Rating: 
Summary: Don't Miss Chapter 41. Forget the Rest.
Review: Worth reading for its own sake in an often implausibly plotted 504 page novel is one gem of a theological chapter, number 41, pp. 424 - 441. There Naomi, a thoroughlyy secularized Jew from New York, attends a seder hosted by the only other Jewish people in this part of xenophobic, judgmental, small town New Hampshire -- Joel and Judith Friedman. What unites the two women is determination to see justice done to young, naive Heather Pratt, accused on flimsy grounds of a double infanticide. Heather has entrusted the temporary care of her young illegitimate daughter Polly to Naomi and Judith is Heather's defense lawyer. Chapter 41 contrasts certain Jewish and non-Jewish attitudes and values regarding abuse of power and killing the innocent, taking as a starting point Biblical Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his innocent son at God's command. Also present at the passover ceremony are David, an expert witness for the defense, Judith's sister Rachel and her daughter Hannah and Judith's husband Joel. And 18 month old Polly.The adults speak of assimilated and non-assimilated American Jews (p. 428f). They discuss Rachel's other child, Simon, at home with Rachel's husband. Simon has an incurable degenerative illness. A Talmud tale is told of the angel Gabriel taking a newborn Jewish child maimed by Egyptian officials to show God and remind Him to be merciful. Naomi finds "this God of ours" so cruel (p. 432). Joel replies, God told Moses that He was a jealous God. But remember that He did choose us Jews as His people. After the seder ceremonies, conversation moves on to why the Messiah keeps putting off coming. Why do American Jews abandon their God by assimilating? (p. 432) Why doesn't an omnipotent, all good God at least prevent the suffering of children? Perhaps suffering helps us to understand and value suffering's opposite. Naomi does not believe in God but would like to. David tells of attending a movie about the Rapture with a born again Christian friend (p. 434). The film's main character is an agnostic who watches all her born-again friends suddenly disappear. The atheist Naomi considers herself Jewish by virtue of the DNA of generations of sheer "survivors." David notes that survival is the theme of the seder. The theme of post- 1945 seders is pointedly defiant: "We're still here" (p. 435). OK, God ended the holocaust, but what was He doing when it started, Naomi wonders? (p. 436). Christians can handle sorrow; for they believe God won't send them suffering so dreadful they can't bear it. But what do we Jews have? No after-life. A God very detached from us but nonetheless constantly testing us. Rachel, bitter about her afflicted child, says that on the Jewish theory, we never pass the test (p. 437) Joel comments that Abraham at least passed the test. Rachel says that God did wrong to test Abraham and thereby condemn Isaac to a life of remembering his father with a knife poised over him. Joel: God knew that Abraham would pass; perhaps He just wanted Abraham to learn how great was his own devotion. Naomi is troubled about a God asking us to kill anyone for any reason at all (p. 438). David welcomes her viewpoint. For the Talmud says that "when the debate is in the service of heaven, both sides are sustained" (p. 438). Naomi presses on: the murder of a child can never be justified (p. 439). The second baby killed in the novel had been born alive. Naomi says nothing could justify its killing, its being stabbed. Judith says that circumstances matter and "It was morphine" (439). Joel: we know this: that Abraham did the right thing and "we were chosen by God as a result of his choice" (p. 439). Naomi thinks that Abraham probably failed the test. "Maybe God wanted to see that Abraham's humanity was greater than his faith" (p. 439) Maybe God then singled out Abraham's descendants "for an eternity of torments"(p. 440). The other adults react with obvious distaste. Naomi can't decide what she has done wrong? Why had Judith glared at her and left the table? (p. 441) Judith said that her husband Joel does not believe but is trying to believe by a sheer act of his will. Judith says that if there is a God, she does not want Him in her house. My comment: The ideas of Chapter 41 may perhaps be unoriginal or even trite, expressed countless times by intelligent, active participants in America's rich Jewish oral culture. But to me, a mere fly on the wall at this conversation, much was new and worth pondering. It is a rare pleasure to overhear such good talk by people not afraid to be passionately concerned about their religion. -OOO-
| 
