The Story Of Menashe

In the book The Crooked Shall Be Made Straight, Israeli writer S.Y. Agnon tells the story of a simple, godly man named Menashe. He runs a grocery store that slowly goes broke because, being so generous a man, Menashe cannot bear to ask money from customers who cannot afford to pay. His ruthless competitors eventually run him our of business, and he has to resort to travelilng from town to town begging. The village rabbi takes pity on poor, decent Menashe and gives him a letter commending him as a good and honest man who is deserving of charity.

Menashe begs for over a year, eventually collecting enough to restart his business. On his last night on the road, before returning home to begin his life again, he lodges at an inn and happens upon a local con man. This man is as vile and contemptible as Menashe is good and upright. When he sees Menashe's letter of commendation from the rabbi, his eyes light up. "If I had a letter like that I would never have to work another day in my life," he glowers, and then offers Menashe a substantial amount of money to purchase the letter. Tempted by the opportunity to virtually double his money and knowing that he no longer needs the rabbi's letter, Menashe sells the document. Then, with more money than he's ever seen before, he decides to celebrate his good fortune. Perhaps motivated also by shame at having sold the honorable rabbi's letter, Menashe gets horribly drunk and in his stupor is robbed of everything he has, even his prayer shawl. With not enough money to get home, Menashe is reduced to begging again.

In the meantime, the liar and con man is set upon by robbers and murdered. His body is mutilated beyond recognition, so that when his corpse is found with Menashe's letter in the pocket, it is immediately assumed that it is in fact Menashe who has been murdered. His wife is notified of her husband's death. Some months later she remarries, and a year later she gives birth to a son just as the destitute Menashe drags himself home. He arrives in town just as his wife and her husband are celebrating the circumcision of their child.

Menashe, the decent man, is in a terrible dilemma. If he reveals his identity, he will effectively end his wife's new marriage by revealing it to be illegal. He will also brand her child as illegitimate, causing him to be an outcast in the Jewish community. Unable to destroy the lives of those he loves, he retreats to the cemetery outside the town. There he confides in the custodian by telling him his tale of woe. The custodian takes pity on this sad, godly man and keeps his secret and supplies him with food and shelter. When Menashe dies shortly after, the custodian has him buried in the very plot his wife had arranged when she thought him dead two years previously.

What does this story mean? It is a parable about losing one's name and finding it. When Menashe was a decent, kind man, his good name was his passport, as symbolized by the rabbi's letter. When he sold the letter, he was acting out of character by doing something for a quick dishonest buck. By selling the letter, he literally gave away his name. It was if the real Menashe ceased to exist. Only later, when he performs his immense act of self-sacrifice, does he receive his name and therefore his identity again. By being buried under his own gravestone, his name is restored. Menashe is alive again (ironically at the point of his death).

Our actions are a representation of our name, our integrity, our identity. When we abandon the high calling to live like Christ, we abandon our Christian identity. We are not saved by our own actions, but we are known by them. Jesus told his own disciples that they would be known (identified as followers of Jesus) by how much they loved each other. Their actions typified their name.

- From the book The Shaping Of Things To Come