זמן אלול

by Dov Elbaum, דב אלבוים

נחמן, נער בן ארבע-עשרה וחצי, תלמיד בישיבה חרדית לצעירים, גוזר על עצמו תענית- דיבור באמצע חודש אלול "לכל השבועיים שנותרו עד ליום הדין." הספר מתאר את השבועיים המיוסרים האלה בחיי הנער, בידודו הקשה מהחברה הישיבתית הצפופה, כמיהתו העזה להיטהרות הגוף והנפש וחיפוש אחר אלוהיו הפרטי. בצד חשבון נפש כולל של חייו וחרדה מתמדת מפני כל גילוי זעיר של "טומאה" נפשית וגופנית, מנסה נחמן להתמודד עם מרד תלמידים נדיר שמתרחש בין כתלי הישיבה. העולם הסגור והמחניק של הישיבה מתואר כאן לגמרי "מבפנים", בכח ביטוי מדהים.
הספר כתוב בסגנון אותנטי, המקפיד להיצמד בדייקנות אל עולמם הלשוני המיוחד של בני הישיבות, ואל מערכת המושגים ודפוסי המחשבה המאפיינים אותם.

229 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Dov Elbaum (Hebrew: דב אלבוים) is an Israeli writer, editor, journalist, television host and Jewish philosophy lecturer.

Reviews

[Josh Friedlander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bialik's famous poem HaMatmid describes the isolation and privation of the Eastern European yeshiva scholar. Dov Elbaum, like Bialik, went through the elite haredi yeshiva system, and, like Bialik, struggled to adapt to it, lost his faith and found later fame as a writer. This debut novel, published in 1997 to critical acclaim, is written in a fervid internal monologue (except for a diary entry near the end) that attempts to reconstructs the argot of that hermetic world. (There are no published translations, and it is probably untranslatable.) Almost every sentence uses a Biblical or Talmudic simile and words without Hebrew roots are rare. The secular are חופשיים (libertines), students suspected of onanism or homosexual activities are מושחתים (corrupt), Mizrahim are פרענקים.

As the title implies, the story takes place within Elul Zman, the period leading up to the Days of Awe, over a period of about a week. The protagonist, Nachman, is nervous and guilt-ridden. His mother is ill, possibly terminal, and he has resolved to cut his ties with the friends who distract him from studying with jokes and gossip. To this end he undertakes a "speech fast" (תענית דיבור).

The book is claustrophobic to start with, and becomes more so as the tension within the yeshiva - as well as Nachman's guilt and repeated spiritual setbacks - piles up. Nachman is consumed by a quest for purity and physical cleanliness. The book opens in the mikveh, and Nachman continuously obsesses over his body: dead skin, sweat, bed-wetting, hangnails, acne, eczema, proper cleaning after defecation, and the inevitably doomed struggle of a fifteen-year-old against self-pollution. Nachman's tragedy is that, for all his spiritual aspiration, he lacks the one trait most important for success in his environment (obviously modelled after the Hebron Yeshiva where Elbaum studied): intellectual brilliance. He struggles to follow the shiur, and daydreams of coming up with a question the teacher will be impressed with. (There are some simple mistakes in citing Talmudic texts, which might be intentional?)

The gradually building intensity of the Days of Awe can be sublime and uplifting. For Nachman, overwhelemed by anxiety, trapped in a mission he can never succeed in, electively mute and probably suffering from undiagnosed OCD, they are a noose around his neck tightening each day. It's unclear to what extent this describes Elbaum's childhood experience, but he has invented a language to describe it, uncomfortable to read but compelling and wholly original.

PS I'm not sure why the cover looks like an Internet Ugly MS Paint drawing...