The Spinoza Problem (10 page)

B
ento led Jacob and Franco to the house he shared with Gabriel and directed them to his study, passing first through a small living room furnished with no trace of a woman’s hand—only a rude wooden bench and chair, a straw broom in the corner, and a fireplace with bellows. Bento’s study contained a rough-hewn writing table, a high stool, and a rickety wooden chair. Three of his own charcoal sketches of Amsterdam canal scenes were pinned to the wall above two shelves bending under the weight of a dozen sturdily bound books. Jacob immediately headed to the shelves to peer at the book titles, but Bento beckoned for him and Franco to sit while he hastily fetched another chair from the adjoining room.

“Now to work,” he said as he lifted his well-worn copy of the Hebrew Bible, set it down heavily in the center of the table, and opened it for Jacob and Franco’s inspection. Suddenly he thought better of it and stopped, letting the pages fall back into place.

“I shall keep my promise to show you precisely what our Torah says, or doesn’t say, about the Jews being the chosen people. But I prefer to begin with my major conclusions resulting from years of Bible study.”

With Jacob and Franco’s approval, Bento began. “The Bible’s central message about God, I believe, is that He is perfect, complete, and possesses absolute wisdom. God is everything and from Himself created the world and everything in it. You agree?”

Franco nodded quickly. Jacob thought it over, stuck out his lower lip, opened his right fist to show his palm, and offered a slow, cautious nod.

“Since God, by definition, is perfect and has no needs, then it follows that He did not create the world for Himself but for us.”

He received a nod from Franco and a bewildered look and outstretched palms from Jacob that indicated, “What does this have to do with anything?”

Bento calmly continued, “And since He created us out of his own substance, His purpose for all of us—who, again, are part of God’s substance—is to find happiness and blessedness.”

Jacob nodded heartily as though he had finally heard something he could agree with. “Yes, I’ve heard my uncle speak of the God-spark in each of us.”

“Exactly. Your uncle and I are entirely in agreement,” said Spinoza and, noting a slight frown on Jacob’s face, resolved to refrain from such remarks in the future—Jacob was too intelligent and suspicious to be patronized. He opened the Bible and searched the pages. “Here, let’s begin with some verses from the Psalms.” Bento began reading the Hebrew slowly while pointing with his finger to each word that, for Franco’s sake, he translated into Portuguese. After only a couple of minutes Jacob interrupted, shaking his head and saying, “No, no, no.”

“No what?” asked Bento. “You don’t care for my translation? I assure you that—”

“It’s not your words,” interrupted Jacob. “It’s your manner. As a Jew, I am offended by the way you handle our holy book. You don’t kiss it or honor it. You practically threw it on the table; you point with an unwashed finger. And you read with no chanting, no inflection of any sort. You read in the same voice as you might read a purchase agreement for your raisins. That type of reading offends God.”

“Offends God? Jacob, I beg you to follow the path of reason. Have we not just agreed that God is full, has no needs, and is not a being like us? Could such a God possibly be offended by such trivia as my reading style?”

Jacob shook his head in silence, while Franco nodded in agreement and moved his chair closer to Bento.

Bento continued to read the psalm aloud in Hebrew and translate into Portuguese for Franco. “The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.” Bento skipped ahead in the same psalm and read, “‘The Lord is near unto all them that call upon Him.’ Trust me,” he said, “I can find a host of such passages clearly stating that God has granted to
all
men the same intellect and has fashioned their hearts alike.”

Bento turned his attention to Jacob, who again shook his head. “You disagree with my translation, Jacob? I can assure you it says ‘all men’; it does
not
say ‘all Jews.’”

“I cannot disagree: the words are the words. What the Bible says the Bible says. But the Bible has many words, and there are many readings, and many interpretations by many holy men. Do you ignore or not even know the great commentaries of Rashi and of Abarbanel?”

Bento was unflustered. “I was weaned on the commentaries and the super-commentaries. I read them from sunup till sundown. I have spent years studying the holy books, and as you yourself have told me, many in our community respect me as a scholar. Several years ago I struck out on my own, acquired a mastery of ancient Hebrew and Aramaic, put the commentaries of others aside, and studied the actual words of the Bible afresh. To truly understand the words of the Bible, one must know the ancient language and read it in a fresh, unfettered spirit. I want us to read and understand the exact words of the Bible, not what some rabbi thought they meant, not some imagined metaphors that scholars pretend to see, and not some secret message that Kabbalists see in certain patterns of words and numerical values of letters. I want to go back to read what the Bible actually says. That is my method. Do you wish me to continue?”

Franco said, “Yes, please go on,” but Jacob hesitated. His agitation was evident, for as soon as he heard Bento emphasize the phrase “all men,” he sensed where Bento’s argument was heading—he could smell the trap ahead. He tried a preemptive maneuver: “You haven’t yet answered my pressing and simple question, ‘Do you deny that the Jews are the chosen people?’”

“Jacob, your questions are the wrong questions. Obviously I’m not being clear enough. What I want to do is challenge
your whole attitude toward authority
. It is not a question of whether I deny it, or some rabbi or other scholar claims it. Let us not look upward to some grand authority but instead look to the words of our holy book, which tell us that our true happiness and blessedness consist solely in the enjoyment of what is good. The Bible does not tell us to take pride in the fact that we Jews alone are blessed or that we have more enjoyment because others are ignorant of true happiness.”

Jacob gave no sign he was persuaded, so Bento tried another tactic. “Let me give you an example from our own experience today. Earlier, when we were in the shop, I learned that Franco knows no Hebrew. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Then tell me this: should I therefore rejoice that I know more Hebrew than he? Does his ignorance of Hebrew make me more learned than I was an hour ago? Joy of our superiority over others is not blessed. It is childish or malicious. Is that not true?”

Jacob conveyed skepticism by hunching his shoulders, but Bento felt energized. Burdened by his years of necessary silence, he now relished the opportunity to express aloud many of the arguments he had been constructing. He addressed Jacob. “Surely you must agree that blessedness resides in love. It is the paramount, the core message of the entire Scriptures—and of the Christian Testament as well. We must make a distinction between what the Bible says and what the religious professionals say that it says. Too often rabbis and priests promote their own self-interest by biased readings, readings that claim that only they hold the key to truth.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Bento saw Jacob and Franco exchanging astonished glances; he nonetheless persisted. “Here, look, at this section in Kings 3:12.” Spinoza opened the Bible to a place he had marked with a red thread. “Listen to the words God offers Solomon: ‘No one shall be as wise as you in time to come.’ Think now, both of you, for a moment about that comment by God to the world’s wisest man. Surely this is evidence that the words of the Torah can not be taken literally. They must be understood in the context of the times—”

“Context?” interrupted Franco.

“I mean the language and the historical events of the day. We cannot understand the Bible from the language of today: we must read it with knowledge of the language conventions of the time it was written and compiled, and that is about two thousand years ago.”

“What?” exclaimed Jacob. “Moses wrote the Torah, the first five books, far more than two thousand years ago!”

“That’s a big topic. I’ll come back to that in a couple of minutes. For now, let me continue with Solomon. The point I want to make is that God’s comment to Solomon is simply an expression used to convey great, surpassing wisdom and is meant to increase Solomon’s happiness. Can you possibly believe God would expect Solomon, the wisest of all men, to rejoice that others would always be less intelligent than He? Surely God, in his wisdom, would have wished that everyone be gifted with the same faculties.”

Jacob protested. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. You pick out a few words or sentences, but you ignore the clear fact that we are chosen by God. The Holy Book says this again and again.”

“Here, look at Job,” said Bento, entirely undeterred. He flipped the pages to Job 28 and read, “‘All men should avoid evil and do good.’ In such passages,” Bento continued, “it is plain that God had in mind the entire human race. And then keep in mind too that Job was a Gentile, yet, of all men, he was most acceptable to God. Here are these lines—read for yourself.”

Jacob refused to look. “The Bible may have some of those words. But there are thousands of opposite words. We Jews are different, and you know it. Franco has just escaped the Inquisition. Tell me, Bento, when have the Jews held Inquisitions? Others slaughter Jews. Have we ever slaughtered others?”

Bento calmly turned the pages, this time to Joshua 10:37 and read: “‘And they took Eglon, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof, and all the cities thereof, and all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining. He destroyed it utterly.’ Or Joshua 11:11 about the city of Hazor,” Bento continued, “‘and the Hebrews smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them: there was not any left to breathe: and He burnt Hazor with fire.’

“Or here again, Samuel 18:6–7, ‘When David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy, and with instruments of music . . . The women sang one to another as they played,
Saul has slain his thousands, David his ten thousands.
’

“Sadly there is much evidence in the Torah that when the Israelites had power, they were as cruel and as pitiless as any other nation. They were not morally superior, more righteous, or more intelligent than other ancient nations. They were superior only in that they had a well-ordered society and a superior government that allowed them to persist for a very long time. But that ancient Hebrew nation has long ceased to exist, and ever since they have been on a par with their fellow peoples. I see nothing in the Torah that suggests that Jews are superior to other peoples. God is equally gracious to all.”

With a look of disbelief on his face Jacob said, “You are saying there is nothing that distinguishes Jews from Gentiles?”

“Exactly, but it is not I saying this, but the Holy Bible.”

“How can you be called ‘Baruch’ and speak thusly? Are you actually denying that God chose the Jews, favored them, helped the Jews, expected much from them?”

“Again, Jacob, reflect upon what you say. Once again I remind you: human beings choose, favor, help, value, expect. But God? Does God have these human attributes? Remember what I said about the fallacy of imagining God to be in our image. Remember what I said about triangles and a triangular God.”

“We
were
made in His image,” said Jacob. “Turn to Genesis. Let me show you those words—”

Bento recited from memory, “‘Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.’”

“Exactly, Baruch, those are the words,” said Jacob. “Would that your piety were as great as your memory. If those are God’s words, then who are you to question that we are made in His image?”

“Jacob, use your God-given reason. We cannot take such words literally. They are metaphors. Do you truly believe that we mortals, some of us deaf or crooked or constipated or wretched, are made in God’s image? Think of those like my mother who died in their twenties, those born blind or deformed or demented with huge cavernous water heads, those with scrofula, those whose lungs fail them and who spit blood, those who are avaricious or murderous—are they, too, in God’s image? You think God has a mentality like ours and wishes to be flattered and grows jealous and vindictive if we disobey His rules? Could such flawed, mutilated modes of thought be present in a perfect being? This is merely the manner of talking of those who wrote the Bible.”

“Of those who wrote the Bible? You speak disparagingly of Moses and Joshua and the Prophets and Judges? You deny the Bible is the word of God?” Jacob’s voice grew louder with each sentence, and Franco, who was intent on every word Bento uttered, put his hand on his arm to still him.

“I disparage no one,” Bento said. “That conclusion comes from your mind. But I do say that the words and ideas of the Bible come from the human mind, from the men who wrote these passages and imagined—no,
I should better say
wished
—that they resembled God, that they were made in God’s image.”

“So you do deny that God speaks through the voices of the Prophets?”

“It’s obvious that any words in the Bible referred to as ‘God’s words’ originate only in the imagination of the various prophets.”

“Imagination! You say ‘imagination’?” Jacob placed his hand before his mouth open with horror, while Franco tried to suppress a smile.