Jeffrey Saks on the Genius of S.Y. Agnon

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2024

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Shmuel Yosef Agnon is one of the masters of modern Hebrew fiction, who helped to spark the revival of modern Hebrew literature in Israel and around the world. His work is not only beloved, but also profound, laden with many allusions to the vast canon of traditional Jewish text that shaped his literary imagination: one hears in Agnon’s work echoes of the siddur, the Hebrew Bible, and an astonishing array of rabbinic literature. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1966.

Yesterday, Tikvah released a five-part, online video course introducing students to S.Y. Agnon’s short stories, novels, and anthologies—writing that strengthened the Jewish people in those pivotal 20th-century years when the state of Israel was reborn. The course is taught by Rabbi Jeffrey Saks, director of research at the Agnon House in Jerusalem, series editor of the S.Y. Agnon Library at the Toby Press, editor of the journal Tradition, and the founding director of the Academy for Torah Initiatives and Directions in Jewish Education – ATID. This week, we bring you the audio from the first episode of Rabbi Saks’s forthcoming video course on the writings of Shay Agnon. To register for the course, go to tikvahfund.org/agnon.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Shmuel Josef Agnone, known as Shai Agnone, is one of the masters of modern Hebrew fiction,
0:13.8	helping to spark the revival of modern Hebrew literature in Israel and around the world.
0:18.7	His work is not only beloved, but also profound, laden with many
0:22.5	allusions to the full canon of traditional Jewish texts that shaped his literary imagination.
0:28.8	One hears in the work of Cheyagnon echoes of the Sidur, the Hebrew Bible, and an astonishing
0:34.6	array of rabbinic literature. Cheygnon was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966.
0:41.1	Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.
0:44.6	Tikva will soon make available a five-part online video course,
0:49.0	introducing students to Shai Agnone's short stories, novels, and anthologies,
0:55.7	writing that strengthened the Jewish people in those pivotal 20th century years when the state of Israel was reborn.
1:01.2	The course is taught by Rabbi Jeffrey Sachs, director of research at the Agnone House in Jerusalem,
1:06.4	series editor of the Shai Agnon Library at the Toby Press, as well as editor of the journal Tradition, and the founding director of the Academy of the Academy of the Shai Agnon Library at the Toby Press, as well as editor of the journal
1:11.8	Tradition and the founding director of the Academy for Torah Initiatives and Directions
1:17.0	in Jewish Education, Atid.
1:19.7	This week I'm bringing you the audio from the first episode of Rabbi Sacks' forthcoming
1:24.7	video course on the Hebrew literature of Shai Agnone. To register for the course,
1:30.1	you can visit ticfund.org slash agnone. You can subscribe to the Tikva podcast on Apple Podcasts,
1:37.5	Google Play, and Spotify. I hope you leave us a five-star review to help us grow this community of
1:42.5	ideas. I welcome your feedback on this or any of our
1:45.2	other episodes at podcast at ticfa fund.org. And of course, if you want to learn more about our work
1:50.8	at Tikva, you can visit our website, tikfa fund.org, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
1:56.9	Here now is the audio recording of Rabbi Jeff Sack's first episode of his forthcoming online
	...

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