An Explosion of A Pinch of Snuff

Author’s note: The following is my attempt to take apart, mistranslate, and reinvent "A Pinch of Snuff," a story by the great Warsaw writer Yitshok Leybush Peretz (1852-1913), one of the three pillars of modern Yiddish literature. The extent to which I succeed is between me and Peretz, but I hope you enjoy either or both stories.

Inside us all where the bad comes from, inside the other side of good, a plan forms to break the rabbi1. Inside the rabbi are many desires and many mitzvos. A mitzvah is a good thing but it is also a bad thing. It contains. Containing is good and it…
1 Where is this rabbi? Rabbis seem to always come with localities, they are fixed in place. A place with a rabbi has a soul of sorts, it is a real place, even if we are telling a story about it. But the rabbi, who is a stranger to that place, who ha…

Mordecai Martin

Mordecai Martin has been published in X-Ray, Gone Lawn, and Funicular, among other magazines. He lives in a small yet rather beautiful house in Philadelphia with his wife and cat. He is a founding member of the Jewish writing co-op, Golus Kollectiv. He tweets @mordecaipmartin and blogs at http://www.mordecaimartin.net.

Issue 11.2, ProseTimber JournalMordecai Martin