Reading (in) the Holocaust. Malgorzata Wójcik-Dudek
these three letters, aleph itself means the unity of God.133
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Władysław Panas insists that the Hebraic sign for aleph is similar to the Greek χ (chi), the first letter in chiasmos, i.e. the crossing. Panas understands it as tantamount to meeting the Other. If so, aleph is a record of encounter as it symbolises God and man with one hand gesturing up at the sky and the other down at the ground, the point of beginning.134
The idea of attending to the script and hidden meanings may by particularly germane to the story of Mr Inkblot. The dense fabric of evocations of writing (including inkblotgraphy lessons, the spinning of letters, the recording of dreams, china tablets with secrets inscribed on them, an expedition for ink and the very name of the eponymous character) makes this interpretive perspective particularly compelling. Importantly, Hebrew is a holy tongue (Lashon Hakodesh), for the letters of its alphabet possess such an extraordinary power and energy that they served as the primary tools of creation. It should be remembered that Jewish kabbalists dismissed the idea of the creation of the world out of nothing and argued that because God had created the visible world in emulation of the invisible Torah, all the creatures of this world imitated the letters of the invisible, mystical Torah.135
As a consequence of this doctrine, a specific approach to the interpretation of the world was developed in which the central axis is provided by philosophical reflection on individual letters of the visible Torah, while their order is believed to be reflected in the surrounding world.
Let us focus on another series of letters, one that lines up into a name. In Hebraic tradition, to relinquish the name means to give up on life and language because, as Jacques Derrida reminds, following Scholem: “Speech is name. In the names, the power of language is enclosed, in them its abyss is sealed.”136 Jews ←61 | 62→believe that God will use their names to call them to rise from their graves on the day of resurrection, and the Talmud suggests that God’s judgment can be revoked by changing one’s name.137
Adaś is certainly a prominent name in The Academy. Adaś in Polish is an endearing diminutive of Adam, and Adam is the term for the human being in Hebrew.138 Gematria ascribes to the letters used in this name the numeric value of 45, which is represented in ma, that is, “what?”139 The human being is thus a question about what s/he is or perhaps of what s/he becomes and what s/he intends to be. Within such an interpretive framework, the human being is potentiality itself, a pure possibility which is usually attributed to the child alone.
Adaś is twelve years old when he enters the Academy in order to be changed, improved and mended so as to turn from a loser into a man of success. He is to be helped by Mr Inkblot, the mentor of the boys. However, Mr Inkblot immediately explains what rules apply at his Academy: “ ‘Remember, boys,’ Mr Inkblot told us right at the start, ‘that I will not teach you your multiplication tables, nor grammar, nor calligraphy, nor all those sciences which are usually taught at schools. I will simply open your heads up and put some brains inside.’ ”140
What does it mean to “open the heads up” and “put some brains inside” in the context of Mr Inkblot’s “educational” interventions? His Academy is not a cheder, contrary to what the age of his students could imply.
The magnificent building of the Academy, situated amidst a park which borders with fairylands, does not resemble a cheder at all. The stately three-story edifice with its halls for study and play, the mysterious room which belongs to Mr Inkblot alone and the huge garden which is surrounded by a wall with a glass gate and innumerable gates leading to various fairy tales, resembles a well-organised institution, even though the Academy is free of an oppressive system ←62 | 63→of instruction. Bringing to mind a palace rather than a school, the building substantiates the fairy-tale status of Brzechwa’s narrative. When the students pass through the glass gate, they enter a space of promise which by no means exhorts them to “abandon all hope,” instead encouraging them to develop self-confidence.
Or is it a yeshiva perhaps? Under the First Republic of Poland (i.e. between the 15th century and the third partition of Poland in 1795), such schools were called Talmudic academies. They admitted thirteen-year-old boys after their bar mitzvah. The biggest yeshiva in pre-war Poland was situated in Lublin (Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva/Yeshiva of Wise Men in Lublin) and taught boys from fourteen years of age.
Mr Inkblot establishes a hybrid institution which performs a range of functions. It is certainly a school, an extensive playground and a therapeutic facility in which the boys are helped to develop self-reliance, paralleling the worn-down appliances repaired by Mr Inkblot. The path to repair leads through a revolution in consciousness, a unique metanoia. The transformation is triggered by dialogue between the student and the teacher. In this sense, Mr Inkblot’s school is reminiscent of Plato’s Academy combined with a cheder or, considering the age of the boys, with a yeshiva.
As a result, the typical cheder rebbe comes across as merely a poor caricature of what a real teacher and guide should be, which is what Mr Inkblot professes and is considered to be. His exceptionality does not solely reside in his magical abilities, obvious attributes of the fairy-tale protagonist as they are, but first and foremost in his approach to learning and studying. Mr Inkblot becomes a second father to his boys,141 improving their minds and opening them up to dialogue.
Unlike in the cheder, his methods primarily appeal to the unfettered imagination of children. Instead of calligraphy lessons, he offers classes in inkblotgraphy. To grasp the meaning of his actions, we should examine the contrast between an inkblot and a calligraphed character. The teacher repudiates repetition, imitation and replication of the ancient pattern, instead prioritising activeness, dynamism, creation and naming. Like images in Rorschach tests, the shapes of inkblots compel the Academy students to be actively involved, enthusiastic and committed to constructing stories, all of which would be impossible without the ←63 | 64→work of their imaginations. A spot of ink on paper is submitted to imaginative interpretations, which presupposes creative freedom.
In Hebrew, the verb “to study” is symbolised by the letter lamed ‒ ל. As the only one of the twenty two characters in the alphabet, lamed extends above the line of script. Therefore, to study means to rise, to go beyond oneself and to open up to infinity. This process is usually dynamic; rather than wordless, silent and associated with the asceticism of individual study, it is captured in a metaphorical image of a battlefield. It is enveloped in motion and noise, takes place in the company of other learners and above all involves the presence of the master. Knowledge is acquired in this way not only by students at batei midrash, but also by the pupils of Mr Inkblot’s Academy.
The transgression of boundaries in emulation of the letter lamed is supposed to develop an open mind, to foster a creative imagination and to unblock intellectual capacities. Steeped in such an educational milieu, the individual “becomes,” and the teaching process never ends. Mr Inkblot insists that interpretation is not a given but a possibility which sets thinking in motion. Thus the task that Mr Inkblot devises for himself is to put thoughts in constant motion.
Stretching beyond the ruling, the letter lamed points to what forms the bedrock of studying. Studying is a continual “ascent towards” which defies any ultimate definition. It ensues from a creative refusal to answer the question lying at the core of the human being: Adam – “what?”. To answer it would mean the end of the quest and the achievement of stabilisation, which opposes the human calling to self-fulfilment through “being on the way.”
Therefore Mr Inkblot activates the imagination of his students in the belief that the teacher-student encounter is grounded in trust and an “honest” flow of knowledge. Such a relationship is well conveyed