The Spinoza Problem (6 page)

Glancing at Gabriel’s puffy, pallid face, Bento broke the silence. “You slept poorly again, Gabriel? I felt you thrashing about.”

“Yes, again. Bento, how can I sleep? Nothing is good now. What’s to be done? What’s to be done? I hate the trouble between us. Here, this morning, I dress for the Sabbath. The sun shines for the first time this week, there is some blue sky above, and I should feel joy, like everyone else, like our neighbors on every side. Instead, because of my own brother—forgive me, Bento, but I will burst if I do not speak. Because of
you
my life is miserable. There is no joy in going to my own synagogue to join my own people to pray to my own God.”

“I am grieved to know that, Gabriel. I yearn for your happiness.”

“Words are one thing. Actions are another.”

“What actions?”

“What actions?” exclaimed Gabriel. “And to think that for so long, for my whole life, I used to believe you knew everything. To someone else asking such a question, I’d say, ‘You’re joking,’ but I know you never joke. Yet surely you
know
what actions I mean.”

Bento sighed.

“Well, let’s start with the action of rejecting Jewish customs, and rejecting even the community. And then the action of dishonoring the Sabbath. And turning away from the synagogue and donating practically nothing this year—those are the kinds of actions I mean.”

Gabriel looked at Bento, who remained silent.

“I’ll give you more actions, Bento. Only last night the action of saying no to Sabbath dinner at Sarah’s home. You know I’m going to marry Sarah, yet you will not link the two families by joining us for the Sabbath. Can you imagine how it feels for me? For our sister, Rebekah? What excuse can we offer? Can we say that our brother prefers Latin lessons with his Jesuit?”

“Gabriel, it is better for everyone’s digestion that I do not come. You know that. You know that Sarah’s father is superstitious.”

“Superstitious?”

“I mean extreme-orthodox. You’ve seen how my presence incites him into religious disputation. You’ve seen how any response I offer merely sows more discord and more pain for you and for Rebekah. My absence serves the cause of peace—of that I have no doubt. My absence equals peace for you and for Rebekah. More and more I think of that equation.”

Gabriel shook his head, “Bento, remember when I was a child, I sometimes got scared because I imagined the world disappeared when I closed my eyes? You corrected my thinking. You reassured me about reality and the eternal laws of Nature. Yet now you make the same mistake. You imagine that discord about Bento Spinoza vanishes when he is not present to witness it?

“Last night was painful,” Gabriel continued. “Sarah’s father began the meal by talking about you. Once again he was furious that you bypassed our local Jewish court and turned your lawsuit over to the Dutch civil court. No one else in memory, he said, has ever insulted the rabbinical court in that fashion. It’s almost basis for an excommunication. Is that what you want? A
cherem
? Bento, our father is dead; our older brother is dead. You’re the head of the family. Yet you insult us all by turning to the Dutch court. And your timing! Could you at least have waited till after the wedding?”

“Gabriel, I have explained again and again, but you have not heard me. Listen again, so that you may know all the facts. And, above all, please try to understand that I take my responsibility to you and Rebekah seriously.
Consider my dilemma. Our father, blessed be he, was generous. But he erred in judgment when he guaranteed a note held by that greedy usurer, Duarte Rodriguez, for the grieving widow Henriques. Her husband, Pedro, had been a mere acquaintance of our father, not even a relative nor, as far as I know, a close friend. None of us have ever met him or her, and it is a mystery why our father undertook to guarantee that note. But you know Father—when he saw people in pain, he reached out to help with both hands without thinking of the consequences. When the widow and her only child died last year in the plague leaving the debt unpaid, Duarte Rodriguez—that pious Jew who sits on the bimah of the synagogue and already owns half the houses on Jodenbreestraat—attempted to transfer his loss to us by pressuring the rabbinical court to demand that the poor Spinoza family pay the debt of someone whom none of us ever knew.”

Bento paused, “You know this, Gabriel? Do you not?”

“Yes, but—”

“Let me finish, Gabriel. It is important that you fully know this. You may one day be head of the family. So Rodriguez presented it to the Jewish court, a court containing many members who seek favors from Rodriguez, as he is the synagogue’s major donor. Tell me, Gabriel: Would they want to displease him? Almost immediately the court ruled that the Spinoza family must take on the entire debt. And it is a debt that will drain our family’s resources for the rest of our lives. And even worse, they also ruled that the inheritance our mother left us should go to pay the debt to Rodriguez. Do you follow all this, Gabriel?”

After a reluctant nod from his brother, Spinoza continued. “So three months ago I turned to the Dutch law because it is more reasonable. For one thing, the name Duarte Rodriguez has no sway over them. And the Dutch law states that the head of the family must be twenty
-five
, to bear responsibility for such a debt. Since I am not yet twenty-five, our family may be saved. We do not have to accept the debts of our father’s estate, and, what’s more, we can receive the money that our mother meant for us. And by us, I mean you and Rebekah—I intend to turn my entire share over to you. I have no family and no need of money.

“And one last thing,” he went on. “About the timing. Since my twenty-fifth birthday falls
before
your wedding, I had to act
now.
Now tell me, can you not see that I
do
act responsibly for the family? Do you not value freedom?
If I take no action, we shall be in servitude for our entire life. Do you want that?”

“I prefer to leave the matter in God’s hands. You have no right to challenge the law of our religious community. And as for servitude, I prefer it to ostracism. Besides, Sarah’s father spoke of more than the lawsuit. Do you want to hear what else he said?”

“I think you want to tell me.”

“He said that the ‘Spinoza problem,’ as he calls it, could be traced back many years, back to your impertinence during your bar mitzvah preparation. He remembered that Rabbi Mortera favored you above all other students. That he thought of you as his possible successor. And then you called the biblical story of Adam and Eve a ‘fable.’ Sarah’s father said that when the rabbi rebuked you for denying the word of God, you responded, ‘The Torah is confused, for if Adam was the first man, who exactly did his son, Cain, marry?’ Did you say that, Bento? Is it true you called the Torah ‘confused’?”

“It is true that the Torah calls Adam the first man. And it is true that it says that his son, Cain, married. Surely we have the right to ask the obvious question: if Adam was the first man, then how could there have been anyone for Cain to marry? This point—it’s called the ‘pre-adamites question’—has been discussed in biblical studies for over a thousand years. So if you ask me whether it is a fable I must answer yes—obviously the story is but a metaphor.”

“You say that because you don’t understand it. Does your wisdom surpass that of God? Don’t you know that there are reasons why we cannot know and we must trust our rabbis to interpret and clarify the scriptures?”

“That conclusion is wonderfully convenient for the rabbis, Gabriel. Religious professionals throughout the ages have always sought to be the sole interpreters of mysteries. It serves them well.”

“Sarah’s father said that this insolence in questioning the Bible and our religious leaders is offensive and dangerous not only to the Jews but to the Christian community also. The Bible is sacred to them as well.”

“Gabriel, you believe we should forsake logic, forsake our right to question?”

“I don’t argue
your
personal right to logic and
your
right to question rabbinical law. I’m not questioning
your
right to doubt the holiness of the Bible. In fact, I don’t even question your right to anger God
.
That’s your
affair. Perhaps it is your sickness
.
But you injure me and your sister by your refusal to keep your views to yourself
.
”

“Gabriel, that conversation about Adam and Eve with Rabbi Mortera took place more than ten years ago. After that I kept my opinions to myself. But two years ago I made a vow to conduct my life in a holy manner, which includes never again lying. Thus, if I am asked for my opinion, I will offer it truthfully—and
that
is why I declined to have dinner with Sarah’s father. But, most of all, Gabriel, remember that we are separate souls. Others here do not mistake you for me. They do not hold you responsible for your older brother’s aberrations.”

Gabriel walked out of the room shaking his head and muttering, “My older brother speaks like a child.”

T
hree days later a pale and agitated Alfred sought a conference with Herr Schäfer.

“I have a problem, sir,” Alfred began as he opened his school bag and extracted Goethe’s seven-hundred-page autobiography with several raggedly torn bits of paper jutting from the pages. He opened to the first bookmark and pointed to the text.

“Sir, Goethe mentions Spinoza here in this line. And then again here, a couple of lines later. But then there are several paragraphs where the name does not appear, and I can’t figure out if it’s about him or not. Actually, I can’t understand most of this. It is very hard.” He turns the pages and points to another section, “Here, it’s the same thing. He mentions Spinoza two or three times, then four pages without mentioning him. As far as I can tell, it is not clear if he is speaking about Spinoza or not. He is also talking about somebody named Jacobi. And this happens in four other places. I understood
Faust
when we read it in your class, and I understood
The Sorrows of Young Werther
, but here in this book I can’t understand page after page.”

“Much easier to read Chamberlain, is it not?” Instantaneously, Herr Schäfer regretted his sarcasm and hastened to add, in a kinder voice, “I know that you may not grasp all of Goethe’s words, Rosenberg, but you have to realize this is not a tightly organized work but a series of reflections on his life. Have you ever kept a diary yourself or written about your own life?”

Alfred nodded. “A couple of years ago, but I only did it a few months.”

“Well, consider this something like a diary. Goethe wrote it as much for himself as for the reader. Trust me, when you get older and know more
about Goethe’s ideas, you’ll understand and appreciate his words more. Let me have the book.”

After scanning the pages that Alfred had marked, Herr Schäfer said, “I see the problem. You’re raising a legitimate question, and I’ll need to revise the assignment. Let’s go over these two chapters together.” Their heads close together, Herr Schäfer and Alfred pored at length over the text, and on a notepad Herr Schäfer jotted down a series of page and line numbers.

Handing Alfred the notepad, he said, “Here is what you have to copy. Remember, three copies legibly written. But there is a problem. This is only twenty or twenty-five lines, so much shorter a task than the headmaster originally assigned that I doubt it will satisfy him. So you must do something additional: memorize this shortened version, and recite it at our meeting with Headmaster Epstein. I think this will be acceptable to him.”

A few seconds later, noting a trace of a scowl on Alfred’s face, Herr Schäfer added, “Alfred, even though I don’t like this change in you—this race superiority nonsense—I’m still on your side. Over the past four years you’ve been a good and obedient student—though, as I’ve often told you, you could have been more diligent. It would be tragic for you to ruin your chances for the future by not graduating.” He let that sink in. “Put your whole heart into this assignment. Headmaster Epstein will want more than just copying and reciting. He will expect you to understand the reading. So, apply yourself, Rosenberg. I myself wish to see you graduate.”

“Do I still hand my copy to you before I make the two other copies?”

Herr Schäfer’s heart dropped at Alfred’s mechanical response, but he only said, “If you follow my instructions on the note pad, it will not be necessary.”

As Alfred walked away, Herr Schäfer called him back. “Rosenberg, a minute ago, I just reached out to you and said that your were a good student and that I wished you to graduate. Did you not have some response? I have been your teacher for four years, after all.”

“Yes sir.”

“‘Yes sir?’”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“All right, Alfred, you can go.”

Herr Schäfer packed his briefcase with student papers yet to read, brushed Alfred from his mind, and, instead, thought of his two children,
his wife, and the spaetzle and verivorst dinner she had promised for that night.

Alfred left in a state of confusion about his assignment. Had he made things worse? Or had he gotten a break? After all, memorization was easy for him. He liked memorizing passages for drama presentations and speeches.