7
Damp Thoughts
In the morning the fisherman removed the fish from the basin and put it back in his net, for if people see a fish in a net, they believe there was no delay from the moment it came from the river, and they are fonder of nothing more than a fish that comes right from the place where it lives to the market.
When the fish saw itself lying in the net, it mistakenly thought that the fisherman intended to return it to the river. This is the mistake that most people make, for the greater the trouble is, the more they think erroneously that salvation will arise from it.
The fisherman’s thoughts were unlike those of the fish. The fish thought it would be returned to the place where it lived, while the fisherman desired its price. One looked forward to salvation, and the other despaired of salvation. One looked forward to salvation because it had been removed from the basin, and the other despaired of salvation because of the Jews who had conspired not to buy fish. But what was in store for them was unlike the thoughts of both fish and fisherman. You see, as they reached town, there came toward them a certain fleshy man with his bag and put out his hand to the net and took the fish and stuffed it into his bag. Not only was the bag smaller than the basin, but it was also wiped dry of all the moisture.
The one responsible for a miracle does not recognize it. If instead of Fishl Karp there had come someone who puts on two pair of tefillin or someone whose bag was full of those writings by which one seeks to approach our Father in heaven, such as Hok Leyisrael or Hovot Halevavot or Reshit Hokhmah, it would have been more crowded.
The fish extended one of its fins and bumped into a tefillah. I do not know whether it was for the head or for the arm, and what I do not know, I do not say. It also banged its mouth on the prayer book. If the fisherman had been in the place of the fish, he would have hollered, “What do you want from me? Am I a Jew? Am I required to pray and wear tefillin?” But the fish shut its mouth and kept silent.
It shut its mouth but not its thoughts. What were its thoughts at that moment? That fleshy man bought me with scales of silver. If I make a reckoning, my silver scales are more numerous than the scales of silver he gave to the one who delivered me into his hands, and, needless to say, mine are finer. Thus, what made the one deliver me to the other? Perhaps because I am heavy to carry. If so, if I had deprived my soul of good, would that have improved anything? One way or another, it makes no difference in whose hands I am. Neither one intends to return me to the place where I live, but one gives me water for my thirst and the other does not even give me a drop of water.
Having touched upon Reb Fishl with the tip of its thoughts, the fish’s mind now wandered from him to Reb Fishl’s nation. Damp were its thoughts, and most of them nonsensical. If I were to reproduce them, they would be approximately thus:
The Jews are like fish and they are unlike fish. They are like fish in that they eat fish as fish do, and they are unlike fish since fish eat fish at every meal, and Jews — if they wish, they eat fish, and if they wish, they do not eat fish. It is difficult for the Jews to eat fish, for they have to take great pains before they bring the fish to their mouths. They rise early to go to market, and each grabs the fish out of the other’s hands. One shouts out, “In honor of the Sabbath.” The other taunts him, saying, “Don’t say it’s in honor of the Sabbath. Say it’s in honor of your belly.” In the end they take it and cut it and salt it like those who prepare salt fish, and they light a fire under it. Finally they eat it, some with their fingers and some with a pronged stick. And their pleasure is not complete, for they are afraid lest a bone catch in their throat. Whereas fish need nothing but their mouth. The Holy One, blessed be He, loves fish more than Jews, for the Jews weary themselves with every single fish, but while the fish swims in the water, the Holy One, blessed be He, sends it a fish that enters its mouth on its own. You know that this is true, for when you find a fish inside a fish, how else could it come to lie in a fish’s stomach with the head of one toward the other’s tail? Why is that? Because it enters the other’s mouth headfirst, and if it had been fleeing, you would find its tail facing the other fish’s tail.
The fish recalled times when it was in the water, and many good fish used to swim up and enter its mouth, and it would eat and drink all the delicacies of the rivers and streams and lakes, and the other fish all flattered it and were anxious to do its will. So our fish never imagined that the world was likely to change until it entered the net, which it had been seduced into believing was good for it. Those who had said that they themselves had been created only for our fish were the first to lead it to ugly death, beginning with imprisonment and ending with fire and salt and pepper and onions, and after all of those troubles it would not have the privilege of a watery grave. What would be done to it? It was to be buried in the bellies of human creatures. Wealthy men drink wine after the burial and poor men drink brandy after the burial, avoiding mention of water, in which the fish had lived. They drink to each other’s life and are not fearful of dishonoring the dead.
The fish set its death before its eyes, no longer knowing whether or not it desired life. The image of its ministers and workers came to the fish’s mind in its grief. Then it despised its world and began to spit in disgust. Were it not for the life force, which did not abandon the fish, it would have spit out the remnant of its life.
Little by little its salivation ceased, as did all its thoughts. Its thoughts ceased, but its torments did not cease. Finally its thoughts returned and traded places with its torments, and its torments with its thoughts. This is something the mind cannot grasp. The fish lay there as though inanimate, and it is in the nature of an inanimate object not to have thoughts, yet here its thoughts raced about and created torments. It girded up the remnant of its strength and drew its eyes into its head, gathering up scraps of thoughts and reflecting: Perhaps this is the gathering up spoken of in connection with fish: “And even the fish of the sea will be gathered up.” Because the fish was kosher, the heavens had mercy upon it, and its spirit was gathered up with a verse from the Prophets.