Gimpel the Fool

The rabbi is a key character in many stories set in a shtetl. The rabbi is a community leader who answers questions of Jewish law, supports his community’s interests, and provides for the townspeople’s spiritual well-being. That is exactly what the Frampol rabbi does in “Gimpel the Fool.” This rabbi is the first townsperson to show Gimpel compassion and encouragement, and he articulates Gimpel’s mantra: “[B]etter to be a fool all your days than to be evil for one hour. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself” (995).

Yet the rabbi is also the only source of real pain for Gimpel. The rabbi, the protector of the traditions that keep the people of the shtetl stuck in the past, is the one who orders Gimpel to defy his instincts to trust and forgive his wife.

After reporting his wife’s infidelity, Gimpel is told by the rabbi to divorce Elka immediately. The rabbinical court, the rabbi tells Gimpel, is adamant that he “mustn’t even cross her threshold—never again, as long as [he] should live” (998). The edict from the rabbi causes Gimpel sleeplessness because his religious beliefs, the source of his comfort, have betrayed him.

When Gimpel pleads to return to Elka, the rabbi finds a loophole that allows Gimpel to draw his own rose-colored conclusion. Gimpel goes to the rabbi and tells him he made a mistake, and the rabbi promises to take the matter to the rabbinical court for a solution. Nine months later, he brings Gimpel the decision he has prayed for: “You can go home then. You owe thanks to the Yanover rabbi. He found an obscure reference in Maimonides that favored you” (999). Thus, the rabbi becomes both the source of adherence to old-world practices and the window of enlightenment for Gimpel. The rabbi personifies religion and demonstrates that it can punish if it is insensitive to its believers, but it can also offer joy and restitution when it is open to their needs.

When Gimpel finds himself married to Elka, he knows she is promiscuous, but he refuses to judge her for it. She is brash, demanding, willful, and morally unprincipled, but Gimpel is drawn to her for all the qualities she possesses. He loves her passionately, and it is clear that he has chosen to love her despite her not being an angel. On her deathbed, she tries to break his heart by confessing her infidelities and deceptions, and her final expression seems to be a self-satisfied smile. But Gimpel believes that she is not deeply bad, and he is gratified to find her true goodness when she visits him in his dreams after she dies.

She appears to him as the conscience of the town, as a guardian angel. When the Evil Spirit convinces him to take revenge on the villagers for all their abuse, Elka appears to him and saves him from himself. She tells him that she is barred from paradise and suffering for her deceitfulness. Her warning reminds him that if he follows through with his revenge, he, too, will be barred from the eternal life he seeks. Gimpel tells himself that Elka will be awaiting him in paradise. In the world of Gimpel’s heart, through The Power of Forgiveness, all sentences for crimes committed on Earth can be commuted in heaven.

Elka, like many of the women in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s work, is a character made in the image of his mother and sister. Both women were harsh, unforgiving, demanding, and difficult to live with, but both had had their dreams eradicated by the old-world traditions that keep women in roles they are not necessarily suited for. Elka, a widow, divorcee, mother, and outsider, is a round character with a complex personality, subverting traditional feminine stereotypes like the Madonna/mistress dichotomy.

Gimpel loves Elka’s children despite knowing they are not biologically his; in the ways that matter, he is their father and accepts them unconditionally. Having never known his parents, he ably parents Elka’s offspring, and they are the true beneficiaries of his financial success and the comfortable life he has built for his family. When Gimpel leaves Frampol for good, he divides his wealth among them and tells them to forget they ever knew him so that they will not be pained by his absence. Elka’s children represent the benefits of nontraditional family structures—adoptive parents can love as deeply as biological parents—and healing generational traumas, as Gimpel prevents them from feeling the pain he and Elka endured as orphans.

In some ways, the townspeople of Frampol are like a Greek chorus. They represent the way Singer views the demands that society places on individuals. An individual hoping to fit into a social setting often must compromise their self-respect and the courage of their convictions. The townspeople are Gimpel’s mirror image—they are, as the rabbi tells Gimpel, the real fools. They seek to destroy Gimpel, and in so doing, they exemplify the forces of the world that would destroy a believer’s beliefs.