Interpreting Jakov Lind’s “Resurrection” through Talmudic Hair-Splitting

Introduction: Hubertus Alphons Brederode of Utrecht, but you can call me Efraim Goldschmied


Jakov Lind’s story “Resurrection,” is the story of Goldschmied, a Christian covert who prays in Latin but does so with a Yiddish accent. The setting of the story is a basement, but Goldschmied describes his hiding places as a “tomb,” “a coffin,” and “a hole.” The implication is that from the beginning of the story he has already suffered a social death at the hand of the Nazis. When he is informed that he is going to be accompanied by another Jew, Goldschmied places this critical question to Van Tuinhout, the man who is hiding him: “I’m a sociable man, but how can two people live in this hole without killing each other? Besides, there’s the difference in denomination” (407).

The distinction of Goldschmied as both a Christian and a Jew is apparent even as he introduces himself to Weintraub: “My name, by the way, is Hubertus Alphons Brederode of Utrecht, but you can call me Efraim Goldschmied, that’s what I call myself to show sympathy for the Jews. Otherwise I’m a Christian, a real Christian, as you probably noticed right away. (Still no sign from Weintraub.) A Christian, see, a goy, not one of us, one of them. Now do you see what I mean?” (411). In ever more comical ways, Goldschmied’s attempts to distance himself from his Jewish identity just highlight his Jewishness further. Goldschmied’s introduction is but one example of a parallel identity which appears throughout the story and refuses to be settled permanently. When Goldschmied is asked whether he is hiding as a Jew or a Christian he answers: “Both, my friend. This isn’t only the cave of the Maccabees, it’s also the catacombs of Amsterdam” (412).

Jakov Lind’s story “Resurrection” is about two characters struggling with their identity within a tomb, but the story is also a story of social death: what it means to have to search for identity in the shadow of the Final Solution. Goldschmied and Weintraub are two people who must bear the burden of the German designation Untermensch, or subhuman, and thus, it is fitting that their search for identity and community takes place underground (in sub terrain), in a figurative tomb. Stuck underground together, they are a constant reminder to each other of their subterranean social status.

Like much of Jakov Lind’s writing, “Resurrection” tests the limits of conflicted identity. From the story’s beginning, Goldschmied is a puzzle. As the character Van Tuinhout says of Goldschmied: “you don’t know where you are” (409). To Van Tuinhout even the form of Goldschmied’s speech is suspect: “Whatever Goldschmied said in his mixture of Yiddish and Dutch sounded suspicious to van Tuinhout” (407). The contradictions in Goldschmied’s overt speech and actions are formed out of unconscious desires and motivations: the primary of which is a neurotic fear. Goldschmied hopes, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he can switch from one identity to another just enough to escape death.

Learned Helplessness

In 1967 two scientists J. Bruce Overmier and Martin Seligman published an article in the Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology on the effects of inescapable shocks on dogs. In the experiment, the control dogs were given a means of escape and quickly found it. However, the non-control dogs were given no method of escape. The dogs with no method of escape ran around helplessly trying to escape punishment before lying down in the corner and submitting to it. We call this phenomenon “learned helplessness.”

(You probably know the experiment. You probably have heard the term “learned helplessness” before. Here is the full citation just in case: Overmier, J. B., & Seligman, M. E. (1967). Effects of inescapable shock upon subsequent escape and avoidance responding. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 63(1), 28–33. https://doi.org/10.1037/h00241669).

The experience of Goldschmied and Weintraub hiding in the shadow of the final solution is not unlike the dog in Overmier and Seligman’s experiment. Lind even makes a direct connection between their situation and the situation of a dog (though we have no way of knowing if Lind had in mind the dogs in the Overmier and Sligman experiment). In a crucial line in the text Weintraub reduces the complex speech of Goldschmied to three elements: “You talk and talk. Religion, holiness, the Jew’s mission. All a lot of phrases, slogans. Choice, dog, guilt. I don’t give a shit about all that…I want to live and breathe and I don’t care how—like a dog or a frog or a bedbug, it’s all the same to me” (421).

The element of breathing is important in Lind’s writing, and often he distinguishes one character from another by describing their patterns of breath, but despite these differences, the need for air is a common trait shared by all of the characters, and indeed, all creatures. The three elements “Choice, dog, guilt” are also important, because they can be found at every level of the story. One, the two characters of the story have the ability to choose; two, this ability to choose is the same as the dog within Overmeier’s experiment (however, you never know if you are in the control or the non-control group); and three, guilt remains as a punishment. Why? In the end, we are ashamed that whether we are Christians, Jews, dogs, frogs, or bedbugs, we are all greedy for the air to fill our lungs. When life becomes its most difficult, our civilization, culture, and learning will shed itself. We will devolve into animals no more distinguished than any other – greedy to breathe and always seeking to escape punishment.

Why Goldschmied Cannot Escape Persecution through Sterilization

Throughout the text, Goldschmied uses his parallel identities for his own benefit. In a crucial scene at the beginning of the story, he is able to switch from one identity to another in order to avoid a Christian cultural taboo: “Psiakrew Pieronie! It was only in Polish that he dared. As a protestant he wasn’t allowed to swear” (157). Since Goldschmied is so self-serving with his use of identities, why doesn’t he use his identity as a Christian in order to escape persecution?

The answer is twofold: Goldschmied knows that he cannot escape an aspect of himself that has become indelible and that the Nazis will not allow him to be anything other than their untermensch. Goldschmied cannot escape his Jewish identity: physically or psychologically. Even if the Nazis had allowed him to cross the bridge between Christian and Jewish identities, Goldschmied himself cannot so easily rid himself of this identity. Even as he prays in Dutch and Latin he cannot escape his Yiddish accent. His exhortations on the Jewish problem have the form of “Talmudic hair-splitting” or “Jewish conceit.” Before the story has even started, Goldschmied has admitted that he is a Jew (as Weintraub points out) by the fact that he has hidden. Sterilization is never realized as a valid option, because Goldschmied never seriously believes it will save him from persecution: letting oneself be sterilized, after all, is another form of admission.

At the end of the story, we see that Weintraub’s conclusion about admission of otherness is correct, for Goldschmied’s attempt to hide is enough to put him on the same train as Weintraub.

All of this Ranting is Equivalent to the Last Gasp

Weintraub says this about the possibility of being resurrected after persecution:

“Resurrection is nothing but Talmudic hair-splitting, mystery, smoke and sulfur, hocus-pocus, theological speculation. There is no second time…I want to live and breathe and I don’t care how—like a dog or a frog or a bedbug, it’s all the same to me. I want to live and breathe, to live (421).”

In this context, “resurrection” is contemptuous. The title of the story is recontextualized as disbelief in “resurrection.” Weintraub’s description of “Resurrection” as an illusion emphasizes Weintraub’s will to live. But “Resurrection” also appears in the story as the will to believe that one will live again after death, for Goldschmied’s belief in Christianity gives him better prospects for believing that “Resurrection” is possible: “Is there any better life-insurance, with lower premiums, than Christ? If there were, Weintraub, wouldn’t I have taken it out?” (420).

In the tomb, each character must struggle with social death, the prospect of physical death, and the chances of resurrection. However, it is the prospect of physical death which has the greatest impact on both Weintraub and Goldschmied, for throughout the text, the ability to breathe is that which is valued above all else. Each character, although possessing a different quality of breath, shares the common characteristic of the ability to breathe, and thus the ability to live. In Lind’s story, although each character has his own individual way of dealing with the prospects of physical life after social death, each has at the heart of their actions and motives a common goal: one more breath.