The Spinoza Problem (32 page)

“No, Franco, a couple of scratches here”—pointing to his belly—“but a very deep gash
here
,” pointing to his head.

“It’s such a relief to see you.”

“For me, too. Here, let’s sit down.” He gestured toward the bed, where they sat while Franco continued.

“At first news went through the congregation that you were dead, struck down by God. I went to the synagogue, and the mood there was exultant—people were saying that God had heard their cries and delivered his justice. I was beside myself with anguish, and it was only when I spoke to police officials searching the neighborhood for the assassin that I learned you were wounded and, of course, not by God but by a crazy Jew.”

“Who is he?”

“No one knows. Or at least, no one says they know. I’ve heard he is a Jew who has just arrived in Amsterdam.”

“Yes, he’s Portuguese. He screamed ‘
Herege
’ when he attacked me.”

“l heard that his family was killed by the Inquisition. And perhaps he had a special grievance against ex-Jews. Some ex-Jews in Spain and Portugal have become the Jews’ greatest enemies: priests who gain rapid promotion by helping Inquisitors see through subterfuge.”

“So, now the causal network becomes clearer.”

“Causal network?”

“Franco, it is good to be with you again. I always like the way you stop me and ask for clarification. I mean simply that everything has a cause.”

“Even this attack?”

“Yes, everything! All is subject to the laws of Nature, and it is possible, through our reason, to grasp this chain of causality. I believe this is true not only for physical objects but for everything human, and I am now embarking on the project of treating human actions, thoughts, and appetites just as if they were a matter of lines, planes, and bodies.”

“Are you saying that we can know the cause of every thought, appetite, whim, dream?”

Bento nodded.

“Does that mean we can’t simply decide to have certain thoughts? I can’t decide to turn my head one way and then another way? That we have no simple free choice?”

“I do mean exactly that. Man is a part of Nature and therefore subject to Nature’s causative network. Nothing, including us, in Nature can simply choose capriciously to initiate some action. There can be no separate dominion within a dominion.”

“No separate dominion in a dominion? I’m lost again.”

“Franco, it’s over a year since we last spoke, and here I am immediately talking philosophy instead of finding out everything about your life.”

“No. Nothing is more important to me than to speak like this with you. I am like a man dying of thirst coming upon an oasis. The rest can wait. Tell me about a dominion within a dominion.”

“I mean that since man in every way is a part of Nature, it is incorrect to think that man disturbs, rather than follows, the order of Nature. It is incorrect to assume that he, or any entity in Nature, has free will. Everything we do is determined by either outside or inside causes. Remember how I demonstrated to you earlier that God, or Nature, did not choose the Jews?”

Franco nodded.

“So, too, is it true that God did not choose mankind to be special, to be outside of Nature’s laws. That idea, I believe, has nothing to do with natural order but instead comes from our deep need for be special, to be imperishable.”

“I think I’m grasping your meaning—it is a gigantic thought. No freedom of will? I’m skeptical. I want to dispute it. You see, I think I’m free to decide to say, ‘I want to dispute it.’ Yet I have no arguments to offer. By the next time we meet I’ll have thought of some. But you were talking about the assassin and the causal network when I interrupted you. Please continue, Bento.”

“I think it is a law of Nature to respond to entire classes of things in the same way. This assassin, probably maddened by grief for his family, heard that I was an ex-Jew and classified me with other ex-Jews who harmed his family.”

“Your line of reasoning makes sense, but it must also include the influence of others who may have encouraged him to do this.”

“Those ‘others’ are also subject to the causal network,” Bento said.

Franco paused, nodding his head. “You know what I think, Bento?”

Bento looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“I think this is a lifetime project.”

“In that we are in full agreement. And I am agreeable, most agreeable, to devote my life to this project. But what were you going to say about the influence of others upon the assassin?”

“I believe the rabbis instigated this and shaped your assailant’s thoughts and actions. Rumors are that he is now being hidden in the cellar of the synagogue. I believe the rabbis wanted your death to serve as a warning to the congregation of the dangers of questioning rabbinical authority. I’m planning to inform the police of where he might be hidden.”

“No, Franco. Do
not
do that. Think of the consequences. The cycle of grief, anger, revenge, punishment, retribution will be endless and ultimately will engulf you and your family. Choose a religious path.”

Franco looked startled. “Religious? How can you use the term ‘religious’?”

“I mean a moral path, a virtuous path. If you desire to change this cycle of anguish, you must meet this assassin,” Bento said. “Comfort him, soothe his grief, try to enlighten him.”

Franco nodded slowly, sat silently as he digested Bento’s words, and then said, “Bento, let’s go back to what you said earlier about your deep wound in your head. How serious is that wound?”

“To be honest, Franco, I am paralyzed by fear. My tight chest feels as if it were going to burst. I can’t calm myself even though I’ve been working on it all morning.”

“Working how?”

“Just what I’ve been describing—reminding myself that everything has a cause and that what happened
necessarily
happened.”

“What does ‘necessarily’ mean?”

“Given all the factors that have previously occurred, this incident
had
to occur. There was no avoiding it. And one of the most important things
I’ve learned is that it is unreasonable to try to control things over which we have no control
.
This, I am convinced, is a true thought, yet the vision of this attack returns to haunt me again and again.” Bento paused for a moment as his eyes lighted upon his slashed coat. “Just now it’s occurred to me that the sight of that coat over there on the chair may be aggravating the problem. A big mistake keeping it there. I must dispose of it entirely. For an instant, I thought of offering it to you, but of course you cannot be seen with that coat. It was my father’s coat and will be easily recognized.”

“I disagree. Getting it out of sight is a bad idea. Let me say to you what I heard my father say to others in very similar situations. ‘Don’t dispose of it. Don’t close off part of your mind, but, rather, do exactly the opposite.’ So, Bento, I suggest that you hang it always in plain view, somewhere you see it at all times to remind you of the danger you face.”

“I can understand the wisdom of that advice. It requires much courage to follow it.”

“Bento, it is essential to keep that coat in view. I think you underestimate the danger of your situation in the world now. Yesterday, you almost died. Surely you must fear death?”

Bento nodded his head. “Yes. Though I am working to overcome that fear.”

“How? Every man fears death.”

“Men fear it to different degrees. Some ancient philosophers I am reading have sought for ways to soften death’s terror. Remember Epicurus? We once talked about him.”

Franco nodded. “Yes, the man who said the purpose of life was to live in a state of tranquility. What was that term he used?”

“
Ataraxia
. Epicurus believed that the major disturber of
ataraxia
was our fear of death, and he taught his students several powerful arguments to diminish it.”

“Such as?”

“His starting point is that there is no afterlife and that we have nothing to fear from the gods after death. Then he said that death and life can never coexist. In other words: where life is, death is not, and where death is, life is not.”

“That sounds logical, but I doubt it would offer calmness in the middle of the night when one awakes from a nightmare about dying.”

“Epicurus has yet another argument, the symmetry argument, that may be stronger yet. It posits that the state of nonbeing after death is identical
to the state of nonbeing before birth. And though we fear death, we have no dread when we think of that earlier, identical state. Therefore we have no reason to fear death either.”

Franco inhaled deeply. “That catches my attention, Bento. You speak the truth.
That
argument has calming power.”

“For an argument to have ‘calming power’ supports the idea that no things, in and of themselves, are really good or bad, pleasant or fearsome. It is only your mind that makes them so. Think of that, Franco—
it is only your mind that makes them so
. That idea has true power, and I am convinced it offers the key to healing my wound. What I must do is to alter my mind’s reaction to last night’s event. But I have not yet discovered how to do it.”

“I’m struck how you continue to philosophize even in the midst of your panic.”

“I have to see it as an opportunity for understanding. What can be more important than to learn firsthand how to temper the fear of death? Just the other day I read a passage by a Roman philosopher named Seneca, who said, ‘No dread dares to enter the heart that has purged itself of the fear of death.’ In other words, once you conquer the fear of death, you also conquer all other fears.”

“I’m beginning to understand more about your fascination with your panic.”

“The problem grows clearer, but the solution is still concealed. I wonder if I fear death particularly keenly now because I feel so full.”

“What?”

“I mean full in my mind. I have many undeveloped thoughts swirling in my mind, and I am inexpressibly pained to think that those thoughts may die stillborn.”

“Then take care, Bento. Protect these thoughts. And protect yourself. Though you are on the path of being a great teacher, you are, in some ways, very naïve. I think you possess so little rancor that you underestimate its existence in others. Listen to me:
you are in danger and must leave Amsterdam
. You must get out of the sight of the Jews, go into hiding, and do your thinking and writing secretly.”

“I think you have a fine teacher gestating inside of you. You give me good advice, Franco, and soon, very soon, I shall follow it. But now it is your turn to tell me of your life.”

“Not quite yet. I have a thought that may help with your terror. I have a question: do you think you’d be so wounded up here,” Franco pointed to his head, “if the assassin were just a plain crazy man, not a Jew with a particular grievance toward you?”

Bento nodded his head. “A most excellent question.” He leaned back against the bed poster, closed his eyes, and pondered it for several minutes. “I think I understand your point, and it is a most insightful one. No, I’m sure if he were
not
a Jew, the wound in my mind would
not
be so grievous.”

“Ah,” said Franco, “and so that means—”

“It has to mean that my panic is not
only
about death. It has an additional component, linked to my forced exile from the Jewish world.”

“I think so too. How painful is that exile right now? When last we talked, you expressed only relief at leaving the world of superstition and much joy at the prospect of freedom.”

“Indeed. And that relief and joy are with me still, but only in my waking life
.
Now I live two lives. During the day I am a new man who has shed his old skin, reads Latin and Greek, and thinks exciting, free thoughts. But at night I am Baruch, a Jewish wanderer being comforted by my mother and sister, being quizzed on the Talmud by the elders, and stumbling about in charred ruins of a synagogue. The further I get from full waking consciousness, the more I circle back to my beginnings and clutch at those phantoms of my childhood. And this may surprise you, Franco: Almost every night as I lie in this bed awaiting sleep, you pay me a visit.”

“I hope I am a good guest.”

“Far better than you could ever imagine. I invite you in because you bring comfort to me. And you are a good guest today. Even as we speak, I feel
ataraxia
seeping back into me. And something more than
ataraxia
—you help me think. Your question about the assassin—how I would react if he were not a Jew—helps me truly grasp the complexity of determinants. I know now I must look deeper at antecedents and consider thoughts not fully conscious, nighttime as well as daytime thoughts. Thank you for that.”

Franco smiled broadly and clasped Bento’s shoulder.

“And now, Franco, you
must
tell me about your life.”

“Much has happened, even though my life is less adventuresome than yours. My mother and sister arrived a month after you left, and we found, with the help of the synagogue fund, a small flat not far from your import
store. I pass the store often and see Gabriel, who will nod but not speak to me. I think it is because he knows, as does everyone, of my role in your
cherem
. He is married now and lives with his wife’s family. I work in my uncle’s shipping business and help inventory his arriving ships. I study hard and take Hebrew lessons several times a weeks with other immigrants. Learning Hebrew is tedious but also exciting. It comforts me and offers a lifeline, a sense of continuity with my father and his father and
his
father back for hundreds of years. That sense of continuity is immensely stabilizing.

“Your brother-in-law, Samuel, is now a rabbi and teaches us four times a week. Other rabbis, even Rabbi Mortera, take turns teaching the other days. I get the impression from comments of Samuel that your sister, Rebekah, is well. What else?”