Read Online The Spinoza Problem by Irvin D. Yalom - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Irvin D. Yalom
Ads: Link
sir.”
“Yes. And right now in Riga they are doing the opera of Tales of Hoffmann composed by Jacob Offenbach, another born of the Jewish race. So many geniuses. What is your explanation?”
“I can’t answer the question. I will have to think about it. Please may I go, sir? I’m not feeling well. I promise to think about it.”
“Yes, you may go,” said the headmaster. “And I want very much for you to think. Thinking is good. Think about our talk today. Think about Goethe and the Jew, Spinoza.”
A fter Alfred’s departure, Headmaster Epstein and Herr Schäfer looked at one another for a few moments before the headmaster spoke. “He says he’s going to think, Hermann. What’s the chance of his thinking?”
“Next to zero, I would guess,” said Herr Schäfer. “Let’s graduate him and be rid of him. He has a lack of curiosity that is, most likely, incurable. Excavate anywhere in his mind, and we run into the bedrock of unfounded convictions.”
“I agree. I have no doubt that Goethe and Spinoza are, at this very moment, fast receding from his thoughts and will never trouble him again. Nonetheless I feel relieved by what has just happened. My fears are quelled. This young man has neither the intelligence nor fortitude to cause mischief by swaying others to his way of thinking.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
AMSTERDAM—1656
B ento stared out the window, watching his brother walk toward the synagogue. Gabriel is right; I do injury to those closest to me. My choices are horrendous—either I must shrink myself by giving up my innermost nature and hobbling my curiosity, or I must harm those closest to me. Gabriel’s account of the rage toward him expressed at the Sabbath dinner brought to mind van den Enden’s paternal warning about the growing dangers Bento faced in the Jewish community. He meditated escape strategies from his trap for almost an hour before rising, dressing, making himself coffee, and walking out the back door, cup in hand, to the Spinoza Import and Export Shop.
There he dusted and swept litter through the front door into the street, and emptied a large sack of fragrant dried figs, a new shipment from Spain, into a bin. Sitting at his usual window seat, Bento sipped his coffee, nibbled on the figs, and focused on the daydreams coasting through his mind. He had lately been practicing a meditation wherein he disconnected himself from his flow of thought and viewed his mind as a theater and himself as a member of the audience watching the passing show. Gabriel’s face in all its sadness and confusion immediately appeared on stage, but Bento had learned how to lower the curtain and pass on to the next act. Soon van den Enden materialized. He praised Bento’s progress in Latin while lightly grasping his shoulder in a fatherly manner. That touch—he liked the feel of it. But, now , Bento thought, with Rebekah and now Gabriel turning away, who will ever touch me again?
Bento’s mind then drifted to an image of himself teaching Hebrew to his teacher and to Clara Maria. He smiled as he drilled his two students, like children, in the aleph, bet, gimmel and smiled even more at the vision of little Clara Maria in turn drilling him on the Greek alpha, beta, gamma . He noticed the bright, almost luminous quality of Clara Maria’s image—Clara Maria, that thirteen-year-old wraith with the crooked back, that woman-child whose impish smile belied her pretense of a grown-up severe teacher. A stray thought floated by: If only she were older . . .
By midday, his long meditation was interrupted by movement outside the window. In the distance he saw Jacob and Franco conversing as they headed toward his shop. Bento had vowed to conduct himself in a holy manner and knew that it was not virtuous to observe others surreptitiously, especially others who might be discussing him. Yet he could not shift his attention from the strange scene unfolding before his eyes.
Franco lagged three or four steps behind Jacob,
“Yes. And right now in Riga they are doing the opera of Tales of Hoffmann composed by Jacob Offenbach, another born of the Jewish race. So many geniuses. What is your explanation?”
“I can’t answer the question. I will have to think about it. Please may I go, sir? I’m not feeling well. I promise to think about it.”
“Yes, you may go,” said the headmaster. “And I want very much for you to think. Thinking is good. Think about our talk today. Think about Goethe and the Jew, Spinoza.”
A fter Alfred’s departure, Headmaster Epstein and Herr Schäfer looked at one another for a few moments before the headmaster spoke. “He says he’s going to think, Hermann. What’s the chance of his thinking?”
“Next to zero, I would guess,” said Herr Schäfer. “Let’s graduate him and be rid of him. He has a lack of curiosity that is, most likely, incurable. Excavate anywhere in his mind, and we run into the bedrock of unfounded convictions.”
“I agree. I have no doubt that Goethe and Spinoza are, at this very moment, fast receding from his thoughts and will never trouble him again. Nonetheless I feel relieved by what has just happened. My fears are quelled. This young man has neither the intelligence nor fortitude to cause mischief by swaying others to his way of thinking.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
AMSTERDAM—1656
B ento stared out the window, watching his brother walk toward the synagogue. Gabriel is right; I do injury to those closest to me. My choices are horrendous—either I must shrink myself by giving up my innermost nature and hobbling my curiosity, or I must harm those closest to me. Gabriel’s account of the rage toward him expressed at the Sabbath dinner brought to mind van den Enden’s paternal warning about the growing dangers Bento faced in the Jewish community. He meditated escape strategies from his trap for almost an hour before rising, dressing, making himself coffee, and walking out the back door, cup in hand, to the Spinoza Import and Export Shop.
There he dusted and swept litter through the front door into the street, and emptied a large sack of fragrant dried figs, a new shipment from Spain, into a bin. Sitting at his usual window seat, Bento sipped his coffee, nibbled on the figs, and focused on the daydreams coasting through his mind. He had lately been practicing a meditation wherein he disconnected himself from his flow of thought and viewed his mind as a theater and himself as a member of the audience watching the passing show. Gabriel’s face in all its sadness and confusion immediately appeared on stage, but Bento had learned how to lower the curtain and pass on to the next act. Soon van den Enden materialized. He praised Bento’s progress in Latin while lightly grasping his shoulder in a fatherly manner. That touch—he liked the feel of it. But, now , Bento thought, with Rebekah and now Gabriel turning away, who will ever touch me again?
Bento’s mind then drifted to an image of himself teaching Hebrew to his teacher and to Clara Maria. He smiled as he drilled his two students, like children, in the aleph, bet, gimmel and smiled even more at the vision of little Clara Maria in turn drilling him on the Greek alpha, beta, gamma . He noticed the bright, almost luminous quality of Clara Maria’s image—Clara Maria, that thirteen-year-old wraith with the crooked back, that woman-child whose impish smile belied her pretense of a grown-up severe teacher. A stray thought floated by: If only she were older . . .
By midday, his long meditation was interrupted by movement outside the window. In the distance he saw Jacob and Franco conversing as they headed toward his shop. Bento had vowed to conduct himself in a holy manner and knew that it was not virtuous to observe others surreptitiously, especially others who might be discussing him. Yet he could not shift his attention from the strange scene unfolding before his eyes.
Franco lagged three or four steps behind Jacob,
Similar Books
