בעל האזהרות: ש"י עגנון קורא באבן גבירול

S.Y. Agnon’s story Hasiman (The Sign) is probably the author’s most explicit literary reaction to the Holocaust and the destruction of Buczacz. Strangely enough, the story also weaves in and out of the Piyyut tradition and specifically centers on Solomon Ibn Gabirol. At the climax of the story, the deceased medieval poet reveals himself to the protagonist (modeled after Agnon’s own character) while he is reciting Ibn Gabirol’s Azharot for Shavuʿot. The article presents a new interpretation of the story and Ibn Gabirol’s role in it, based on the Foucauldian concept of ‘the name of the author’, which aims at expanding the obvious connection between authors and their oeuvre to an array of images that have become associated with them in different discourses. By discussing several literary references to Ibn Gabirol throughout the generations – including by Maimonides and his followers, as well as in folk stories and belles-lettres, piyyut exegesis and halakhic writings – the authors argue that Agnon’s Ibn Gabirol is a link in the chain of a rich tradition which sees him first and foremost as Baʿalha-azharot (the author of the Azharot). This tradition emphasizes the structure of the Azharot and sometimes highlights its double acrostic (siman or sign) which is a distinctive mnemonic device. The authors suggest that Agnon’s choice of Ibn Gabirol in a story about the destruction of Buczacz and its memory is related to Ibn Gabirol’s ‘author name’ (in Foucault’s terms), which portrays him as Baʿalha-azharot, a craftsman whose signs can create a literary monument for the demolished city and give shape to it