Insidetranslation a of Negotiating the Relationship, Rarely Straightforward, Between Author and Translator
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TO SUBSCRIBE: CALL (877) 568-SHMA ONLINE www.shma.com EMAIL [email protected] 41/675 December 2010/Tevet 5771 A JOURNAL OF JEWISH RESPONSIBILITY s an editor, I’m engaged constantly, in one way or another, in translation; so are all the writ- ers — rabbis, academics, novelists, critics — in this issue. By translation, we mean a few different things: the act of rendering a work from one language to another — and the act InsideTranslation A of negotiating the relationship, rarely straightforward, between author and translator. It also Todd Hasak-Lowy means, as Joel Hecker writes, “transforming something from one state of being to another.” The Fear of Getting it This issue of Sh’ma includes a wide-ranging conversation between two writers — Sh’ma pub- Wrong, the Sound lisher Josh Rolnick and novelist Tova Mirvis — as they explore the magical transmutation of life of Getting it Right . 1 into a page of fiction. Naomi Seidman looks at the domestic implications of an untranslatable Joel Hecker Yiddish word. Mikhail Krutikov evaluates the literary career of a Russian Jew writing in Israel. Text, God, and Life Yehuda Kurtzer, Sara Hurwitz, and Barbara Mann take the temperature in a room of scholars and in Translation . 2 rabbis: How does the work of rabbis — who strive to translate religion and culture into sustain- Yehuda Kurtzer able and meaningful forces in our lives — resonate with the work of academics, who have an in- Translation without trinsic interest in Judaism, but who have no interest, per se, in “meaning”? And, Or Rose sits us Representation . 3 down at the table of his teacher, Arthur Green, as he and several colleagues translate for a con- Barbara Mann temporary audience the work of the Hasidic Maggid, Dov Baer. The Geniza and Me . 5 As a people, Jews have experienced life in a multitude of languages and cultures. In this Sara Hurwitz issue, and in the pages of Sh’ma every month, we translate the traditions and teachings of Prayer: Serving Judaism into a meaningful discourse for ourselves and the peoples around us —S.B. a Purpose . 6 Discussion Guide. 6 Tova Mirvis & The Fear of Getting it Wrong, Josh Rolnick An Illusion of Seamlessness . 7 the Sound of Getting it Right Irene Eber TODD HASAK-LOWY Sholem Aleichem in Chinese? . 9 he moment I sat down as a translator, something I knew was distinct precisely be- Eli Valley, Corinne opened the book for which I was now re- cause I couldn’t define it as anything but dif- Pearlman, Ilana Zeffren Tsponsible — Asaf Schurr’s Hebrew novel ferent. I couldn’t simply name or classify this NiSh’ma . 10 Motti — and read the first sentence, I suddenly distinctness and then move on. So my job as a Maya Arad & realized, with more than a bit of anxiety, that I translator was, I felt, to somehow render this Adriana X. Jacobs had no idea what I was doing. distinctness in English, even though I didn’t Another Voice: Now I was, as far as first-time translators go, know what it was. Letters on the Art of Translation . 12 at least theoretically qualified. I had to my name This distinctness was, obviously, linguistic a doctorate in Hebrew literature and two pub- in some sense, since his book was just that, a Naomi Seidman Meet the Makhatonim: lished books of fiction. The languages, narrowly collection of words. The word “tone” might Understanding speaking, weren’t the problem. But as I read and come closest to it, but it wasn’t quite that either; Ashkenazic Kinship . 14 reread that first sentence, I became aware of it was something singular, located in the rela- Or N. Rose how infinite was my task — not because this tionship among the words, the real-world things Around the Maggid’s novel is particularly long (it isn’t) or unusually they appeared to point to, and the hesitant man- Table: Translating complicated (it’s not), but because each sen- ner in which Schurr used them (the novel is full Black Letters and White Spaces. 15 tence presented dozens of opportunities for me of strangely poignant hypotheticals and to make the absolutely wrong decision. painfully sincere, self-conscious asides). Even Mikhail Krutikov Memory Is Inseparable I feared I would make the wrong decision after giving it much thought, I still only under- from Imagination . 16 because I believed that making the right deci- stood the novel's distinctness by the way it Karen Paul-Stern sion was a clear impossibility. I was drawn to made me feel. Try translating such a feeling. Sh’ma Ethics . 20 this text because I sensed Schurr had done Nevertheless, thanks to the authority I as- something new in Hebrew — not necessary rev- signed to the deadline in my international con- olutionary, but something wonderfully distinct, tract, I eventually started, forcing myself to string together a series of English words that seemed a I read Schurr’s book. In other words, I had reasonable version of the Hebrew original. stumbled upon a sort of synesthetic correspon- Then, I got lucky. I always listen to music dence between a work of literature and a piece SHMA.COM when I write or work. In the best of circum- of music. I still couldn’t — and can’t — fully stances, the music I’m listening to should still name what I felt in either case, but now I felt it be new to me, a piece I’m discovering as I dis- more clearly and more fully — I could feel it cover whatever it is I’m discovering as I write with the touch of a button. Better yet, the (for instance, I wrote at least half of a novel music, unlike the Hebrew novel, could be in while living inside Keith Jarrett’s “The Köln two texts at once. I could read my English in- Concert” for the better part of a year). side the same sonic space and know — by pay- I had, almost on a whim, recently pur- ing attention to the existence of various chased a single-instrument recording of Philip cross-medium harmonies and dissonances — Glass’ “The Orphée Suite for Piano,” performed whether or not I had captured the language and by Paul Barnes. Like all of Glass’ music, it’s meter and tone in my translation. quite repetitive. Only in contrast to the often The phrase “lost in translation” suggests, at breakneck tempo and overpowering dynamics least to me, a process that occurs not merely in much of Glass’ compositions, this recording over time but across distance as well. During is restrained, gentle, yet emotionally powerful. this act of translation, I often found myself feel- And plainly beautiful. As I worked through ing like a smuggler of sorts, transporting a mas- Asaf’s novel, I found myself returning to this sive, intricate, and fragile object in small, recording again and again until I accepted the intricate, and fragile pieces through a subter- fact that there was no point in pretending I ranean tunnel. My time spent underground, in wanted to listen to anything else. By the time I between Schurr’s Hebrew and my reconstruc- reached the last third of the translation, which tion in English on the other side, was both un- I finished in an insane hurry over the course of avoidable and taxing. I was certain I would Todd Hasak-Lowy is an a couple of weeks, it seemed this music was damage the goods en route or simply forget how associate professor of Hebrew playing inside the protagonist’s apartment. to put it all together once I got to the other side. language and literature at the So how exactly did listening to this solo But the music prevented either from happening, University of Florida. His most piano recording inform and even facilitate the to the point that I knew I was doing justice to recent works are Captives, a novel, and a short story actual process of translation? The answer be- Schurr’s novel well before I finished. Indeed, I collection, The Task of This gins with the fact that I’m certain this recording was a bit sad when I finished. But I had some Translator. made me feel almost precisely what I felt when consolation: I could still listen to the music. Text, God, and Life in Translation JOEL HECKER n a legendary story from the talmudic trac- affirms that reading, but that’s for another tate of Megillah (9a-b), 72 rabbis were se- time). To avoid misunderstanding, they trans- Iquestered by the command of King Ptolemy lated the line as if it read, “Elokim bara Joel Hecker is associate in order to produce a Greek translation of the bereshit,” i.e., “God created in the beginning.” professor of Jewish mysticism Torah and, miraculously, they all produced the In another instance, accurately translated, the at the Reconstructionist exact same translation. Even more remarkable, Torah says, “On the seventh day, God finished Rabbinical College in Wyncote, they had all received ruach ha-kodesh, divine in- the work that He had been doing,” but in order Pa. He is the author of Mystical spiration, so that they all mistranslated certain to clarify the puzzling impression this would Bodies, Mystical Meals: Eating and Embodiment in Medieval passages for several specific reasons — to pre- give — i.e., that God was working on the sev- Kabbalah. Currently a visiting vent theological misunderstandings, to elimi- enth day until He stopped — the rabbis wrote scholar at the Shalom nate apparent contradictions in the text, to pre- that God finished his work on the sixth day.