Fima - Amos Oz [84]
"Hold on a minute," Fima erupted, "you with your wondering cantors. Chmielnicki and Hitler equal Western civilization the way India equals an Arab state. What a ridiculous idea! If it weren't for Western civilization, for your information, my dear sir, there would not be left of us one that pisseth against the wall. Who do you think sacrificed tens of millions of lives to defeat Hitler? Wasn't it Western civilization? Including Russia? Including America? Who was it who saved us, your holy rabbi from Strelisk? Was it the Messiah who gave us a state? Is it Uri Tsvi who makes us a present of tanks and jet planes and pours three billion dollars on us every year, as pocket money, so that we can carry on behaving like hooligans? Make a note of this, Dad: Every time in history that the Jews have gone out of their minds and started navigating their way through this world with messianic charts instead of real, universal ones, millions of them have paid with their lives. Apparently we still haven't managed to get it into the famous Jewish head that the Messiah is really our exterminating angel. That's it in a nutshell, Baruch: the Messiah is our angel of death. So it's perfectly okay to disagree about where we want to go; that is a legitimate subject for argument. But on one unshakable condition: Wherever we decide to go, we must use real, universal charts, not Messianic ones."
The old man suddenly gave a little whistle, as though in amazement at Fima's wisdom or his own foolishness. He coughed, he groaned, he may have intended to interject a few words, but Fima was already carried away: "Why the hell are we all brainwashed into believing that the concept of human equality is something alien to Judaism, a flawed goyish commodity, tainted Christian pacifism, whereas the muddle-headed mishmash brewed up by some messianic rabbi, the grandfather of Gush Emunim, who has cobbled together a patchwork of scraps from Hegel, Judah Halevi, and Rabbi Loew of Prague, is suddenly considered to be the pure elixir of Judaism, straight from Mount Sinai? What is this? Sheer lunacy! Thou shalt do no murder' is alien to Judaism, according to you, it's untouchable? Christian pacifism. Whereas Rabbi Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, that proto-Nazi, is all of a sudden the genuine Jewish heritage! Let me tell you, Dad, Yosef Haim Brenner had more Jewishness in his little finger than all your frock-coated fossils and your psychopaths with their knit skullcaps. One group pisses on the state and says it's illegitimate because the Messiah hasn't come yet; the other group pisses on the state and says it's just a temporary scaffolding that we can dismantle now that the Messiah's standing at the gate. Both groups piss on Thou shalt do no murder' because they've got more important fish to fry: banning autopsies, or discovering the tomb of our ancestress Jezebel."
"Fimuchka," his father sighed, "have a heart. Fm an old Jew. All these mysteries are beyond me. I may be an anachronism—who knows? My own dear son is like a golem that has turned against its creator. Don't be angry, my dear; I only used the word 'golem' because you saw fit to mention Rabbi Loew of Prague. I liked it a lot, as a matter of fact, what you said about the universal charts. Amen, so be it. You scored a bull's-eye there. The only problem is, maybe Your Reverence can tell us which shop you go to buy such charts. Can you enlighten me? Will you do your father a real favor? No? Never mind. I shall tell you a deep and wonderful thing that Rabbi Loew of Prague once said as he walked past the cathedral. By the way, do you know the original meaning of 'real favor'?"
"All right, all right," Fima conceded. "So be it, then. You spare me the story of Rabbi Loew and in exchange I'll give in over those