„Cień bladawy nad lichtarzem smutno ślęczy nad księgami...” – obraz żydowskiego uczonego w wierszach Chaima Nachmana Bialika

Abstract

The article is devoted to the works of Chaim Nachman Bialik, a Jewish poet writing in Yiddish and Hebrew, who lived at the turn of the 20th century. Bialik, called “the restorer of Hebrew poetry,” expresses in his poems ambivalent feelings of his generation, fascinated on the one hand with the modernist revolution and secular Zionist ideas, and on the other hand – conscious of the weight of their traditional religious heritage. The article presents an analysis of an – innovative in that era – image of a Jewish scholar, created by Bialik, trapped in an admittedly rich tradition, but closed to any new ideas, including the idea of a secular Hebrew culture. The poet shows in his works the Jewish sage as a man severed from the outside world, not aware of the social changes taking place, of the beauty of nature, nor respecting the needs of his body. Bialik is aware that the closed world of orthodox Jewish towns, in the face of changes taking place in the world, was doomed to extinction, but realizes at the same time that breaking with tradition and with cultural heritage, constituting the basis of its identity, is not possible.