Open AccessPrzyczynek do pozagładowego lurianizmu. Droga żelazna Aharona Appelfelda
Author(s) -
Przemysław Tacik
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
studia judaica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 1
eISSN - 2450-0100
pISSN - 1506-9729
DOI - 10.4467/24500100stj.19.013.12396
Subject(s) - the holocaust , kabbalah , transcendence (philosophy) , judaism , jewish mysticism , philosophy , psychoanalysis , literature , art , theology , psychology
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE POST-SHOAH LURIANISM: THE IRON TRACKS BY AHARON APPELFELDThe article reinterprets The Iron Tracks by Aharon Appelfeld as a work of Lurianic Kabbalah adapted to the world after the Shoah. It is a reality of collapsed transcendence in which no divinity or ethics hold universal validity. As in Lurianism, this world contains entrapped sparks of former transcendence: dispersed Jewish survivors, artefacts of Jewish life and a Jewish Communist organization. Appelfeld portrays a post-survival world based on permanent repetition and unrepented guilt. The gist of his novel, however, lies in the slim possibility of redemption which the main protagonist, Erwin Siegelbaum, opens up with an act of vengeance on a war criminal.