Ruti Pfeffer
ירושה
לָדַעַת יָכֹל מַה. אוֹתָךְ דָּבָר לְלַמֵּד יָכוֹל אֵינִי
לָשׁוּב וְאֵינוֹ יָכוֹל, אַחַת פַּעַם שֶׁחַי מִי חַיָּיו עַל
הַנְּשָׁמָה מַגִּיעָה יוֹדֵעַ מִנַּיִן אֵינֶנִּי. עִקְּבוֹתָיו עַל
יֵשׁ עֹנֶש יוֹדֵעַ אִם אֵינֶנִּי. הַבָּשָׂר וְאֵיךְ נוֹצַרׁ
הָאֱמוּנוֹת אֲפִלּוּ אֶת לִפְסֹל יָכֹל אֵינֶנִּי. אוֹ שָׂכָר
בּוֹחֵר אָדָם יוֹדֵעַ אִם אֵינֶנִּי. בְּיוֹתֵר הַתְּפֵלוֹת
אַחֵר בְּגוּף מִתְגַּלְגֵּל הוּא גּוֹרָלוֹ, אוֹ אִם אֶת.
מַבָּט אֵינוֹ אֶלָּא הַזּוּלַת אִם לָדַעַת יָכוֹל אֵינֶנִּי
הוּא אֲנִי יוֹדֵעַ אִם אֵינֶנִּי. הָאֲנִי לשֶׁ שני
לְלַמֵּד יָכוֹל אֵינִי. בִּי נָע אוֹ שֶׁהַזְּמַן בַּזְּמַן שֶׁנָּע
זוֹ יְרֻשָּׁתִי. בִּתִּי, הָעוֹלָם עַל אוֹתָךְ דָּבָר.
-Eli Eliyahu
Inheritance
I cannot teach you a thing. What can be told
from the life which has been left behind
without retracing his footsteps? How could I
know from whence the soul came and flesh
was created? I do not know whether there is
punishment or in reward. I cannot sculpt even
the emptiest of statutes. I do not know If man
chooses how his dice are rolled, or if they are
rolled for him. I do not know if the Other is
only a reflection of myself. I do not know if I
am moving in time, or if the time is moving in
me. I cannot teach you about the world, my
daughter. That is my inheritance.
-Translated from Hebrew by Ruti Pfeffer
Inheritance
I can’t teach you anything. What could I tell
you if I have only lived my life once, and can
never return to my footsteps? I can’t tell you
where the soul came from or where flesh was
created. I can’t tell you if there is punishment
or reward. I can’t figure out how even the
smallest beliefs were shaped. I can’t tell you if
people get to choose their own fates, or if their
fates are chosen for them. I don’t know if
others are really just faces of me. I don’t
know if I am passing through time or if time is
passing by me. I can’t teach you anything about
the world, my daughter. This is our inheritance.
-Translated from Hebrew by Ruti Pfeffer
Translator’s Statement
Eli Eliyahu is an Israeli poet who was born in 1969 in Tel Aviv. His poetic and literary works have been translated into several languages, and he has won various awards for his writings, such as for his debut work, I and not an angel. He works for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (meaning “the earth”).
The poem that I chose is called ירושה (yerushah) or “inheritance.” In it, a father is telling his daughter about his inheritance. What he tells her is, ironically, that he can’t tell her anything, and he talks about the many different things that he does not know, all having to do with spirituality. The poem is written in a paragraph form, about 7-9 words a line. There is not much intentionality with the line division that I can tell, as it is really just a block of text. I notice several of the lines happen to begin with alefs and ayins, two mostly-silent letters, but this may be coincidence. It ends with the words (literally translated) “I am not able to teach you thing about the world my daughter. This inheritance of mine.” This effectively summarizes and drives the point of the poem home, as well as adding the personal connection to inheritance. When read aloud, there are a few spots with similar sounds close together such as יֵשׁ עֹנֶשׁ (yesh o’neysh), בְּגוּף מִתְגַּלְגֵּל (meetgalgel b’goof), and אֵינוֹ אֶלָּא (eyno ay’lah). This gives it a poetic sound which is nice to listen to. The words יָכוֹל אֵינִי (Eyni yachol) meaning “I am not able to” repeat many times at the beginning of lines, pointing to the central theme of the poem. Most of it is written using relatively simple vocabulary, despite the complexity, perhaps due to the repetition. The message that I take from this poem is that it is beautiful to not know something, and there are so many questions in the world which we should embrace.
I think that I came into this project a bit differently than most of my classmates. Having been to Jewish day school I already had some experience translating from (biblical) Hebrew to English, and perhaps had more familiarity with my heritage languages. In those past experiences, I actually hated translation, and hadn’t been very good at it, but I was grateful to already have that experience, as well as my old teacher’s sayings about translation to guide me. (Mainly “translation is interpretation!” and “grammar leads to meaning!”) I had already gained some familiarity with things such as closely examining the text to gain deeper insight. My dad helped me a lot with the translation process. I started with a literal, word-for-word translation. Due to my Hebrew schooling (a language which I have been learning four times a week for nine years, but have never really gotten the hang of) I was able to translate much of it myself. Whenever I wasn’t sure about a word or something grammatical, I either looked it up in a Hebrew-English dictionary or asked my dad. He also helped me a lot with the interpretive translations. He noticed that there were two sides of the poem, one which is about someone having deep, philosophical questions, and the other about a father talking to his daughter. That is what my two translations are about. My dad clarified the meaning of many lines for me and gave me his interpretations.
There were still certain lines that were difficult for me to understand, due to their metaphorical meaning. There was a particular play on words that I noticed as I was doing the literal translation which I wanted to keep in at least one of my translations. However I had to find a different but similar play on words because of the different languages. The words before it were saying was saying “I cannot sculpt even”, and the following word, haemunot, meant “the faiths,” but was extremely similar to the word for “the art” (haomanut). Because of the sculpting context, I was pretty sure that this was a play on words. What I ended up going with was the english word “statutes”, which is a little different from faiths but has a biblical connotation and works well enough, and sounds very similar to the word “statue”. The last line of the poem literally translated to “that is my inheritance.” The my makes it sound like something is getting passed to the father, not the father passing something to the daughter, the latter of which is in line with my second interpretation of the poem. I was cautious about changing it as it is a very important line, but I eventually decided that the last line of my second translation would be “this is our inheritance,” to give it a warmer feel. I wasn’t too worried about keeping the form of the poem the same, as the original poem really was written like a paragraph. For the more difficult lines, I worked with my dad to come up with the right wording to get the right idea across. He would say that he had a good idea and make me guess at it until I came up with my own idea that he liked. I had to rearrange the words in my head until I found a meaning for them that made sense to me, and I would confirm with my dad that it was in line with the poem’s original meaning. One insight he had that I didn’t have which was very helpful for the first translation was that many of the things in the poem could be interpreted as common philosophical questions. Of course, my translation is far from perfect, in part due to my amateurish understanding of the Hebrew language, but also because no translation can be perfect. As is said in A Manifesto for Ultratranslation:
“Translation is an asymptote: no matter how close we try to get, there’s always a space between the two bodies and that is the space where we live. The space where we transpose, or are transposed.”
Because languages are all there own unique ways of communication and thinking, a translation can never be perfect, simply because it is in another language. A translator must do their best to get the same message or experience across in a new language, sometimes adding their own twist. I hope that I have achieved this.
I interviewed my father for my blackout poem. I was going to interview one of my uncles, but since they live in Israel it was too difficult to get in touch between them keeping shomer shabbat and the 7-hour time gap. My dad is a very silly person, so the interviewing was very fun. My dad was very humorous, saying things such as “He was a Von-Trap before the Von-Traps”, his silly Schweizerdeutsch way of saying “there’s an apple cake in the kitchen cupboard,” and claiming that Yiddish was spread by a man named Johnny tapuach(apple)seed. We had a lot of laughs, and I also learned a lot about my family history on my dad’s side and where my dad’s grandparents were from. A story which I found particularly interesting was when I learned that though my grandmother and her siblings wanted to speak French at home as the grew up in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, their parents would yell at them to only speak Yiddish. As I went through the questions that Eric had prepared, I asked several of my own questions in order to deepen my understanding of what my dad was saying. I learned how, exactly, he felt connected to different Jewish languages, and this was interesting as the ones he felt connected to are not the same as I feel connected to, due to our different backgrounds and the context in which we grew up. (Him orthodox and living in England and Israel, me not orthodox and living in America.) In my blackout poem, I tried to trace the long history of Jewish languages and in what ways they are and were connected to my family, emphasizing a sense of Jewish history and community as a story. I was using the notes I took from the interview, and so it really came down to what exactly I had decided to write in what words, making it an interesting challenge. My notes didn’t follow a clear timeline, so I switched between talking more generally about Jewish language and about my family’s experiences with these languages.
Overall, this was a very unique experience for me. It was interesting to do a (admittedly more fun) version of a special and culturally relevant activity that I had already done before, but in a new environment. It has been fascinating and made me think a lot about the different community I am in this year compared to last, and about what aspects of my heritage I will be bringing from my childhood into the rest of my life.
Bibliography
Eliyahu, Eli. “Inheritence.” poetryinternational, 5 January 2023, https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-30135_INHERITANCE. Accessed 2 June 2023.
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Ruti is a 15-year-old student attending Meridian Academy. In her free time she enjoys crafting and LARPing. She lives with four cats named Misty, Smokey, Blackberry, and Plum.