36 Arguments for the Existence of God

by Rebecca Goldstein

  “He knows to count,” the Rebbe said forcefully, “Believe me, miss, that he knows how to do!”

  Klapper turned back to where Roz was standing against the wall, gave her a glance, and then turned back.

  “There is an ancient prohibition against the counting of people, which we learn from the account of the sin of King David recorded in both Samuel and 1 Chronicles. King David ordered his lieutenants to count the men of fighting age and displeased God with his action, and God began to smite Israel. David repented of his sin and asked for God’s forgiveness and was given his choice of punishments, either three years of famine, three months of being vanquished by enemies, or three days of ‘the sword of the Lord,’ which would consist of a deadly plague that would sweep through the land. David chose the latter, and a great many of Israel fell dead.”

  Klapper might have been answering Roz, but his response was directed to the Valdener Rebbe, and it had impressed him.

  “That’s some good head you’ve got on your shoulders, Rav Klapper! No wonder you’re an Extreme Distinguished Professor! That’s a first-class Gemara kop, a head for Talmudic study. Do you have scholars in your family perhaps, rabbinical scholars?”

  “I’ve always assumed I must. It is more than possible to be of a plebeian family with no discernible learning and still have towering Talmudists and Kabbalists in one’s lineage, whose erudition one carries in one’s genetic memory.”

  Leave it to the Klap, Roz thought, to mangle the math and science in the most self-aggrandizing way possible. Everyone is guaranteed to find famous people in his family tree, since the number of ancestors explodes the farther back you go. Every Jew is going to find some legendary rabbi, every Wasp is going to find some aristocrat. Throw in intermarriage and the Jew will find an aristocrat and the Wasp a Talmudic sage. And could even the Klap believe that erudition was transmitted in one’s genetic memory?

  Suddenly the boy piped up from his father’s lap.

  “The number of my sisters is special.”

  “Of course it is,” said Roz in that sudsy voice some women get when they talk to children, though it was a surprise to Cass—and to Roz—that she was one of those women. “Your sisters are special.”

  “Ask him what he means,” said the Rebbe. “Tell our guests what you mean, tateleh.”

  “If you put my sisters in a group, then there’s no way to make equal groups of them.”

  All three visitors stared at the boy. The Rebbe was stroking his beard and smiling.

  “Go on,” he said to Cass and Klapper. “Ask him what he means.”

  “If I have a group of six things, could I make equal groups out of it?” Cass decided to ask, seeing that Jonas Elijah Klapper was sitting there impassively, and Roz was supposed to keep all manifestations of herself to a minimum.

  “Yes, two ways. You could make two groups with three things, or you could make three groups with two things.” He had a way of gesturing with his hands, very Hasidic.

  “What about six groups with one thing?” Roz asked.

  The child looked at her and laughed. He seemed to think she’d made an uproarious joke.

  “You can always do that!”

  “You’re right,” said Roz. She didn’t know much developmental psychology, but having the concept of a prime number seemed pretty advanced for a child this age. It was touching to see the Grand Rabbi’s face, irradiated with love. Mystic shmystic, this guy was a proud papa.

  “Do you know what we call the kind of numbers that you can’t make any equal groups out of?” she asked him. “We call them prime numbers.”

  “Prime numbers,” the boy repeated, carefully. And then he smiled at Roz. The look of bliss was baffling, moving. Why did he look as if she’d just given him the present he’d secretly wished for as he blew out the candles on his last birthday cake, if Hasidic children engaged in such practices?

  “Yes, prime numbers. And they’re exactly as you said. You can’t divide them up into groups that have equal numbers, except of course groups with one thing in them.”

  “Groups with one thing in them!” he repeated, smiling. “And as many groups as were in the first big group.”

  “That’s right. You said it just right.” She smiled back at the boy.

  “Do you know what I call prime numbers?” he asked her, the only one of the males in the room who didn’t seem to hold it against her that she was a woman who spoke. “I call them maloychim. Special maloychim.”

  “Angels,” the Rebbe translated. “The heavenly hosts.”

  “And I call you an angel!” Roz said.

  The child stared at her as if she’d just announced that she thought he could fly. That’s probably what he did think that she’d announced. And then he laughed out loud in a high soprano. The kid’s amusement amused her so much that she couldn’t resist. Klapper bristled, but the Valdener Rebbe tolerated the tainted noise of a woman’s laughter with surprising sangfroid. Unlike his Hasidim, he was often exposed to the outside world, meeting with politicians, agency heads, social workers, medical specialists, and building contractors. The Rebbe had to know how to talk to a variety of people whose assistance his community required. He had developed a level of worldliness to save his Hasidim from having to deal with the world.

  “So, tateleh, can you tell our visitors any more of your special maloychim?” he asked his son, lightly glancing the back of his hand over the child’s cheek.

  “I’ll start with one. And then there’s two, and then three, and then five.”

  “That’s good!” Roz said, enjoying both the look of pride on the Rebbe’s face and the look of exasperation on Klapper’s. She’d edged around the side of the room, still hugging the wall, just so that she could get an angle on Klapper’s face and still keep the child and his dad in her sights.

  “After five, there’s seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine, thirty-one, thirty-seven, forty-one, forty-three, forty-seven, fifty-three, fifty-nine, sixty-one, sixty-seven, seventy-one, seventy-three, seventy-nine.…”

  “Exactly how long does this go on?” Klapper broke in testily.

  Lord knew, he had the patience of a Job, but it was beginning to wear thin. He hadn’t risked his life by driving down from Boston with that wild Rastafarian so that he could listen to an infant perform like a circus seal.

  Meanwhile, the Valdener Rebbe was chiming in with “I told you the boy knew to count!” and Cass and Roz were exchanging looks of incredulity.

  “Who taught him this?” Cass asked.

  “Who taught him? The angels! Min ha-shamoyim—from the heavens. This is nothing. He likes to play with numbers. For him they’re toys, and we let him play. He can learn a page of Torah or Talmud like lamdin—like scholars—three, four, five times his age. The way he learns now, at six years old, most men will never catch up.”

  Meanwhile, the child had settled on Klapper, staring at him wide-eyed. The visiting rav had asked an important question, and he was waiting to hear the answer. He thought that he knew the answer, a wonderful answer, but he would have liked to hear it spoken by this rav. He whispered his own rendition of the question softly, so softly that no one caught it.

  “Have you ever had him tested?” Roz asked. “His IQ must be off the charts.”

  “We don’t need to test. For the other special children, those who need the government’s help, for them we have testers coming. We take care. But for a child like this? Why do we need to test? All our children are special, one way or the other.”

  “Tata?”

  “Yes, tateleh.”

  “Tata, I know someone who isn’t special.”

  “Is it possible?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Why yes and no?”

  “If he’s the only one who isn’t special, so then he’s special for not being special.”

  “So he’s special. Everybody is special, one way or another, and this one, too.”

  “But no, Tata.” The Rebbe’s son
squirmed off of his father’s lap and turned around to face him, gesturing with his two hands in the motions of explanation. “He can’t be special anymore if he’s special for not being special. If he’s not special, then he’s special, and if he’s special, then he’s not special. Du siest, Tata?”

  “You see,” the Rebbe said, in either translation or demonstration, “this is the way the child is. There are children who are born as if knowing. He can go on like this all day long.”

  “No doubt,” Klapper remarked dryly.

  But Roz was relishing the spectacle and was determined to keep it going. The Rebbe’s son was astounding, as everyone in the room was aware, with the exception of the child and Jonas Elijah Klapper.

  “So the number of your sisters is a prime number. What if you add one to the number? Is it still a prime number?”

  The boy walked around the desk and came over to where Roz was standing against the wall. He looked at her tenderly, a little sorrowfully, as if he worried that she might be one of those special people who needed his tata’s government funds.

  “One, two, three. Three maloychim, holding hands. But after three, they can’t hold hands. Because, if one number can’t make two groups, then the number after it, that one can make two groups. Back and forth they go. Do you see?” he asked her gently, and he took her hand as if to help lead her.

  “Now I do. You explained it very well to me.”

  He smiled at her. She felt strangely grateful to the tot for singling her out in this room of males who were all conspiring to pretend she wasn’t there. Even Cass was keeping his eyes resolutely away from Roz.

  “But the number of my sisters and me is still special. Sometimes you take a number a certain number of times. You repeat it the number of times of itself. So take two two times over and you get four. Or you take three three times and you get …”

  “Nine!” Klapper shouted out the answer, actually raising his hand as if he were back in P.S. 2.

  “Good!” the child commended the visitor, making Roz start to laugh, though she hastily tried to make it sound like a cough. “So those numbers, like four and nine and sixteen and twenty-five and thirty-six, they’re also special.”

  “Are they angels, too?” Cass asked, smiling.

  “Yes, also,” he answered, so seriously that Cass felt a pang for the patronizing tone he’d taken. “There are different kinds of angels.”

  “Indeed,” said Klapper. “The malach, translated as the ‘messenger’ or the ‘angel,’ is only one variety of numina. Psalms 82 and Job 1 refer to an entire adat el, or divine assembly. There are Irinim, who are Watchers or High Angels; Sarim, or Princes; Seraphim, or Fiery Ones; Chayyot, or Holy Creatures; and Ofanim, or Wheels. The collective terms for the full array of heavenly beings, those who straddle the sphere between the human and the ultimate divine principle, include Tzeva, translated as ‘Host’; B’nei Ha-Elohim, or B’nei Elim, or Sons of God; and Kedoshim, or Holy Ones. And of course there is some, albeit limited, migration between the sphere of Adam and the Kedoshim.”

  The person who seemed most intrigued by Klapper’s words, in addition to Klapper himself, was the little boy. He was staring at his father’s guest with a smile.

  “What is numina?” he asked softly.

  Klapper ignored him, staring around the room in an unfocused sort of way, his nose slightly wrinkling.

  “Can you tell us about more?” Roz asked the child. “Some more special angels?”

  “Yes. You take two two times, like before, and then another two times. That’s eight. Eight is special. Or three three times, like before, and then another three times. That’s twenty-seven. Twenty-seven is special. Or four four times and then another four times. That’s sixty-four.” His gestures, with his little palms turned upward, must have been in imitation of the rabbis he had watched, his father and teachers. “Those are special numbers, too. Also angels,” he said turning to Cass, anticipating his question. “My sisters and me together have a number like that.”

  “Wow. You sure do have a lot of sisters, sweetie,” Roz said.

  The child looked stricken, as if he’d just been slapped across the face. His cheeks immediately blazed red, as if they bore the bruise. Cass and Roz understood right away what was going on. If the number of his sisters was prime, and he together with his sisters made the number a perfect cube, then the number of his sisters had to be seven. He had given out too many clues, and so, in essence, had announced the number straight out, which was forbidden.

  “It’s okay, tateleh,” said the Rebbe gently. “You made a mistake, but it’s okay. Only take a little more care. So, with the numbers, his maloychim, he sometimes forgets himself. Only then. Come here, tateleh, kumma hier.” He indicated his lap.

  Klapper could no longer control himself. As far as he was concerned the situation had long passed the point of the abidable.

  “Why don’t you and the child continue your conversation outside, young lady?”

  The little boy was still holding her hand, having ignored his father’s summons.

  “I can, Tata?”

  “Tell me, please, what is your name?” the Rebbe said to Roz.

  “I’m Roz. Roslyn Margolis.”

  The Rebbe cocked his head a bit to the side and regarded her for a long moment.

  “We will have other chances to speak together, Miss Margolis.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Yes, Azarya. You can go with Miss Margolis. This is a very nice lady, Miss Margolis. A pearl.”

  Cass was tempted to ask if he could go along with them. Half an hour ago, he would never have dreamed that anything could upstage the meeting between Jonas Elijah Klapper and the Valdener Rebbe.

  “How old was he when he began to think about numbers?” he asked the Rebbe.

  “Mr. Seltzer,” said Klapper sternly, “perhaps you would like to go and join the young lady.”

  Cass looked over at the Valdener Rebbe, who smiled and said, “I am glad to see you again, Chaim Yisroel, after all these years. God willing, we’ll meet again, next time before so many years have elapsed. Next time, too, I hope you can bring your brother, Yeshiya Yakov, and your mother, too, who will always be loved by the Valdener Hasidim. Please tell her how much I would like to see her, either when she comes with you or with Yeshiya Yakov or by herself. Tell her that her Rebbe will always be her Rebbe.”

  Jonas Elijah Klapper spent another three-quarters of an hour holed up alone with the Rebbe, and the conversation that ensued between them must have compensated for the exasperating distractions created earlier in the hour. Professor Klapper emerged extolling Reb Chaim’s relation as an estimable descendant of the sanctified Ba’al Shem Tov.

  “The Valdener Rebbe has the slyness of Socrates, and is to be compared perhaps more to the metaphysical fabulist Borges than to the heresiarchs of the Dead Sea Scrolls. ”

  For their part, Cass and Roz had spent an enchanting time with the Rebbe’s son. They’d gone back to the windowless room where Roz had first been shelved. Cass probably wasn’t allowed to be there, but nobody came and bothered them.

  Azarya, away from his watchful older sister, was now able to indulge in his curiosity about these visitors, especially the lady whom he thought as beautiful as Queen Esther.

  His first question to them was where they came from, fascinated to hear that they came neither from New Walden nor from Brooklyn nor from Eretz Yisroel, the Land of Israel. He could recount for them, and did, the seven generations of Valdener Rebbes and their wives and children, going all the way back to Reb Azarya ben Yisroel, who had been a direct descendant of the Besht. He knew exactly where he was situated on the family tree. But he didn’t know that the name of the country he lived in was the United States of America. Roz wanted to draw him a map of America. He’d never seen a map of anything, and once she explained the idea of a map to him, he grew so excited that he went running out of the room, his silky blond side curls flying, to go find something to draw with. He came back a fe
w minutes later with a box of crayons and a few sheets of coarse white paper.

  Roz got down on the floor, since there was no writing surface in the room, with the little boy stooping down near her so that he could watch closely, his hands clasped between his knees. She drew a reasonably well-proportioned and accurate map of the United States, using red and blue crayons. She also drew an American flag for Azarya and explained about its stars and stripes. She colored the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for him. He knew about the ocean because of the splitting of the Red Sea. He had no idea that he lived within fifty miles of an ocean. One of his older sisters had been to Brooklyn, but he had never left New Walden. He hadn’t realized that when his father had gone to Eretz Yisroel he had had to cross the blue water that Roz drew for him.

  Azarya knew how to read Hebrew and Yiddish and Aramaic, but he hadn’t been taught the English alphabet yet. Nevertheless, Roz labeled all the states, saying the names aloud as she wrote, and labeled “New Walden” and “Cambridge.”

  “This is where you live, and this is where Cass and I live. Maybe someday you’ll come and visit us. Would you like that?”

  “With my sisters, too?”

  “Sure, why not.” As long as they were dreaming the impossible anyway, they might as well make it to the child’s specifications.

  “Are you married?”

  Azarya had settled down cross-legged on the floor next to Roz. He was as comfortable with strangers as the Onuma brats, which was remarkable, given the insularity of the Valdeners. Being the Rebbe’s son, and a prodigy to boot, he’d probably been bathed in affection and powdered in praise his whole life.

  “To each other? No.” She smiled down at him.

  “To someone else you’re married?”

  “No. We’re not married at all.”

  “Will you invite me to the hasana?”

  “The wedding,” Cass explained to her.

  “Of course we’ll invite you! Do you think we’d have our hasana without you?”

  The child broke into his wonderful smile.

  “Now I’ll draw you a picture!” He took another of the sheets and lay down on his stomach on the floor beside Roz with his box of crayons and got to work.