The Origin of Sorrow

by Robert Mayer

  “Why have we survived? Precisely because we did not try to be like the others, as Herr Mendelssohn would have us do. Precisely because we have preserved our separate identity. Precisely because we have followed Yahweh’s laws to the letter. Because when we do, He watches over us, no matter our earthly travail. The books of Moses do not instruct us to become scientists or philosophers, to learn Latin or Geek. They instruct us to retain our faith, and obey the laws that Yahweh has given to us. By doing so, we have survived for six thousand years. By doing so we shall continue to survive, until the Messiah comes.

  “Let us take a look at the world Herr Mendelssohn is offering as a desirable future for the Jews. He wants us to move out of the ghetto, to live among the Gentiles as equals. He wants us to speak pure German, so our Hebrew accents will not distinguish us as Jews — as if we should be ashamed of the way we speak! What would be the logical next step? The logical next step is that our Jewish men would see nothing wrong with marrying Gentile girls. Our Jewish girls would happily — so they might think — marry Gentile men.

  “Our visitor presents all this as a future to be desired — but what then would happen to the Jewish race? We would be absorbed into the larger population. We would throw onto the trash heap the sacred laws of the Sabbath, of circumcision, of kosher, and all the rest. In short, we would no longer be Jews. We would have violated our sacred covenant with Adonai — and who will watch over us then?”

  Guttle felt Meyer’s hand on her knee, his breath on her cheek, as he leaned towards her. “It’s true,” he whispered.

  “Many Gentile thinkers,” the Rabbi continued, “who agree with Herr Mendelssohn, have suggested publicly that because of his stated beliefs, he ought to convert to Christianity. Because, knowingly or not, that is the cause he serves.”

  A tense intaking of breath swept parts of the audience.

  “I would like to ask him to tell us why he has not done so.”

  Mendelssohn grasped the lectern on both sides. As he leaned forward, from Guttle’s view his hump seemed to alternate dark and light as a lamp on the wall behind him flickered.

  “Some of you in the audience gasped at the Rabbi’s question,” he said. “I assure you, it does not offend me. I relish the chance to explain my position.

  “I am a Jew. I was born a Jew. My wife is a Jew. I shall be a Jew until I die. I believe in Yahweh, and in the books of Moses, and in the teachings of the Talmud. I do not believe that Jesus was the son of God, as a Christian must believe. I shall explain why. And I shall do so on the basis of reason, not of faith.

  “Tomorrow morning, go to the south gate of your lane and look out. Look at the sun in the sky, and the clouds. Look at the river Main flowing by, and the fertile fields across the river, and the shapes of the distant mountains. Look at your wives, your children. Think of the miracle of birth. Think of the incredibly complex functioning of the human body, which we humans cannot begin to understand. Think of the birds and the fish, think of all the animals that you know to exist, even if you cannot see them through the walls. What do all these things tell us? Because they exist, they tell us they have been created. And what does our reason tell us about that? It tells us that because all these birds and elephants and humans have been created, there must have been an entity — an intelligence — a super intelligence — that created them. I say a super intelligence because surely no man, no amount of men, could have done so. We have not the intelligence nor the power. That super intelligence — that undeniable creator — is what we call God.

  “I said that I believe in the books of Moses. Many so-called miracles are described in those books. If I believe only in reason, you might reasonably ask, how can I believe in such miracles — the ten plagues in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the acquiring by Moses of the Commandments? I shall tell you how. Because almost every miracle described in the Pentateuch was witnessed by the entire Jewish nation — by tens of thousands of people who could tell the tale. Reason tells me that an event witnessed by so many people must have taken place. Who would believe in an eclipse of the sun, had it not been witnessed by millions?

  “Where I take issue with my Gentile friends, in Berlin and elsewhere — and I have many of them, and I am glad that I do — is that I do not believe that Jesus was the son of God. My God-given reason does not let me believe that. Each of the so-called miracles attributed to Jesus, as described in the New Testament, was witnessed by only a handful of people — mostly by his few original followers. Even those followers did not declare him the son of God — not when he was alive. It was more than three centuries later before the Catholic church declared that Jesus was of divine origin — and even then there was much dispute. I tell my Christian friends that we Jews will gladly accept Jesus as a major Jewish teacher, an important prophet — but my reason finds no evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, that he was the son of God.

  “That, my friends, is ample reason why I retain the faith of my fathers, and only their faith. I observe the Jewish holy days. I go to schul. I do not write on the Sabbath. I keep a kosher home. I am as much a Jew as anyone in this room. But these things have not prevented me from participating in the increasingly modern world. By living a moral life I have tried to show the Gentiles what we Jews truly are. We do not have to segregate ourselves in order to do that. Indeed, if we demonstrate to them up close that we are clean and moral beings, their prejudices against us, which are based on ignorance, might vanish.”

  As the Rabbi began his rejoinder, Guttle saw that his neck had become thick with knotted tendons, as if an ancient, rough landscape were reasserting itself there.

  “Our visitor — and I underline that word, visitor — just suggested that we have segregated ourselves. I would like him to tell me what Jew built these walls, or locked these gates. Or wants to be confined in such a way. Let him name one. Is there anyone in this room who enjoys being a prisoner of the Gentiles? Stand and show your face.”

  Nobody stirred. Mendelssohn’s face flushed. Drops of perspiration glistened on the foreheads of both men, glowing in the lamplight, Guttle thought, like semiprecious gems. Like their words — or was one speaking pearls, the other, paste? She wasn’t sure.

  “Jews did not physically build the walls or lock the gates, of course,” Mendelssohn said. “The Rabbi knows I did not mean to suggest that they did. We Jews are not responsible for the actions of those who oppress us — or are we, in fact, a little bit responsible?”

  He paused to make sure he had their attention. Not a sound could be heard.

  “We look at Catholics, Lutherans, Muslims. They are Gentiles. That is simple fact. That means simply that they are not Jews. So far, so good. But how do many of us refer to them among ourselves? We call them goyim. That has a demeaning sound. The word Gentile distinguishes us from them. But when we use the word goyim, we are placing them beneath us, we are holding them in contempt — just as, too often, they use the word Jew as if it carries within itself a negative adjective. Dirty Jew. Filthy Jew. Scurvy Jew. Damn Jew. By moving among them in modern life, as I suggested earlier, we will show them that we are not dirty, not filthy, that — though we may like our herring — we do not have scurvy, or any other disease. We would become their equals in science and philosophy and mathematics and literature — in all modes of learned human endeavor. But just as they must stop condemning us for being Jews, we most stop calling them goyim, and pretending we are superior.”

  The Chief Rabbi smiled, and stroked his broad beard, as if he had a winning point to make. “You said you believe in the books of Moses. In those books we are given a special covenant from God. Do you believe that? Does it not make us superior?”

  Many in the audience were nodding slightly as the visitor prepared to respond.

  “I said before that I believe in the Pentateuch, and I do. I like to picture all of religion as a broad house. We Jews, and the Christians, and the Muslims, all believe in the same God. We all believe we are descended from Abraham. So we all live togeth
er in the first floor of this vast house of religion. The way we best serve this God, as I said before, is to live a moral life, and to help others. All religions teach this. But living a moral life does not depend on believing that a glass of wine is the blood of Jesus — or that women must cover their faces — or on not eating meat with milk. These separate practices should not turn us away from the laws of morality in which we all claim to believe. Reason tells us that.

  “Now, on top of this house, I see a second story, much smaller than the first. In this house, Yahweh has prescribed special laws for the Jews. Because they were given to us by Him, we have accepted them. They are a sacred trust, and a sacred burden. Non-Jews do not have to accept them in order to lead moral lives. Just as accepting this special relationship with Yahweh does not make us superior moral beings. Only our actions do that — not our prayers.”

  He paused for a long drink of water.

  “I think that concludes the principal ideas I want to convey. Unless the Chief Rabbi has further questions of me.”

  The Rabbi had none. “The people here know my views, I shall not belabor them,” Eleazar said. “I shall just repeat what I said before. Our faith is what has sustained us for six thousand years. We must not do anything that undermines that faith. Our faith is who we are. Our faith is who we shall become.”

  Applause was not permitted in the synagogue, and so, by force of habit, there was no applause in the lecture hall. Its absence left tension hanging in the air — coughing, chairs scraping, silence. When Rabbi Simcha asked if anyone in the audience had a question, Yussel Kahn stood. “I’ve heard it said that this period of enlightenment is already ending. That a reaction already is setting in against pure reason. Can Herr Mendelssohn comment on that?”

  “I would be glad to,” Mendelssohn said. ”Unfortunately, there is some truth to what you’ve heard. More so here in Germany than in England or France. A new sentimentality appears to be rising. The other day, in your wonderful Café — the best ruggelah in all of Europe, I dare say — a young woman asked me if I had read the book that is the talk of the land. It is called The Sorrows of Young Werther. I have indeed read it. It is perhaps the prime example of this new sentimentality. There is not a hint of intelligent thought or reason anywhere in the book. It is pure emotion. A young man, Werther, falls in love with a woman who is already betrothed to another. Soon after she marries her betrothed, Werther kills himself. End of story. In between is what I can only term garbage — a worshipping of nature and emotion over progress and reason.”

  Guttle leaned forward, looked past Meyer at Dvorah, trying to discern her reaction. Dvorah’s face in the dim light was tense. Seeming to sense that Guttle was looking at her, she turned her head. Guttle saw in her friend’s eyes a fierce anger, combined somehow with frustration, with helplessness, as if she wanted to shout a response, but could not. As if, even if she had the chutzpah to respond, she did not have the words.

  Mendelssohn was continuing. “This book celebrates what the Frenchman Rousseau has been saying, as against the views of a far superior thinker, Voltaire. Rousseau would have us seek the ideal man in a state of nature. This is naive. The truth is that man, when he is not acting as a thinking being, goes out and kills and tortures other men — and women and children — for no defensible reason. For some sick emotional release, for a misguided faith — as we have seen throughout history. Similarly, Werther, instead of understanding with his reason that his pain will pass, acts on his emotion alone, and shoots himself.

  “Werther, of course, is a fictional character. The author, Herr Goethe, who appears to know well what it is to have loved and lost, did not kill himself. He wrote a book. The act of writing a book is filled with hope. Yet he makes his nature-loving character commit suicide — an unnatural act. The worst part is that there have been reports from all over Germany of young men killing themselves after reading this book. As if that makes them romantic heroes. The fact is, I half suspect that the author meant us to see Werther as pitiful, not heroic. To use a wonderful Yiddish word, Goethe’s young man is a schlemiel — as are all his real-life worshipers.”

  Guttle heard someone nearby gasp. She leaned forward. It had been Dvorah, whose hand was pressed to her mouth as she shook her head. Catching sight of Guttle, she continued shaking ‘no.’ To Guttle, her friend seemed powerless to stop, as if she did not realize she was doing it.

  “Nonetheless,” Mendelssohn went on, “the book’s popularity does suggest a resurgence of unreasoning sentiment — which can be a deadly and violent state of mind. It is a state of mind that is particularly perilous to us Jews.

  “I have responded at some length about this because it suggests an important point regarding the future of Jewry. We must earn new respect, and new freedom — we must make what progress we can — while the ideas of the enlightenment are still ascendant. If unreasoned emotion regains sway, then once more we shall be called dirty Jews, once more the gates, having opened, will swing shut. The God in which we believe has given us free will with which to choose our actions. He has shown many times that, no matter how sincere our faith, he will not take those actions for us.”

  “He will!” someone shouted from the midst of the audience. Heads turned, but no one echoed the cry.

  “He won’t,” Guttle said to herself.

  “Are there any more questions?” Rabbi Simcha asked. When there were none, he thanked the learned men for their provocative exchange. “The debate tonight is ended,” he told the audience, “but the ideas expressed by our speakers most likely will vie for our souls for years to come.”

  Standing with the others, the lingering arguments flashing and dying and flashing again in conversations all around her, Guttle suspected that Rabbi Simcha was right. But never mind years to come. The lane might well be fiercely divided tomorrow.

  34

  She hit him, I tell you.

  —She hit who?

  —The philosopher.

  — Everyone in the lane is a philosopher.

  — Don’t play games. The one who gets paid for it. Moses Mendelssohn.

  — Who hit him?

  — The Doctor’s wife. Dvorah Schlicter.

  — Dvorah Berkov?

  — That’s the one.

  — What do you mean, she hit him. Where did she hit him?

  — Alongside the temple.

  — By his ear? Where, inside the schul?

  — I told you, alongside the schul. In the dark. She bloodied his nose.

  — She hit him so hard?

  — With a book.

  — Why did the Doctor’s wife hit the philosopher?

  —Is that a riddle?

  — It’s a riddle unless you know the answer.

  — She didn’t like what he said.

  — A lot of people didn’t like what he said. I didn’t like so much what he said. Girls in the schools? What for? But I didn’t hit him.

  — She didn’t like what he said about the book.

  — The Talmud?

  — Not the Talmud. That Gentile book.

  — The Worth of Young Sorrow?

  — That’s the one.

  — Why would she care that he didn’t like the book?

  — She liked it.

  — For that you hit a philosopher?

  — They’re blaming it on the schnapps.

  — What schnapps?

  — Not the schnapps she wasn’t drinking.

  — The Doctor’s wife drinks a little?

  — Lately, they say.

  — Who says?

  — People who see. From a flask, yet.

  — So she hit him with a book. Did he hit back?

  — Of course not. He’s a philosopher.

  — He turned the other cheek?

  — His nose she bloodied, I told you. He has only one nose.

  — So what did he do? She’s a big girl.

  — With those she wasn’t hitting him, I don’t think. He put out his hands to block her. She kept hitting wi
th the book, and yelling.

  — It’s a good thing she didn’t use the flask. She could have broken it.

  — It was made of silver.

  —His nose she could have broken. You saw?

  — I didn’t see. I heard from someone who saw. Most people went home after his speech.

  — Like me.

  — But a few stayed in the lane, schmoozing. Yussel Kahn and Brendel from the Café were there, Meyer Rothschild and his wife.

  — Guttle?

  — Guttle heard, and ran to see — she’s a friend of the Schlicter girl. She grabbed her around the waist, and pulled her away from Mendelssohn. The Doctor’s wife still was yelling, struggling, and they fell down together, the sane one on top of the crazy one, grabbing her wrists, and the book went flying, splash, into the ditch. The very same Worthies of Sorrow. So now she was yelling even louder. She crawled on her knees and grabbed for her book in the ditch. A handful of you know what, she got.

  —A handful of shmutz? Oy, vey.

  —She lay there crying while the book floated away with the turds.

  — Ashes to ashes. What about the Doctor? Didn’t he do something?

  — He was in the hospital. Someone went to get him, he quick came running.

  — I would think.

  — He kneeled by his wife and talked to her. He stood her up and walked her to their house. She was leaning on him.

  — That’s all?

  — The woman Doctor fixed Mendelssohn’s nose.