 00:30:25.059 --> 00:30:27.589 Moment magazine. But his health did fail him 00:30:27.589 --> 00:30:29.269 eventually. He suffered a series of strokes. 00:30:29.630 --> 00:30:31.730 And he lost his memory. Which, for a writer whose 00:30:31.730 --> 00:30:34.130 entire career was based on the power of memory, 00:30:34.289 --> 00:30:37.190 was the ultimate tragic cruelty. And he passed 00:30:37.190 --> 00:30:41.710 away on July 24th, 1991. He was 87 years old. 00:30:41.789 --> 00:30:44.630 He was buried in New Jersey in a Jewish cemetery, 00:30:44.930 --> 00:30:48.789 not in Poland, not in Israel, but here in America. 00:30:49.009 --> 00:30:51.529 So let's try to wrap this all up. We have talked 00:30:51.529 --> 00:30:54.569 about the demons, the brother, the vegetarianism, 00:30:54.589 --> 00:30:57.079 the Nobel Prize. When you step back and look 00:30:57.079 --> 00:30:59.119 at the whole incredible picture, what is the 00:30:59.119 --> 00:31:02.000 Singer paradox? The paradox is that he was a 00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:04.099 man made of contradictions who never tried to 00:31:04.099 --> 00:31:06.720 resolve them. He embraced them. He was a skeptic 00:31:06.720 --> 00:31:09.480 who wrote constantly about faith. He was a modernist 00:31:09.480 --> 00:31:11.660 who wrote about the past. He was a harsh realist 00:31:11.660 --> 00:31:13.839 who wrote about ghosts and demons. He kept a 00:31:13.839 --> 00:31:16.019 destroyed world alive. Exactly. The world of 00:31:16.019 --> 00:31:18.900 the Polish Jews. He kept it alive, not by preserving 00:31:18.900 --> 00:31:22.299 it in amber like a museum piece, but by animating 00:31:22.299 --> 00:31:24.519 it with all its flaws and passions. He made them 00:31:24.519 --> 00:31:27.059 breathe again. He made them breathe. He made 00:31:27.059 --> 00:31:29.579 them sin. He made them weep. He made them question 00:31:29.579 --> 00:31:32.779 God. He proved that the Jews of Poland weren't 00:31:32.779 --> 00:31:35.039 just a statistic. They weren't just the six million 00:31:35.039 --> 00:31:38.440 martyrs of the Holocaust. They were people. And 00:31:38.440 --> 00:31:40.660 that, I think, is the greatest memorial you can 00:31:40.660 --> 00:31:42.839 possibly build. And for the listener today, why 00:31:42.839 --> 00:31:45.500 does this matter? Why should someone in 2026 00:31:45.500 --> 00:31:48.079 pick up the collected stories of Isaac Bashevis' 00:31:48.160 --> 00:31:51.140 sinner? Because Singer... addresses the modern 00:31:51.140 --> 00:31:53.400 condition of loneliness like almost no one else 00:31:53.400 --> 00:31:55.799 we live in a world where a lot of the old structures 00:31:55.799 --> 00:31:58.440 are falling apart where god feels silent for 00:31:58.440 --> 00:32:01.019 a lot of people where we are all trying to find 00:32:01.019 --> 00:32:03.440 our own private mysticism to make sense of things. 00:32:03.559 --> 00:32:06.140 Singer charts that territory. He tells you, yes, 00:32:06.180 --> 00:32:08.680 the world is scary. Yes, we are alone. But look 00:32:08.680 --> 00:32:11.500 at how miraculous and strange and terrifying 00:32:11.500 --> 00:32:14.299 and beautiful it all is. And he proves that you 00:32:14.299 --> 00:32:17.380 don't have to be broad to be universal. That 00:32:17.380 --> 00:32:20.039 is the big takeaway for me. Singer once said 00:32:20.039 --> 00:32:22.059 something like, the Jews of Poland had died, 00:32:22.119 --> 00:32:24.940 but something, call it spirit or whatever, is 00:32:24.940 --> 00:32:28.440 still somewhere in the universe. He focused on 00:32:28.440 --> 00:32:32.599 one tiny, specific street in Warsaw, one vanished 00:32:32.599 --> 00:32:35.680 culture. And by doing that, he spoke to the whole 00:32:35.680 --> 00:32:37.579 world. I want to leave you with a thought on 00:32:37.579 --> 00:32:40.740 that. We live in an era of globalization. Everything 00:32:40.740 --> 00:32:43.960 is blending. TikTok trends go global in seconds. 00:32:44.319 --> 00:32:46.819 We are often told as creators to make our stories 00:32:46.819 --> 00:32:49.839 accessible to everyone. But Isaac Fashevis Singer 00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:52.640 proves that the most specific, the most localized, 00:32:52.799 --> 00:32:55.119 the most detailed stories are often the ones 00:32:55.119 --> 00:32:57.079 that connect the deepest. Absolutely. If you 00:32:57.079 --> 00:32:59.059 try to write for everyone, you often end up writing 00:32:59.059 --> 00:33:01.369 for no one. If you write the truth about your 00:33:01.369 --> 00:33:03.490 own Croque Malma Street, whatever that is for 00:33:03.490 --> 00:33:05.589 you, you might just win a Nobel Prize. Maybe 00:33:05.589 --> 00:33:07.410 we all need to stop looking outward for a moment 00:33:07.410 --> 00:33:09.230 and go back to our own roots to find the real 00:33:09.230 --> 00:33:12.490 truth. That's it for this deep dive into Isaac 00:33:12.490 --> 00:33:14.349 B'Sheba Singer. Thank you for listening.