The Spinoza Problem (8 page)

Bento’s mind then drifted to an image of himself teaching Hebrew to his teacher and to Clara Maria. He smiled as he drilled his two students, like children, in the
aleph, bet, gimmel
and smiled even more at the vision of little Clara Maria in turn drilling
him
on the Greek
alpha, beta, gamma
. He noticed the bright, almost luminous quality of Clara Maria’s image—Clara Maria, that thirteen-year-old wraith with the crooked back, that woman-child whose impish smile belied her pretense of a grown-up severe teacher. A stray thought floated by:
If only she were older
. . .

By midday, his long meditation was interrupted by movement outside the window. In the distance he saw Jacob and Franco conversing as they headed toward his shop. Bento had vowed to conduct himself in a holy manner and knew that it was not virtuous to observe others surreptitiously, especially others who might be discussing him. Yet he could not shift his attention from the strange scene unfolding before his eyes.

Franco lagged three or four steps behind Jacob, whereupon Jacob turned, seized his hand, and tried to tug him. Franco pulled away and shook his head vigorously. Jacob replied and, after looking about to ensure that there were no witnesses in view, placed his huge hands on Franco’s shoulders, shook him gruffly, and pushed him along in front of him until they arrived at the shop.

For a moment Bento leaned forward, riveted to this drama, but soon reentered a meditative state and considered the riddle of Franco’s and Jacob’s odd behavior. In a few minutes he was pulled out of his reverie by the sound of his shop door opening and footsteps inside.

He bolted to his feet, greeted his visitors, and pulled over two chairs for them while he himself sat on a huge crate of dried figs. “You arrive from the Sabbath services?”

“Yes,” said Jacob, “one of us refreshed and one of us more agitated than before.”

“Interesting. The identical event launches two different reactions. And the explanation for that curious phenomenon?” asked Bento.

Jacob hastened to respond. “The matter is not so interesting, and the explanation is obvious. Unlike Franco, who has no Jewish education, I am schooled in the Jewish tradition and the Hebrew language and—”

“Allow me to interrupt,” Bento said. “But even at the onset your explanation requires explanation. Every child raised in Portugal in a Marrano
family is unschooled in Hebrew and Jewish ritual. That includes my father, who learned his Hebrew only after he left Portugal. He told me that when he was a boy in Portugal, great punishment would be meted out to any family educating children in the Hebrew language or Jewish tradition. In fact,” Spinoza turned to Franco, “did I not yesterday hear of a beloved father killed because the Inquisition found a buried Torah?”

Franco, nervously running his fingers through his long hair, said nothing but nodded slightly.

Turning back to Jacob, Bento continued, “So my question, Jacob, is whence your knowledge of Hebrew?”

“My family became New Christians three generations ago,” Jacob said quickly, “but they have remained crypto-Jews, determined to keep the faith alive. My father sent me to Rotterdam to work in his trading business as a youth of eleven, and for the next eight years I spent every night studying Hebrew with my uncle, a rabbi. He prepared me for bar mitzvah in the Rotterdam synagogue and then continued my Jewish education until his death. I’ve spent most of the last twelve years in Rotterdam and returned recently to Portugal only to rescue Franco.”

“And you,” Bento turned toward Franco, whose eyes had interest only in the poorly swept floor of the Spinoza import store, “you have no Hebrew?”

But Jacob answered, “Of course not. There is, as you just said, no Hebrew permitted in Portugal. We are all taught to read the scriptures in Latin.”

“So, Franco, you have no Hebrew?”

Once again Jacob interposed, “In Portugal no one dares to teach Hebrew. Not only would they face instant death, but their whole family would be hunted down. At this very moment Franco’s mother and two sisters are in hiding.”

“Franco”—Bento bent down to peer directly into his eyes—“Jacob continues to answer for you. Why do you choose not to respond?”

“He tries only to help me,” responded Franco in a whisper.

“And you are helped by remaining silent?”

“I am too upset to trust my words,” said Franco, speaking more loudly. “Jacob speaks rightly, my family is endangered, and, as he says, I have no Jewish education aside from the
aleph, bet, gimmel
he taught me by drawing the letters in the sand. And even these he had to erase by grinding his feet on them.”

Bento turned his body entirely to Franco, pointedly facing away from Jacob. “Is it your view also that, though he was refreshed by the service, you were agitated by it?”

Franco nodded.

“And your agitation was because . . .”

“Because of doubt and feelings.” Franco cast a furtive look at Jacob. “Feelings so strong that I fear to describe them. Even to you.”

“Trust me to understand your feelings and not to judge them.”

Franco looked down, his head trembling.

“Such great fear,” Bento continued. “Let me attempt to calm you. First, please let’s consider if your fear is rational.”

Franco grimaced and stared at Spinoza, puzzled.

“Let us see if your fear makes sense. Consider these two facts:
first
, I represent no threat. I give you my promise I will never repeat your words. Furthermore I, too, doubt many things. I may even share some of your feelings. And,
second
, there is no danger in Holland; there is no Inquisition here. Not in this shop nor this community nor this city nor even this country. Amsterdam has been independent of Iberia for many years. You know this, do you not?”

“Yes,” Franco replied softly.

“Yet even so, some part of your mind, not under your control, continues to behave as though there is great immediate danger. Is it not remarkable how our minds are divided? How our reason, the highest part of our mind, is subdued by our emotions?”

Franco showed no interest in these remarkable events.

Bento hesitated. He felt both a growing impatience and a sense of mission, almost of duty. But how to proceed? Was he expecting too much too soon from Franco? He recalled many occasions when reason failed to quell his own fears. It had happened just last evening while walking against the crowd heading toward the synagogue Sabbath service.

Finally he decided to use his only available leverage and in his most gentle voice said, “You begged me to help you. I agreed to do so. But if you want my help, you must trust me today. You must help me help you. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Franco, sighing.

“Well, then, your next step is to enunciate your fears.”

Franco shook his head, “I cannot. They are terrifying. And they are dangerous.”

“Not too terrifying to withstand the light of reason. And I’ve just shown you they are not dangerous if there is nothing to fear. Courage! Now is the time to face them. If not, I say to you again”—here Bento spoke firmly—“there is no purpose in our continuing to meet.”

Franco inhaled deeply and began, “In the synagogue today I heard the scriptures chanted in a strange language. I understood nothing—”

“But Franco,” interrupted Jacob, “
of course
you understood nothing. Over and over I tell you this problem is temporary. The rabbi has Hebrew classes. Patience, patience.”

“And over and over,” Franco shot back, anger now flooding into his voice, “I tell you it’s more than the language.
Listen
to me sometime! It is the whole spectacle. In the synagogue this morning, I looked around and saw everyone with their fancy embroidered skull caps, with their fringed blue and white prayer shawls, their heads bobbing back and forth like parrots at their feed pan, eyes lifted to the heavens. I heard it, I saw it, and I thought—no, I cannot say what I thought.”

“Say it, Franco,” said Jacob. “You told me only yesterday that this is the teacher you seek.”

Franco closed his eyes. “I thought what is the difference between this and the spectacle—no, let me speak my mind—the
nonsense
that went on in the Catholic Mass we New Christians had to attend? After Mass, when we were children, Jacob, do you remember how you and I used to ridicule the Catholics? We ridiculed the outlandish costumes of the priests, the endless gory pictures of the crucifixion, the genuflecting to the bits of bones of the saints, the wafer and wine and eating the flesh and drinking the blood.” Franco’s voice rose. “Jewish or Catholic . . . there is no difference . . . It is madness. It is all madness.”

Jacob put his skullcap on his head, placed his hand upon it, and softly chanted a prayer in Hebrew. Bento, too, was shaken and searched carefully for the correct, the most serene, words. “To think such thoughts and to believe that you are the only one. To feel alone in your doubt. That must be terrifying.”

Franco hastened on. “There is something more, another more terrible thought. I keep thinking that for this madness my father sacrificed his life.
For this madness he endangered all of us—me, his own parents, my mother, my brother, my sisters.”

Jacob could not restrain himself. Stepping closer and bending his huge head to Franco’s ear, he said, not unkindly, “Perhaps the father knows more than the son.”

Franco shook his head, opened his mouth, but then said nothing.

“And think, too,” Jacob went on, “of how your words make your father’s death meaningless. To think such thoughts truly makes his death a wasted death. He died to keep the faith sacred for you.”

Franco appeared beaten and bowed his head.

Bento knew he had to intervene. First, he turned to Jacob and said softly, “Only a moment ago you pleaded with Franco to speak his mind. Now that he finally does as you ask, is it not better to encourage him rather than to silence him?”

Jacob took a half step backward. Bento continued addressing Franco in the same serene voice, “What a dilemma for you, Franco: Jacob claims that if you don’t believe things you find unbelievable, then you’ve made your father’s martyrdom a wasted death. And who would want to harm his own father? So many obstacles to thinking for yourself. So many obstacles to perfecting ourselves by using our God-given ability to reason.”

Jacob shook his head. “Wait, wait—that last part about God-given ability to reason? That’s
not
what I said. You’re twisting things. You talk about reason? I’ll show you reason. Use your common sense. Open your eyes. I want you to compare! Look at Franco. He suffers, he weeps, he grovels, he despairs. You see him?”

Bento nodded.

“And now look at me. I am strong. I love life. I take care of him. I rescued him from the Inquisition. I am sustained by my faith and by the embrace of my fellow Jews. I am comforted by the knowledge that our people and our tradition continue. Compare the two of us with your precious reason, and tell me,
wise man
, what reason concludes.”

False ideas offer false and fragile comfort
,
thought Bento. But he held his tongue.

Jacob pressed harder. “And apply that to yourself, as well, scholar. What are we, what are you, without our community, without our tradition? Can you live wandering the earth alone? I hear you take no wife. What kind of life can you have without people? Without family? Without God?”

Bento, who always avoided conflict, felt shaken by Jacob’s invective.

Jacob turned to Franco and gentled his voice. “You will feel sustained as I do when you know the words and the prayers, when you understand what things mean.”

“With that statement I agree,” said Bento, attempting to placate Jacob, who had been glowering at him. “Bewilderment adds to your state of shock, Franco. Every Marrano who leaves Portugal is disoriented, has to be newly educated to become a Jew again, has to start like a child and learn the
aleph, bet, gimmel
. For three years I assisted the rabbi in Hebrew courses for Marranos, and I assure you that you will learn quickly.”

“No,” insisted Franco, now resembling the resistant Franco whom Bento had seen through the window. “Neither
you
, Jacob Mendoza, nor
you
, Bento Spinoza, listen to me. Once again I tell you,
It is not the language
. I know no Hebrew, but this morning at the synagogue, all through the service, I read the Spanish translation of the holy Torah. It is full of miracles. God divides the Red Sea; He assails the Egyptians with afflictions; He speaks disguised as a burning bush. Why do all the miracles happen
then
, in the age of the Torah? Tell me, both of you, why is the miracle season over? Has the mighty, all-powerful God gone to sleep? Where was that God when my father was burned at the stake? And for what reason? For protecting the sacred book of that very God? Wasn’t God powerful enough to save my father, who revered Him so? If so, who needs such a weak God? Or didn’t God know my father revered Him? If so, who needs such an unknowing God? Was God powerful enough to protect him but chose not to? If so, who needs such an unloving God? You, Bento Spinoza, the one they call ‘blessed,’ you know about God; you are a scholar. Explain that to me.”

“Why were you afraid to speak?” Bento asked. “You pose important questions, questions that have puzzled the pious throughout the centuries. I believe the problem has its root in a fundamental and massive error, the error of assuming that God is a living, thinking being, a being in our image, a being who thinks
like
us, a being who thinks
about
us.

“The ancient Greeks understood this error. Two thousand years ago, a wise man named Xenophanes wrote that if oxen, lions, and horses had hands with which to carve images, they would fashion God after their own shapes and give him bodies like their own. I believe that if triangles could think they would create a God with the appearance and attributes of a triangle, or circles would create circular—”