Bontche the Silent

Photograph by PJ Hamel

Years ago I came across the story of Bontche Schweig or Bontche the Silent, written by Isaac L. Peretz. The version that I penned down in my notebook went as follows:

Bontche was one of the 36 holy people on whose shoulders the world rested. 

He was born softly and lived softly. Throughout his difficult life people took 

advantage of him, but Bontche never complained and worked like a pack mule.

Later he walked bent over from all the loads he had carried in his life time and 

eventually he died as softly as he had lived.

The news that he was on his way, sent heaven into a flurry. 

His arrival was announced by the big trumpet of the Messiah. 

Even the young angels in their radiant splendour excitedly went 

to welcome him.

Botche was totally overwhelmed. He, a holy man? 

Now, they told him, you may ask anything, request whatever you want.

 The gentle Bontche asked: “Anything?” 

“Anything” it came from the heavenly host.

 Bontche smiled and said: “If that is the case then, what I would like is to have,

every morning for breakfast, a hot roll with fresh butter.”

I loved the gentle simplicity of this tale. For Bontche a hot roll with butter was heaven. We can’t go very wrong in finding pleasure in the simple things in life.

Recently however, I came across the to me unknown, unabridged version. It has somewhat of a different slant than mine. Here it is told how Bontche after dying is judged by a heavenly tribunal. The defense-attorney angel passionately brings to mind his life of super-human piety. Even the prosecuting-attorney angel can not recount anything bad or negative against this suffering, gentle soul. When the Almighty as judge finally has a word, He informs Bontche that he was misunderstood on earth, even by himself. It wasn’t necessary for him to suffer in silence. By crying out he could have shaken the earth.

          “You never understood your sleeping strength.” 

While his silence was never rewarded in that world, in Paradise it will be rewarded. Not only a small portion of it is available to him. Everything is at his disposal. 

           “...for you there is everything. Whatever you want. Everything is yours!” ..

           “Really?”

         “Really! I tell you, everything is yours. Everything in Paradise is yours. Choose. Take. 

           Whatever you want....”

         “Well then what I would like Your Excellency, is to have, every morning for breakfast, 

            a hot roll with fresh butter.”

Here my version ended.

But Isaac Peretz didn’t end his original story there. His had a few important lines more following Bontche’s request:

A silence falls upon the great hall, and it is more terrible than Bontche’s has ever been, 

and slowly the judge and the angels bend their heads in shame 

at this unending meekness they have created on earth.

Then the silence is shattered. The prosecutor laughs aloud, a bitter laugh.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin on the website Ohr Torah Stone writes on these lines:

“Obviously Peretz's message is that the greatest tragedy of suffering, the worst fall-out of an unjust world, is that it robs its victims of the ability to dream, it makes it impossible for them to have the breadth of vision to even contemplate the possibility of redemption. Poor Bontche. The evil world had so constricted his imagination that the best he could conjure up for himself and for humanity was a hot roll and butter each morning!

I can settle for my short version of Bontche Schweig. It has a simple truth and charm to it.

But I prefer the longer version. It stirs and wakens. And I just love the way this wise Jewish tale acts as background every time I ask someone during a spiritual direction session: “What do you think God is hoping for you?” We need to be reminded of the infinite horizon.


George