Where God Was Born

by Bruce Feiler

  And in that struggle, as it has done so many times before, the Bible summons us to act. Before setting out on my journey, I viewed the prophets as giant nags, disembodied hands of God, suspended in the air, wagging their fingers. “I’m going to count to three, and if you don’t start behaving, I’m going to send you to your room . . . in Babylon!” Now, I view them as open hands, beckoning us to take responsibility, reminding us that God can’t do it alone and that each of us must help create a just and moral world. The prophets’ chief legacy is an ecology of change. They locate within each individual the power to influence the community as a whole. They evangelize initiative.

  The most surprising part of my trip was arriving at this destination: realizing that even though God created the world, he wants each of us to re-create it. The creator God seeks creativity in humans. This idea, so pronounced in the Prophets, is what allowed me to change my view of religion, from one of reaction to one of pro-action. At the end of my travels, I came to view my relationship with religion as I do my relationship with God. I can no longer be a passive recipient. I must be an active partner. Just as Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah talk back to God, I can talk back to religion. I don’t have to blindly accept what my tradition hands down to me. I can go back to the text and make my own interpretation. I can make my own faith, grounded in the moral clarity and human dignity of the oldest source of all.

  As liberating as this realization was, it did give me pause: Is there a danger in placing too much trust in a more independent, autonomous relationship with God? “But that’s what believers do,” said David Hartman when I went to see him in his office in Jerusalem, the day before embarking on this final leg. One of the leading philosophers of religion in the world, the Montreal-born Hartman has bushy white hair and wore hikers’ fleece and tennis shoes behind his enormous oak desk. “You can’t get rid of the tradition, so you re-create it. The burden is to reinterpret. We have to find where in our traditions are alternative melodies that allow us to coexist as human beings.”

  “Does that mean you have five million theologians in this country, three hundred million in the U.S., and five billion around the world . . . ?”

  “But you do it in community. You don’t do it in isolation. You deal with it in discussion with the other.”

  “So after all these years, we’ve finally merged Athens and Jerusalem,” I said. “We’ve blended the individualistic, self-sufficient streak of the Greeks with the interdependent, communal streak of Judaism.”

  “You could see it that way,” he said. “But you have to remember, most human beings don’t have the desire to reinterpret. To them it’s a burden. They have the desire to be safe. ‘But you’re making religion too hard,’ they say. ‘Just give me the truth. Tell me what to do in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night.’ They want to sit down at the table and eat, but they don’t want to cook the meal.”

  “So what’s your response?”

  “I say, ‘What can I do?’ Religion is not for the weak and the sick. It’s for the healthy. If you want to have a mature life, you’re going to have to take responsibility. Rabbi Akiva, in the second century, taught that God deliberately left the world unfinished so it would be completed by the work of human beings.”

  “That brings me to a question I’ve been wondering about for a long time,” I said. “Why does the Hebrew Bible not really end?”

  He smiled. “Because each of us has to write our own ending,” he said. “The question is, Are we going to write a new chapter, or a new book? If we’re going to write a new chapter, then we have to read the earlier stuff first, to see if what we’re writing fits into the book.”

  “So at the end of my journey, there is no end.”

  “There is just a beginning. You may end your traveling, but if you enter the Bible, you have to keep on living, keep on thinking, keep on choosing. Keep on walking.”

  During all the years I had been coming to Jerusalem, I had longed to do one thing: View the sunrise over the city from the Mount of Olives. Avner and I got up at 5:00 A.M. and attended morning services in the church, which were even more ethereal than evening prayers and ended with the gentlest recitation, “Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy.”

  The sky began to lighten around six o’clock, and I hurried to the garden to wait for the golden halo of pink, lavender, and rose. It never came. Because the Mount of Olives is so much higher than the Temple Mount, I realized, the sun had lost its gentleness by the time the rays reached the Dome of the Rock. I could only chuckle. Even dawn relinquishes its gentleness in the face of such contention.

  After breakfast, Avner said he had something to show me, and we set out through the Garden of Gethsemane, over the long slope of the mountain, toward the southwest corner of the Mount of Olives. The Old City was to our right. Avner led us upward through terrace after terrace of one of the oldest cemeteries in the country. At the highest tier, we stopped along a wall where several Hasidic men had removed two stone tablets, each about four feet high, that had been carved with the Ten Commandments. Behind the tablets was a cave.

  “Shall we?” Avner said. I was a little confused but stepped forward. We were just about to enter the cave when I noticed a commotion at the bottom of the hill. Two royal blue hearses appeared around the corner. They were inching along at a mourners’ crawl and were followed by a throng of men in black coats and hats that, once it rounded the bend, proved to be nearly three hundred strong. The men were chanting and swaying back and forth. “Who died?” I said to Avner.

  “Nobody,” he said. “They’re carrying Torah scrolls and Bibles that were damaged in a fire. They can’t be used anymore. But since these are holy books, you can’t throw them away. The custom is to bury them in a cave or building. It’s called a geniza.”

  I had never heard of this custom. “But why not bury them in the ground?”

  “They would absorb water and rot too quickly. Also, people might step on them, because you don’t put tombstones on genizas.”

  The hearses came to a stop, and several of the older men retrieved around half a dozen clay canisters, each about ten inches in diameter and three feet tall, along with a plain brown coffin. The canisters contained Torahs; the coffin was for Bibles. A few of the men carried the vessels up the two tiers to where we were standing and handed them, one by one, into the cave. The handlers cradled the canisters as they might a wounded child. The chanting stopped, and the crowd peered on in silence. A few lit candles. The feeling wasn’t sorrow exactly. It was awe. A funeral for a book. Here was an ending worthy of the Bible. These words, which had sprung from the Fertile Crescent more than five thousand years ago, would end their lives near the soil from which they came. “From dust you are,” God says to Adam, “to dust you shall return.”

  Avner put his hand on my shoulder. “I know you have a deep love of the book,” he said, “but I brought you here to remind you what Jeremiah said: By now you have the story inscribed in your heart. You don’t necessarily need the book anymore.”

  I pulled out my Bible. Its cover was warped, its pages stained. From all the wear, it had actually expanded over the years. I raised my eyebrows. “Should I bury it?”

  He grinned. “No, keep it and give it to your children someday. Maybe they’ll bring it back here.”

  Once the canisters and coffin were in place, several men returned the stone tablets to the entrance and began mixing mortar to seal the geniza. A rabbi chanted Psalm 121.

  I turn my eyes to the mountains;

  From where will my help come?

  My help comes from the Lord.

  As the praying stopped, I noticed a woman standing off to one side, almost hiding behind one of the tombstones. She was holding the hands of her two young children, a boy and a girl. Chani Fischer works for the Funeral Society of Jerusalem and had helped organize this ceremony. She was dressed modestly, in the manner of a deeply religious woman, in a long black skirt and maroon sweater.

  “The rabbi called f
or everyone to witness this occasion,” she said. “He said we should bring our children. When I was making the arrangements, the idea of burying books didn’t really affect me. But when I came out here, seeing all these people, it did something to me. It tore my heart.”

  “What would you like your children to learn?” I asked.

  “Respect,” she said. “Respect for God. For the Bible.” She started to cry. “I’m sorry, it’s just so sad.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “I just love these words so much.”

  I struggled for something to say that might comfort her. “But don’t you feel that even though the books are in the ground, their message will live on?”

  Suddenly her back straightened. She wiped a tear from her cheek. And she looked at me with a gaze filled with serenity, trust, and total, utter confidence. “Forever,” she said.

  O GIVE THANKS

  Avner Goren helped imagine, design, and execute this journey, and his wisdom and humanity inform every step. I am ennobled by his continued presence in my life.

  I am deeply grateful to the dozens of people who appear by name in these pages, many of whom took personal risks to speak with me and who freely discussed sometimes intimate details of their private and spiritual lives. In addition I would like to thank the even greater number of people who helped arrange the logistics of this adventure, the introductions that brought it to life, and the safety precautions that were sometimes necessary. These friends, new and old, include the following: Mehdi Agha, Maziar Bahari, Arnold Belzer, Dean Bonura, Asnat Cohen, Catherine Collins and Doug Frantz, Simon Ebrahimi, Hamid Ebrahami, Marjan Eghbali, Dariush Fakheri, Israel Finkelstein, Isaiah Gafni, Wes Gardenswartz, Sam Gordon and Patty Gerstenblith, Ido Goren, Wayne Green, Matthew Gutman, Jessica Harani, Bill Hamilton, Robert Hormats, Avraham Infeld, Jack Kingston, Steve Leder, Bijar Munib, Gina Nahai, Amnon Netzer, Evan Osnos, Guy Raz, Alyssa Rubin, Jeff Salkin, Houman Sarshar, Parveneh Sattari, Barnea Selavan, and Barry Shrage.

  David Black is my friend, partner, confidant, and agent, as well as the bedrock of my professional life. I am indebted to Ken Weinrib; the team at Royce Carlton; and, for keeping things going, Jazie Ingram, Charlotte Malot, Gary Morris, Trish Potts, and especially Greg Takoudes.

  Jane Friedman is fearless, visionary, and bold. I am humbled by her support. Michael Morrison has built a powerhouse at William Morrow that I am honored to be a part of. Lisa Gallagher is the hardest-working woman in publishing, as well as one of the smartest and most delightful. Henry Ferris has reminded me every day of the values of a keen eye and a big heart. And Sharyn Rosenblum teaches everyone she meets the meaning of dedication and joy. These people, along with Debbie Stier and many others, have given me a home. Everlasting thanks to Trish Grader, who believed before anyone else.

  I can hardly convey the depth of commitment and total confidence that the editors and staff at Parade magazine displayed in sending me to Iraq in the middle of a war. I am forever beholden to Lee Kravitz for his passion, trust, and friendship. Gwendolen Cates and I are forever bonded by our experience. Walter Anderson, Lamar Graham, Dakila Divina, and many others worked exhaustively for months to ensure our safety. Thank you.

  I am blessed to be surrounded by a wide circle of creative friends and colleagues never far with support and opinions. Ben Sherwood continues to inspire and push me with his rigorous mind and Olympian commitment to friendship. Jane Lear is a woman of faith, grace, and an effortless gift with words. Karen Lehrman and Joe Weisberg are daily fonts of invigorating ideas and emotional strength. Beth Middleworth is a quiet genius. Thanks always to Lynn Cohen, Karen Essex, Karen Kehela-Sherwood, Jessica Liebowitz, Lauren Schneider, Chip Seelig, Jeff Shumlin, Max Stier, Jane von Mehren, and the incomparable Bob Wunsch.

  I am fortunate to have picked up another family in the last few years who have retaught me everything wonderful about generosity, unconditional love, and blunt editing. In return they’re stuck with an insufferable seder guest for life. I am thrilled to include Debbie and Alan Rottenberg; Dan, Elissa, and Nathan Rottenberg; and Becky Rottenberg in my life.

  My natural-born family continues to redefine the boundaries of love and support, even as I continue to throw more painful obstacles in their way. My work is informed and shaped by a lifetime of engaging the world alongside Jane and Ed Feiler. My brother, Andrew, is a beacon of humanity and exacting thought who improved every sentence in this book—many more than once. Cari Feiler Bender has shown us all the way to balance life, work, and family.

  One person, above all, helped nurture the ideas and deepen the emotion that transformed this journey into such an enriching experience. Linda Rottenberg is a woman of passion, courage, and vivid color, who manages to find time to improve me and my work, even while devoting herself to serving so many around the globe. Her heart beats in these pages. During our trip to Iran, as we were leaving the Shrine to Fatima, a crow deposited its noontime droppings on my back. An elderly woman in a chador was the first to point out the rather large despoiling. “You will be very lucky,” she said. “Then we will have a good trip,” I replied. “Oh, no,” she said, remarking on the size, “much luckier than that!” “In that case,” I said, “my wife will get pregnant.”

  Well the stain must have been larger than we had realized.

  A year later, just days after I completed my manuscript, Linda gave birth to two healthy, hearty, heaven-sent identical girls, Eden Elenor Feiler and Tybee Rose Feiler. God willing, they will find in these pages someday the dreams their mother had for them and find out anew the inconceivable blessing they enjoy of carrying her around in their hearts. This book is dedicated to their mom.

  WORDS OF PEACE

  AND TRUTH

  I have come to relish the research part of my travels as much as the travels themselves. I have tried to read as widely as possible in the academic and popular literature on these subjects, while understanding that my efforts will never be definitive. In lieu of a formal bibliography, I have included an annotated list of books that have been particularly helpful, with an eye toward directing those who might wish to explore further a particular area.

  First, a few words on fundamentals. Bible translations vary in style and emphasis. For the sake of consistency, all quotations from the Hebrew Bible, unless otherwise noted, come from the new Jewish Publication Society translation, Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures (JPS, Philadelphia). Quotations from the New Testament are taken from The Holy Bible, with Apocrypha, New Revised Standard Version (Oxford University Press, New York).

  In keeping with long-standing academic custom and recent trends in popular writing, the nonsectarian terms B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era) are used throughout the book in place of the terms B.C. and A.D.

  When disputes of fact arose, I relied on The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), a six-volume reference book that sits alongside my desk. I have also consulted The Oxford Companion to the Bible, The Cambridge Companion to the Bible, and Lutterworth Dictionary of the Bible.

  Book I: Land

  In studying the history of the Ancient Near East, I benefited from Ancient Israel by Roland DeVaux, Axial Age Civilizations, edited by S.N. Eisenstadt, The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, A History of Israel by John Bright, and Memory and the Mediterranean by Fernand Braudel.

  The story of King David is teased out in penetrating ways in Robert Alter’s The David Story, Baruch Halpern’s David’s Secret Demons, Jonathan Kirsch’s King David, Yael Lotan’s novel Avishag, and Steven L. McKenzie’s King David.

  Gershom Gorenberg has written an illuminating study of the contemporary battle over the Temple Mount called The End of Days.

  Book II: Exile

  A number of fascinating books explore the history of the Israelites in exile, including Exile and Restoration by Peter Ackroyd, A History of Prophecy in Israel and Prophecy and Canon, both by Joseph Blenkinsopp, and Israel in Exile by Ralph Klein.

  The phenomenon
of prophecy is explored in Hopeful Imagination, The Land, and The Prophetic Imagination, all by Walter Brueggemann, The Prophets by Abraham Joshua Heschel, God by Jack Miles, and The Prophets by Norman Podhoretz.

  A number of wonderful books delve into the theology and impact of the Garden of Eden story, most notably Adam, Eve, and the Serpent by Elaine Pagels and History of Paradise by Jean Delumeau. I will read anything by Jon Levenson and was both awed and educated by Creation and the Persistence of Evil, Sinai and Zion, and Esther.

  Ancient Iraq by George Roux is an extremely well-written general history of the area. I also drew from Babylon by Albert Champdor, The Sumerians by Samuel Noah Kramer, and Return to Babylon by Brian Fagan.

  Penguin publishes an edition of Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, and the Anchor Bible edition of Jonah by Jack Sasson is also helpful.

  On the subject of war, I was entranced by War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges and learned from Just and Unjust Wars by Michael Walzer.

  Book III: Diaspora

  Mary Boyce’s Zoroastrians is still definitive in its field; Paul Kriwaczek has written a wonderful contemporary travel book, In Search of Zarathustra. Houman Sarshar is the editor of a beautiful book on the Jews of Iran called Esther’s Children. Michael Fox’s study Esther was helpful.

  The rise of Judaism in the ancient world is discussed in The God of the Maccabees by Elias Bickerman, Between Athens and Jerusalem by John J. Collins, Religions of the Hellenistic-Roman Age by Antonia Tripolitis, and Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews by Victor Tcherikover.

  General

  A number of books enhanced my study of Judaism, both past and present: On Judaism by Martin Buber, A Heart of Many Rooms and A Living Covenant by David Hartman, The Jewish Way by Irving Greenberg, The Jews in America by Arthur Hertzberg, The Jewish Way of Life and Thought by Abraham Karp, The Messiah Texts by Raphael Patai, and A Different Light, edited by Noam Zion and Barbara Spectre.