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Il Registro dei Peccati - Fragments of text (...) The Jews entertain with the Messiah and messianism a relationship of spasmodic and continuous expectation, never interrupted and, in some ways, surreal.As this witz tells us: In a poor village, the poorest of all Jewish Poland, lived a boy who was the poorest of all the poor in that poorest of villages. His mother was a widow and, in order to feed her son, worked as a washer-woman who killed herself with work by washing the clothes of the rich in the frozen river during the Winter. Each evening when her son came home she covered him with insults: "You good-for-nothing idiot, can't you find yourself a job? You're vorse than your father, that drunken delinqvent!" Exasperated, one day the poor boy goes to the Rabbi and says: "Look, rebbe, I'm sick of your chattering, I don't have a job and you give me only words. Can you see the bell-tower over there, across the river? I will go over to the church and get converted, The priest will certainly treat me better than you!" "Don't be an idiot and stop saying idiocies" answered the Rabbi, "Alright, I will give you a job. The whole community council will insult me for this, but I will give you a job: I hereby nominate you as the official Messiah Sighter of our village". "But, rebbe, are you pulling my nose? Official vat???? "Nose, shmose! Vat do you mean, pulling your nose? Are you dumb? Do I have time to pull your nose? Vat do you think, that the Messiah ven he comes, he sends a telegram? Arriving at six, please expect me? The Messiah comes ven he comes! Vat do you vant, for him to catch me vith my pants down as I come out of the bathroom? I'll tell the carpenter to build you a sighting tower, you keep an eye out and ven he comes, you'll recognize Him because he's all beautiful and shining vith light, so you shout to us "Messiah, Messiah!"... We get dressed and ready..." "Vats the pay?" asks the boy, "I'm sorry", answers the Rabbi "you can have the job but the pay is small, ten groschen a week, and don't complain because that's all I can give you". "But Rabbi, it's a pittance!!!". "Listen, boy, you have job, you have pay, don't ask me for more". The boy, at least satisfied with the dignity of the job, goes home and tells his mother everything: "Mamma! Mamma! Mamma! I have job! I've become a man vith a job!". "Ah, Master of the Universe, you have finally listened to the prayers of a poor woman. Very good, dear, tell me vat job have you found?". "Mamma, your son is now the Official Village Messiah Sighter". The mother cannot believe her ears: "Vat?! You are nothing but an idiot! My son, a Messiah Sighter, vat shame, they vill all laugh at me, the Tsar from Moscow vill come here to laugh at me. Idiot! So, vat's the pay?" "Ten groschen a week". The mother is even more furious: "A pittance, that's vat it is! I vill have to vork like an animal, I vill die of vork and it vill be your fault, you mangy dog!". "Mamma, enough, enough" begs the boy, "Im sick of being insulted by you. Enough, I beg you. Alright, you're right, the job is vat it is, the pay is vat it is, but there is also a great advantage: it's a lifetime position!!". This strange Jewish messianism is one of the radiant characteristics of this world, a world in which the greatest of hungers and blackest of poverties did not stop it from living an incredible spirituality, as was rarely seen in this land of Europe. (...) |
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