The Source: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  He had found that when a man was driven to construct a hundred sophistical reasons for denying Leviticus, the man had to consider the ultimate nature of God. Sometimes the yeshiva students contrived ingenious answers: “In Exodus it says that after God had created all the animals and before He created man, He reviewed His work and it is written, ‘And God saw that it was good.’ Since He made this judgment after the creation of the lizard but before He created man, the lizard must have been good in the abstract, always and forever, without reference to man. And it must still be good, and can therefore be eaten.”

  Another student once argued, “God created first the earth, and as a father loves most of all his first-born, so God loves first of all His earth. Of all the animals that live upon this beloved earth, the lizard presses his belly closest to the earth and cannot live away from it. Therefore he is even closer to the earth that God loves than man, and as part of the earth he must be good, and Jews can therefore eat him.”

  One year an especially clever student advanced an argument that would be retained in the Talmud: “We often have to choose between two precepts of our Lord that appear contradictory. Now listen. In the commandments He tells us, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ yet He Himself stole a rib from Adam to give mankind its greatest blessing, woman. Now He tells us not to eat lizards, but if we did we might find them to be a blessing also.”

  Day after day Rabbi Asher encouraged his students to pursue their adroit reasonings, and when the last had been proved specious, he surprised everyone by saying, “Now bring me a hundred reasons why the lizard cannot be eaten,” and when this had been accomplished he felt that his students were beginning to acquire the tenacity required of anyone who presumed to study Jewish law. He loved to tell his students a story which summarized his attitudes on this matter of intellectual inspection: “A Roman came to Rabbi Gimzo the Water Carrier, and asked, ‘What is this study of the law that you Jews engage in?’ and Gimzo replied, ‘I shall explain. There were two men on a roof, and they climbed down the chimney. One’s face became sooty. The other’s not. Which one washed his face?’ The Roman said, ‘That’s easy, the sooty one, of course.’ Gimzo said, ‘No. The man without the soot looked at his friend, saw that the man’s face was dirty, assumed that his was too, and washed it.’ Cried the Roman, ‘Ah ha! So that’s the study of law. Sound reasoning.’ But Gimzo said, ‘You foolish man, you don’t understand. Let me explain again. Two men on a roof. They climb down a chimney. One’s face is sooty, the other’s not. Which one washes?’ The Roman said, ‘As you just explained, the man without the soot.’ Gimzo cried, ‘No, you foolish one! There was a mirror on the wall and the man with the dirty face saw how sooty it was and washed it.’ The Roman said, ‘Ah ha! So that’s the study of law! Conforming to the logical.’ But Rabbi Gimzo said, ‘No, you foolish one. Two men climbed down the chimney. One’s face became sooty? The other’s not? That’s impossible. You’re wasting my time with such a proposition.’ And the Roman said, ‘So that’s the law! Common sense.’ And Gimzo said, ‘You foolish man! Of course it was possible. When the first man climbed down the chimney he brushed the soot away. So the man who followed found none to mar him.’ And the Roman cried, ‘That’s brilliant, Rabbi Gimzo. Law is getting at the basic facts.’ And for the last time Gimzo said, ‘No, you foolish man. Who could brush all the soot from a chimney? Who can ever understand all the facts?’ Humbly the Roman asked, ‘Then what is the law?’ And Gimzo said quietly, ‘It’s doing the best we can to ascertain God’s intention, for there were indeed two men on a roof, and they did climb down the same chimney. The first man emerged completely clean while it was the second who was covered with soot, and neither man washed his face, because you forgot to ask me whether there was any water in the basin. There was none.’ ”

  While Rabbi Asher in Tverya taught this compassionate interpretation of the Torah, Yohanan and his son hiked back to Makor under the heavy burden of their portion of the law, and when Menahem reached home he sought consolation in hard work at the groats mill, where Jael came to talk to him, and he told his father, “I cannot go to Ptolemais”; so Yohanan went alone and after some days returned with two donkey-loads of purple glass and a small parcel of golden cubes. He was now ready to proceed with his masterwork.

  In an open-front shop not far from the new synagogue he installed six men whose job it was to take the slabs of colored limestone which had been quarried from the Galilean hills and to saw them into long strips somewhat less than half an inch square across the face. Then, with chisels, they took the lengths of stone and chopped off half-inch segments, so that at the end of the day each man had about his feet a little pile of colored cubes, and when the reds and blues and greens and browns had accumulated in sufficient quantity Yohanan began building the mosaic.

  In his fourteenth and fifteenth years Menahem helped his father place the cubes: on a bed of thin cement spread over the original floor Menahem would fill in the background spaces with ordinary gray-white cubes, while his father sketched the areas where color was required, and gradually the two would bring the large design down to a small focus where some bird or tree was indicated, and here with deft, stubby fingers Yohanan would construct from a bagful of mixed stones the gracious forms that made the pavement come alive. With a small wedged hammer he would strike off slivers of brown rock and with these would build a midsummer fern, dry and withered as it bent in the wind off the hills, and on the tip of the fern he would place a bee eater, perfectly constructed of pastel blue and yellow squares, with bits of the purple glass for wing tipping; slowly the father and son evoked in the synagogue of Makor the essence of their homeland: the sweeping hills and silvery streams, the crested hoopoe bird in mauve and white, his tail outlined in purple glass from Ptolemais. It never occurred to the two modest workmen that they were creating a masterpiece, but they did sense from time to time that they were composing a muted song to the goodness of the Galilee as they had come to know it.

  The day finally came when an olive tree was needed in one corner of the design, and Yohanan stepped aside to watch approvingly as Menahem constructed his first object: with brown and green stones, with a few touches of red and blue, he built a living tree on the floor of the synagogue and Yohanan realized that in his son he had found an artist. But with each stone the boy laid down he grew older; he was now sixteen, when Jewish youths could be betrothed, and in the mornings as he worked at the groats mill he would listen while Jael—now a striking child with flaxen hair—chattered about the wedding of such-and-such a couple. If things had been otherwise, a young fellow like Menahem with a good job and clean appearance would have been considered a catch; but no uncles with nieces of marriageable age came to discuss wedding contracts with Yohanan, and the last years of work on the mosaic were spent in deepening bitterness.

  Menahem became eighteen and nineteen and the net of the law closed more tightly about him. Now the boys his age were mostly married and some had children of their own, but no girl in the town would look at him, except young Jael, who was becoming a beautiful young woman. At fifteen she found it embarrassing to wait at the mill, but sometimes she intercepted Menahem as he walked from the mill to the synagogue, where the final stages of work were in progress. Occasionally the two would leave the town and stroll among the olive trees, and there one evening beside the ancient tree in whose cavernous interior Menahem had once slept he kissed the rabbi’s daughter for the first time. It was like the creation of a benevolent new world, the first experience of belonging he had known since childhood, and his love for Jael became the cardinal hope of his ugly life.

  The ensuing years were as painfully lovely as any that Menahem would know: he could not court Jael openly, but he could kiss her secretly; yet he knew that she was reaching the age when proper suitors must appear with attractive offers. Her marriage was delayed only because Rabbi Asher still had one older daughter to marry off before he got to Jael, and this occupied his attention when he was in Makor. Finally, in the year 350,
the groats maker found an unlikely family with a son who had a slanted eye and no great prospects, and this fellow agreed to marry the rabbi’s older girl, so Menahem knew that Jael’s turn was next.

  One day as he worked in the mill filling sacks which the rabbi held open, he blurted out, “Rabbi Asher, can I marry Jael?”

  The little rabbi, now sixty-nine years old, snapped his head forward so that his beard interrupted the flow of the groats. “What did you ask?” he demanded.

  “Jael and I want to marry,” the boy said.

  Rabbi Asher let the mouth of the sack fall shut, ignoring the groats that Menahem spilled about his feet. Without speaking he left the mill and went to the synagogue, where he upbraided Yohanan. “What have you encouraged your son to do?” he asked.

  “Work hard. Save money. And leave this place.”

  “What did you tell him about my daughter?”

  “I never spoke to him …”

  “That’s not true!” the rabbi stormed.

  Getting no satisfaction from Yohanan, he ran home, where he found Jael working with her mother. Unawed by her father’s excitement the girl admitted that she loved Menahem. “He’s so much wiser than the others. He works hard, too.”

  Her words had to be respected, for they carried their own justification; in the five unsatisfactory marriages which Rabbi Asher had arranged for his older daughters he had not come close to locating a husband as promising as Menahem ben Yohanan. In a kind of desperation he had been forced to accept men who were lazy, or not observant Jews, or stupid, and now his youngest daughter had discovered for herself a husband who would be an adornment to any household: a young man capable of running the groats mill and likely to prove a good father. Without speaking further the little rabbi left Jael and went to the room where it was his custom to pray.

  Throwing himself on the floor he cried, “God, what must I do?” He rose, dancing here and there, bowing his body, running backward and forward, and again prostrating himself full length in the dust. He then prayed for nearly an hour, struggling with the concepts of God, of Torah and of law. Finally, a little man worn out from his wrestling with the deity, he lay humbly on the floor and accepted judgment. When he understood clearly what was required he rose, returned to where Jael waited and kissed her with a tenderness unusual even for him who had never feared to demonstrate his love for his children. Without speaking he left the house and went to the dye vats, where within a few minutes he arranged a contract for the marriage of his daughter Jael to Abraham, son of the dyer Hababli.

  With maximum speed the wedding was arranged. A canopy was erected at the rabbi’s house and jars of wine were purchased from the Greek who kept a shop near the old Christian church, but on the morning of the wedding Jael imprudently ran to the groats mill, where she stood before Menahem, sobbing, “Oh, Menahem. It was you I wanted.”

  Her father, having anticipated such rashness, quickly appeared to lead his daughter home, and Menahem spoke to her no more. That evening he watched from the edge of the crowd as Abraham, whom he had known as a graceless boy and a bully, stood with a gold cap on his head, waiting under the canopy as ashen-faced Jael was brought to him: he had not expected his father to acquire for him so lovely a bride. When the improper wedding was concluded, the prayers having been recited by Rabbi Asher himself, when the glass was broken and feet had trod the pieces, Menahem, watching in anguish, swore that he would no longer live in such pain.

  He waited until the bride had been carried off by the still befuddled groom, and the guests had drunk the wine and had departed in the night, then sought refuge in the olive grove where he hid in the darkness. When morning came he went soberly to the home of Rabbi Asher and asked to speak with him. The little guardian of the law sat in his alcove, his long beard covering his hands, and he asked, “What do you wish, Menahem?”

  “Am I truly sentenced to such a life?”

  Slowly Rabbi Asher took down a scroll of the Torah, unrolling it to a passage whose words he indicated with a thin forefinger: “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord, even to his tenth generation.” He took away his hands and the scroll rewound itself, as if it had a life of its own.

  “I cannot accept it. I’ll go to Antioch.”

  To Rabbi Asher the threat was familiar: nearly a quarter of a century before in this room Yohanan had uttered those same words, but the stonecutter had found himself held fast by custom and had not gone to Antioch. Quietly the little rabbi explained, “If you did flee to some other city, you would find yourself in the arms of Jews, where the law abides.”

  “There’s no escape?”

  “None.”

  It was now that Menahem voluntarily reopened the subject which he had first heard discussed twelve years before under the grape vines of Tverya and which he had often subsequently pondered. With deliberate care he asked, “But if tonight I steal goods worth ten drachmas …”

  Eagerly Rabbi Asher replied, “We would arrest you, sell you as a slave, marry you to another slave, and after five years set you completely free.”

  “And I would be clean?”

  “Not you. But your children.” The old man paused. He was approaching his final years and was increasingly aware of his responsibilities as God’s Man, and something of the joy and love of the non-legal discussions in Tverya flooded his heart, and he confessed, “Menahem, you are my son, the keeper of my mill. Please, please steal the ten drachmas’ worth and win back your place within the law.” Leaving his parchments he ran with short steps to where Menahem stood, and throwing his arms about the young man, kissed him and cried, “At last you shall be a Jew of the congregation.”

  In this way Menahem finally submitted himself to the law. Departing from the rabbi he headed back to the synagogue to ask his father to arrange a theft and an arrest before witnesses so that he might be sold as a fictitious slave; but as he went to inform Yohanan of his submission he met coming up the hill into town a caravan of donkeys, architects, stone masons and real slaves led by the priest Eusebius, a tall, sober Spaniard who had served in Constantinople and who was now coming in his black robes and silver crucifix to build the Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene. He was a thin, solemn man of imposing stature, gray at the temples, lined in the face, and he entered Makor with the stately spirituality of one familiar with God. The first citizen he encountered was Menahem, visibly perplexed, and for a moment the two strangers stared at each other. Then, surprisingly, the Spaniard’s austere face broke into a warm, enveloping smile; the lines in his cheeks deepened and his somber eyes glowed with a promise of friendship. He bowed slightly to Menahem, who felt himself drawn to this impressive churchman who had come to modify the town.

  … THE TELL

  When John Cullinane lived in Chicago he attended Catholic mass occasionally and funerals rather often, but whenever he worked overseas he tried to attend local Catholic churches regularly in order to see their rich variation in architecture and ritual. For example, at the end of two months’ work at Makor he had prayed with the Carmelite monks on Mount Carmel, with the Salesians at Nazareth, with the Benedictines at the Galilean church of Loaves and Fishes, with the Syrian Maronites in Haifa, and with the Greek Catholics in Akko.

  He found the strange services exciting, not only from the spiritual point of view but also from the historical; there were some liturgies he could scarcely understand, while others seemed rather close to the Irish church he had known as a boy, but common to all was evidence of Catholicism’s ability to accommodate itself to many cultures, relying upon a central core of authority to insure the continuity. The more Cullinane saw of his ancient church in the Holy Land the more impressed he became with its vitality, for although the state of Israel was predominantly Jewish, Cullinane discovered everywhere this vigorous Catholic continuum based upon Arab Christians who, sometimes against formidable tyranny from either Rome or Constantinople, had retained their special rites since the early centuries.

  By no means had Cullinane vi
sited all the types of Catholic church available in the Galilee; he hoped especially to see those mysterious branches which had broken off from Rome: the Greek Orthodox in Kefar Nahum, the Russian Orthodox in Tiberias. And he was interested in the Monophysite groups that had rejected both Rome and Constantinople: the Abyssinians, the Armenian Gregorians, the Egyptian Copts. But the nature of his work halted Sunday excursions, for at Friday noon each week all digging at Makor stopped, and none of course was permitted on Saturday, which was the Jewish Shabbat. Then on Sunday digging resumed, and since this was the first workday of the week, he felt that he must be present. He was thus kept from exploring further into the local life of his own church, and although this irritated him somewhat as an archaeologist, he felt no loss as a worshiper, for had he been at home with a free American-style Sunday he would rarely have gone to the local cathedral.

  What he did do was what he had done wherever he had been engaged in excavations: each Friday afternoon he climbed into his jeep, usually alone, and drove to some nearby village to participate in the Jewish sunset services which welcomed Shabbat. There he would mingle with the crowd, put an embroidered yarmulke on the back of his head, and try to penetrate the mystery of the ancient religion into which his workmen were digging. He did not do this because he was inclined toward the Jewish interpretation of life—although he found it congenial—but rather because as a man who would spend ten years excavating at Makor it behooved him to know as much as he could about the civilization that he was exhuming.