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The Curse of the Saint
Judaism, Spring, 2001 by Daniel J. Schroeter
Without Bounds is a very personal work, with reflections of the author's own feelings about not only his relationship to his informants, de rigueur in anthropological writing these days, but the impact of his own writing and engagement in the subject on the people about whom he is writing. The original Hebrew text, published in 1993, received some attention of the media, which he rather modestly attributes to "Wazana's colorful and intriguing character" (154). This English version of the book contains an Epilogue, entitled "Wazana's Afterlife," which examines the developing cult of Wazana, influenced by the attention given to the rabbi-healer following the Hebrew edition of the book which enhanced the prestige of the saint despite Bilu's expose of Wazana's character, deviant even in comparison to other Moroccan rabbi-healers. Appropriating the legacy of Wazana, Yosef Waqnin, a 35-year-old ex-barber of Be'er Sheva, decided to "go public" with nightly dream encounters with the saint, and develop a cult after the publication of the book. He revealed his visions to Bilu who was subsequently invited to events Waqnin organized. As the Wazana cult expanded, this "saint impresario" (as Bilu dubs the phenomenon) became Rabbi Yosef Waqnin Shlite (an acronym for "May he live for many days and years"), the saint of Be'er Sheva. Bilu admits to being an unwitting participant in Wazana's afterlife and Waqnin's sanctification.
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The conclusion to this eloquent book makes me uncomfortable, perhaps because it reflects some of my own ambivalent feelings about this research.
From a credulous perspective grounded in the discourse common in Yosef's arenas of action, it is not difficult to show that the concatenation of all events in Wazana's afterlife constitutes further evidence of the legendary healer's endless powers. More than forty years after his death, this energy seems to activate the researcher no less than Wazana's former acquaintances and new followers. Given my skeptical point of view, this perspective is presented with a modicum of irony. Butin a serious vein we may conclude that what started as an attempt to document and present a dynamic reality evolved into an intricate interaction, epistemologically precarious, in which the ethnographic work became a building block in constituting this reality. In this process I have unwittingly become a popularizer and propagator of Wazana-an impresario of saint impresarios. (166-167).
I wonder if there is more than irony in Bilu's admission of being energized by the legendary healer's endless powers. Immersed for years in Wazana's story, can the researcher escape the curse of the saint? I can almost hear the mystical healer chuckling, always having the last laugh.
DANIEL J. SCHROETER is the Teller Family Chair in Jewish History, University of California, Irvine. His most recent book is The Sultan's Jew: Morocco and the Sephardi World (forthcoming). He is currently working on a book on the subject of "Jews among Berbers in Morocco. "
COPYRIGHT 2001 American Jewish Congress
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group
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