It was close to five years ago now
that Professor Julian Lowenman came into my office clutching a sheaf of papers
close to his chest. This was, in itself, nothing new. He frequently did this. I
immediately put aside whatever it was that I was doing, leaned back in my chair
and prepared for the onslaught.
I was not disappointed.
“My God, man!” he shouted, throwing
himself onto my chair (in the process crumpling a stack of papers, which
bothered him not a whit). “How in the HELL… in the HELL, I say… have I never
noticed this before?”
He practically threw the sheaf at
me, in the process knocking another stack of papers to the floor, along with my
letter opener, lamp, and a particularly fine millefiori glass paperweight.
Luckily the papers were haphazardly paperclipped together.
“That is a very fine question,” I
answered him. “Very little does escape your attention. Brandy?”
Long acquaintance with Professor
Lowenman had led me to the necessity of keeping a decanter of the stuff always
at the ready. I poured a snifter for myself and offered him one as well. He
didn’t notice.
“Well, look at it!” he shrieked.
“Look at it! My God, man, I could die at any time, with a mystery like this
unsolved, and you’re wasting my precious time? What kind of scholar are you?
Disgrace to the name, that’s what. Where in the HELL are my cigarettes?”
“My dear Lowenman, how could I
possibly know that?”
“Know what? You aren’t reading.”
Fortifying myself with a hefty gulp,
I looked down at the first paper on the stack on my desk.
LP-ex. 1
The Tsaddik’s chief
activities are helping people who come to ask for relief and advice and
comforting them with his “toyreh,” his teachings. He does not interfere with
the strictly ritual life of the shtetl, which remains under the jurisdiction
and supervision of the official rabbi, the Rov. The Tsaddik seldom has the
diploma which entitles the Rov to exercise his rabbinical function, and which
is conferred by a collegium of rabbis after the studies in the yeshiva are
concluded. Therefore he does not make decisions in matters of Law. In contrast
to the official religious leaders of the shtetl, the Rebbeh [or Tsaddik] does
not achieve his high position through learning. The lack of erudition of some
Tzaddikim has supplied a popular subject of jokes and mockery among those who
do not share their beliefs. “The Hassidic Rebbeh could be an ignoramus. He was
never examined and besides his position was a hereditary one so they usually
were ignoramuses. It was like a dynasty.”
The concept of grade or
“level” is the basis of the Tsaddik’s position among his followers. He is the
one who through his own mystical efforts, through his descent from and
spiritual relationship to the great teacher Baal Shem or his disciples has
attained the highest level a mortal can reach, the level of an intermediary
between God and his sinful, unfortunate children—the People of Israel.[1]
“Fascinating,”
I said mildly, having perused the passage.
“Not yet, it’s not,” Lowenman said
sharply. “Do you know what that is?”
“I gather,” I said slowly, “that it
is a description of a Jewish rabbi.”
Lowenman snorted.
“Do you know something?” he said
superciliously. “That’s been a pet peeve of mine for years. Years and years and
years. Why do you Gentiles always say ‘Jewish rabbi’? It’s completely
redundant. What other kind of rabbi could there be? A Jewish rabbi, as opposed
to a Southern Baptist rabbi?”
“I gather,” I said more slowly,
“that this is a description of the functions of a certain kind of rabbi.”
“You’re damn right,” he said. “The
Hassidim. The ultra-Orthodox. The ones with the black hats and the beards.
There are groups and groups and groups of them. Lubavitchers and Satmarers,
Vizhnitzers, Skvirers, Bratzlavers and Sighetters, Belzers and Bobovers,
popovers, turnovers. And each group of them has their own Rebbe. Not a rabbi, a
rebbe. A sort of unofficial personage. The one with the direct link to God.
God’s phone number, his fax number, his cell number, his email address, his
beeper, pager, whatever. Not the teacher. The intermediary between and betwixt
the Good Lord and the flock. Get it?”
“I think so,” I said. “Very
interesting.”
“You think it’s interesting?”
Lowenman went on. “Well, it’s not. Not yet. Do you know who wrote that?”
“I assume some kind of academic,” I
guessed. “An anthropologist or cultural historian with some familiarity with
the sects of the Jewish people.”
“Read on,” Lowenman directed me.
“Next page.”
After another fortifying gulp of
brandy, I did so.
LP-ex.2
After a series of failed
attempts, the goal [of killing Trotsky] seemed to be in sight. With the help of
Lubyanka agent Mark Zborovsky, the operation to kill Trotsky’s son and closest
ally, Lev Sedov, had been successfully concluded. Zborovsky was born in 1907 in
Russia Lodz France United States Moscow
“Well?” I
asked.
Lowenman stared aghast at me.
“You don’t see the connection?”
“I’m afraid I…”
“Look at the footnotes, Baghatch,” he instructed me pedantically. “The footnotes. Always check the footnotes. Don’t you see who wrote the
first one?”
“I see Zborowski. But I notice that the name mentioned in Vaksberg’s book is
Zborovsky.”
“Russian and Polish variants on the
same name. The same name. The same
man,” Lowenman intoned hollowly, “the same man who wrote about the Rebbe is the
man who killed Trotsky’s son!”
“That is interesting,” I told him.
“No,” he said, “it isn’t. It’s
curious, but it isn’t interesting. It’s not what I wanted to share with you. In
fact, it has nothing at all to do with what I wanted to discuss with you. It’s
merely a curious little detail. Look at the next page. That’s what’s interesting.”
LP-ex. 3
…Before I proceed, I should try to explain
what an elder in our monasteries is. I regret that I am not fully versed in
these matters, but I will do my best to give a rough idea of that institution.
First of all, according to our experts, the institution of elder came into
existence came into existence in our Russian monasteries quite recently, less
than a hundred years ago, although it has existed for well over a thousand
years in the Orthodox East, particularly in the Sinai and on Mount
Athos . As I understand it, in the olden times, there were probably
elders in Russia
Elders exercise an authority
that is boundless beyond understanding. That is why the institution was at
first opposed, even condemned, in Russian monasteries. The common people,
however, showed tremendous respect for the elders right away. And soon the
uneducated and the humble, the rich and the mighty, were flocking from all over
Russia
…Many said of the elder
that, in accepting all those who had come throughout the years to entrust their
souls to him, to seek his guidance and solace, he had heard so many
confessions, secrets and tales of human despair that he had finally acquired an
insight so keen that he could guess, from the very first glance at a newcomer,
what he would say, what he would ask him, and even what was really tormenting
his conscience. Often the visitor was surprised, confounded, even frightened on
finding that the elder knew his secret before he had even uttered a word.
Alyosha also noticed that almost all who came to Zosima for the first time were
filled with fear and apprehension as they entered the cell to face him alone,
but that almost without exception they left smiling and serene; even the
gloomiest faces emerged beaming with joy.[3]
“Why, this is Dostoevsky!” I
exclaimed. “From The Brothers Karamazov!”
“Correct,”
Lowenman nodded. “To be precise, it is the description of the Starosta. The
Elder. The unofficial, unordained spiritual leader of the monastery. The ordinary
people’s conduit to God Himself. Sound familiar?”
“The description of the Elder’s
position,” I hazarded a guess, “is more than a little reminiscent of that of
the Rebbe.”
“Precisely!”
howled Lowenman, leaping to his feet in great excitement. “Yes, indeed. That’s
what it is, all right.”
“What do you make of that?” I asked.
“An interesting coincidence…”
“Coincidence?”
scoffed Lowenman. “Not hardly. Not by half. Not by a long shot. What do you
know of the Hassidim, my black-clad, mystical co-religionists?”
“Very little,” I confessed. “My own
studies were more…”
“Your own studies,” he interrupted,
“are an arrow, my dear Baghatch. A compass point. They have a direct bearing on
exactly what it is that has so captured my fancy.”
“I’m afraid I…”
“More than three hundred years ago,”
Lowenman began, “ah. There they are.”
“There what are?”
“My cigarettes. Inside breast
pocket. Obvious place. Wouldn’t happen to have such a thing as a match about
your reliable, steady person, would you?”
“I’m afraid I…”
“There they are. Inside the pack. Of
course. Obvious place. I’m ashamed of myself. Should have guessed it sooner.
But I didn’t, and I had meticulously checked all my other pockets. There were
no matches there. Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
regardless of how improbable it may be, must be the truth. Having examined each
of my pockets, I should have known they were in the pack itself. But then
again, through the logic of everyday association, I should have guessed it
immediately.
“At any rate,” he continued
blithely, failing entirely to light his cigarette, “there was born a man, in
what was then Carpathian Ruthenia and is now somewhere in the Ukraine Eastern Europe , that chronic cesspit of misery, poverty,
oppression and ignorance. They, the disciples of Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, known
ever after by the acronym of BeShT, became the first rebbes. And their
followers called themselves the Hassidim, the Holy Ones, the Ones Set Apart.”
“Heretical?” I asked.
“Probably,” he said offhandedly,
“but to the masses, what difference did it make? Through prayer and ecstasy and
mystical revelation, they found themselves able to transcend their miserable
mud-spattered world. Transcend. Leave. They claimed that they were able to
ascend to Heaven itself.”
“This is, in itself, nothing new,” I
pointed out. “Ascension through ecstasy is something that one finds scattered
throughout the mythology of Christianity.”
“New to Jews, it was,” Lowenman
retorted, “and that was the point, was it not? The question is not the theology
of the Hassidim. The question is, where was the Besht? Where had he spent those
missing years? No one knows. But I believe I have found it.”
“Why is it important? The question
of where he had spent his time? Saint
Paul
“Why is it important?” Lowenman
asked, puffing vigorously on his unlit cigarette. “It wasn’t. The question
itself is completely irrelevant, until one knows the answer.”
“And what is the answer?”
“He must have been among
Christians,” he said in a low voice. “He must have been consorting with the
enemy, as it were. He must have seen what they did, heard what they believed.
And specifically, Eastern Orthodox Christians. And yet more specifically,
Russian Orthodox Christians, among whom the tradition of the Elder was
well-established, even then. It’s a long-standing feature of Eastern
Orthodoxy.”
“Is it?”
“Ivan Aksakov,” Lowenman continued,
stubbing out his still-unlit cigarette in my brandy snifter, “the well-known
Slavophile philosopher, once said that all of western Christianity is tainted
with scholasticism.”
“The intellectual pursuits of the
medieval Catholic monks?”
“Exactly,” he said, tapping his
finger significantly on the edge of my desk. “The ones who asked questions
like, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and then actually
attempted to answer it. They who froze Western man’s conception of the
spiritual world into a strict hierarchy.”
“You think they…”
“Of course they did!” he interrupted
impatiently. “They worked out an entire legal system for the Divine! So many
Hail Marys gets you out of perdition, and a few more gets you into such and
such level of Heaven, and a donation of so much assures your place in such and
such a plane of the Afterlife! And the Protestants were no better. Calvinism,
for example, is rigidly internally coherent and consistent. A hierarchy. A
system. A coda of law and order imposed on the Universe. But the Eastern
Christians never had that. They retain a sense of awe and mystery. They readily
accept that there are some things that cannot ever be known. Neo-Platonism,
perhaps. They would accept an Elder. They would admit to the possibility of
Divine Revelation. In the west, anyone who had a divine revelation was burned
at the stake. Or at the very least, treated with extreme caution.
“Saints in the West,” he concluded
thoughtfully, “must undergo a rigorous bout of tests and countertests before
they are admitted to be worthy of Beatification. There is no such system in
Eastern Orthodoxy. Just an example.”
“And you think this… this idea, this
doctrine, may have slipped into Judaism?” I ventured.
“There can be no doubt,” he answered
confidently. “The Besht introduced the concept of the Orthodox Elder to the
Jews of Eastern Europe. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Dostoevsky is describing a
rebbe. Zborovsky is describing an Elder. The two are practically
interchangeable. Not to mention that the institution of the Rebbe occurs only
among the Jews of Eastern Europe, in the hotbed of Eastern Orthodox
Christianity. Geography and similarity are on my side. They will prove out my
theory.”
“And this leads you to…”
“This leads me,” he said, “to a
radical rethinking of the Jewish religion. I always conceived of it as a
bubble, a parallel stream running concurrently to that of Christianity, and
never the twain shall meet. An isolation. But it isn’t true. A Christian
concept worked its way into the most rigid of the rigid, the most orthodox of
the Orthodox Jews. They have been profoundly influenced by Eastern Orthodox
Christianity. And all the mysteries of the east crept in with it. The result
was… a syncretism. A merging. A hybrid, bastard creature.”
“And what do you intend to do with
your theory?” I asked, exasperated. Professor Lowenman was a fascinating, but
often frustrating, conversationalist.
“I intend to follow it,” he said
matter-of-factly. “To study it. To research it. Nothing could be more esoteric,
could it? And that’s where you come into the picture.”
“Me?” I repeated. “But I know so
little of…”
“Renaissance thought,” he said
flatly. “Bits and pieces of it must have crept into Judaism. Here and there.
Especially in Central Europe . Especially in
Late Early Modern times. There must be something there. I need to borrow your
books on the subject and compare them with my own texts.”
“My books?” I said, and gestured to
the walls of shelves behind me. “You are, of course, my dear Lowenman, welcome
to any that I have, but my library is so extensive that…”
“Never mind,” he said, and leapt
over my desk. “I’ll take the fattest ones.”
“Regardless of subject matter?”
“Completely regardless,” he said,
grabbing the thickest volumes off my shelves and stacking them, one on top of
the other, on the picture of my wife and children which sat on my desk.
“Ooooohhh, there’s a thick one.”
“Why the fattest ones?”
He turned his attention from my
books long enough to shoot me a withering glare.
“Because, Baghatch,” he explained in
a mock-patient tone, “they are the ones which will contain the most
information.”
And with that, he scooped up the
stack of books in his gangling arms and swept out of my office.
* * *
It was only recently that I
recovered them, after his disappearance and subsequent likely death. I found
them under a pile of mouldering volumes written in Ancient Abkhazian in his
office as I was going through his papers and attempting to make some sense of
them. Apparently, he had never used them. He had tossed them aside probably the
moment after he lugged them into his office. But I cannot fault him overmuch.
In the five or so years between the time he borrowed them and the time when I
found them, those five years in his office (they may as well have been on the
dark side of the moon, for all the chances I had of regaining them during his
lifetime), I hadn’t missed them a bit.
In fact, I had forgotten that he had borrowed them.
[1] Life is With People: The Culture of the
Shtetl, by Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog. New York : Schocken Books, 1962
[2] Stalin Against the Jews, Arkady
Vaksberg, trans. Antonina W. Bouis. New
York : Alfred A. Knopf. 1994.
[3]
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, The Brothers
Karamazov, trans. Andrew R. MacAndrew. New York : bantam Classics. 1970.
* Looking
back on it now, perhaps I myself, on the basis of this rather flippant and
offhand remark, may have been responsible for whatever it was that happened to
Lowenman, in that I raised the specter of ascent, mystical ascent, Saint Paul's
mystical ascent. In retrospect, this silly observation of mine may have
planted, in his mind, the seeds of his own later destruction. This may perhaps
seem cryptic, but I trust that it shall become clearer in the following pages. (Ed.; Baghatch)
Only you could rope me into reading this you know...bring on Chapter 3...
ReplyDeleteGood heavens, man, don't waste your time on this drivel!
ReplyDelete