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The Pagan Rabbi is a story about a rabbi, who discovers the truth about his fellow rabbi, Isaac Kornfield, following his unforeseen suicide. While visiting with Isaac’s widow, she presents the rabbi with a letter that was found in the pockets of her deceased husband, which she described as a love letter. In this love letter, Isaac portrays his feeling about nature by describing his love affair with Nature itself and describes his views of the separation between the soul and the body. As pointed out on page 22, Isaac believes that a man’s body is separate from his soul. His letter states, “only the world of Nature has the gift of the free soul, while man is chained to his, and that a man, to free his soul, must also free the body that is its vessel, they would have scoffed. ‘How is it that men, and men alone, are different from the world of Nature? If this is so, then the condition of men is evil and unjust…’” This is an interesting interpretation of the relationship between the soul and the body. Also in the letter, on page 26, Isaac writes, “I began to speculate about my own body after I was dead- whether the soul would be set free immediately after the departure of life; or whether only gradually, as decomposition proceeded and more and more of the indwelling soul was released to freedom. But when I considered how a man’s body is no better than a clay pot, a fact which none of our sages has ever contradicted, it seemed to me then that an indwelling soul by its own nature would be obliged to cling to its bit of pottery until the last crumb and grain had vanished into the earth.” According to Isaac’s letter, he feels trapped inside of a useless body and the only way to be set free from his “prison” and be truly happy is through death. However, death by suicide goes against the Jewish religion. Is his story about having his soul set free by the spirit, which embodies the tree that Isaac committed suicide on, this Jewish law breaking is reflected in the way that the situation resolves in which his soul embodies an old, ragged man wandering the streets carting around an old bag stuffed with books. By portraying Isaac, a rabbi, as a man who has views that align with Paganism, Ozick presents contrasting and conflicting views of Paganism and Orthodox Judaism.
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