In a seminal essay in the inaugural issue of The Jewish Review of Books back in 2010, Michael Weingrad asked “Why are there no works of modern fantasy that are profoundly Jewish in the way that, say, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is Christian? Why no Jewish Lewises, and why no Jewish Narnias?”

In a reply to critics, Weingrad “wondered aloud how suited the theology of normative Judaism—profoundly demythologizing, halakhic, and without a developed tradition of evil as an autonomous force—is to the making of modern fantasy.” [1]

I was already working on The Hidden Saint when Weingrad’s essay appeared, but it seemed to me then (as it does now) that The Hidden Saint is a response of sorts. It has the trappings of Judaism (rabbis, synagogues, Torah scrolls) and even the trappings of Jewish myth and magic (golems, demons, wonder-working rabbis). But Weingrad was asking a deeper question; I think The Hidden Saint is a response to it, too.

Epic fantasy is typically premised on conflict between pagan gods or supernatural beings, between humans and these supernatural entities, or between an ultimate good (God) and evil (Lucifer). Often, the fate of the world lies in the balance. But how can the fate of the world be in doubt when that world is under the omnipresent care of a single, omnipotent, loving God, as normative Judaism posits? The only answer that Judaism leaves open, it seems to me, is that the future can be in doubt only when man exercises the power that God gives him to put that future in doubt.

The myth of the Lamed-Vavniks, the Hidden Saints, is an ancient rabbinic legend. The Almighty created a world that needs a minimal level of holiness to justify its continuance. That level is 36 holy souls. As the master Jewish folklorist Howard Schwartz writes, “they are the pillars of existence.” [2] What would happen if one of these pillars were to crumble? The bible hints at an answer in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. God says he will permit the cities to continue if Abraham can find just 10 righteous people within them. He couldn’t and the cities were destroyed. In the case of the world, the minimum requirement is even more compelling: not the result of a last-minute negotiation, but a condition built into the very fabric of the universe at the time of creation. The Lamed-Vavniks, then, are key to putting the fate of the world in play in Jewish fantasy.

For The Hidden Saint to be “profoundly Jewish,” in Weingrad’s terminology, evil can’t be an autonomous force in opposition to God. So what is the meaning of evil in Jewish thinking? Why does evil exists in the world? It’s a question that has occupied thinkers such as Maimonides throughout the ages. Evil exists to give man the ability to choose good. Evil exists for man to value life. For these reasons, the Almighty created a world with death and disease, war, wild beasts—and the evil at the center of The Hidden Saint. It is another of God’s creations operating—like a wolf, a virus, or an earthquake—within the destructive parameters that God has assigned to it. Limited parameters, perhaps, but no less deadly for that.

A few other points:

Golems. The golem is perhaps the most widely recognizable member of the world of Jewish myth, a favorite of artists and writers both Jewish and non-Jewish, and The Hidden Saint has its golem. The attraction of creative artists to a creation myth isn’t surprising. Pinocchio is a golem of sorts; so is Frankenstein’s monster. But the Jewish golem is distinctly Jewish, profoundly Jewish, because his creator seeks not to challenge or surpass God, but to emulate him in order to know him better. Creating a golem is a way for its creator to draw closer to The Creator. Only a righteous person operating in submission to the Almighty can succeed.

Fantastic Jewish Beasts and Where to Find Them. Who knew that unicorns, mermaids, griffins, dragons, and the phoenix are Jewish—or, at least, have Jewish lineage? They do, according to Rabbi Natan Slifkin, whose book, Sacred Monsters [4], is unique, an erudite and entertaining look at both the scripture and science behind these fantastic beasts and many more. It is the work of Jewish cryptozoology and I recommend it highly. I’m indebted to Rabbi Slifkin’s book for introducing me to one of the most terrifying creatures in The Hidden Saint: the Yedoni, reputed to be the wild beasts that the Lord inflicted upon the Egyptians during the ten plagues of the exodus. And while the Yedoni are shaped like men, they’ll never be confused for them: the Yedoni emerge from the earth, an amalgamation of the roots and things that grow there.

Hundreds of Jewish folktales have been told over thousands of years. Fragments of many of these folktales found their way into The Hidden Saint, seasoning it like spice in the soup. And so there are echoes of the stories of Elijah the Prophet, the immortal who often appears in disguise and rewards the deserving, especially the poor and childless. A little synagogue discovered within the earth and merely excavated rather than built, and an attempted exorcism are both echoes of echoes, by way of S. Ansky’s masterpiece, The Dybbuk. And an important inspiration for The Hidden Saint comes from a folktale that Schwartz traces to the 19th century and which is collected in several contemporary volumes. [5] It concerns a longstanding theme in Jewish folklore: the broken vow. Its origin, according to Ben-Amos, is the Talmud; its apotheosis is The Dybbuk.

Rabbi Adam. A pair of nice, Jewish boys—Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster—created Superman. But they didn’t create the superhero. Two thousand years earlier, in the Talmud, Shimon ben Shetach defeated the 80 witches of Ashkelon. More recently, wonder-working Chasidic rabbis of the eighteenth century were said to battle all sorts of supernatural evil. The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Chasidic movement, reputedly bested a werewolf. And there was Rabbi Adam, a wonder-working rabbi whose power, like that of the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Lowe (creator of the golem of Prague), and others came from his knowledge of the true name of God. As early as the sixteenth century, according to Schwartz, Rabbi Adam fought evil kings and sorcerers. I see The Hidden Saint as an origin story for this legendary hero: his first adventure but not, I hope, his last.

1. “Why There is No Jewish Narnia,” by Michael Weingrad, Jewish Review of Books, Spring 2010 and “No Jewish Narnias: A Reply,” by Michael Weingrad, Jewish Review of Books, Summer 2010.
2. “Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism” by Howard Schwartz, Oxford University Press, 2004.
3. Talmud, Bava Basra 16A
4. “Sacred Monsters: Mysterious and Mythical Creatures of Scripture, Talmud and Midrash” by Rabbi Natan Slifkin, Zoo Torah, 2007.
5. “Folktales of the Jews, Vol 2: Tales from Eastern Europe,” edited and with commentary by Dan Ben-Amos, The Jewish Publication Society, 2007; “Stories within Stories: From the Jewish Oral Tradition,” retold by Penina Schram, Jason Aronson, 2000; “Lilith’s Cave: Jewish Tales of the Supernatural,” selected and retold by Howard Schwartz, Harper & Row, 1988; “Jewish Folktales,” selected and retold by Pinhas Sadeh, Anchor Books, 1989.