The Holy Grail in Holocaust Literature: Skibell's A Blessing on the Moon and Wolfram's Parzival

Abstract

The Holy Grail in Holocaust Literature:Skibell's A Blessing on the Moon and Wolfram's Parzival Ryan Muckerheide (bio) Elements of Yiddish and German folklore permeate many Holocaust narratives, but Joseph Skibell chooses perhaps the most potent Christian symbol of all as a key image in his 1997 novel A Blessing on the Moon. The legend of the Holy Grail has intrigued people of many nations since it acquired its modern form in the late twelfth century. In the early thirteenth century, the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach produced his version of the Grail quest, named after its protagonist, the young knight Parzival. Wolfram's Parzival would become the standard German interpretation of the Grail legend for centuries and would be the foundation for Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal. Skibell also used many elements of the Parzival legend in his novel, but he transformed them in a unique and powerful way. A Blessing on the Moon is a novel of transformation and redemption, and in its use of the Parzival story, the novel brings into conversation the Jewish, Christian, and mystical paths to redemption. Theodore Adorno, in an oft-quoted and just as oft-misunderstood statement, once said that "[t]o write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric" (34). Adorno did not mean that art was no longer possible, but that after the barbarism and horror of the Holocaust, "how could one continue to talk blithely of 'culture,' of artistic forms, of art, of beauty as though nothing had disturbed the value and significance of such discourse . . ." (qtd. in Schiff, xix). The term "Holocaust novel" itself reflects this loss of formal integrity through the blurring of boundaries between autobiography, fiction, and history. Skibell's A Blessing on the Moon further erodes these boundaries. Not only is the main character based on Skibell's own greatgrandfather, but the novel is fantastical—all of the action takes place in a surreal netherworld between death and life. Like many Holocaust novels, Blessing on the Moon is a profoundly Jewish text—and not only because of its subject matter. The events in the novel are set in a Hasidic context and based on a movement within Judaism dating from the eighteenth century and popular in eastern Europe. Two of the principal characters are Hasidim, a term which means "pious" and in this context is similar to the learned hermits of medieval romance. The title of the novel refers to a blessing given when the first crescent of the new moon is sighted. According to Arthur Green, the Jewish mystics, known as Kabbalists, viewed [End Page 39] the new moon as a time of relief from danger. The monthly diminishing of the moon until it is finally out of sight recalls an ancient legend about God punishing the moon because she wanted to rule equally with the sun. The moon is taken to be shekhinah [God's presence in the world] and her disappearance reflects her subjugation to the forces of evil, a condition that God is said to regret and mourn. The moon's reappearance at Rosh Hodesh is thus a time for rejoicing and hope for that day when 'she will no longer be diminished.' Redemption will mean that shekhinah will no longer vanish from view and that God's presence will be felt and seen throughout the universe. (165) In the novel, the moon is brought crashing to earth by the actions of the two Hasidim, Kalman and Zalman, who, while being chased by the Nazis, unintentionally travel to the moon in a mystical boat. Once there, they discover that the moon is covered in silver. They load as much as they can into the boat, which they have tied to the moon. When they get back in, the boat sinks back to earth and pulls the moon with it. The moon, which represents shekhinah, or the presence of God among humans, is lost, and thus the earth is thrown into the metaphorical darkness of Nazi atrocities. The Grail, like the moon, is a powerful and fluid symbol. It appears in many different forms, but all have certain characteristics in common: They provide food and drink, usually whatever food and drink one...