is like this.” Then, folding his fingers a little, he would explain: “An act of assent is like this.” Afterwards, he would clench his hand into a fist and say that this was what comprehension was like. Finally he would firmly press his left hand around his right hand and “say that such was knowledge, which was within the power of nobody save the wise man.”142 However, the ←64 | 65→Talmudic master critically reinterprets this tale. He starts by releasing the right fist from the left hand. Then he slowly extends his fingers, shows his hand resembling an open flower and comments that this is how intelligence blooms. In the following step, the open hand with stretched-out fingers expresses an invitation to encounter. This is the hand of the wise man who knows that dialogue is the greatest of gifts. Finally, his hands cross at wrists, forming wings of a bird. This bird ascends…143
This is the way in which Mr Inkblot opens up his students’ minds because he knows that only such an intellect mirrors transcendence, while restraints imposed on it produce stabilisation, which halts free thinking, a guarantee of life. Mr Inkblot seems to rely on characteristic yeshiva methods as by surprising his students he forces them to constantly reflect on the world. Specifically, his approach is reminiscent of pilpul, a method in which Biblical contradictions are studied and reconciled by recourse to various works of Talmudic literature.
Such a “flow” of ideas is vividly emblematised in the tablets of stone (luchot avanim). Eben means “stone.” The word can be parsed into av and ben, which denote respectively “father” and “son.” So what actually takes place in “stone” is a symbolic encounter of two generations. Given this, it is not in the static matter of stone but in the process of intergenerational transmission that the value of the stone-engraved record of the commandments itself lies.144
At the heart of studying lies an encounter with another human being (the face) and an exchange of thoughts in which a new meaning originates, briefly khidush.145 For this reason, studying is a loving exchange, and the Book transfigures into the master.146
Alojzy’s arrival marks the beginning of the Academy’s end. Certainly neither the boy nor his guardian Filip seeks an encounter or the self-development it is supposed to entail, let alone the values inherent in dialogue and communication. As a matter of fact, Jewish tradition envisages and even encourages a student’s rebellion against his teacher. However Alojzy is patently not the representation of the Other with whom it is possible to cohabit provided that the word appears in the space between him and those who are “at home.” The function of the word ←65 | 66→is to bind and to ensure the continuity of transmission. It is not a coincidence that “one” and “other” in Hebrew “bear the secret of peaceable existence: One is echad (aleph, chet, dalet). Other is acher (aleph, chet, resh). Both words […] start with the letter aleph. As the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph has the numeric value of one. In Rabbinic tradition, aleph is associated with God, who is one. […] Neither I nor you can usurp the right to superiority because both one and other, all of us receive life from God.”147
This is not the only similarity of the two words. Importantly, they share the same root, which means a “brother,” which is itself etymologically related to the verb “to sew.”148 This produces a vivid image of brotherhood which is founded on sewing together – bringing people closer and building strong communal bonds.
Alojzy’s natural element, however, is destruction rather than construction. Being a mechanical doll, his artificiality prevents him from embracing dialogue and from being incorporated in the concept of brotherhood. He brazenly announces his intentions: “I will be destroying everything because that’s what I fancy doing!”149 He is bored with the company of the boys and would like to acquire the whole of knowledge quickly and almost “mechanically.” Mr Inkblot takes notice of the inhuman pace at which his pupil learns and finds it difficult to accept: “Basically, he has outdone all of us. He is simply a wonderful creation. He has learned everything there is to learn at the Academy, and he can even speak Chinese. It seems to me that he literally devoured my Chinese dictionary, for I cannot find it anywhere.”150 The fact that Alojzy devours books is however not coupled with any love of knowledge: “I didn’t ask Mr Inkblot to teach me thinking. I could do very well without it.”151
He that can do very well without thinking chooses to take shortcuts. He gulps books unreflectingly and unemotionally, and seeks to defeat his master by destroying his secrets inscribed on china tablets. What meanings are conveyed in the name Alojzy? It is a name of Germanic origin and means “omniscient,” deriving from al-wis, all-weisse (“all-knowing/wise”).152 He that is called so is also ←66 | 67→branded with pride, which makes him ignore the truth that study, i.e. interpretation, is inextricable from patience and readiness for encounter. He embodies an aversion to constant hypothesising and inferring. The rebellion of Alojzy, the rebellion of a machine, puts the time of free imagination and dialogue to an end.153
This “exchange” of values inevitably brings to mind the birth of fascism and the outbreak of the Second World War. The destruction of the community which Mr Inkblot and his students have formed results in deconstructing the ancient order reflected not only in the relationship between the student and the teacher, but also in the relations among individual signs – letters that form the text. The cracking of the china tablets with the secrets recorded on them reverberates with a range of cultural references, both bringing to mind time-honoured thought traditions and offering a historical context-specific topical allusion. For one, it re-enacts shevirat ha kelim (the shattering of the vessels), and for the other, it evokes the burning of books in Germany in 1933 and, more generally, the destruction of dissenting works by totalitarian systems.
As Alojzy wrecks books and the china tablets, language is also annihilated, because “if in the name of God, Shaddai, one single point, the tiny letter Yod, were lacking, there would remain the word Shod, that is to say, devastation. It is by virtue of this dot that the awful power of God, which at any moment could utterly devastate and annihilate the world, brings about the world’s redemption instead. This dot is the primeval originating point of creation.”154
Alojzy violates not only the order of letters, but also the order of law; he does not follow the letter of the law, so to speak. If books have not escaped annihilation, the end of the Academy is also possible. And without the Academy, all the points of reference which have so far provided the children in Mr Inkblot’s care with a sense of security will be gone. Consequently, the eradication of the Academy can be construed in several ways: as the end of childhood, the loss of the Temple or the outbreak of war. Still, all of these interpretations entail one ←67 | 68→common ramification; namely, Adaś and the other boys are doomed to be exiles and their journey will become a real test of the values which their master sought to instil in them.
One of the final episodes of The Academy of Mr Inkblot deserves closer scrutiny. Filip, the constructor of Alojzy, steps into the building and uses his razor to cut off, one by one, the candleflames glimmering on the Christmas tree. Darkness descends upon the Academy, and with it upon the entire world.155 Alojzy’s rebellion is not only an act of defection from ancient principles, but also an expression of the desire to obscure fundamental meanings which are metonymically rendered in letters that form continuous sequences of words.156 Therefore Adaś must go and gain light, read: ink, which will make it possible to record the world as letters are guarantees of its existence. Ultimately