The Origin of Sorrow

by Robert Mayer

  —Maimonides

  40

  9 April 1785

  My dear Herr Mendelssohn,

  Meyer Amschel and I have learned about your illness in the Berlin newspaper. Please accept our fervent wishes for a full recovery. We had been planning to congratulate you on the publication of your new book, Morning Hours, but we had not known until today that you chose that title because your health permitted you to write only in the morning. We hope you will be well enough to visit the Judengasse next year on the tenth anniversary of your first visit, as we have discussed. I guarantee that no one will assault you next time, though perhaps you should leave your Goethe books at home.

  You asked in your recent note for me to tell you the status of our friend Isidor Kracauer, the scholar turned butcher, saying you may want to send him something. Izzy is still the kosher slaughterer, though I know he is increasingly restless. He wants to marry my younger sister Amelia, but though she loves Izzy she is not eager to marry a butcher. Stubbornness runs in our Schnapper veins — as you know from the hard bargain my sister Avra drives whenever you purchase another of Hiram’s drawings. Several of your friends have come here recently to buy his paintings and drawings, as well as Gentiles from Frankfurt, and even a collector from Le Marais, in Paris. This has been a blessing. By keeping Hiram and Avra busy, it has helped them to accept the death last year of his mother, Yetta. She was a wonderful woman.

  Recently it occurred to me that perhaps Amelia is jealous of Avra — that would be a first! — and wants to be someone’s muse, just as Avra has become Hiram’s muse. I can see where it would be difficult even for a beauty like Amelia to be the muse of a slaughterer. Most of the girls in the lane are content to repeat the lives of our mothers, to marry and have children and gain weight and keep house, in the traditional way, and let their husbands make all the decisions, with few yearnings beyond food on the table for their children. For the rebellious ones, such as myself and Brendel Isaacs and Doctor Kirsch and a few others, who want something more, the old men tend to blame you. It’s not your fault, of course — I suspect that thirty-one years ago I wanted to tear down the walls of my mother’s womb. But such blame that they put on you is, in my view, not a criticism but a compliment.

  I had hoped to start a school for girls here with Doctor Kirsch. But Rebecca has been too busy at the hospital and I have been too busy being pregnant and raising the children, and no one else would get take charge, so that has not come to pass. Meyer has his eye on a larger house for us that might become vacant. I told him I don’t want to hear about it until it happens. There is no point getting excited over nothing.

  What else might interest you? The Gentile boy Georgi Kremm is still here, working as a carpenter in Yussel Kahn’s shop. He rents a room from Doctor Kirsch, and meets every afternoon with Rabbi Simcha; he is studying to convert and become a Jew. Georgi says that no people outside the lane ever treated him as well (which makes me wonder — half the lane has yet to accept him.) According to gossip, he has his eye on the daughter of one of the money lenders at the south end. I have not asked Georgi about this girl, Misha Marcus, because converting only in order to marry is not encouraged, and I don’t want to know the answer. Rabbi Simcha will be the one to judge how serious Georgi is. Meyer Amschel says that anyone willing to be circumcised at age twenty-five certainly is serious — but might also be insane.

  We have six children, as you know, but I don’t think I ever mentioned the three that died at birth. Why Adonai needs dead babies is a question that I imagine you, with all your wisdom, cannot answer any more than we. Rabbi Eleazar and Rabbi Jonah say it is to test our faith. That is too easy an explanation for everything bad. When I asked you in my last letter to please define the difference between suffering and sorrow, you replied that you would rather first hear what I thought. I am embarrassed to discuss philosophical questions with such as you, but here is what I think. Suffering is a condition of the body or the mind. It can be temporary or permanent. Usually we know its cause — a painful disease, for instance, or the death of a beloved. Or the death of one’s newborn. Sorrow, however, may well reside in the soul itself. It seems to endure, although its presence can be submerged some of the time beneath love and laughter. I don’t know if any of this is correct, but if it is, that still leaves a question for you about which I have always wondered: what is the source of this sorrow that dwells within us, us attached to no visible cause?

  Now look, the oil in the lamp is burning low, sputtering wildly. I look forward to learning what your surprise for Izzy might be. (Since he became thirty years of age he prefers to be called Isidor, but nobody besides Amelia pays attention.)

  From this day forth, your health shall be in our daily prayers.

  Your dedicated friend,

  Guttle, wife of Meyer Rothschild

  Sprinkling sand on the sheets of paper to blot them, Guttle looked fondly at Meyer across the table. She’d been planning to show him what she had written, but with the overhead lamp dying, the Talmud still open, and his head leaning awkwardly against the back of the chair, her husband had fallen asleep. She would wake him soon, or his neck would be stiff in the morning.

  Four weeks later they were moving to a larger home, a few houses south of the synagogue, at the midpoint of the lane. Guttle was not sure why her exhilaration was tempered by guilt as she watched Meyer and Moish, Yussel and Georgi carry beds and tables and chairs from the old house to the new, watched Schönche and Amschel push wheelbarrows filled with linens and clothing, as she stood in the entryway of their new home and directed things — the children’s beds up to the two attic rooms, girls to the left, boys to the right, the linens here in our bedroom off the entryway, the heavy strongbox to the counting house, Meyer’s new office off the vestibule. There was no reason for guilt, the house was not that much larger. If the Hinterpfann was less than three metres across, the House at the Green Shield was only four and a half. Room for perhaps an extra bed in each room, but that was all. It faced the street, and had three tall windows on each floor, including in a parlor, which they had never had before. And a water pump inside the stone vestibule that was the marvel; they would be able to pump water without going outside. It was one of only a handful of indoor pumps in the lane.

  “How did you manage to buy it?” Guttle had asked Meyer when with a smile like a bashful heder boy with a secret he’d first shown it to her. It was only half of a large, gabled house, the other half was called The Arch because of its rounded entryway, but still . . .

  “The Kornfeld brothers are tired of the lane. They’re moving their families to Amsterdam. They have cousins there who have a business.”

  “How much did you pay?”

  “Eleven thousand.”

  “Eleven thousand gulden? Meyer, that’s a fortune! I saw in the Zeitung that Goethe’s father bought a twenty room mansion, in the nicest part of Frankfurt, for half of that.”

  “This is the Judengasse. He couldn’t have gotten that price here.”

  “Can you picture the Goethes living here?” Her eyes sparkled, less from that odd image, no doubt, than from the giddy prospect of enjoying a new home that was not tucked away as if ashamed of itself, in the rear, in the dark.

  House at the Green Shield. A nice name, a bit more space, and different smells than the humid musk of the Hinterpfann. The stone vestibule smelled like the masonry, where the monuments for the cemetery were engraved. The upstairs, she believed, smelled like the sea, though she had never smelled the sea; it was an illusion of the gray light pouring in, she knew; they had moved from darkness into welcome glare. With Meyer’s approval she had ordered furniture upholstered in green for the parlor. But their bedroom was no larger than before, and the kitchen seemed even smaller, the stove holding only one pot, so why this guilt? Meyer had worked hard for the money.

  This sturdy, one-hundred-and-seventy-year old house, so close to the synagogue, seemed to Guttle more than just a place to live; it seemed like a proclamation: the Roth
schilds are Somebody. Meyer might feel that way, but Guttle didn’t feel special — not with her body adding perhaps a pound each year — fifteen since their wedding day — to her once slim figure, not with the marks of stretched skin that criss-crossed her hips like spider webs, souvenirs from each of the children, the living and the dead. Meyer’s eagerness in bed had not diminished, nor had hers; for this enduring mutual attraction she was grateful. But some mornings she felt as old as this house, and needed two glasses of strong tea to reawaken her spirit. Doctor Kirsch had told her this was normal: a baby almost every year would wear down anyone. Guttle had taken this as a challenge. She vowed to be an exception.

  Amelia took Guttle’s hands in hers. “I want you of all people to understand. Isidor has an exceptional mind. You know that. I just want him to use it, not just cut meat all day. I won’t be able to make him happy until he’s happy with himself. Is that so selfish?”

  “You’re a wise one, little sister. It reminds me of something you astonished me with when you were a child. You said Jews always go around in circles, because if they didn’t, they would bump into a wall.”

  “I said that?”

  “When you were seven years old. I just wonder how long you and Izzy can go around and around like a hora without getting dizzy. Without starting to hate each other.”

  “We would never do that.”

  “People do,” Guttle said.

  They’d been standing near the doorway. They stepped out of the way as ten-year-old Salomon struggled with a wheelbarrow filled with logs from the old cellar. As he tried to steer it into the vestibule, he lost control, the barrow toppled sideways and most of the logs spilled out. Salomon punched himself in the forehead with his fist, and began to retrieve the logs. Young Nathan, seven years old, who had been following along, stood watching.

  “Help your brother,” Guttle told him.

  “If he had piled the logs like I said, they wouldn’t have spilled.”

  Salomon pushed Nathan in the chest. The younger boy kicked his brother hard in the knee. Salomon fell to the floor, holding his knee, crying. Nathan began to pick up the logs and pile them in the wheelbarrow with precision.

  Guttle and Amelia moved farther into the lane and turned their backs on the boys. “Nathan has a ruthless streak,” Amelia said.

  “Meyer can hardly wait to teach him finance. ‘Isn’t that rushing things,’ I told Meyer. He said I shouldn’t worry, each boy in turn, first Amschel when he turns twelve next month, then Salomon, only then Nathan. ‘Already the boy loves arithmetic,’ Meyer said. ‘And he loves to be in charge. With that touch of meanness he has, Nathan is a born banker.’”

  “It could be worse,” Amelia said. “He could be a born butcher.”

  “Did I detect a subtle insult to my husband?”

  “Guttle, I adore Meyer, you know that. Besides, he’s not mostly a banker, he’s mostly a dealer in antiquities. And an importer.”

  “Mostly.”

  “But do you know what he really is?” Amelia, brushing a lock of dark hair off of her eye, looked about to make sure no one was nearby. “Meyer is a small boy collecting coins. He always will be.”

  “He wouldn’t like to hear that.”

  “I’m not telling him, I’m telling you.”

  “He’s got six children, he would say. He makes a lot of money.”

  “No matter.”

  15 May, 1785

  My dear Guttle:

  I am in receipt of your letter of 9 April. Thank you for your kind solicitations regarding my health. It is unlikely I will get the opportunity to visit the Judengasse next year, because the doctors, though they try to disguise their belief, do not think I shall last till Hanukah. I am being sickened by some sort of nerve disease which they can neither name nor cure. Their only prescription is rest, with which I am happy to oblige them, having no choice but to take to my bed each day around the noon hour. My mood is sanguine, however, because I view death not as an ending, as some people do, but as an opportunity to enter the afterlife that Moses promised. If Maimonides was right, that in time we become like the moon and the stars in our proximity to God, then why fear death at all?

  Your comments about Isidor Kracauer confirm me in my intention. I shall explain. Over the years I have gathered a vast library of spiritual and philosophical works, as you might imagine. My dearest possession is my ancient copy of The Guide of the Perplexed, by Maimonides, whom I believe was the most insightful Jewish thinker of all; his writings certainly shaped my views. It is said that this copy was handled by the Rambam himself, though of this I have no proof. My son Joseph has given up his Hebrew studies — I am letting him go his own way, being no friend of coercion — so it would be foolish to leave this book to him when I am gone. Since your Isidor seems as Perplexed as anyone, and strongly in need of a guide, I plan to send him this treasured book as a gift; perhaps it will encourage him to return to his scholarship, and join the long line of Jewish thinkers.

  Because I do not feel comfortable posting this irreplaceable book to a slaughterhouse, with all the possibilities of damage, I shall send the package to you, knowing you will get it to him.

  I think you have hit the nail on the head, as your carpenter friend Yussel might say, in defining the difference between sorrow and suffering. As for the origin of that lingering inner state of sadness that we call sorrow, I think it is vital that each thinking man and woman seek the answer for themselves. It may be, indeed, that the correct answer is different for each of us.

  Alas, my hand tires. I shall try to summarize briefly how I personally try to deal with both suffering and sorrow at this penultimate stage of my life. I choose from the systems of the philosophers that which will make me happier and at the same time can make me better. I rejoice in every religious custom which does not lead to intolerance and misanthropy; rejoice in every ceremony that has something true and good for its basis; endeavor as far as possible to eliminate the false, and abolish nothing until I am able to replace its good effect by something better.

  Now I am back to bed, at noon. The Guide of the Perplexed I shall have Fromet send in a separate parcel. Please extend my warmest regards to your loving Meyer, to winsome Brendel, to generous Doctor Kirsch, to anyone else in your bustling lane who remembers me kindly.

  As always, your humble servant,

  Moses Mendelssohn

  As Yussel Kahn turned the corner of Linden Street into the Heldenplatz, in Frankfurt, he stopped suddenly. He had been here hundreds of times before, but now he felt cold sweat break out on his forehead and a thumping begin in his chest, as he saw at an angle across the square a police wagon blocking the street in front of Johannes Gluck, Bookseller. Three more officers sat on horses that were standing impatiently, pawing the muddy cobbles, in front of and behind the wagon. Yussel shrank back against the window of a pawn shop and watched, his view partially blocked by the trunks of several lindens in the square. In two directions the foot traffic seemed almost normal. Bankers in dark coats and knee-breeches and silk hose and powdered wigs crossed the manure-strewn streets, lost in their important conversations; shoppers carried bolts of fabrics, or smaller packages, as they emerged from the stores. An ice wagon stood in front of an ale house while the driver, using large tongs, hauled an opaque block of ice inside. But a few people, he saw, had gathered near the police wagon, curious to see what had brought the Constables there. Yussel’s first impulse was to join the little group and hope he would not be recognized. But that might be suicidal. His next impulse was to leave at once, to hurry back to the lane. But that would be cowardice, and would leave him dangling in ignorance. Rejecting both ideas, he stayed where he was, leaned against the window of the pawn shop like a bystander without any cares, and waited to see what would happen.

  So it has come to this, he thought. After sixteen years, they have found out. He wondered how.

  He thought painfully of Brendel, of her two boys, to whom he had become like a father. If he were arrested, imprisoned
, how could he live apart from her, when she dwelled with loving and sensuous force in his soul? When the Chief Rabbi had approached him far in the past, he had been happy to accept the task, honored and excited. He was alone then, often in despair, his life a salacious daydream of pretty women half his age. This would be a chance to do something meaningful, he had decided, and his decision had felt right; even if he were some day to lose his life, as the Schul-Klopper had, it would be no great loss. But things were different now, with Brendel, with the boys. Now he did not choose to rot in prison, or to hang by his neck until dead.

  The procedure had been so simple. The bookseller, who secretly sold Nahum Baum’s poetry along with his Shakespeare and his Milton and his histories and his maps, was still willing. Widely read, he had long been outraged by the treatment of the Jews; as a matter of honor he was willing to continue taking a risk to help. Gluck had been in business for years, not far from the headquarters of the Frankfurt Constabulary, and had good relations with a sympathetic officer of the police or the judiciary — to this day Yussel did not know which; he never had needed to know. Twice each week Yussel had come to the Heldenplatz on business. Sometimes he would enter the book-seller’s to buy glue for his carpentry, sometimes to purchase a book. Other times they just would chat, about public affairs, about an interesting new book that was being published. If he saw through the window that Gluck was busy with a customer, Yussel would just pass by — but only after glancing at the books in the window. In the center of the window was a low table on which there were always three books displayed — a Goethe, a Schiller, translations of Voltaire or Rousseau, the Holy Bible, whatever. What Yussel looked for was books about art. If any of the three books featured on the table was about a painter — Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, it did not matter who — Yussel hurried back to the Judengasse, to the Chief Rabbi’s study, and gave him the warning: the police would be raiding the Judengasse in the next few days. Both Yussel and Gluck believed that the risk of anyone noticing this obscure code was minimal.