The Source: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  The rabbi of Kefar Nahum, known to the Christians as Capernaum, where the largest of the Galilean synagogues stood, remembered that the Eighty-second Psalm said clearly, “God standeth in the congregation of the mighty …” and from this it was deduced that God was willing to convene with His faithful in a public congregation. How many were required in the forming of a congregation? No man could say. Was it three persons? Or seven? Or twelve? Each of these numbers had mystical value and it was probable that God had preferred one of them. But no one knew.

  The rabbi of Biri, the town with the loveliest synagogue—a gemlike building with many columns constructed of white limestone—recalled that in the Book of Numbers, God had asked Moses directly, “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me?” and although this referred to an evil group, it was nevertheless one that God had recognized as an officially constituted congregation. The rabbis tracked the reference backward and found that it related to the twelve men whom Moses had dispatched into Canaan to spy out the land: “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man …” So putting the two texts together they deduced that when God spoke of a congregation He was referring to at least twelve men. But the rabbi of Kefar Nahum pointed out that of the twelve evil men who spoke against the Lord, one should be excused, for Caleb of the tribe of Judah had spoken on behalf of the Lord: “And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it …” So this made eleven the proper number for a congregation. But then Rabbi Asher discovered that of these eleven still, another, Joshua of the tribe of Ephraim, had also spoken in defense of the Lord: “The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.” Thus, in the congregation, evil though it was, there had been twelve men less Caleb and Joshua, so ten was the required number, and the famous summary was evolved: “God is willing to meet with ten street sweepers but not with nine rabbis.” The question then arose as to what constituted a man, and after years of discussion it was determined that a man was any male child who had reached the age of thirteen; henceforth no public worship was possible without the presence of ten Jewish men above the age of twelve.

  In this patient, involuted and often arbitrary manner the great rabbis wove that net in which God would hold His chosen people. Every word of the Torah—even the punctuation mark—was analyzed. A single concept of the Mishna might occupy the rabbis for a year, and their Gemara, when completed, would be further dissected for fifteen centuries. As a result the Talmud would constitute an inexhaustible source of wisdom which men could study all the days of their lives, still finding rewards even if they lived, like Moses, to be a hundred and twenty.

  One day in the year 335 Rabbi Asher rode home to find that Yohanan, on his own initiative, had taken a step which altered the appearance of the Makor synagogue. The little rabbi, unprepared for what the surly stonecutter had done, went as usual to the door to inspect progress and found running down the length of the interior two rows of marble columns whose antique beauty gave the heavy room a distinct touch of paganism. “Where did you get them?” the rabbi asked suspiciously.

  Afraid of being rebuked, Yohanan growled, “My son Menahem … he heard the old people saying … mysteries hidden in the earth.” He hesitated, unsure of himself. “Columns of gold, they said.”

  “Your son? Found these?”

  Uneasily the big stonecutter mumbled, “The other children won’t play with Menahem. He went digging … out there. Uncovered the end of one column. It wasn’t gold.” He waited apprehensively.

  Rabbi Asher could see that the pillars were pagan and their shimmering colors could only be interpreted as adornment and he was tempted to order them thrown out, but reflection assured him that at least they were not graven images. “Who made them originally?” he temporized, but Yohanan could not guess. He was unable to imagine that a Makor citizen like Timon Myrmex had once spent several years selecting these eight choice columns from the thousands that were piling into Herod’s Caesarea in order to adorn the Roman forum. How beautiful they were to Yohanan and how earnestly he hoped that Rabbi Asher would allow them to remain.

  “They can stay,” the groats maker snapped. “But don’t do things like this again.”

  When this approval was granted, Rabbi Asher found that Yohanan wanted to discuss a problem which the rabbi had long anticipated, so with some apprehension God’s Man said, “We can’t discuss it here. Stop work and come to my house.” The two men left the synagogue and moved to the cool stone house from which the rabbi’s wife managed the groats mill while he was absent. Asher led the way to the alcove where he kept his volumes, and there, surrounded by visual evidence of the law, he sat in a large chair, placed his hands on his table and said, “Now what do you wish to tell me about your son?”

  “How did you know?”

  “We will discuss him many times.”

  “He’s nine. He’s growing up.”

  “I know.” Rabbi Asher could visualize the boy Menahem as he played in the streets, a vagrant child who seemed likely to become a handsome young man. The rabbi sighed with regret over what he must now say, and postponed his judgment by asking, “You’re wondering what to do with Menahem?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m wondering, too,” the rabbi said.

  “In what way?”

  Rabbi Asher retreated a little, like a legalist seeking protection in documents. Clasping his knuckles firmly, until the tips of his fingers were white, he said, “Now come the difficult years, when those who break the law begin to reap their rewards.”

  “What do you mean?” Yohanan demanded.

  Rabbi Asher, having delivered his sermon, relaxed the nervous clasping of his hands and said gently, “I’ve been wondering what we shall both do about Menahem, and I find no solution. For he’s a bastard.”

  “I’ll protect him!” the stonecutter insisted.

  “He remains a bastard,” Rabbi Asher said softly, “and he can never marry.”

  “I’ll buy him a wife.”

  “Not a Jewish wife.”

  “I’ll make him part of this town,” Yohanan shouted, driving his fist against the rabbi’s table till the parchments trembled, but the little man did not flinch, for he had anticipated the problem now to be faced by Yohanan, and it could not be dispelled by force.

  In Deuteronomy, God’s law was stated in clear, cruel terms: “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter …” Ten generations was a euphemism for eternity and in Palestine the law was enforced: bastards were outcasts forever and ever. Of course, in simple cases where an unmarried girl had a child by an unmarried father, bastardy was not involved, for the girl could marry any man and make her child legitimate, nor did bastardy result from the frequent instances in which Jewish women were raped by invading soldiers, for such children inherited the Jewishness of their mother and were easily absorbed into Jewish life; but when a man like Yohanan willfully had intercourse with a married woman, the event was a threat to all Jewish homes and the offspring had to be stigmatized as bastard and eternally outcast from the community.

  With tears of compassion forming, Rabbi Asher explained this implacable law to the stonecutter: “Why does Menahem play alone? Because he’s a bastard. Why is he marked wherever he goes? He’s a bastard. When he grows to manhood, why will he be unable to find a wife? Because of the sin you committed against the law.”

  “No!” the distracted workman cried. “This law I will never accept,” and with this threat he terminated the first of his many confrontations with the rabbi.

  During his fourth visit Rabbi Asher asked, “Why must you fight the law, Yohanan?”

  “Because I’m determined to see my son a
Jew … here in Makor.”

  “That he can never be.”

  “How shall he live?”

  “As an outcast, finding consolation in the fact that those who in this life suffer for the Torah find everlasting bliss hereafter.” This was the second time in recent months that Rabbi Asher had used this concept—a life hereafter—and it was strange to hear a Jewish philosopher speak in this way, for the Torah did not sponsor such belief: immortality, resurrection, heaven as a place of reward and hell as a depth for punishment were largely New Testament doctrine. But the Jews of the Diaspora, because of their long residence among pagan Persians and Greeks, had belatedly acquired these doctrines and now Rabbi Asher felt no betrayal of Judaistic dogma in asserting that Menahem must accept an abominable life on earth in order to win a sweet life hereafter.

  “But why must he suffer in this life?” Yohanan demanded. “A blameless boy?”

  “Because you broke the law,” Rabbi Asher said, and before the stonecutter could protest anew, the little groats maker continued, “In God’s Torah there are 613 laws, 365 prohibitive laws, one for each day in the year, 248 affirmative, one for each bone in the body. You are bound by this ancient law. I am bound by it. Even God Himself is bound by its framework, for it establishes order. Your son can find no happiness on this earth and he can never be a Jew, but if he makes himself a slave to the law, he will upon his death win redemption.”

  “Why Menahem? Why doesn’t the punishment fall on me?”

  “It is not within our power,” Rabbi Asher said, “to understand either the prosperity of the wicked or the affliction of the righteous. Train your son to accept his fate, that he may be an example to others.”

  “Is that all you can offer?” the workman asked.

  “That is the law,” Rabbi Asher replied.

  It was in this year of 335 that the stonecutter began his carving of the lintel over the west door of the main façade, and as he worked he kept Menahem at his side, explaining to him the significance of what he was doing: “I imagine vines growing out of the earth, and through the floor of the synagogue, and up that wall to bring us grapes. Four bunches. Eight grapes in each bunch. That’s enough to make two glasses of wine, one for you and one for me.”

  “Do your palm trees grow through the stone floor, too?”

  “Of course! And they bring us sweet dates to eat with our wine.”

  “And the little wagon? Does it come through the doors?”

  “With white horses galloping.”

  “What’s in the wagon?”

  “The law,” Yohanan said. And he was so devoted to the synagogue he was building, this limestone prison that would immure him that he worked with extra care on the big stone, depicting on its face the things he loved. When it was finally hoisted into place, when the wooden ceiling was thrown across the eight columns of King Herod and the frieze of joyous swastikas was complete, with stone snakes and herons and oak trees to allure the eye, Yohanan concluded that his work in Makor was finished, and he thought that he was free to leave. “I’ll take my son and try some other town. Maybe there … with a different rabbi …” But when the time came for him to go Rabbi Asher came to see him, and he handed Menahem, now ten years old and a gifted boy, some sweets which he had purchased in a Greek shop.

  “Yohanan,” the rabbi said, “you mustn’t leave Makor. You’ve made this your home and we appreciate you. The people love you.”

  “I’ve been thinking … well, a boat to Antioch … maybe Cyprus.”

  “You can’t flee, Yohanan. This is your home … your law.”

  “The law I won’t accept.”

  “At Antioch, would you escape it?”

  “I’ll stop being a Jew,” the stonecutter threatened.

  This irresponsible statement Rabbi Asher ignored, saying, “You and I shall always live in the Galilee. The law and the land bind us to it.”

  The idea struck Yohanan forcefully and he broached his next suggestion for the synagogue. “When I worked at Antioch we made designs with bits of colored stone.”

  “Designs?” Rabbi Asher asked suspiciously.

  “Not graven images. Mountains and birds, like on the wall.”

  “From bits of stone?”

  “If we covered the floor with such designs,” the stonecutter suggested, but Rabbi Asher could not visualize what he was talking about, so Yohanan took a stick and outlined a tree on the floor. “We make it with pieces of stone,” he explained.

  As usual Rabbi Asher was apprehensive about unnecessary adornment, but he had just spoken so harshly concerning the law and he was so desirous of keeping the stonecutter in Makor that against his better judgment he approved the floor. “But no images,” he warned.

  So once more Yohanan, seeking a beauty he did not understand, locked himself in Makor. When Menahem was eleven, growing tall like his father, the boy began to suffer from his outcast status, so Yohanan took him on his trips through the Galilee, searching for red and blue and purple limestone. They made a curious pair, a hulking, awkward giant of a man and his handsome son, exploring the countryside. They sought out remote mountain sites and camped beside cliffs which streams had cut through layers of rock, and wherever they probed they found not only colored stone but the absorbing wonder of the Galilee, that timeless habitat of beauty. Crossing swamps they saw the one-legged heron and the gulls which came inland from the sea; Menahem found the cattails, those strange and furry plants which pleased him so much, while his father sat silent, spying upon the jackal and the fox.

  When Menahem was twelve, slim and agile where his father was graceless, Yohanan led his workmen to selected sites, where colored rocks were quarried in flat slabs for transportation to Makor. At the quarries father and son saw the inner heart of their land—chips flying from the earth and the roots of large trees cut aside so that the valuable colored strata could be followed—and they caught a new, structural aspect of the Galilee. Looking beyond the dust, they saw the beauty of the valleys, the fall of a stream issuing from the hills or the crest of a mountain they had not seen before, and from these different units a strong design began to take form in Yohanan’s stubborn mind. He decided to place in his pavement the soul of the Galilee, no less, and he formulated in vague shapes and weights the final pattern. So far only one part of the design was certain: olive trees and birds would be included, for to him they were the Galilee.

  It was in this year of 338 that Menahem, the twelve-year-old son of the stonecutter, first became aware of Jael, the eight-year-old daughter of the groats maker. This occurred when the rabbi’s wife, called upon to deliver four extra sacks of groats to a Greek merchant from Ptolemais, could find no men to help her and thought of enlisting Menahem to turn the drying grains and then to grind them between the stones. He enjoyed the work, and when his father disappeared on a tramp through the hills searching for an elusive purple limestone, he stayed on at the groats mill, and one morning as he was turning the stone he looked up to see the rabbi’s daughter smiling at him. She was a beautiful child, with blond pigtails, blue eyes and the liveliness of her father, and she had not yet inherited the animosity practiced by the older children toward Menahem.

  “Are you the one they throw stones at?” she asked innocently as she watched him work.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Menahem. My father’s building the synagogue.”

  “The big man?” she asked, hunching herself over to imitate Yohanan’s bearlike walk.

  “He would be angry if he saw you making fun of him,” Menahem said with the sensitivity that had been kicked into him by the people of Makor.

  She stayed with him, chatting inquisitively, and during the time required for the four extra sacks she watched his motions. “Father turns the stone the other way,” she advised him. “Father holds the sack with his knees.” Finally, when the four bags stood ready for the Greek merchant, she perched on top of them, directing Menahem how to clean up.

  His work
on this emergency job was so much appreciated by the rabbi’s wife that she kept him on, and in time he replaced one of the men who had proved to be both lazy and intractable. With Menahem’s sober, self-directed energy the mill turned out almost as much cereal as it had under the guidance of Rabbi Asher, and once or twice the perceptive youth caught a glimpse of the future: he would become the foreman at the groats mill and then the contempt that the boys in the streets held for him would vanish. Accompanying this hopeful vision was Jael’s presence, day after day; when he went for walks among the olive trees she tagged along, a lovely blue-eyed little girl making impulsive observations.

  “Sister said I shouldn’t play with you, since you’re a bastard.”

  Menahem did not flush, for the boys of Makor had long since clubbed into him an acceptance of this word. “Tell your mother you’re not playing with me. You’re helping me make groats.”

  “At the mill it’s work,” Jael said. “But in the olive trees it’s playing.”

  Often she took his hand as they walked under the benevolent trees, some so old and tattered that they must topple in the next wind, others as young and supple as Jael herself. “I like to play with you,” she said one day, “but what is a bastard?”

  At twelve Menahem himself was not sure of what the word signified, except that it covered an ugly situation in which he was involved; but at thirteen—that critical age for Jewish boys—he was to discover in full measure the nature of his taint. This was the year of initiation, when he should have entered the synagogue dressed in a new set of clothes, climbed to the rostrum where the Torah was read on Shabbat morning, stood before the sacred scroll and chanted for the first time in public a portion of God’s word. At that moment, in the presence of the men of Makor, he would cease being a child and would state with assurance, “Today I am a man. The things I do from this day on are my responsibility and not my father’s.”

  But when the time came for Menahem to take this dramatic leap from boyhood to manhood, thus entering the adult congregation of Israel, Rabbi Asher, God’s Man home from Tverya, had to advise the boy, “You may not enter the congregation of the Lord, neither now nor to the tenth generation.”