The Books of Jacob

“Both sides accuse each other of the worst sins, both engage in a war of intelligence. Each is as pathetic as the other, thinks Asher.”

Asher is a medical man who seems to have no interest in religion. He characterizes the disputes between Jews and Christians as petty squabbles over fundamentally similar ideas. Unfortunately for Asher, society does not agree with him. He may consider himself to be above such disputes, but, to the others, he will always be a Jewish man. Jewish identity is still separate from actual religion, especially in a society which is hostile to the very existence of Jewish people.

“Father Chmielowski knows the world only through books.”

Father Chmielowski illustrates the power and the limitation of books. By writing his encyclopedia, he has exposed himself to a wealth of knowledge which is denied to most people. At the same time, however, this knowledge has inherent limitations. He has learned so much but the cost of this learning is that everything else in life is secondary. Father Chmielowski has a broad but shallow understanding of the world, which contrasts with those who live their lives more intensely but lack the understanding of literature and science which can be gained through books.

“The world then, in its entirety, is lack.”

The definition of God is decided through absence. The lack of evidence of God is proof of God’s existence. This theological debate has a neat parallel to the role of Jacob in the novel. Though he is the eponymous protagonist, his story is experienced through other people. The vicarious understanding of the novel’s central character creates a vacuum which is filled by the idea of Jacob Frank, just as God is defined by the absence of God.

“Holiness? From here? ‘Jacob Leybowicz’ sounds like the name of every butcher.”

People react to the news about Jacob as the Messiah with a desire for something wonderful. To them, the Messiah should be external, foreign, and somehow novel. The idea of a Messiah with a butcher’s name is wrong, as this does not titillate or promise salvation like some external force might. Later, Jacob plays up his foreignness to satisfy people’s demands for a stranger kind of Messiah.

“All laws will be invalidated. The division between kosher and non-kosher will disappear, like the division between holy and cursed.”

Jacob presents himself as a Messiah who will bring salvation to his followers, who are mostly Jewish. Notably, Jacob’s form of salvation is to promise a world in which demographic distinctions are unraveled—the persecuted minority will no longer be any different from the majority. Importantly, Jacob will lead this salvation, allowing this end to prosecution to happen on his terms. His offer of salvation is empowering to a marginalized group of people.

“An act of reversal, the opposite of the written law.”

The rules, laws, and conventions which Jacob encourages his followers to break conveniently match his base impulses and quest for physical gratification. He refuses to follow traditional dietary laws or laws surrounding monogamy, allowing him to eat what he pleases and have sex with anyone. Jacob’s religious teachings are often elaborate ways to justify his desire for physical gratification, undermining his efforts to be taken seriously as a religious leader.

“Only the little gods produce sin, similar to how dishonest craftsmen counterfeit coins.”

In discussions of theology, Moliwda listens to the Jewish scholars debate the nature of God. Their allusions to alternative deities (albeit of lesser power) suggest that they are already willing to abandon the traditional conceptions of monotheism. These lesser Gods are counterfeit; they are false replicas of the true God, but which pass for the real thing when they are not scrutinized. In the same way, Jacob can pass for a Messiah to some. He is the counterfeit coin who resembles the real thing, but which cannot bear scrutiny.

“In every language Jacob speaks you can detect a foreign accent.”

Jacob exists in a liminal space between demographics and ethnicities. He has shaped his identity in such a way that he appears foreign and mysterious, wherever he goes. Even among his own followers, he appears more eastern or Turkish through his choice of clothing. His accents reflect this: Jacob speaks every language as a foreigner, someone who exists outside the boundaries of the society while inhabiting it at the same time. He belongs to everyone and no one.

“This forbidden idea we found so thrilling, so illicit, that we wondered whether it was so for every Jew, whether it had, as it did for us, the same force as those four Hebrew letters that create the name of God.”

To the Jews of Rohatyn who become Jacob’s followers, part of the allure of his teachings is, in essence, the temptation of access to Christianity. To them, Christianity is the dominant religion, which represents the unprosecuted majority. Jacob’s promise is that he will provide his followers with access to these forbidden ideas, so much so that the escape from prosecution is a thrilling prospect. Jacob offers inclusion in the form of mysticism.

“The rich and the satisfied are in no hurry for the Messiah; the Messiah is, after all, the one on whom the world must wait forever. The one who arrives is a false Messiah. The Messiah is the one who never arrives. That’s the whole point.”

Throughout the novel, subtle allusions are made to the relationship between material wealth and the desire for radical social change. The most impoverished, most persecuted members of society are those who are hungry for the arrival of the Messiah. They cannot conceive of a world in which they are made rich or powerful through their own means, so they require an external force to deliver them from their suffering. Meanwhile, the rich and powerful are content with the current situation. To them, the question of the Messiah is an amusing distraction that is defined by its failure, rather than a desperately necessary way to end suffering.

“The three of them silently carry the books into the presbytery, into the chamber where the priest keeps the honey and the wax, and bits of rotten wood used to fumigate the bees come the summer.”

The Jewish books are hidden in the Christian presbytery to save them from the violence which is currently being waged against the Jewish community. These books are placed alongside gardening and bee-keeping equipment, activities which are defined by their cyclical nature. The symbolism suggests that violence against Jews is a cyclical pastime in Christian societies, an inevitable and predictable cycle of violence which is hidden away in the dark corners of Christian institutions.

“Poland is a country where freedom of religion and religious hatreds meet on equal terms.”

For the persecuted minority of Jewish people in Poland, religious equality is almost unimaginable. They cannot conceive of a world in which they have the same power, protection, and rights as the Christian majority. Much easier to conceive is a world in which everyone is equally at risk. For those most at risk of violence and those who have most internalized the violence against them, equality is more easily understood as a shared sufferance rather than as true egalitarianism.

“They all like it that Jacob, a saint and a scholar, is down to earth and doesn’t put on airs and graces.”

Jacob’s charisma derives from a carefully-assembled persona. His followers appreciate his lack of “airs and graces” (500); he is aware of his need to appear humble, even as he declares himself a Messiah. His dirty jokes and amusing stories are part of this performance, in which he plays the role of the humble Messiah so as to broaden his appeal. As his popularity is cemented, he loses his ability to stay completely in the role at all times.

“We will always be Jews, just our own kind.”

The salvation offered by Jacob promises to turn the persecuted Jewish people into Christians. He wants to free them from persecution, but some among his followers are despondently aware that they will never truly be able to escape the prejudice against them. The Christians will never consider them anything more than reformed or baptized Jews, rather than actual Christians. They will not be afforded the privileges of the Christian majority; they are simply swapping one form of prejudice for another.

“Jacob locked himself in his room and did not come out for two days. We had no idea what to do.”

Jacob is forced to reckon with the limitations placed upon him by society. As he begins to believe in his own Messianic mythos, he is frustrated to discover that he is not as powerful as he believed himself to be. Furthermore, the absence of Jacob leaves his followers helpless. They have no lessons or guidance which will assist them, suggesting that Jacob’s teachings are not as helpful as they might be. Through his sudden absence, Jacob reveals the limits of his power.

“Moliwda is surprised; he has always been sure that Jacob didn’t believe in all the tales he told the others.”

Moliwda has always suspected that Jacob has been lying about his belief in being the Messiah. Moliwda is the opposite of a true believer; he is shocked that Jacob believes himself to be the Messiah. Nevertheless, Moliwda has always helped Jacob and his followers, even if he has never been tempted to join them in a religious sense. He helps Jacob not because he believes that Jacob is the Messiah, but because Jacob fascinates him. His assistance is an extension of his intellectual curiosity, more than anything else.

“As little as a month ago, these were living animals, trusting in their cozy stables and barns, with no idea they wouldn’t make it past Christmas.”

The animals which are slaughtered ahead of the feast function as a metaphor for the Contra-Talmudists. Jacob’s followers believed that converting to Christianity through baptism would protect them from persecution. Now, however, they are victims of a new type of pogrom which happens to resemble the traditional kind of antisemitic violence they hoped to escape. Their baptisms are false protections in a world where they are only being tolerated to provide a useful venting mechanism for social violence.

“For how would her missive make it to God if not through the stone lips of the temple?”

Fueled by grief, Druzbacka is driven toward Jacob and his promise of salvation. Until the deaths of her children, she had not considered him as anything other than a novelty. As she suffers from a crisis of faith, however, the prospect of communicating in any way with the divine is overwhelmingly tempting. She needs confirmation that God exists in some capacity, so she views Jacob as her temple, a vehicle for her missive fueled by pure desperation.

“Yente understands from this that behind passports lurks the great cosmos of the state apparatus.”

Passports are an extension of the bureaucratic powers of states. This bureaucracy is almost like a religion in its ability to set and determine identity. The name written on the passport may be an invention, but it creates a new reality in which a person bearing that passport adopts a new identity for themselves when navigating international administrations. The passport echoes the adoption of new names by Jacob’s followers when they convert to Christianity, providing a physical embodiment of these transient identities and the power they confer upon their holders.

“The threats of time have their knots and tangles, and every so often there is a symmetry, every once in a while something repeats, as if refrains and motifs were controlling them, a troubling thing to notice.”

Human behavior is one of the few constants in an ever-changing world. At the end of the 18th century, the world that Jacob inhabits is changing. The Enlightenment ideas and the power of technology are reshaping the world. From Yente’s perspective, however, the cycle of human misfortune continues. Only from her distant, objective perspective are these patterns even discernible. Yente’s objectivity and distance give her a power which is not available to the characters who are still inhabiting the world.

“Czerniawski, meanwhile, thinks in terms of trunks full of gold, not believing in bonds, which are—what? Just scraps of paper.”

Bonds and financial instruments are a symbol of the changing times depicted in the novel. For some characters, these financial instruments are as mystical as religion. The abstract way in which financial instruments represent value and money requires a faith-like investment on behalf of the user, one which echoes Jacob’s ability to garner belief among his followers. Bonds are a new form of religion, one which will compete with Jacob’s traditional mysticism.

“This entire messianic movement is a rather complicated form of extracting money from naïve Jews.”

Throughout the novel, the question of whether Jacob is a sincere believer or a conman is portrayed from many perspectives. After his death, however, the meaninglessness of the question is revealed. The debate illustrates the way in which the truth does not matter, as Jacob’s life is reduced to a conversation piece among the powerful Christians. They are the real pawnbrokers of power, assembling their own truth based on rumor and gossip rather than reality. Whether Jacob was sincere is irrelevant as his story will be written by those who only have a passing interest in his life.

“It’s too late to find out now.”

Yente and her transcendence are one of the only examples of actual mysticism in the novel. She has an out-of-body experience and lives for centuries, yet her experiences are either ignored, misunderstood, or forgotten. Instead, people focus on the flashy emptiness of Jacob’s claims. Real magic and mysticism exist in the world but they are left in the back of a cave, while Jacob is given money and power. By the time anyone decides to remember Yente, “it’s too late to find out” (53) what happened. The dismissal of her experience illustrates the human misunderstanding of how true mysticism manifests itself in the world.