The Last Rational Man Page 15

word police won't catch me, and I will call it a biography. As Humpty Dumpty said: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."

  Well, I was a famous Rabbi in my time. Though I should be careful about tenses, since, in many ways, I am still quite famous, and my time is not really over.

  I was born in a Hassidic sect, one that you may have heard of. You know about Hassidim, I imagine. But what you know is mostly that they dress funny. There is a lot more to it than that, and you'll have to understand something about them before you can understand how I ended up here, not quite dead, but not alive either.

  Hassidim come in different brands, but they have some things is common. For one, they have a mystical view of the world. The other thing is that they have a leader, a holy person who is their special Rabbi.

  They will ask their Rabbi for advice, on just about anything. Sometimes about Jewish law, but just as often about marriage, health, business – you name it. The Rabbi is holy, practically a prophet, and his advice is considered to be inspired.

  The Rabbi is more than that. He is, for all practical purposes, the prince of his followers. King of the sect. He is supported by the community. When he enters a crowded room, the crowd splits like the Red Sea and lets him through. At the wave of his hand, they will sing a song, or bring him a drink. When he dies, his son inherits the position.

  This is where I came in. My father was not the Rabbi of my sect. Though I was a direct descendant of the founder of our group, the inheritance had gone down a different branch. So I didn't have the honor, or the burden – for a burden it certainly was.

  So I had a more or less normal youth. I studied the ancient texts, but also learned many other topics. By the time I was eighteen, I could speak four languages, and went off to study engineering at the university in Berlin. And I must admit I had a great time there. It was my first real exposure to the larger world, and to other people. Sure, I kept up the traditions of my people. I prayed every day, and was careful to eat only kosher food. Still, there was nothing to prevent me from enjoying a beer or two or even three with my new acquaintances. Considering that these were one-liter beer tankards, I probably should have limited myself to one.

  Still, when you are young you can afford to do foolish things. I did have some nagging doubts in the back of my mind, but reality forced itself upon me. It was hard to think of the mystical world that underlies our day to day world when you are studying physics or enjoying a drink.

  And there is a mystical world underlying the one that you see with your eyes. A mystical world that is real, even more real than the physical world that you are familiar with. I knew it all along, even though I chose to ignore it. In this real world there is a constant struggle between good and evil, pure and impure, a struggle in which men can participate, on either side.

  How can men help in the struggle? By collecting the sparks of holiness, scattered during the creation of the universe, and returning them to God. When the task is complete, we will be in the Messianic age. The very nature of the world will change once the terrible tension between good and evil is relieved.

  That is reality. Or so I believed when I was alive.

  So, here I was, enjoying life, and pretty much ignoring the deeper, true meaning of the world around me. I was forgetting that the world of the cosmic struggle was not a separate world, but overlaps our own, and affects everything that happens here.

  Well, that cosmic reality struck home when the Nazis started parading around Berlin. A beer hall was no longer a good place for a Jew to be hanging around in. The forces of evil were gaining strength. I was aware of this, but did it make me abandon my studies, and devote myself to the cosmic struggle? No. Not at all. I knew that the great Hassidic Rabbis would be trying to deal with it, but it was not my worry, not my burden.

  So, off I went to Paris to continue my studies. I was sobered by the events in Germany, but still able to concentrate on my own life, still able to at least pretend that the events in Germany would not change my life.

  Paris, I have to admit, was a lot more fun than Berlin. Fun is good, but more fun also means more temptation.

  Beer, though uncommon in Paris, was still my preferred drink. Wine is a bit problematic for observant Jews, since we only drink Kosher wine, so I was missing out on one of the major attractions of the Parisian life. I made up for not drinking the French wine by learning how to drink whiskey and especially vodka. My father had liked the occasional shot of vodka, but as a child I couldn't stand the stuff. In Paris I developed a real taste for the clear spirit. It didn't take much before I felt happy. Another shot and I was ecstatic. One shot more and I forgot how many I had had.

  I recall only one occasion were I actually passed out and my friend had to drag me home. Usually I managed to stop before that, though not before I would say or do stupid things. And here is where I have to mention the other great temptation – women.

  Oh, I was very holy-minded, sometimes even more so when drunk, but there was a middle stage of mild inebriation where inhibitions dropped away like flies struck by DDT. When I reached that stage I was as susceptible as the next fellow to the attractions of the gentler sex, especially to those of Leah, a young Jewess, who mysteriously (I thought) showed up nearly every time I was out having a break from my studies.

  Leah laughed at the contrast in my life. The young Hasid, studying in Paris and getting drunk with the best of the Gentiles. I enjoyed her teasing, though I knew that she was right. I had known her for over a year when I made one of the first major errors of my life.

  The political situation had gone downhill very rapidly, and I decided to leave Europe altogether. There was a ship leaving in a few days, and I wrapped up my affairs as well as I could, and then went out for one last night on the town with my friends.

  Naturally enough, Leah was at the establishment we frequented, and as you may imagine, the combination of emotions, drink and hormones did the trick, and I spent the night in Leah's room.

  Oh, I was appalled at myself in the morning, but I shouldn't have been surprised. If I had been a bit more aware of myself I would have realized that that would be the natural outcome of my time in Paris.

  Well, as things turned out, I had to pack and leave, and I never saw Leah again. Many years later I discovered what had happened to her, but we will get to that in due time.

  It was a long, arduous voyage from France to the U.S. There was only limited information in the news, and none that was comforting. When I reached New York, I was met by a relative of mine, who was at that point the leader of our Hasidic sect. He took me into his home, and helped me get set up in my new world.

  He didn't have any sons, which was a great concern to his followers. Who would succeed him? Would they be left without a leader? There already was a group like that, and they were sometimes called the "Dead Hasidim". There was a daughter, but women could never fulfill the role of Rebbe. It was completely unthinkable. As far as anybody could tell, there was no solution.

  In the meantime, I became interested in the Rebbe's daughter, Rachel. Beautiful, shy, bright and strictly religious. This was the right kind of girl for me.

  I did my best to put Leah out of my mind, and when the time seemed proper, asked for her hand. At the time I only thought that I had found my "beshirt", my intended one.

  In due course we were married. I had found part time work, but spent the bulk of my time studying the religious texts in the Hasidic seminary, which back then was about a dozen guys in a small room with poor heating and little ventilation.

  Life went on. I was fairly happy, though beginning to wonder why Rachel hadn't become pregnant after months of marital bliss. Then disaster struck- actually two disasters that changed my life.

  The first was my own, personal disaster, or at least I thought so. My father-in-law suddenly died. I had been close to him, and took his death badly. Rachel was a wreck. The Hasidim were beyond themselves with grief and worry about their future.

>   Then news of the Holocaust started trickling in. It was nearly impossible to digest the size of the tragedy. Even I, who had fled Europe just a few years earlier, had not expected anything this bad. How could it have happened?

  Europe's Jewry was gone. Nearly everybody had lost relatives there. People wandered around with the last letters that they had received from their relatives, tears in their eyes. There were some survivors, lists of them were being published, but they were few, so few.

  Were we, the few Jews left in America all that was left of thousands of years of tradition? The sense of responsibility was powerful. So many American Jews were no longer keeping their ancient traditions.

  This only increased the tension among the Hasidim. They needed a leader, and at this time of great need their leader had died with no successor. It didn't take long before I was approached. I was shocked. And I refused. Again, and again. But they kept it up. There was one other possible candidate, but not one that anybody could look up to. I was a direct descendant of one of the previous Rabbis, the last Rabbi's son-in-law, and well known from my time spent in the Seminary. The pressure to take the position was huge.

  I think that I would have resisted the pressure, if it wasn't for the news out of Europe. As it was, the need for a leader was so great, that I