Джеймс Миченер - The Source

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.

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 ah 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.