The Last Rational Man Read online

had no choice but to fill the role.

  So there I was, proud leader of a small group of poor Orthodox Jews in New York. Even after we were joined by refugees from Europe, there were still only about two hundred families in our group. There was much to be done, and very little to do it with. But the work had to get done.

  At this point I realized that my mission was not just to help out a few families. The disaster that had struck in Europe was not an isolated incident. It was part of the cosmic struggle that underlay everything in this world. I needed to mobilize my people, get them to spread out and help in the basic struggle. We couldn't rest until we succeeded, until we managed to bring the Messiah.

  Yes, the Messiah. This was the second of my major mistakes. You can work to improve things without invoking that dream. Though it was easier to get people motivated with a dream like that. In any case, at the time it was my own dream, not just a means of motivating my people. And motivate them I did. I sent them all over the world, to teach lost Jews about their heritage, to set up schools and synagogues. They caught Jews in the street and had them do something Jewish, just one thing, so they would remember their heritage. They went through the phone books in remote towns, looking for the Jewish names, and calling them up, inviting themselves over.

  The movement grew, slowly at first, and then faster as we passed some critical point. There were tens of thousands of us. Millions identified us with authentic Judaism. We had made a huge impact – but there were two things missing. One was the Messiah. We had worked so hard, and yet there was no sign of the Messiah showing up. The second thing that was missing was a child. We were childless. We didn't know if the problem was with Rachel or with me, and Rachel's child-bearing years were long over before the modern methods of tests and fertility treatments had been developed.

  I started talking a lot about the Messiah, how he was going to arrive soon, very soon. My followers took this very seriously, and went a step further. Remember that the Rabbi is a prince to his followers, and that the Messiah is king of all of the Jews. The jump from a prince to a king is not that large. So the belief that I was the Messiah, and would soon reveal myself, started to be popular among the Hasidim.

  Elvis has been sitting here with me while I write, and notes that being identified as "King" is easier than you would think. Getting labeled "King" was easy for Jesus too, though his experience was not exactly fun. To this day he curses himself for showing himself to a few of his followers a few days after his crucifixion. This resulted in millions believing that he is not quite dead, and it is unlikely that he will ever get out of here.

  Elijah is off on one of his jaunts, so I am not sure what he thinks about this. Elijah is a special case, though. I think that he is the only one who actually enjoys his position here, and would prefer to stick around, rather than go off to whatever death brings, like the rest of us would like. Otherwise he wouldn't keep showing himself on Earth, a practice which only increases the belief that he never really died, and makes it very unlikely that he will ever manage to get out of here.

  I am in pretty bad shape myself here. It could be a long time before I can go on to the next stage, whatever that is. Easily hundreds, maybe thousands of years. I only see one way out, a way that you can help me with.

  But let me finish my story first, and then you will see how you can help me.

  As I was saying, my followers started believing that I was the Messiah. Someone found an ancient text that suggested that the Messiah would be childless, which fit me perfectly. So instead of being "dead Hasidim", they would be Hasidim with the Messiah as their leader. At first I thought the whole idea was silly. I worried that if I wasn't revealed as the Messiah, then my followers would go through a crisis, and much of what we had built would be lost.

  Over time, though, the idea started looking more realistic to me. For one thing, it would wrap up the picture so neatly – the Holocaust, the childless leader, the young Jewish state. I dived deeper into the mystical writings, and found evidence that the time had come. It was the time, and I was the man. Still, I hesitated. Who could be sure? We had wrong so many times. Bar Kochba, Shabbetai Tzvi, Jesus – who could be sure?

  So the belief grew popular, and, though I didn't encourage it, I never came out and denied it either. And then one final disaster occurred.

  It was a visit. A visit by a woman. A non-Jewish woman to boot. It was not easy to get a personal interview with me. There were events when people would line up by the hundreds so they could just shake my hand and receive a blessing. But a private interview had to be arranged through my secretaries, and they were jealous of my time. So this woman must have been extraordinarily persistent to get a twenty minute slot with me.

  The scene has been burned into my mind ever since. She was ushered into my office. My secretary closed the door, though he left it slightly ajar, to avoid any hint of impropriety. Considering that my guest was an elderly woman, not much younger than myself, it was hardly necessary. She sat down in the leather-upholstered chair across from my desk. Hundreds had sat in that chair, waiting for my advice on so many matters. She looked nervous, nervous in a different way than the usual guest. I wondered what she wanted.

  "I am not Jewish", she started out, "I have come to tell you something that you don't know, something very personal about your own life."

  She glanced at the door, mutely suggesting that I close it completely. I waved her concern aside.

  "Nobody will listen at the door. It would be considered a tremendous disrespect."

  "Well, then. I don't have easy way to say this, so I will get right to the point. I am a nun, yes, a Catholic nun. You are surprised – what could I possibly want from you? What could I possibly tell you that would interest you?

  "I belong to an order called the Sisters of Zion. A group that was started by a former Jew, and whose goal is to explain about Judaism and the Jewish roots of Christianity to our fellow Catholics.

  "I was a young nun in our Paris Convent when the Germans invaded France. We ran a school there, a well respected elementary school. Many of our students weren't Catholic – they came to us for a good education. Some were Jewish."

  Her story was vaguely interesting. I had heard of these types of stories in the past. But what was so special about this that she had gone to all this trouble to see me?

  "When the Germans invaded France, some of the Jewish parents left their daughters in our care. They stayed in the convent, and survived the war. Their parents didn't. Some of the girls left us when they grew up, but some stayed on, and became nuns themselves.

  "Yes, now I am sure that I have your attention. But this is not the main point of my visit.

  "One day a young Jewish woman came to the convent, begging us to take care of her infant. This was less than a year after the Germans had invaded. The infant was a boy. We normally would have avoided taking care of a small boy, but this was a difficult period, and we had no real alternative. I accepted the child. The mother left abruptly, tears streaming down her face. I never saw her again. The chances of her surviving those awful years were close to zero.

  "The boy grew. By the time he was getting too old for the convent the war was over, and we managed to transfer him to a boarding school, in a monastery near Rennes. I was in touch with the monks there, and followed the child's progress. He was a highly intelligent child, and has grown into a very intelligent man, a man not unlike yourself in many ways. He has chosen to stay with the Church, and today he is a Bishop.

  "Yes, I know that to you he is a lost soul, while to us he is a found soul. Still, I don't think that we have much to apologize for, considering the alternatives the child's mother had back in those days."

  I noticed that a slight shiver, almost a chill, passed through her body whenever she mentioned "those days". She was right, hard as it was to admit. They had saved the boy's life, hidden him from the monsters. What could one say under these circumstances? I stroked my beard, an old nervous habit, and nodded at her to continue. S
he looked to the side for a moment, gathered her courage, and went on.

  "This would be the end of the story, if it wasn't for one small thing. The mother had handed me a small handwritten note. She said 'if there are any Jews left when this is over, then you will find somebody who can read this'. Those were her last words before she left.

  "I kept the note for many years. It was in Hebrew, so I had no chance to read it myself. If I have sinned, it was in not finding someone to read it for me earlier. When I was told that the child was going to be a Bishop, I realized that I had put it off for too long. That I owed it to the mother, may God rest her soul, to have the note read."

  She made a noticeable effort to avoid crossing herself when she said 'God rest her soul.'

  "I found a colleague, a scholar who had studied Hebrew at the Sorbonne, who could read it for me. The note had two names on it. That of the mother, and that of the father."

  Without any further ado, she handed me the note. I turned on my desk lamp to see it better. It was an old, yellowing sheet of paper, folded too many times so that it was torn on the creases. The writing was faded but still readable under the lamp.

  There were in fact two Hebrew names. That of the mother, Leah. And that of the father. It was my name.

  Leah had