Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [69]
II. I believe with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be his name!) is the only ONE IN UNITY; to which there is no resemblance; that He alone has been, is, and will be God.
III. I believe with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be his name!) is not corporeal, nor to be comprehended by any understanding capable of comprehending only what is corporeal; and that there is nothing like him in the universe…
I looked up and caught that girl looking over at me, and I looked back at the pamphlet while all around rose the sound of voices gathered in prayer.
IV. I believe with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be his name!) is the only true object of adoration, and that no other being whatsoever ought to be worshipped…
One more article, I said to myself, and I’ll look at her again.
Which I did.
Our eyes met and she might have smiled as I looked quickly away.
V. I believe with a perfect faith, that the laws of God, as delivered by Moses in the ten commandments, are the only true foundations of piety towards the Almighty and of morality among men…
One more, I told myself. But then I looked up again.
“I saw you,” Rebecca said again in a whisper.
I didn’t dare look at the girl again, and so turned back to my reading. Voices rose around me, louder now.
Hear O Israel,
The Lord our God,
The Lord is One…
Yes, well, now this was familiar, and as the prayers rolled on I longed heartily to be back in my old room, with the airs of Marzy’s cooking drifting up the stairwell and Father humming while he clenched his pipe in his teeth and outside my window a New York robin might be singing to announce that spring was near.
I believe with a perfect faith…oh, what did I believe, outside of these memories that drew up such desire in me? What perfect faith did I possess that I could listen with perfect attention as the Officiating Minister read from the Torah—
“Now after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel…”
I believed…I believed…that I was hungry, and that that I was tired of all this talk about Africans in the family’s possession, and I hoped to complete this family chore down here as quickly as I could so that I could return to Manhattan and leave for my tour and then return a year later to join my father in his business and to pay a visit to dear Miriam’s house and speak to her father and ask for her hand in marriage, and enjoy our engagement and then the wedding, in the synagogue, with flowers and music and a honeymoon out on Long Island in the warm season, where birds sang and the gentle waves of the Sound lapped at the shoreline and we were free of all of life’s calls and demands, at least for a time.
“…as we made our own way,” the Minister was saying, “a generation ago, or two, most of us, crossing the water from the Carib islands or from the Old Country…our fathers’ fathers’…”
Our fathers’ fathers’? I knew little of the past, understanding only that my father’s grandfather, Isaac Pereira, had emigrated from Amsterdam, arriving in his new Carib island just about the time the Dutch had departed from New York and the English had taken over. With nothing in his hand except a small satchel of clothing and nothing in his pockets except a few gold pieces and a gold timepiece given to him by his father, he had come to take over a farm given over to him as part of an Old World debt. His sons took brides from Amsterdam. My father, Samuel, was born just before the successful colonial uprising against the English in America (and his older half-brother, my large uncle, just before, and a third brother, who stayed behind on the island while my father and uncle emigrated to the former English colonies up north). My father made his way to New York while his brother hurried to Carolina to make his fortune