21st Century Bogatyr: Taking Time to Explain Time

My translator Yankl has become increasingly uncomfortable with the transcription of aspects of this story. He tells me that many of the people that might read this will have strong doubts about traveling backwards in time.

Additionally, Yankl suggested that even those who might accept the possibility of going into the past might question why the Baal Shem Tov would do so, for instance, in order to alter a scholarly manuscript which is a seemingly minor matter, and yet refrain from using this power to perform great miracles such as the prevention of pogroms. I think that it might be prudent to pause with this narrative to discuss a bit the nature of time.

Now, to be sure, kats und mentshn have many fundamentally different perspectives. Our sleep patterns are significantly different. Our priorities are not the same. And, likely due to all of these sorts of factors that determine our unique nature, cats perceive time quite differently than most people do.

Most people believe time to be a straight line that stretches unbending from the distant past and continues forward into the unknowable future. Chronology proves convenient for scheduling meetings and planning events or a rendezvous, but the orderliness of time is an illusion. Mentshn tend to believe time to be consistent but they are quite wrong.

In reality, time is quite porous, a bit wiggly, and not particularly stable in the least. Cats have no illusions about time being linear. We see time wobble quite often. If you ever see a cat chasing after something that you don't see, it may very well be that the chase is taking place in another time frame that you also fail to see.

The Baal Shem Tov perceived time differently than most people. He could see what others couldn't. His understanding was frankly very similar to a cat's perspective. So, when the Baal Shem Tov determined that it was necessary he would bend time to his purpose. In this way he could travel great distances as well as into the past or even the future.

But, we need to understand that while the Baal Shem Tov's Holiness enabled miraculous occurrences as such, each required the utmost concentration of his spiritual power. Could the Rabbi alter the course of history? At times in certain ways, he certainly could. Doing so, however, had its costs and limitations.

It was a few years after the Baal Shem Tov’s passing, may his memory be a blessing, and quite a long distance to the west in what is generally called the center of Europe, there was a miraculous clock.

If it were installed anywhere else but Prague, one might be inclined to think of a clock with Hebrew letters on its face and hands that circled to the left as merely an oddity. However, Prague has a reputation for Jewish mysteries.

The Jews of Prague had long been a significant minority of the city. They numbered in the thousands, approaching a third of the population. The relationship with the authorities and the Christian majority was often tenuous. There were extended periods of calm punctuated by flare-ups of repression and the occasional pogrom.

So it was that towards the end of the 1500s, Rabbi Loew, the Maharal of Prague, created a golem out of clay and brought it to life with a Kabbalistic spell and the inscription on the creature's forehead of the Hebrew word “emet” (אמת) meaning truth order to protect the community.

The golem, unfortunately, ran amok and caused much unforeseen harm. Rabbi Loew eventually regained control of his creation by erasing the letter Aleph, turning “emet” into “met” (מת) which means death. It was widely believed that the inanimate golem was stored in the attic of the Altneuschul (Old-New Synagogue) just in case that a situation arose that would justify the risk of reanimation.

The Jews were expelled from Prague in 1745. Due to the financial distress that this caused the city, they were allowed to return once more a few years later. In 1754 a fire swept through the Jewish quarter and destroyed hundreds of homes as well as synagogues, Jewish businesses, and the Jewish Town Hall.

And, so it was that in 1764 the Jews of Prague hired the master clockmaker Sebastien Landersberger to design and install a clock for the rebuilt Jewish townhall.

And, it was Sebastien Landersberger's idea to place Hebrew letters on the face of the clock, with the first twelve letters of the Aleph Beis representing the numbers. Recognizing that Hebrew is read from right to left, he placed those letters on the clock in such a way that the hands of the clock need to rotate in the opposite direction of every other clock throughout the world.

Of course, many of the goyim of Prague assumed that the Jewish clock held mystical power that allowed time itself to flow backwards. The Yidden were known to dabble in such things. Who am I to be sure that this is not true of the clock in the tower of the Jewish City Hall of Prague?

Nearly two centuries after the wondrous clock was placed in the Jewish City Hall clock tower, in the middle of the 20th century, Prague was bombed and then occupied by the German military. The suffering was tremendous for everyone but particularly for the Jews. Much of the Jewish quarter was severely damaged and nearly all of the Jews of Prague were killed. Then, Prague came under renewed bombing, this time from Allied forces attacking the Germans. Even more of Prague's buildings were damaged or destroyed. Somehow, the Jewish City Hall survived and the hands of that clock continued to circle counterclockwise throughout the war and continue to do so.

The clock, it seems, was able to rewind time just enough to save itself. However, its ability to rearrange the natural flow of time was not enough to save the Yidden of Prague.

So, think what you think, believe what you will, and see what you are capable of seeing. I know what happened because my Great, Great (multiplied by a large number) Grandmother Mruczek told these tales to her kittens and the stories were handed down from mothers to daughters one generation after another.

For what it is worth, concerning the nature of time, kats, und mentshn, the Rebbe once said, “All that exists is the place where you are meant to be right now.” I am meant to be taking a well deserved cat nap. I will continue this narrative, when I am so inclined. After all, that is the nature of a cat.