Satan in Goray: pp. 154-5

Murray thought it might be helpful if I posted a part of an email correspondence we had about Satan in Goray, so here we go!



At our last discussion, we talked about the possibility of Rechele's visions and her deteriorating health being physical manifestations of her traumatizing past. In the chapter titled "Rechele Prophesies," on pages 154 to 155, she has a vision that the Angel Sandalfon visits her and tells her to spread the good word about Reb Gedaliya. The part of the passage I liked begins with, "All night the voice called to Rechele..." and ends with, "...she fell face forward on the earth."

The most interesting part about this passage is how Singer focuses on Rechele's body and her physical reactions to this vision. In essence, Rechele becomes a living soul trapped in a corpse's body. It's like she can only experience these visions when her body is on the "edge of death" (154). Similarly, Rechele only relays Angel Sandalfon's message in the prayer-house court after she falls on the ground as if she has died. I think that Rechele's physical weakness correlates with the broader conflict of the novel: the downfall of Goray. Rechele's dybbuk only ever comes out when she is weakened -- essentially, when she has no voice of her own. Similarly, the citizens of Goray are down and out from the Polish attacks. They are looking for someone to save them. When Reb Gedaliya comes to town, they submit to him basically without question, and I think it's because they feel like they were not powerful enough on their own to save themselves.

By the end of the novel, it's made clear that Reb Gedaliya took advantage of his power and of the Goray citizens. I think, then, that it's safe to assume Reb Gedaliya took advantage of Rechele as well. From the very beginning of the novel, Rechele is described as physically weak because she has a limp; essentially, she seems like a woman just waiting to be victimized. It is already suspicious for Reb Gedaliya to marry Rechele a week after her divorce is finalized. Early on, it seems like he has ulterior motives. When Rechele gets sicker and starts having visions, Reb Gedaliya jumps at the opportunity to turn these visions into prophecies that highlight him as a savior. It seems pretty diabolic.

In this passage, Rechele's visits from Angel Sandalfon seem like a horrible nightmare, nothing like the holy visions Reb Gedaliya constructs for the people of Goray. Singer mostly remarks the physical pains Rechele feels through the night, making these visions look like physical abuse. In fact, after Rechele wakes up, she "rinse[s] her breasts and thighs as though performing a ritual" (154). What type of ritual, though, is never specified. Because she never identifies a purpose to this ritual, it opens the floor for debate about what this purpose could be. To me, it seems as though she is cleaning herself after having sex.

Rechele, however, is a supposed virgin, so this does not make sense. But, based on the fact that Reb Gedaliya proves himself to be untrustworthy and manipulative, I deduced that he's possibly raping her when she is too weak to stop it or maybe even realize it. In the beginning of the novel, her Granny fills her head with scary ghost stories that leave Rechele convinced that every bad thing that happens in life is the result of an evil spirit inhabiting her space. Perhaps, then, Rechele is displacing her traumas caused by Reb Gedaliya. She could be blaming these physical pains on a dybbuk when really they're being inflicted by Reb Gedaliya, who in turn is making his actions into something holy.

Rechele seems to be looking for something to blame to cope with her physical and emotional state. The easiest thing for her is to blame a spirit that she cannot control. This parallels the attitudes of Goray and everyone's need to find a scapegoat for their problems. It's like the people of Goray blame their degradations on black magic and evil spirits because they can't deal with the reality that there are bad people within their community that will take advantage of them. It brings into question this whole definition of "magic" and makes me wonder if these people just insert meaning into this unspecific entity because they can't figure out a way to solve their problems. It seems like the people of Goray only believe in magic when it's convenient, i.e. when they need something to point their fingers at or something new to believe in. I'm not sure how holy or real Rechele's experiences with her dybbuk are when she doesn't seem to have much of an emotional reaction to them. Also, I wonder if the people of Goray can make her experience into something more real by inserting their meanings into it, or if that just falsifies it more.