Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer(120)

He bit again at his lower lip and shook his head.

“There are things that are hard to say today.

“It is often the case that everyone says what no one knows. Today, no one says what everyone knows.

“As I think about the wars in front of us—the war to save our lives, and the war to save our souls—I think about our greatest leader, Moses. You might remember that his mother, Jochebed, hides him in a reed basket, which she releases into the current of the Nile, as a last hope of sparing his life. The basket is discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter. ‘Look!’ she says. ‘A crying Hebrew baby!’ But how did she know that he was a Hebrew?”

The rabbi paused, and held the agitated silence in place, as if forcefully saving the life of a bird that only wanted to fly away.

Max spoke up: “Probably because Hebrews were trying to keep their kids from getting killed, and only someone in that situation would ever put her baby in a basket and send it down the river.”

“Perhaps,” the rabbi said, showing no condescending pleasure in Max’s confidence, only admiration for his thought. “Perhaps.”

And again he forced silence.

Sam spoke up: “So, I say this fully seriously: maybe she saw that he was circumcised? Right? She says, ‘Look.’?”

“That could be,” the rabbi said, nodding.

And he dug a silence.

“I don’t know anything,” Benjy said, “but maybe he was crying in Jewish?”

“How would one cry in Jewish?” the rabbi asked.

“I don’t know anything,” Benjy said again.

“Nobody knows anything,” the rabbi said. “So let’s try to learn together. How would one cry in Jewish?”

“I guess babies don’t really speak.”

“Do tears?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s strange,” Julia said.

“What is?”

“Wouldn’t she have heard him crying? That’s how it works. You hear them crying, and you go to them.”

“Yes, yes.”

“She said, ‘Look! A crying Hebrew baby.’ Look. She saw that he was crying, but didn’t hear.”

“So tell me what that implies,” he said—no patronizing, no self-righteousness.

“She knew he was a Hebrew because only Jews cry silently.”

For an instant, for a stitch, Jacob was overwhelmed by the terror that he had managed to lose the most intelligent person on earth.

“Was she right?” the rabbi asked.

“Yes,” Julia said. “He was a Hebrew.”

“But was she right that Jews cry silently?”

“Not in my experience,” Julia said, with a chuckle that drew a depressurizing chuckle from the others.

Without moving, the rabbi stepped into the grave of silence. He looked at Julia, almost unbearably directly, as if they were the only two living people left, as if the only thing that distinguished those buried from those standing was ninety degrees.

He looked into her and said, “But in your experience, do Jews cry silently?”

She nodded.

“And now I’d like to ask you a question, Benjy.”

“OK.”

“Let’s say we have two choices, as Jews: to cry silently, as your mother has said, or to cry in Jewish, as you said. What would it sound like to cry in Jewish?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nobody knows, so you can’t be wrong.”

“I don’t even have a guess.”

“Maybe like laughing?” Max suggested.

“Like laughing?”

“I don’t know. That’s what we do.”

For an instant, for a stitch, Jacob was overwhelmed by the terror that he had managed to ruin the three most beautiful human beings on earth.

He remembered when Sam was young, how every time he got a scrape, cut, or burn, after every blood test, every fall from every tree branch that was forever after deemed “too high,” Jacob would urgently pick him up, as if the ground were suddenly on fire, and say, “You’re fine. It’s OK. It’s nothing. You’re fine.” And Sam would always believe him. And Jacob would be thrilled by how well it worked, and ashamed by how well it worked. Sometimes, if a greater lie was needed, if there was visible blood, Jacob would even say, “It’s funny.” And his son would believe him, because sons have no choice. But sons do feel pain. And the absence of the expression of pain is not the absence of pain. It is a different pain. When Sam’s hand was crushed, he said, “It’s funny. It’s funny, right?” That was his inheritance.

The columns of Jacob’s legs couldn’t bear the weight of his heavy heart. He felt himself buckling, in weakness or genuflection.

He put his arm on Julia’s shoulder. She didn’t turn to him, she showed no acknowledgment of his touch, but she kept him standing.

“So,” the rabbi said, reassuming his authority, “what can we say about Isaac Bloch, and how should we mourn him? There are only two kinds of Jews of his generation: those who perished and those who survived. We swore our allegiance to the victims, were good on our promise never to forget them. But we turned our backs on those who endured, and forgot them. All our love was for the dead.