The Dybbuk

Great art, we know, is universal, but, before it is universal, it has to be thoroughly local, it has to bear the signature of a people and a way of life. The point has been proved by an artist rather close in nearly all respects to Ansky—namely, Chagall. Sholom Aleichem I should judge to be less close, for, unless the English translation has misled me, Ansky's achievement is visual and show more aural, that is, theatrical, rather than literary. Great theatrical work being even rarer than great writing as such, The Dybbuk is the more welcome on this account...

I've no idea whether Ansky was theologically minded, and I am sure there are experts to tell me that The Dybbuk is not at all a pious play; at the same time there is something in it that is religious in a broader, and perhaps deeper, sense. Ansky makes real to us people whose religious tradition is perhaps the main thing in their lives and, like Chagall, he seems to tell us that we can be happy in the universe even if we are miserable in the world. There is a fine Dickensian mixture, in this Hasidism, of mysticism and jollity. show less