Джеймс Миченер - The Source

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.