The Spinoza Problem (18 page)

Today Saul Mortera faced a far more personally painful crisis. The synagogue parnassim had met the evening before, reached a decision on the Spinoza problem, and instructed their rabbi to inform Baruch of his excommunication—to take place at the Talmud Torah synagogue two days hence. For forty years Baruch’s father, Michael Spinoza, had been one of Saul Mortera’s closest friends and supporters. Michael’s name had appeared on the deed of trust for the original purchase of Beth Jacob, and throughout the decades he had generously supported the synagogue fund (which paid the rabbi’s salary) as well as other synagogue charities. During that time Michael rarely missed a meeting of the Crown of the Law, Rabbi Mortera’s adult study group that met in the rabbi’s home, and, more times than he could count, Michael, sometimes accompanied by his prodigy son, Baruch, had eaten dinner at his table, along with as many as forty others. Moreover Michael, and also Michael’s older brother, Abraham, had often served as a
parnas
, a member of the governing board, the ultimate authority for synagogue governance.

But now the rabbi brooded. Today, any minute . . . Where was Baruch anyway? He would have to tell his dear friend’s son of the calamity awaiting
him. Saul Mortera had said prayers over Baruch at his circumcision, supervised his flawless bar mitzvah performance, and watched him develop through the years. What prodigious talents the boy possessed, talents like no other! He absorbed information like a sponge. Every course of instruction seemed so elementary for him that each teacher assigned him advanced texts while the rest of the class struggled with the class assignment. Sometimes Rabbi Mortera worried that other students’ envy would result in enmity toward Baruch. That never happened: his abilities were so evident, so far out of range, that he was much esteemed and befriended by other students, who often consulted him, rather than the teachers, for instruction on some knotty problem of translation or interpretation. Rabbi Mortera remembered how he, too, held Baruch in awe, and on many occasions asked Michael to bring Baruch for dinner in order to delight a celebrated guest. But now, Saul Mortera sighed, Baruch’s golden period, from years four to fourteen, had long passed. The lad had changed, taken a wrong turn; now the entire community faced the danger of the prodigy turning into a monster that would devour its own.

 

 

 

F
ootsteps sounded on the stairs. Baruch was approaching. Rabbi Mortera remained seated, and when Baruch appeared at his door, he did not turn to greet him but instead pointed to a low and uncomfortable seat by his desk and said sharply, “Sit there. I have catastrophic news to deliver, news that will alter your life forever.” He spoke in a slightly halting but passable Portuguese. Though Rabbi Mortera’s background was Ashkenazi, not Sephardic, and though he had been born and educated in Italy, he had married a Marrano and learned to speak Portuguese well enough to deliver hundreds of Sabbath sermons to a congregation that was primarily Portuguese in origin.

Baruch replied in an unruffled tone, “No doubt what has happened is that the parnassim has decided to excommunicate me and instructed you to deliver the
cherem
at a public synagogue ceremony almost immediately?”

“As insolent as ever, I see. I should be accustomed to it by now, but I continue to be astounded by the transformation of a wise child into a foolish adult. You are correct in your assumptions, Baruch—that is precisely their
instruction to me. Tomorrow you shall indeed be placed under
cherem
and be excommunicated forever from this community. But I object to your sloppy use of the verb ‘happened.’ Do not fall sway to the sentiment that the
cherem
is merely something that has
happened
to you. Instead it is
you
that have brought the
cherem
upon yourself with your own actions.”

Baruch opened his mouth to answer, but the rabbi hurried on. “However, all may not yet be lost. I am a loyal man, and my long friendship with your blessed father mandates that I do everything in my power to offer you protection and guidance. What I want now is for you, at this moment, to simply sit and listen. I’ve instructed you since you were five, and you’re not too old for additional instruction. I want to give you a particular type of history lesson.

“Let’s go back,” Saul Mortera began in his most rabbinical voice, “to ancient Spain, the land of your ancestors. You know that Jews first came to Spain perhaps a thousand years ago, and they lived in peace with the Moors and Christians for centuries despite the fact that Jews met with hostility elsewhere?”

Baruch nodded wearily while rolling his eyes.

Rabbi Mortera noted the gesture but let it pass. “In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, we were driven out of country after country, first from England, the source of the accursed blood libel that accused us of making matzo with the blood of Gentile children; then France ejected us, then the cities of Germany, Italy, and Sicily—all of Western Europe, in fact—except for Spain, where
La Convivencia
persisted and the Jews, Christians, and Moors mingled amicably with one another
.
But the gradual Christian reconquest of Spain from the Moors signaled the tarnishing of this golden period. And you know about the end of
La Convivencia
in 1391?”

“Yes, I know about the expulsions and about the 1391 pogroms at Castile and Aragon. I know all of this. And you know I know it. Why are you telling me this today?”

“I know you
think
you know it. But there is knowing, and there is true knowing, knowing in your heart, and you have not yet reached that stage. All I ask now is that you listen. Nothing else. All will become clear in time.”

“What was truly different about 1391,” the rabbi continued, “was that, after the pogrom, Jews,
for the very first time in history
, began to convert to Christianity—and convert in droves, by the thousands, by the tens of thousands.
The Spanish Jews gave up. They were weak. They decided our Torah—the direct word of God—and our three-thousand-year-old heritage were not worth the price of continued harassment.

“Such massive Jewish conversions were of world-shaking significance; never before in history had we Jews given up our faith. Compare this with the response of the Jews in 1096. You know that date? You know what I’m referring to, Baruch?”

“No doubt you mean the Jews who were slaughtered in the pogroms during the crusades—the 1096 pogrom in Mainz.”

“Mainz and elsewhere throughout the Rhineland. Yes, slaughtered, and you know who led the slaughterers? The monks! Whenever Jews are slaughtered, the men of the cross are to be found at the head of the pack. Yes, those fine Jews of Mainz, those magnificent martyrs, chose death over conversion—many held out their necks to the murderers, and many others slaughtered their own families rather than let them be defiled by the Gentiles’ swords. They preferred death to conversion.”

Baruch looked at him incredulously. “And you applaud that? You consider it praiseworthy to end you own existence and, incidentally, to murder your children in order to—”

“Baruch, you have much still to learn if you consider no cause worthy of laying down your own insignificant life, but there is too little time to educate you about such matters now. Today you are not here to display your insolence. There will be time enough for that later. Whether you appreciate it or not, you are at the great crossroads of your life, and I am trying to help you choose your way. I want you to listen
attentively and silently
to my account of how our entire Jewish civilization is now imperiled.”

Bento held his head high, breathed easily, and took note of how the rabbi’s fierce voice once terrified him and how little dread it held for him today.

Rabbi Mortera took a deep breath and continued. “In the fifteenth century there continued to be tens of thousands of new conversions in Spain, including members of your own family. But the Catholic Church’s appetite for blood was still not satisfied. They claimed that conversos were not Christian enough, that some still harbored Jewish sentiments, and decided to send the inquisitors to sniff out everything Jewish. They asked, ‘What did you do on Friday, on Saturday?’ ‘Do you light candles?’ ‘What day do you change the sheets?’ ‘How do you make your soups?’ And if inquisitors found
any traces of Jewish traits or Jewish customs or Jewish cooking, the kindly priests burned them alive at the stake. Even then they were not convinced of the cleanliness of the conversos. Every trace of the Jew had to be scrubbed out. They did not want the eyes of the conversos to light upon a true practicing Jew for fear of awakening the old ways, and so in 1492 they expelled all the Jews, every single one, from Spain. Many, including your own ancestors, went to Portugal but enjoyed only a brief respite there. Five years later the king of Portugal insisted that every Jew choose between conversion or expulsion. And, once again, tens of thousands chose conversion and were lost to our faith. This was the low point of Judaism in history, such a low point that many, and I among them, believe that the coming of the Messiah is imminent. You remember that I lent you the great three-volume Messianic trilogy by Isaac Abrabanel positing that very thing?”

“I remember that Abrabanel makes no rational case for why the Jews have to be at their lowest point for that mythical event to occur. Nor any explanation for an omnipotent God being unable to protect his chosen people and allowing them to get to that point, nor why—”

“Quiet. Just listen today, Baruch,” the rabbi barked. “For once, maybe for the last time,
do exactly what I tell you
. When I ask a question, just reply yes or no. I have only a few more things to say to you. I was talking about the lowest point in Jewish history. Where could the Jews of the late fifteenth and the sixteenth century seek shelter? Where in
all the world
was there a safe haven? Some went east to the Ottoman Empire or to Livorno, in Italy, which tolerated them because of their valuable international trade network. And then, after 1579, when the northern provinces of the Netherlands proclaimed their independence from Catholic Spain, some Jews found their way here to Amsterdam.

“How did the Dutch greet us?
Like no other people in the world
. They were entirely tolerant about religion. No one inquired about religious beliefs. They were Calvinists but granted everyone the right to worship in their own manner—except for the Catholics. Toward them there was not much tolerance. But that is not our affair. Not only were we not harassed here, but we were welcomed, because the Netherlands wanted to become an important commercial center and they knew that Marrano traders could help build that commerce. Soon more and more immigrants from Portugal arrived, enjoying a tolerance not seen elsewhere in centuries. And other Jews came
too: waves of poor Ashkenazi Jews also poured in from Germany and Eastern Europe to escape the mad violence against Jews there. Of course these Ashkenazi Jews lacked the culture of the Sephardic Jews: they had no education nor skills, and most became peddlers, old clothes traders, and shopkeepers, but
still
we welcomed them and offered charity. Did you know that your father made regular and generous donations to the Ashkenazi charity box in our synagogue?”

Baruch, remaining silent, nodded.

“And then,” Rabbi Mortera continued, “after a few years, the Amsterdam authorities, in consultation with the great jurist Grotius, officially recognized our right to live in Amsterdam. At first we were meek and followed our old ways of remaining inconspicuous. Thus we did not mark our four synagogues outwardly but instead held our prayer services in buildings that resembled private homes. Only the passage of many harassment-free years allowed us to truly realize that we could practice our faith openly and be assured that the state would protect our lives and property. We Jews in Amsterdam have had the extraordinary good fortune to be living in
the one spot in the entire world
where Jews could be free. Do you appreciate that—the one spot in the entire world?”

Baruch stirred uncomfortably on his wooden seat and gave a perfunctory nod.

“Patience, patience, Baruch. Listen only a little longer—I am now veering very close to matters of urgent relevance to you. Our remarkable freedom comes with certain obligations that the Amsterdam city council has stated explicitly. No doubt you know what these obligations are?”

“That we do not defame the Christian faith and do not try to convert or marry Christians,” answered Baruch.

“There was more. Your memory is prodigious, but you do not remember the other obligations. Why? Perhaps because they are inconvenient for you. Let me remind you of them. Grotius also decreed that all Jews over fourteen years of age must state their faith in God, Moses, the Prophets, the afterlife, and that our religious and civil authorities must guarantee, at the risk of losing our freedom, that none of our congregation said or did anything that would challenge or undermine any aspect of the Christian religious dogma.”

Rabbi Mortera paused, shook his forefinger while speaking slowly and emphatically. “Let me stress this last point to you, Baruch—it is a crucial
point for you to grasp.
Atheism or flouting of religious law and authority—either Jewish or Christian—is expressly forbidden
. If we show the Dutch civil authorities that
we cannot govern ourselves, then we lose our precious freedom and once again submit to rule by Christian authorities.
”

Rabbi Mortera paused again. “I have finished my history lesson. My major hope is that you will understand that we are still a people apart, that though we have some limited freedom today,
we can never be fully autonomous
. Even today it is not easy to support ourselves as free men because so many professions are closed to us. Keep that in mind, Baruch, when you contemplate life without this community. It may be that you are choosing starvation.”

Baruch started to respond, but the rabbi silenced him with a wag of his right forefinger. “There’s another point I want to stress. Today,
the very foundation of our religious culture is under attack
. The waves of immigrants continuing to flow in from Portugal are Jews without any Jewish education. They have been forbidden to learn Hebrew; they have been forced to learn the Catholic dogma and practice as Catholics. They are between two worlds with shaky faith in both Catholic dogma and Jewish beliefs. It is my mission to reclaim them, to bring them back home, back to their Jewish roots. Our community is prospering and evolving: we are already producing scholars, poets, playwrights, Kabbalists, physicians, and printers. We are on the brink of a great renaissance, and there is a place for you here. Your learning, your nimble mind, and your gifts as a teacher would be of tremendous help. If you taught by my side, if you took over my work when I am no longer here, you would fulfill your father’s dreams for you—and my dreams as well.”