The Spinoza Problem (14 page)

“More and more,” said Bento, “I believe that if one lives among men with greatly different beliefs, then one cannot accommodate them without greatly changing oneself.”

“Now I begin to understand my spy’s report of unrest about you in the Jewish community. Do you express all your ideas to other Jews?”

“About a year ago in my meditations I resolved to be truthful at all times—”

“Ah,” van den Enden interjected, “now I see why business is so bad. A truth-telling businessman is an oxymoron.”

Bento shook his head. “Oxymoron?”

“From the Greek:
oxys
means sharp;
moros
means foolish. Hence oxymoron alludes to an internal paradox. Imagine what a truth-telling merchant might say to his customer: ‘Please buy these raisins—it would be a great favor to me. They are years old, wizened, and I must be rid of them before the shipment of succulent raisins arrives next week.’”

Perceiving no trace of a grin from Bento, van den Enden was reminded of something he had already discerned—Bento Spinoza had no sense of humor. He retraced his steps. “But I do not mean to make light of the serious things you tell me.”

“You asked about my discretion in my community. I have maintained silence about my views aside from my brother and those two strangers from Portugal who sought my advice. In fact, I saw them a few hours ago, and in an effort to be helpful to the one professing to be in a spiritual crisis, I did not hold back from expressing my opinions about superstitious beliefs. I have been engaged in a critical reading of the Hebrew Bible with those two visitors. Ever since I unburdened myself to them I’ve experienced what you called ‘internal harmony.’”

“You sound as though you have long stifled yourself.”

“Not fully enough for my family or for my rabbi, who is entirely displeased with me. I long for a community that is not in thrall to false beliefs.”

“You will search the world over and not find a nonsuperstitious community. As long as there is ignorance, there will be adherence to superstition. Dispelling ignorance is the only solution. That is why I teach.”

“I worry that it is a losing battle,” replied Bento. “Ignorance and superstitious beliefs spread like wildfire, and I believe that religious leaders feed that fire to secure their positions.”

“Dangerous words, those. Words beyond your years. Again I say to you that discretion is required to remain a part of
any
community.”

“I’m persuaded I must be free. If such a community is not to be found, then perhaps I must live without a community.”

“Remember, what I said about
caute
. If you are not cautious, it is possible that your wishes, and perhaps your fears, will come to pass.”

“It is now beyond the pale of ‘possible.’ I believe I have already started the process,” replied Bento.

O
n the day after their first meeting, Alfred got to the beer hall early and sat staring at the entrance until he spotted Friedrich. He jumped to his feet to greet him. “Friedrich, good to see you. Thank you for making the time for me.”

After collecting their beer at the counter, they sat again at the same quiet corner table. Alfred had resolved not to be the focus of the entire conversation once again and began, “How are you and your mother doing?”

“My mother’s still in shock, still trying to grasp that my father is gone from existence. At times she seems to forget he’s gone. Twice she thought she saw him in a crowd of people outside. And the denial in her dreams, Alfred—it’s extraordinary! When she woke this morning, she said it was terrible to open her eyes: she was so happy walking and talking to my father in her dream that she hated waking to rejoin a reality in which he was still dead.”

“As for me,” Friedrich continued, “I’m struggling on two fronts, just like the German army. Not only do I have to grapple with the fact of his death, but in this short time I’m here, I have to help my mother. And that is tricky.”

“What do you mean by ‘tricky’?” asked Alfred.”

“To help someone, I believe you have to enter into that person’s world. But whenever I try to do that with my mother, my mind flits away, and in a moment or two I’m suddenly thinking of something entirely different. Just a little while ago my mother was weeping, and as I put my arm around her to console her, I noted how my thoughts were wandering to meeting with you today. For a moment I felt guilty. Then I reminded myself that
I’m only human and that humans have an inbuilt tendency toward protective distraction. I’ve been pondering why I cannot stay focused on my father’s death. I believe the reason is that it confronts me with my own death and that prospect is simply too fearsome to behold. I can think of no other explanation. What do you think?” Friedrich stopped and turned to look squarely into Alfred’s eyes.

“I don’t know about these things, but your conclusion seems plausible. I, too, never allow myself to think deeply about death. I always hated it when my father insisted on taking me to my mother’s grave.”

Friedrich remained silent until he was certain Alfred intended to say no more and said, “So, Alfred, that’s a very long answer to your polite inquiry about how I am doing, but as you see, I love observing and discussing all these machinations of my mind. Did I give a more involved answer than you expected or wished?”

“It was a longer answer to my inquiry than I expected, but it was real, it was deep, and it was heartfelt. I admire how you avoid superficiality—how willing you are to share your thoughts so honestly and unself-consciously.”

“And you, Alfred, you too went deep within yourself at the end of yesterday’s conversation. Any after-effects?”

“I confess I’ve been unsettled: I’m still trying to understand our talk.”

“What part wasn’t clear?”

“I’m not referring to clarity of ideas but to the strange feeling I had when talking with you. I mean we only spoke a brief time—what, perhaps three-quarters of an hour? And yet I revealed so much and felt so involved, so strangely . . . close. As though I’ve known you intimately all my life.”

“That an uncomfortable feeling?”

“It’s mixed. It was good because it takes the edge off my isolation, my sense of homelessness. But it was uncomfortable because of the extreme oddness of the conversation yesterday—as I keep saying to you, I’ve never had an intimate talk like that nor trusted a stranger so quickly.”

“But I’m not a stranger because of Eugen. Or let’s say I’m a familiar stranger who has had access to the inner chambers of your childhood home.”

“You’ve been in my mind a great deal since yesterday, Friedrich. One matter has arisen, and I wonder if you would permit a personal question . . .”

“Of course, of course. No need to ask—I
like
personal questions.”

“When I asked you how you acquired such skills in speaking and exploring the mind, you answered that it was your medical training. Yet I’ve
been thinking of all the doctors I’ve known, and none, not a single one, has shown even a trace of your engaging manner. With them it’s all business—a few cursory questions, never a personal inquiry, then a quick scribbling of some mysterious Latin prescription followed by ‘Next patient, please.’ Why are you so different, Friedrich?”

“I haven’t been totally candid, Alfred,” replied Friedrich, looking into Alfred’s eyes with his usual straightforwardness. “It
is
true I am a physician, but I’ve withheld something from you—I’ve also completed training in psychiatry, and it was that experience that has shaped the way that I think and speak.”

“That fact seems so . . . so innocuous. Why such pains to conceal it?”

“Nowadays more and more people become nervous, back away, and look for the exit when they learn I am a psychiatrist. They have silly notions that psychiatrists can read minds and know all their dark secrets.”

Alfred nodded. “Well, perhaps not so silly. Yesterday it was as if you could read my mind.”

“No, no, no. But I am learning to read my own mind, and by virtue of that experience I can serve as a guide for you to read your own mind. That’s the major new direction of my field.”

“I have to confess that you’re the first psychiatrist I’ve ever met. I know nothing about your field.”

“Well, for centuries, psychiatrists have primarily been diagnosticians and custodians for hospitalized psychotic, almost always incurable patients, but all that has changed in the last decade. The change began with Sigmund Freud in Vienna, who invented a talking treatment called psychoanalysis, which permits us to help patients overcome psychological problems. Today we can treat such ailments as extreme anxiety or intractable grief or something we call hysteria—an ailment in which a patient has psychologically caused physical symptoms like paralysis or even blindness. My teachers in Zurich, Carl Jung and Eugen Bleuler, have been pioneers in this field. I’m intrigued by this approach and will soon be starting advanced training in psychoanalysis in Berlin with Karl Abraham, a highly regarded teacher.”

“I’ve heard some things about psychoanalysis. I’ve heard it referred to as another Jewish intrigue. Are your teachers all Jews?”

“Certainly not Jung or Bleuler.”

“But, Friedrich, why involve yourself in a Jewish field?”

“It
will
be a Jewish field unless we Germans step in. Or put it another way: It’s too good to be left to the Jews.”

“But why contaminate yourself? Why become the student of Jews?”

“It’s a field of science. Look, Alfred, consider the example of another scientist, the German Jew Albert Einstein. All of Europe is buzzing about him—his work will forever change the face of physics. You can’t speak of modern physics as Jewish physics. Science is science. In medical school one of my instructors in anatomy was a Swiss Jew—he didn’t teach me Jewish anatomy. And if the great William Harvey were Jewish, you’d still believe in the circulation of the blood, right? If Kepler were Jewish, you’d still believe in the earth revolving about the sun? Science is science regardless of the discoverer.”

“It’s different with the Jews,” Alfred interjected. “They corrupt, they monopolize, they suck every field dry. Take politics. I saw firsthand the Jewish Bolsheviks undermine the entire Russian government. I saw the face of anarchy on the streets of Moscow. Take banking. You’ve seen the role of the Rothschilds in this war: they pull the strings, and all of Europe dances. Take the theater. Once they take over, they allow only Jews to work.”

“Alfred, we all love to hate the Jews, but you do it with such . . . such intensity. It’s come up so often in our brief conversations. Let’s see . . . There was the attempted enlistment with the Jewish sergeant, and Husserl, Freud, the Bolsheviks. What do you say to our making a philosophical inquiry into this intensity?”

“What do you mean?”

“One of the things I love about psychiatry is that, unlike any other field of medicine, it veers close to philosophy. Like philosophers, we psychiatrists rely on logical investigation. We not only help patients identify and express feelings, but we also ask ‘why’? What is their source? Why do certain complexes arise in the mind? Sometimes I think our field really began with Spinoza, who believed that everything, even emotion and thought, has a cause that can be discovered with proper investigation.”

Noting the baffled expression on Alfred’s face, Friedrich continued. “You seem puzzled. Let me try to clarify. Consider our very brief excursion into something that haunts you—the sense of not being at home. Yesterday, in only a few minutes of informal meandering, we came upon several sources of your feeling of being unrooted. Think of them—there was the absence of your mother and your ill and distant father. Then you talked of having chosen the wrong academic field, and now your lack of self-esteem, which results in your not being at home in your skin—right? You follow me?”

Alfred nodded.

“Now, just imagine how much richer our excavation would be if we had many, many hours over several weeks to explore these sources more fully. Do you see?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“That is what my field is all about. And what I was suggesting earlier is that even your particularly powerful Jew-hatred must have psychological or philosophical roots.”

Drawing back slightly, Alfred said, “There we differ. I prefer to say that I am fortunate to be enlightened enough to understand the dangers that the Jew poses for our race and the damage they have done to great civilizations in the past.”

“Please understand, Alfred, you have no quarrels with me about your conclusions. We both have these feelings about the Jews. My point is only that you feel them so very keenly and with such extraordinary passion. And the love of philosophy that you and I share dictates that we can examine the logical base of all thoughts and beliefs. Not true?”

“Here I cannot go with you, Friedrich. I cannot follow you. It seems almost obscene to subject such obvious conclusions to philosophic inquiry. It’s like analyzing why you feel the sky is blue or why you love beer or sugar.”

“Ah yes, Alfred, perhaps you’re right.” He recalled Bleuler admonishing him on more than one occasion: “Young man, psychoanalysis is not a battering ram: we do not just hammer away until exhausted egos raise tattered white flags of surrender. Patience, patience. Win the patient’s confidence. Analyze and understand resistance—sooner or later resistance will melt away and the road to the truth will open up.” Friedrich knew he should drop the topic. But his internal impetuous demon who had to know could not be stilled.

“Let me make one last point, Alfred. Let’s consider the example of your brother, Eugen. You’d agree he is deeply intelligent, brought up in the exact culture as you, same heredity, environment, same relatives surrounding him, and yet he does not invest the Jewish problem with much passion. He is not German-intoxicated and prefers to think of Belgium as his real home. Fascinating puzzle. Brothers with the same environment yet such different points of view.”