It鈥檚 said that no dog barked when Israelites prepared
to leave the land of Egypt in the middle of the night.
The reason surely isn鈥檛 that no canine dared
to bark, but that they felt that only Jews had earned the right
to praise the Lord for saving them and that they tried
to be just like the celebrated Hound in Silver Blaze
whose nighttime silence would to Sherlock Holmes provide
an answer that is like the question the fourth son won’t raise,
solved by the great detective as the fourth son’s father
should try to solve the problem of his son, non-asking lamb,
whose silence is a problem that implies we鈥檇 rather
his mother answered, Sherlock look-alike, midrash madame.

It occurred to me, rereading this, the reason why no dog
barked is since, like Kafka鈥檚 investigative dog, they suffered from brain fog.

Exod. 11:6-7 states:

讜聽 讜职讛指讬职转指讛 爪职注指拽指讛 讙职讚止诇指讛, 讘旨职讻指诇-讗侄专侄抓 诪执爪职专指讬执诐, 讗植砖讈侄专 讻旨指诪止讛讜旨 诇止讗 谞执讛职讬指转指讛, 讜职讻指诪止讛讜旨 诇止讗 转止住执祝. 6 And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there hath been none like it, nor shall be like it any more.

讝聽 讜旨诇职讻止诇 讘旨职谞值讬 讬执砖讉职专指讗值诇, 诇止讗 讬侄讞直专址抓-讻旨侄诇侄讘 诇职砖讈止谞讜止, 诇职诪值讗执讬砖讈, 讜职注址讚-讘旨职讛值诪指讛–诇职诪址注址谉, 转旨值讚职注讜旨谉, 讗植砖讈侄专 讬址驻职诇侄讛 讬职讛讜指讛, 讘旨值讬谉 诪执爪职专址讬执诐 讜旨讘值讬谉 讬执砖讉职专指讗值诇. 7 But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog whet his tongue, against man or beast; that ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.

This poem proposes that the silence of the fourth son in the haggadah , who does not know how to ask any question, is comparable to that of the dogs who didn鈥檛 bark when God was killing the Egyptian firstborn, not only foreshadowing the failure of the hound in Conan Doyle’s Silver Blaze to bark but also foreshadowing the dog in Kafka鈥檚 story, 鈥淚nvestigations of a Dog.鈥�

Aaron Schuster writes in 鈥淜afka’s Screwball Tragedy: Investigations of a Philosophical Dog,鈥� 12/13/24:

Written toward the end of Franz Kafka鈥檚 life, 鈥淚nvestigations of a Dog鈥� is one of the lesser-known and most enigmatic works in the author鈥檚 oeuvre. Kafka didn鈥檛 give the story a title, writing it in the autumn of 1922 but leaving it unpublished and unfinished. It was published posthumously in 1931 in a collection edited by his friend and biographer Max Brod, who named it Forschungen eines Hundes 鈥� which could also be translated as 鈥淩esearches of a Dog,鈥� to give it a more academic ring.

The name Kafka is popularly associated with the horrors of a grotesquely impenetrable legal system, but there is another aspect to his work, which concerns knowledge. 鈥淚nvestigations of a Dog鈥� presents a brilliant and sometimes hilarious parody of the world of knowledge production, what the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan called 鈥渢he university discourse.鈥� And the contemporary academy might easily be qualified as Kafkaesque, with its nonsensical rankings and evaluations, market-driven imperatives, and exploding administrative ranks.

But Lacan鈥檚 term was less about targeting the mismanagement of the modern university and more about highlighting the broad shift in the structure of authority 鈥� where knowledge and power combine to establish systems of administration operating in the name of reason and technical progress. And this is where Kafka鈥檚 dog comes in, to question this new order, to excavate the underside of its supposed neutrality, to propose another way of thinking, even, perhaps, a way out.