 | Elyokum Tsunzer Elyokum Tsunzer was born in Vilna and became “the father of Yiddish poetry,” a prolific and widely revered versifier. He wrote before, after, and even during his conscription in the Russian army, jotting poems in the soldiers’ barracks. Poetry aside, he was a well-known singer, in high demand at Russian weddings and other public occasions. Tsunzer’s unflinching and faintly lugubrious melodies chronicled the plight of Jews under tsarist rule. Cover of Tzunser’s 1904 Yiddishe Folkslider sheet music album, courtesy of Library of Congress, Music Division. |
Tsunzer’s “Song of the Railway” was written shortly after the completion of Lithuania’s first rail line: a new means of travel and commerce that was highly regimented with set timetables, costs, and different fare classes. Echoing the themes of the Unetanah tokef liturgical poem (piyyut) recited on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Tsunzer enjoins his listener—he was a professional singer inasmuch as he was a writer—not to forget that the Conductor (angels) and railway Director (God) are much more powerful than this technological marvel and its motorman (reason). The song closes with a reminder that one must not neglect Torah—the locomotive itself—if one wishes to travel safely.
Song of the Railway
1875
A whole world of railways appeared in our time
They carry their passengers—poor men and rich.
Admire the wonder, but bear this in mind:
It’s really a parable, meant just for you.
It is we who are seated in passenger cars.
Locomotives are time: as they rapidly move
And pull many millions of people along
And fly like a bullet shot out of a gun.
Every rail on the line is a second of time.
Every station you pass is a year that’s gone by.
The hours fly past like a railwayman’s booth,
The train is a whole generation of man.
The ticket you hold in your wallet or purse—
That is your fortune, your whole travel plan.
How far you will ride and in what class you sit
Is decided by God, the Director of Trains. . . .
The conductors inspect every ticket in turn
And seat all the passengers, each in his class.
Who’s in First Class, in upholstered divans,
And who is in Third, with its crowding and damp.
Conductors are messengers sent from above,
Carrying out the decisions of God:
Who shall have comfort, and prosper in life,
And who shall be wretched in narrow confines;
Who shall enjoy both good health and good luck,
With children like apples that fall from a tree.
And who, with affliction and sorrow in life,
May even some day be thrown out of his home.
You can look at conductors, but don’t say a word—
The world, after all, has to follow a plan.
The ticket determines where everyone sits
As God, the Director of Trains, has ordained.
At every station, as soon as bells ring,
Conductors jump down to the platforms in haste.
The passengers run, each with baggage in hand.
Very many get on, very many get off.
The stations, you see, are the years of our lives.
On Rosh Hashanah, on the holy New Year
The tickets are issued. Some travel far,
While others, alas, must depart from the train.
The true ticket-window’s the heavenly court
Which issues the tickets and sets all the rules—
Who will ride long, who just for a while,
Or who just missed his train and will not travel at all.
When you’re told to get off, do not haggle and plead,
No matter if you’re not at all an old man—
Your ticket expired, your cry is in vain.
God has decided—the Director of Trains.
The motorman stands at the engine in front,
Its cylinder steaming with burning hot coals.
One slip of his hand and it goes off the rails
And wagons of people are in danger of death.
Our motorman—that is our reason, our brain.
It leads us in life, just as he leads a train.
But reason itself can mislead and derail,
So we must have a cylinder—Torah from God.
Where things become difficult, Torah will help.
If you have reason, but also belief
You will move safely along in your life.
But if you just lead with your weak, foolish brain,
And laugh at the cylinder, scoff at God’s plan,
See! You will certainly go off the rails
And suffer the wrath of Director of Trains!
Translated by Solon Beinfeld.
This selection appears in a slightly different form in the Posen Digital Library. “Song of the Railway” by Elyokum Tsunzer appears in The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 6: Confronting Modernity, 1750-1880.
Related Selections of interest
Register for free on the Posen Digital Library (PDL) and discover these related selections:
“The Madonna in the Subway” by A. Leyeles, translated from the Yiddish by Benjamin Harshav and Barbara Harshav.
“The Flower” by Elyokum Tsunzer, translated from the Yiddish by Barnett Zumoff.
“Niggun of Four Stanzas” by Shneur Zalman of Liady.
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