The Source: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  But even if a devout rabbi like Asher ha-Garsi was in essence the same as a Christian or a Buddhist priest, God’s final plank, the Talmud, bore no resemblance to anything else in the world’s religions. It was a remarkable achievement, the heart of Judaism, and it consisted of two parts: the Mishna and the Gemara. The first had been assembled by Rabbi Akiba and his followers some eighty years before Rabbi Asher was born; it was the second component upon which the expositors of Tverya and Babylonia were now working. When the two were joined together, some time around the year 500, the Talmud would be in existence.

  What was the Mishna? An adroit solution to a difficult religious problem. The wise men of Judaism had evolved the principle that at Sinai, God had handed Moses two sets of laws, one written on the tablets of stone and later transcribed word for word into the Torah, and a second of equal importance which had been whispered to Moses alone, the oral law, which provided specific elaboration of the Torah. For example, in the written book of Exodus, God said distinctly, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” but He did not stipulate in writing what one must do to observe this commandment. It became the task of the rabbis, depending upon the oral law which God had given Moses, to clarify the commandment and make it specific.

  Who knew what this oral law was? Only the rabbis. How did they know? Because it had been handed along from man to man in a solemn unbroken chain: “Moses received the Torah from God Himself at Sinai, and passed it along to Joshua, and Joshua to the Elders, and they to the Prophets, and they to the Men of the Great Assembly and they to Antigonus of Soko … Hillel and Shammai took over from them … Johanan ben Zakkai … Rab Naaman of Makor … the great Akiba … Rabbi Meir …” and in days to come the rubric would be added, “From him Rabbi Asher ha-Garsi took over,” and it would pass to Rashi, the marvelous Frenchman, then to the greatest mind of all, Maimonides, and to the Vilna Gaon of Lithuania, and on to the merest rabbi working in Akron, Ohio. These men were custodians of the oral law.

  For the first fifteen hundred years this oral law had been carried only in the heads of scholars, but after the two Roman destructions of Judaea—first by Vespasian and later by Hadrian, who erased even the name of Jerusalem and changed Judaea to Palestine—a group of scholars had met in a small Galilean village not far from Makor to codify this inherited law. Thus they constructed what became known as the Mishna, which men like Rabbi Asher were required to know by heart. For example, in extension of the crisp Torah injunction not to work on Shabbat, the Mishna identified forty-less-one principal kinds of labor which were forbidden: “Sowing, reaping … baking … spinning … tying or untying knots … sewing two stitches … hunting a gazelle … writing two letters … lighting a fire … carrying anything from one domain into another …”

  One does not sit down before the barber, close to the time of the Shabbat prayer. A tailor should not take his needle on Shabbat eve just before nightfall; he may forget and go out with it. Nor the scribe take his pen. One should not begin to clean his clothes, and one does not read at the lamplight, because he may tilt it. The schoolmaster may supervise the reading of his children, but he himself must not read. Similarly, a man that is in heat should not eat together with a woman that is in heat, because it may lead them to sin …

  One must not put bread in the oven on Shabbat eve before darkness, nor may the cakes be put on the coal unless there is time for the crust to form before Shabbat arrives. Rabbi Eliezer says: In time for the crust to form on the bottom …

  What may one use for lighting on the Shabbat, and what must one not use? One must not use cedar fiber, nor oakum, nor silk, nor a bast wick, nor a desert wick, nor seaweed, nor pitch, nor wax, nor castor oil, nor burnt oil, nor tail fat, nor tallow. Nahum the Mede says: One may use boiled tallow, but the Sages say: Whether boiled or not, one may not light with it.

  The Sages, however, permit all oils: sesame oil, nut oil, radish oil, cucumber oil, tar and naphtha. But Rabbi Tarfon says: For lighting only olive oil may be used.

  In this way the Mishna inspected each aspect of life and laid down the laws which bound Jews to their religion

  What was the Gemara? When the completed Mishna had been used by Jews for only a short time they began to find that it was not specific enough; it proscribed thirty-nine different kinds of work, but as new occupations evolved, new rulings were required. So the rabbis restudied each category, trying to spread its elastic words over the greatest possible number of occupations and hitting sometimes upon interpretations that were masterpieces of intellectual juggling. For example, during the first month of Rabbi Asher’s service as one of the expositors the question arose as to what the prohibited occupation of sowing might include. An old rabbi with experience in farming gave it as his opinion that sowing included such collateral occupations as pruning, planting, bending trees to shape and grafting.

  Rabbi Asher said, “Grafting is clearly the same as sowing, and is therefore forbidden, but pruning is clearly the opposite of sowing, for it is a cutting away rather than a planting.”

  The older man said, “Hear this. Why does a man prune? To lay bare the new growth so that it may spring forward. Thus pruning is sowing.”

  Rabbi Asher said, “You make it clear. Pruning is forbidden too.”

  They spent a full year discussing agriculture and the kinds of farm work that may not be done on Shabbat. Using the old farmer’s theory that pruning was the same as sowing, they arrived at the extraordinary conclusion that filling a ditch was the same as plowing and that working on a hole near one’s house was the same as building, since at some later date a building might grow out of the hole.

  Rabbi Asher led the group in a discussion of what might be included under the prohibition against reaping: “We learned: sheaf-binding, wire-making and cutting stone for a building are identical with reaping. Rab Naaman said they are prohibited.”

  A rabbi who worked in the building trades argued, “I had it from Rabbi Jonah from Meir from Akiba: Stonecutting is the same as plowing. It is already forbidden.”

  On and on the arguments went as the rabbis gathered up the loose ends of life and tied them into permanent packages. In the third year they summoned a sailor from Ptolemais to discuss the cryptic passage of the Mishna, “Tying and untying knots is forbidden on Shabbat.” Just what was involved in the tying of a knot, they asked, and to what other human activities might this prohibition extend? The sailor demonstrated what tying a knot consisted of, and after two months of discussion Rabbi Asher proposed the following general rule: “Any joining together of two things that are by nature the same is equal to the tying of a knot. Thus, on Shabbat a man may not place additional grapes in a press which already contains grapes, for that is tying a knot.”

  A rabbi visiting from Babylonian, where similar discussions were taking place among the Jews of that region, said, “Why not say simply, knots tied by camel drivers, donkey drivers and sailors?”

  An old rabbi said, “I heard it from Rabbi Zumzum who had it from Rabbi Meir that no man should be held culpable for a knot that could be untied with one hand.” Thus the argument progressed day after day as the great expositors laid down their specific interpretations. Their extensions would be known as the Gemara, and when their work was finished, after two and a half centuries of debate in both Tverya and Babylonia, the Mishna (Repetition) and the Gemara (Completion) would coalesce to form the Talmud (Teaching), that enormous compendium which would in turn be interpreted by the Egyptian doctor, Maimonides, and after him by others of lesser insight, so that in the end there would stand a jumbled, rambling, inspired portrait of Judaism in action. It was this Talmud that provided the fence around the Torah, protecting God’s law from unintentional trespass; God had said merely, “Remember Shabbat,” but the rabbis had staked out their fence far from the actual Shabbat, defending the sacred day behind a multitude of laws. It was on this holy work of building the fence of the Talmud that Rabbi Asher would spend the rest of his life.

  This did not mean that he
lived permanently in Tverya, engaged only in legalistic discussion. Like his fellow rabbis from Kefar Nahum and Biri, he continued to supervise the spiritual life of his home community, and since he also had a wife and three unmarried daughters, it was his added responsibility to see that his groats mill made a profit. So whenever the crops were harvested he mounted his white mule to ride back through the Galilean forests to his little town in order to purchase grain, and one of his most satisfying moments came when he guided his mule up the incline into Makor to greet his family and to inspect conditions at the mill.

  It was with bursting joy that Rabbi Asher reached the privacy of his home at the end of these trips, for he would rush, tired and dusty, to greet his wife and embrace his children. Gathering his family about him he would lead them in singing either psalms or folksongs, and he would toss his youngest daughter into the air, catching her as she squealed with joy at having her father home again. At meals he would stand at the head of the table and look upon his family, praying with sheer happiness: “God, the journey is ended and I am once more with those I love.”

  But when he was alone he would stand humbly in one corner of his room and begin a serious communication with God, thanking Him gravely for having kept the family well and warm, and as he prayed a frenzy would possess him, and he would begin bowing from the waist, left and right, running forward to meet God, then retreating out of respect. At certain passages in his prayer he would throw himself full length upon the earthen floor so forcefully as to bring dust, then he would rise and the bowing would be repeated. At the end of his extended prayer he would have worked his way completely across the room and perhaps halfway back again, a little man in ecstasy, prostrating himself before his God. His attitude to prayer summarized his morality: “When I am in the synagogue praying for others, I make the prayers short lest my brothers grow tired, but when I am alone with God, I cannot prolong them sufficiently.”

  When it was known in Makor that the rabbi was home again, many visitors would come seeking either guidance or charity, and with the former, Asher observed the rule which he had often defended in the discussions at Tverya: “Deal leniently with others but strictly with yourself.” And he did what he could to soften the harsh blows of peasant life in a town where tax collectors were brutal and Byzantine soldiers cruel. With those who sought charity, he was guided by the unequivocal precept of Rab Naaman of Makor: “A man who will not give to the poor is an animal,” and in some years the profits of his groats mill were largely dissipated because of the cereal which he gave away. As for the manner of dispensing charity, he had formulated a rule which would be incorporated into the Talmud: “Take care of the other man’s body and your own soul.” If the worst drunkard came to him for food, Rabbi Asher first fed him, then prayed for him and sent him away. “Lecturing him about his evil ways should be postponed for another day,” he explained. “Charity and exhortation must not be mixed.”

  Wherever he moved in the community he tried to bring joy, telling mothers that their sons would become scholars, assuring young girls that they would find husbands, and encouraging farmers to hope for profitable seasons. He had always been impressed by that teaching of the Mishna which said, “In the hereafter each man will be asked to explain why he abstained from those normal pleasures of life to which he was entitled.” Songs, dancing, wine in moderation, feasts with one’s friends, games for children and young people, courtship in the spring and caressing children were occupations, Rabbi Asher said, which brought joy to life, and those who were in his presence for any time found cause for laughter.

  His principal regret came when he resumed work at the groats mill, hauling the bags of wheat, and he had to acknowledge that so far he had found no one to run the place satisfactorily in his absence. He had tried several men, but they had lacked the integrity he required, and so in his absence the place merely struggled along, watched over by his busy wife and earning only half the profit it should have done. Once he had hoped that his two sons-in-law would assume this responsibility, but they showed no inclination to do so, and now when he returned to Tverya it was with the doleful realization that he had still not found a man to make the groats.

  This deficiency was regrettable in that Asher’s ancestors had devised a special way of making the cereal: they took well-ripened wheat, boiled it in water like the other groats makers, but to their water they added salt and herbs, and when the time came for drying the grains they did not pour the water away, like the others, but allowed it to stand in the sun until the wheat absorbed it, taking back into the grains whatever nutrients would otherwise have been washed away. Asher also allowed his wheat to dry in the sun for at least a week longer than his competitors did, so that when the grains were finally cracked by his stone mill, forming pieces smaller than rice, they had a chewy, nutty flavor that all appreciated. Once when he was about to return to Tverya a Greek merchant protested, “Rabbi, why do you fool with those white beards? Any man can write down the law, but it takes a man chosen by God to make good groats.” It was a pity, Asher thought, that he had found no manager.

  Therefore, in the winter of 330, when his wife announced that she was pregnant again, well past the normal age for conceiving, he experienced a surge of joy, for he convinced himself that by this miracle God was determined to send him a son to inherit the groats mill. He went about town, a little man of forty-eight with a beard that was showing gray, telling his friends, “You can see it’s only reasonable. Five daughters in a row. The last has got to be a boy.” He decided to call the child Matthew, God’s Gift, and sometimes in the street when he spoke of his son his eyes would dance and only with difficulty did he keep his feet from doing the same. “He was sent me by God,” the little rabbi proclaimed, but in the autumn his wife gave birth to a sixth daughter and she was named Jael.

  Subdued, Rabbi Asher mounted his white mule and rode down the caravan road to Tverya, where under the grape arbor he was about to begin a specific chain of deliberation which would have a most permanent impact on all Jews: during the nine years from 330 through 338 the expositors would discuss principally one pregnant verse of Torah. God first stated this concept in Exodus and then, because apparently He considered it vital to His plans for the Jews, He repeated the warning twice: “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.” That was all God said; possibly He did not want a mother sheep to be abused by knowing that its offspring was to be cooked in her milk, which would double her anguish, as it were. Or the restriction might have been imposed because Canaanites to the north indulged in this practice and anything a Canaanite did was to be avoided. At any rate, God had reiterated the simple directive, and it fell to the rabbis to interpret it.

  As they studied the cryptic sentence, three words stood out. Seethe was probably meant to include all kinds of cooking. Kid was meant to include all kinds of meat. And milk was intended to cover all possible variations of dairy products. Under these initial interpretations the expositors began to erect those complicated dietary laws which would set the Jews apart. Extensions were made which only men of ingenuity could have deduced, and routines for kitchen and cooking were established which would enable Jews to observe every eventual sanction growing out of God’s brief commandment. The dietary ritual had a certain beauty to it and was in conformance with the sanitary laws of the time. Milk and meat must be kept forever separate, for the slightest trace of one could contaminate the other, and a drop of milk carelessly spilled into a kettle used for cooking meat might mean that the pot would have to be shattered lest the community be led unknowingly into error. At first the rules laid down by the rabbis were not intrusive: Jewish kitchens became a symbol of God’s covenant and to keep dishes separated was a trivial thing. Jewish women came to enjoy cooking in accordance with divine law, as whispered by God to Moses and conveyed by him to generation after generation of holy men. But now Rabbi Asher advanced the idea that even the cooking vapors from a pot containing beef could contaminate a whole kitchen where milk was being use
d, and no local housewife could contest him; when in Babylonia other rabbis began to evolve other refinements even more difficult to observe, no one could contest them, either. For what the rabbis were doing, in part consciously and in part unconsciously, was to create a body of law that would bind the Jews together as they went into exile to the Diaspora. Without a homeland the Jews would live within their law and become a nation mightier than those which had oppressed them. Without cities of their own they would as a cohesive unit help determine the destinies of cities they had not yet seen. Wherever they went—to Spain or Egypt or Argentina—they would take with them the decisions of the rabbis of Tverya, and within the limits established by these decisions they would live, a more permanent group of people than any who had surrounded them in their two thousand years in Israel. Gentiles, observing their homelessness, would construct the myth of the Wandering Jew, but in reality this phrase was meaningless, for no matter where the Jew wandered, if he took with him the Talmud he was home.

  Fraught with future meaning though these discussions of cooking were, the consultations which best exemplified the Talmudic process were those ingenious deductions whereby procedures for ritual worship were established. All Jews agreed that such worship must not be conducted by haphazard formula, but what constituted proper ritual was difficult to determine, for on this matter the written Torah was silent; it spoke of a time when worship was conducted at the temple in Jerusalem; and the oral Torah was equally deficient because the transmitters of the secret information had not foreseen the time when Jerusalem would no longer exist. And even when the Romans did finally allow the city to be rebuilt, a new temple was not permitted. Therefore the rabbis were required to legislate for a religion whose externals had changed markedly.