Falling In Love, 1934-1941

        Every schoolboy learned the history of Trachimbrod from a book originally written by the Venerable Rabbi - AND IF WE ARE TO STRIVE FOR A BETTER FUTURE, MUSTN'T WE BE FAMILIAR AND RECONCILED WITH OUR PAST?- and revised regularly by a comittee of Uprighters and Slouchers. The Book of Antecedents began as a record of major events: battles and treaties, famines, seismic occurences, the beginnings and ends of political regimes. But it wasn't long before lesser events were included and described at great lenght - festivals, important marriages and deaths, records of construction in the shtetl (there was no destruction then)- and the rather small book had to be replaced with a three-volume set.

          Soon upon the demand of the readership -which was everyone, Uprighter and Sloucher alike - The Book of Antecedents included a biennial census, with every name of every citizen and a brief chronicle of his or her life (women were included after the synagogue split), summaries of even less notable events, and commentaries on what the Venerable Rabbi had called LIFE, AND THE LIFE OF LIFE, which included definitions, parables, various rules and regulations of righteous living, and cute, if meaningless, sayings.

          The later editions, now taking up an entire shelf, became yet more detailed, as citizens contributed family records, portraits, important documents, and personal journals, until any schoolboy could easily find out what his grandfather ate for breakfast on a given Thursday fifty years before, or what his great-aunt did when the rain fell without lull for five months. The Book of Antecedents, once updated yearly, was nos continually updated, and when there was nothing to report, the full-time committee would report its reporting, just to keep the book moving, expanding, becoming more like life: We are writing.... We are writing.... We are writing. 

And I'm sure that my grandfather was no exception. He, too, must have skipped from volume to volume, page to page, searching...

THE PROBLEM OF GOOD: WHY UNCONDITIONALLY GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO UNCONDITIONALLY BAD PEOPLE
     (See GOD)

WHAT JACOB R ATE FOR BREAKFAST ON THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 21, 1977
     Fried potatoes with onions. Two slices of black bread.

BROD'S 613 SADNESSES
     The following encyclopedia of sadness was found on the body of Brod D. The original 613 sadnesses, written in her diary, corresponded to the 613 commandments of our (not their) Torah. Shown below is what was salvageable after Brod was recovered. (Her diary's wet pages printed the sadnesses onto her body. Only a small fraction [55] were legible. The other 558 sadnesses are lost forever, and it is hoped that, without knowing what they are, no one will have to experience them). The diary from which they came was never found.

  SADNESS OF THE COVENANT: Sadness of God's love; Sadness of God's back [sic]; Favorite-  child sadness; Sadness of b[ein]g sad in front of one's God; Sadness of the opposite of belief [sic];  What If? Sadness; Sadness of God alone in heaven; Sadness of a God who would need people to pray to Him...

  SADNESS OF THE INTELLECT: Sadness of being misunderstood [sic]; Humor Sadness; Sadness of love without release; Sadness of being smart; sadness of not knowing enough words to express what you mean; Sadness of having options; Sadness of wanting sadness; Sadness of confusion; Sadness of domesticated birds; Sadnesss of finishing a book; Sadness of remembering, Sadness of Forgetting;

We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....We are writing.... we are writing.....


-Jonathan Safran Foer
Novelista y autor norteamericano.
En 'Everything is Illuminated'.