Chapter 58

Sam stood in front of the Jewish Theological Seminary in University Heights, just as eight years earlier he’d trembled outside the Navy recruiting station on the Lower East Side. Now, instead of facing the nondescript entrance to a sooty skyscraper, he marvelled at the immaculate three-story Gothic building with graceful stone arches. Back then he’d stared up at wispy clouds, hoping in vain for a message from God. Today he blinked at one of the last clear days of fall, a few tenacious oak leaves still clinging to the massive trees. The only wispy things were the beards of the skinny young men opening the heavy wooden door, so unlike the burly recruits who long ago preceded Sam into a cold, cavernous room, ready to go to war. These youths were here to go to college, earn teaching certificates, and in some cases, be ordained as rabbis. Sam squinted into the unblemished sky, wishing his mind were as clear the weather.

Eight weeks had elapsed between his boarding the boat in Scotland and standing at these seminary gates, the same length of time as boot camp. Now he was contemplating becoming a student again, a schoolboy. Schoolman. He’d have to ask Dev if such a word existed.

Watching the students who would be his classmates, Sam felt out of place, half again their age and bulk. They ignored him, intent on their own conversations. The same thing had happened two weeks ago, when he cut his hair and shaved. He’d walked around Manhattan, steeling himself against stares and ridicule, but no one noticed his strawberry mark. Now that he saw it every day in the mirror, it appeared paler and smaller to him too.

Snatches of lively debate crackled in the air. Did a certain interpretation of halakah conform to what the rabbis said? How about a professor’s argument against wearing artificial fabrics? Sam wondered what kind of teacher he would make. How would students respond to his attempts to challenge convention without abandoning it, to stay the course while exploring diverging paths? He didn’t want to be like Bernie, ploughing heedlessly ahead, nor Avram, mired in the past. He pictured accompanying his students on a journey, searching and discovering together. It was, as he told Avram, an egalitarian vision, suited to a country built on equality. Yet of the two people he’d learned the most from, his father and Mikovski, one had taught him using guilt and the other fear. He rejected both, but didn’t know if his ideal of intellectual and spiritual equals could work.

Two students, one bareheaded like Sam, the other in a skull cap, approached with flyers in their hands. “Sir?” they asked. Sam was taken aback. They already saw him as a teacher.

“Please, call me Sam. Or Shmuel.” Asked if he had a preference, he answered, “Whichever name you feel comfortable with.”

“Shmuel,” continued the one in the yarmulke. “Sam,” said the other. They all laughed.

The young men invited him to a debate their freshman class was hosting on whether it was permissible to use the telephone on Shabbas. It began in an hour, and they were competing to recruit audience members who supported their respective sides.

Sam tried to remember the thirty-nine categories of work Jews were forbidden to perform on the Sabbath, such as planting, cooking, and slaughtering animals. Each category was further broken down into acceptable and unacceptable activities. He used telephones so rarely that he’d never given the question much thought, but it was fitting in a world where they were becoming increasingly commonplace. Sam said he wasn’t even sure which category of work applied.

“Building,” the students said in unison. Beyond that, they disagreed vociferously. “You can’t use the telephone for the same reason you can’t flip a light switch,” said the hatted one. “We’re forbidden from building a permanent structure. Completing an electrical connection completes and thus builds a circuit. Making and receiving a call is no different.”

“Wrong,” said the other. “A telephone call builds a relationship. Nowhere are we forbidden to do this on Shabbas. Just the opposite. We’re commanded to connect with God and the Jewish people.”

Sam, recalling the Talmud, addressed the first student. “We are permitted to build if the intent is temporary. Thus, for example, we can close a door, completing the locking mechanism, because the implication is that it will be reopened.”

The young man objected. “If there’s even a small possibility it won’t be opened again, it is better to risk being robbed than to risk violating the commandment.” He was adamant until Sam raised a sceptical eyebrow. Then he seemed to waver, considering the extremity of his position.

So Sam turned to the other student. “If we are forbidden from building anything that is or could be permanent, shouldn’t that apply to human connections too? For example, we are proscribed from opening an umbrella, which creates a tent. Although temporary, it has the potential to stay up forever. How much more permanent, then, a telephone connection with a family member or friend? Or even a business associate?”

“Talking about business on Shabbas? That’s work. Of course it’s not allowed.”

Sam conceded the point, but pursued his line of questioning. “Are we not also prohibited from smoothing, erasing, and extinguishing a fire? Suppose, during this Shabbas call, the parties ended a disagreement that had ruptured family ties or threatened to end a friendship? Would you permit telephone calls but have the rabbis generate a list of approved and unapproved topics? And would the callers be obliged to hang up if they strayed over the line? Who’s to decide?”

A heated discussion ensued over what might be permitted or forbidden. Sam didn’t know the answer, and the students began to doubt their own positions, even switching sides at one point.

As the three of them argued, they walked toward the seminary door. A young man held it open and Sam, without thinking, followed the bustling knot of people inside. Sunlight streamed in through the tall windows, illuminating shiny mosaics with scenes from Genesis. The destruction of the flood was pictured beside a land flowing with milk and honey. A sea of students flowed toward the study hall where the debate would take place.

Sam was swept forward with the tide.