A Long Way to Shiloh

by Lionel Davidson

  3

  ‘You have the yarmulkah? Remember to put it on. Don’t smoke unless somebody else does. Don’t do anything unless you see somebody else doing it. And remember above all how I told you you should stay in there.’

  ‘Dumb,’ I said.

  ‘Exactly. Stay dumb. If they want you to speak, they’ll say so. I can’t even guarantee they’ll let a Gentile in.’

  His name was Bogeslavski. He had a white beard and a face of saintly calm, both of them masking one of the spryest brains I’d ever encountered. He was finishing off a Russian cigarette as he spoke. He finished it off with short nervous drags, and a mere fraction of a second before the burning end could fall out of its tube on to his beard, wound down the window and flung it out.

  There were six of us in the Plymouth: Bogeslavski, Agrot, myself, a lawyer, the Head of the Department, and a representative of the Ministry. A Ministry order, backed by a High Court injunction, had held Teitleman off for another week, and I’d had to postpone my own departure. Several hard-working sessions had been necessary before the present expert-bound state of affairs had come about. We were now bowling down King George V Avenue to a special meeting of the committee appointed by the Chief Rabbinate to investigate the matter of the Menorah.

  The car pulled up outside Heikhal-Shelomo, the Supreme Religious Centre, and we got out. I paused a moment to adjust the yarmulkah on my head and looked up at the inscription over the entrance. ‘And they shall judge the people with righteous judgement,’ it said.

  H’m.

  The committee was not yet in session; but Teitleman and a small pack of his advisers were. The tittle bastard’s teeth and spectacles were flashing with some vivacity as we entered the room. His eyes flickered at me, but he made no comment, and not long after the committee members came in and the chairman declared the session open.

  A small red-bearded man from Teitleman’s ranks, evidently the rabbi to present his case, immediately objected to my presence. Bogeslavski got up and said his piece, and the committee of rabbis quietly conferred. The mild brown eyes of the chairman were on me as he listened, and he played with his beard. From it, he said presently that the objection was overruled, and cited three precedents from the Talmud.

  Bogeslavski showed no particular emotion. He merely got up and presented his opening case. He did it quietly and factually, and the only thing he underlined with any emphasis was the degree of reliability that could be placed in the scroll. The further copies of it had been found where they had been said to be. Blue marble was found where it had been said to be. And so had the so-called pyramids. If the scroll was right on all these matters, was it likely to be wrong on the most important of all?

  ‘No,’ he murmured, blowing his nose as he sat down, ‘so we’ll hear what they’ve got to say.’

  Teitleman’s rabbi had plenty to say. He said he would first of all like to draw the committee’s attention to the underhand, almost childish way in which this matter had been brought to light. It was typical of people who had nothing to lose to try and make trouble for those who had a great deal to lose. The latter class of people were always susceptible. In the land of Israel those who might with truth be called the Builders of Zion were peculiarly susceptible. Every inch of the land was holy. Every inch of the land bore traces of the holy past. Should the builder be stopped from building on this account? Certainly not. It was a duty, it was even a religious duty, to build up the land. So was it possible to reconcile the activities of those who built for the future, with those whose task it was to look into the past?

  Yes, the little red-bearded rabbi said, calmly answering his own question, such a reconciliation was possible. The legislators of the State of Israel had made it. In no country of the world had the archaeologist such encouragement, such protection as in Israel. Standstill orders without number had been issued at the request of the archaeologist. Mr Teitleman himself – he was pleased to speak for Mr Teitleman in this matter – had halted his work on many occasions to comply with such a request; and with the greatest willingness and interest. Mr Teitleman – he did not have to tell the committee – was a religious Jew of the highest principles, to whom the welfare of Judaism, the Jewish people and the State of Israel were the chief goals in life.

  But what was the position when a standstill order came to an end? The position was that the archaeologist moved out and the builder moved in. And once in nobody could stop him again. A moment’s reflection would show the committee that this must necessarily be so. Enormous sums of capital had to be sunk in a modern building. If a builder were uncertain whether he might be asked to pause again, tomorrow, next week, next month, who would build at all? In any event, this was the law. It was all he really wished to say. There was no case to answer and nothing to be looked into.

  However, in view of the circumstances, perhaps he would say a few things more, and the first was that he would totally agree with the revered Rabbi Bogeslavski that the scrolls were of profound interest. They were a part of Israel’s heritage. They shed light on the past. Many other scrolls had been found that shed light on the past, some of them, even, ‘treasure scrolls’. Many had mentioned geographical locations that could still be found – caves, hills, springs – exactly as they were. Why not? These things didn’t move themselves. It was to be expected. But in no single case had any treasure been found. And this was to be expected, too. ‘Buried treasure’, alas, did not long remain buried – it was childish to expect otherwise.

  The second thing was about this piece of buried treasure. What was it? An OEED, they had heard. The members of the committee were wise men, but had they ever heard of an OEED? The claim was made that it was a piece of Temple property. And so it might be. Many of the items mentioned in other scrolls had been pieces of Temple property. All that could be said about this one was that if it still existed it could bear no resemblance to whatever it had once been.

  His friend Mr Teitleman, as a matter of academic interest, had supplied some figures relating to the weight of the building now on the spot. It ran to some hundreds of thousands of metric tonnes. If it were claimed – he understood it was claimed – that the article was of gold, it would now be a single sheet of gold leaf; a mixture of gold leaf and marble aggregate. As such it could no longer be considered to have the intrinsic properties of the original article, for it no longer was that article. Its value was in terms of gold leaf only. One would then have the unusual task of calculating whether it was worth tearing down a building that cost several million dollars to extract a few kilograms of gold leaf that might lie underneath it.

  This amusing problem – he would like to stress this – was not indeed one for the committee. It was not even one for Mr Teitleman. Mr Teitleman, of course, was a very big business man. But big businessmen did not own their businesses. If Mr Teitleman should temporarily take leave of his senses – which God forbid! – and wish to indulge in such a hare-brained scheme, he could not write out a note saying ‘Go and do it’. Mr Teitleman was responsible to his stockholders, many of them in America. He had heard some cloudy rumours that the government could be induced to pay. But Mr Teitleman’s unhappy experience was that the government rarely paid what it said it would pay and in any event had no conception of business expenses, loss of trade and so forth. Even in joke – and he must apologize for laughing now – did the committee think it advisable to consider jeopardizing the much-needed investments made by American citizens in Israel’s economy?

  He sat down still chuckling, and there was a rumble of appreciative laughter from his corner. Teitleman’s own dog-like teeth were bared in a smile as he patted his little advocate’s knee. He’d found, no doubt about it, a spry enough brain himself. I listened somewhat glumly as the evidence was called.

  Agrot and I gave our views on the scroll and on the interpretation of the OEED. With regard to site-identifications these had been very few and very ambiguous in the case of the only other actual treasure scroll. It wasn’t so much that no treasure ha
d ever been found as that it hadn’t been found yet. And nearly all of the sites had been in highly-populated areas.

  With regard to weights and pressures, the Menorah had been covered by marble slabs, no doubt resting on other rocks to protect the Menorah. So long as the building was properly constructed there was no question of its full weight falling on the one spot. Without knowing the structure of the protecting slabs it was impossible to say whether they would have cracked under pressure or whether they would still be doing the job that the surrounding rocks were doing: safely supporting Teitleman’s building.

  In any event it wouldn’t be necessary to tear the building down. The mikveh, certainly, would have to come up, since it seemed to be directly over the spot; but so long as the building were properly constructed, little major reinforcement would be required. And the question of expense, however considerable – the lawyer frowned as the Head of the Department mentioned this dangerous point – was not one for this committee, which had simply to consider the weight of the experts’ case.

  Then the evidence was over, and the opposing rabbis, in reverse order, gave their closing addresses.

  Teitleman’s little advocate had been nodding humorously as the experts said their pieces, and he did some handkerchief play at hiding a whimsical smile as he got to his feet again.

  He’d found it all absorbing, he said, deeply absorbing. Who didn’t love to hear scholars talk? It was a privilege and God had to be thanked for sparing them to see in one room so many learned men of Israel. But God in his wisdom had given scholars scholars’ brains. They should use them for scholarship and not for political adventurism or for meddling in business affairs. Scholars were soon out of their depth in such matters.

  They had been told that they should not consider expense. Of course! Scholars very rarely did. But why else were they here? If one wished to go and dig a hole in the middle of the Negev, would a council of rabbis need to sit and deliberate? What was being asked here was something more serious – and more farcical. What was being asked here was whether one could go and dig himself a hole under Mr Teitleman’s hotel – in the hopes of finding buried treasure!

  Had Mr Teitleman not been blessed with such a keen sense of humour he would be very indignant at this piece of tomfoolery. What! – it was being calmly asked whether it would be proper to rob the citizens of America to further some madcap scheme that had already led its proponents, with a disregard for frontiers and the safety of those who lived on frontiers, to endanger the security of the State itself? He didn’t want to say too much about this – the committee would draw its own conclusions. But it was typical of the recklessness of the other side, of their lack of balance, their inability to see anything but their own narrow viewpoint.

  As for the evidence, he had nothing serious to add except, he said, hiding his mouth again with the handkerchief, except perhaps just one thing: let one of these enthusiasts find himself some rocks, and upon the rocks place a marble slab, and under the slab place himself, and invite Mr Teitleman to build –

  He sat down, throwing himself helplessly about, with a number of small apologetic bobs to the committee for his inability to continue. The committee seemed to be surreptitiously sharing his amusement. He’d certainly given value, and with increasing gloom I saw Bogeslavski get to his feet. He hadn’t smiled, he hadn’t frowned, he’d simply looked more and more depressed as the confident little joker had kept flashing the bill. If he was going to do anything it was high time for him now to look lively. Bogeslavski didn’t look lively. He looked simply confused and dispirited, and also a lot older than when he’d come in.

  For a few moments he shuffled half-heartedly from one foot to the other without actually saying anything, and when he did get off, it was to a couple of false starts.

  He said a bit desperately, ‘Of course, it’s one thing to joke … I’ve produced evidence – these are not children – I must beg the committee to remember they are experts, scholars …’

  I shifted in my seat, and felt Agrot shifting in his. It occurred to me to wonder if somebody hadn’t been nobbling Bogeslavski. His little red-bearded opponent had just successfully made the point that experts and scholars were children, and now here he was … I looked at him sharply, and noticed that the committee were looking at him sharply, too. He was floundering about, patently trying to organize some kind of argument.

  ‘If the rebbe would like a few minutes to collect himself,’ the chairman suggested mildly across the table.

  ‘No. Thank you. That is,’ Bogeslavski said, licking his lips. ‘I have to confess I’m in a difficulty –’

  He dropped his hands to his sides suddenly and stood there a bit helplessly. ‘I have sat here,’ he said simply, ‘and listened to this calculation, that calculation, engineering assessments, financial assessments, jokes, more jokes … What are we joking about? What is it we see fit to sit and joke about?’

  He blinked a bit glazedly round the room. ‘When they came and told me that the possibility existed, that by some miracle of God’s grace, the holy Menorah was still in Eretz Yisroel, I trembled. I said a shechayanu … If we here were Jews in the exile, a hundred, five hundred, a thousand years ago, living in the most dire poverty, in the most grinding oppression, and from out of the blackness this ray of light had appeared, a suspicion, just the suspicion … could anything have prevented us from selling, bartering, borrowing, begging – everything – everything that we had or might hope to have, to beseech the authorities …’

  He got his handkerchief out and dazedly wiped his head. He said in a kind of quiet frenzy, ‘Gentlemen – God has made a greater miracle! He has brought us back. He has given to us our own again. Here we do not have to beseech. We do not have to beg. We can …’

  His voice had been rising, and his eye, wandering about the room, suddenly fell on little Teitleman. ‘Give unto Him what is His,’ he said firmly. ‘Seeing that thou and what thou hast are His.’

  Then his eye fell on his red-bearded opponent, and he said, ‘Be exceedingly lowly of spirit since the hope of man is but the worm. And from the same source, the Pirke Abot,’ he said, his glowing saintly face now on the committee, ‘we may read, “It is not thy duty to complete the work, but neither art thou free to desist from it.” We are not free. We are never free. What does the blessed Akiba tell us? Rabbi Akiba says, “Everything is given on a pledge, and a net is spread for all the living: the shop is open; and the dealer gives credit; and the ledger lies open; and the hand writes …” And the hand writes,’ Bogeslavski repeated very softly, nodding to himself.

  He could have repeated it a lot more softly still. He had the room’s undivided attention as he stood there, raptly communing with himself. From out of his communion, he said with quiet intensity, ‘If on good authority I hear that in the earth of Israel the possibility exists that there might be a trace, an atom of dust, of the holy Menorah, and that it will cost me one million, a hundred million, a thousand million to get at it – with my bare hands – will a rabbi say something to stop me? Can there be enough money in the world? Is it possible –’ he said, but didn’t finish. He simply looked wonderingly round the room, and walked out of it, very slowly and very bent.

  In the deathly silence that followed, a couple of the committee members cleared their throats. The chairman cleared his. He somewhat gruffly asked the red-bearded rabbi if he wished to say anything further. He said he didn’t. The chairman said they would announce the result of their deliberations later, and in an awkward flutter the room began to clear. A couple of minutes later we were walking back to the Plymouth. Bogeslavski was sitting in it, smoking a Russian cigarette. Nobody congratulated him. Nobody said anything much. A seemly silence seemed indicated. We sat and waited in it for the lawyer, who’d popped over for a quick word with the other side.

  He was back shortly, grinning, and showing none of our reserve in the matter of the rabbi’s feelings. He patted him affectionately on the knee.

  ‘Rebbe,’ he said, ‘
promise me one thing. If I should ever God forbid find myself at the wrong side of the dock, you’ll be there to plead for me.’

  ‘So what’s the news?’ Agrot said.

  ‘They’ve had such a fright thrown in them they don’t know whether they’re coming or going. I think we’re home,’ he said.

  There was a general sort of sigh in the car; and in the middle of it, a little squeak. It was the window being wound down. ‘Well,’ Bogeslavski said, tossing ash out of it, ‘mann tracht, Gott lacht,’ which may be interpreted as ‘man proposes, God disposes’. ‘We’ll see,’ he said, as the car took off.

  16 An End is Come

  Behold, it is come. [Ezekiel 7.6]

  1

  I couldn’t bear to be at Barot, and Jerusalem wasn’t much better. There was no living with Agrot at all, and he commuted between the two like a cat on hot bricks. I’d already overstayed my time by a week, but I couldn’t tear myself away. And when I tried to think of all the things I should be doing elsewhere, I couldn’t do that either.

  The rabbinical meeting had been on a Monday, and on the Wednesday Uri turned up from London on a mission feverishly proposed by Agrot and approved by the Department. Uri brought with him a personal tape-recorded message from the Bogoritze Rebbe in London. The Bogoritze community, a small sect so intensely devout that they considered the British chief rabbinate a crypto-gentile institution, was noted for its patronage of works concerning the mystical tradition in Judaism, and also for its comfortable financial position. The message from its rabbi was intended solely for the ear of the chairman of the rabbinical committee. We sat and listened to it a couple of times in the Rehavia flat. The piety came through very strong.

  ‘He doesn’t actually mention any money,’ Agrot said.

  ‘Can’t you hear the promise in his voice?’

  ‘I suppose they’ve really got some?’