The Collected Stories

replied. “But who else does? Nobody.”
    “Do you know, Zeidel, that you outshine all other grammarians in your knowledge of Hebrew?” I continued. “Are you aware that you know more of the Cabala than was divulged to Reb Chaim Vital? Do you know that you are a greater philosopher than Maimonides?”
    “Why are you telling me these things?” Zeidel asked, wondering.
    “I’m telling you because it’s not right that a great man such as you, a master of the Torah, an encyclopedia of knowledge, should be buried in a godforsaken village such as this where no one pays the slightest attention to you, where the townspeople are coarse and the rabbi an ignoramus, with a wife who has no understanding of your true worth. You are a pearl lost in sand, Reb Zeidel.”
    “Well?” he asked. “What can I do? Should I go about singing my own praises?”
    “No, Reb Zeidel. That wouldn’t help you. The town would only call you a madman.”
    “What do you advise, then?”
    “Promise me not to interrupt and I’ll tell you. You know the Jews have never honored their leaders: they grumbled about Moses; rebelled against Samuel; threw Jeremiah into a ditch; and murdered Zacharias. The Chosen People hate greatness. In a great man, they sense a rival to Jehovah, so they love only the petty and mediocre. Their thirty-six saints are all shoemakers and water-carriers. The Jewish laws are concerned mainly with a drop of milk falling into a pot of meat or with an egg laid on a holiday. They have deliberately corrupted Hebrew, degraded the ancient texts. Their Talmud makes King David into a provincial rabbi advising women about menstruation. The way they reason, the smaller the greater, the uglier the prettier. Their rule is: The closer one is to dust, the nearer one is to God. So you can see, Reb Zeidel, why they find you a thumb in the eye—you with your erudition, wealth, fine breeding, brilliant perceptions, and extraordinary memory.”
    “Why do you tell me all these things?” Zeidel asked.
    “Reb Zeidel, listen to me: what you must do is become a Christian. The Gentiles are the antithesis of the Jews. Since their God is a man, a man can be a God to them. Gentiles admire greatness of any kind and love the men who possess it: men of great pity or great cruelty, great builders or great destroyers, great virgins or great harlots, great sages or great fools, great rulers or great rebels, great believers or great infidels. They don’t care what else a man is: if he is great, they idolize him. Therefore, Reb Zeidel, if you want honor, you must embrace their faith. And don’t worry about God. To One so mighty and sublime the earth and its inhabitants are no more than a swarm of gnats. He doesn’t care whether men pray to Him in a synagogue or a church, fast from Sabbath to Sabbath or bloat themselves with pork. He is too exalted to notice these puny creatures who delude themselves thinking that they are the crown of Creation.”
    “Does that mean God did not give the Torah to Moses at Sinai?” Zeidel asked.
    “What? God open His heart to a man born of woman?”
    “And Jesus was not His son?”
    “Jesus was a bastard from Nazareth.”
    “Is there no reward or punishment?”
    “No.”
    “Then what is there?” Zeidel asked me, fearful and confused.
    “There is something that exists, but it has no existence,” I answered in the manner of the philosophers.
    “Is there no hope then ever to know the truth?” Zeidel asked in despair.
    “The world is not knowable and there is no truth,” I replied, turning his question around. “Just as you can’t learn the taste of salt with your nose, the smell of balsam with your ear, or the sound of a violin with your tongue, it’s impossible for you to grasp the world with your reason.”
    “With what can you grasp it?”
    “With your passions—some small part of it. But you, Reb Zeidel, have only one passion: pride. If you destroy that too, you’ll be hollow, a void.”
    “What should I do?” Zeidel asked, baffled.
    “Tomorrow, go to the priest and tell him that you want to become one of them. Then sell your goods and property. Try to convince your wife to change her religion—if she’s willing, good; if not, the loss is small. The Gentiles will make you a priest and a priest is not allowed to have a wife. You’ll continue to study, to wear a long coat and skullcap. The only difference will be that instead of being stuck away in a remote village among Jews who hate you