Часть 5

Глава 14

Between the third and fourth day, my mood jumped back and forth erratically from wild exhilaration to gloomy apprehension. I knew I was doing well, otherwise Rav Gershenson would have stopped me, but I kept wishing he would say something and not just stand or sit in complete silence.

Some of the Hasidic students in the class were giving me mixed looks of awe and jealousy, as if they couldn't restrain their feelings of admiration over how well I was doing but at the same time were asking themselves how someone like me, a Zionist and the son of a man who wrote apikorsische articles, could possibly know Talmud so well. Danny, though, seemed absolutely delighted over what was happening. He never looked at me while I read and explained, but I could see him nodding his head and smiling as I went through my explanations. And Rav Gershenson remained silent and impassive, listening intently, his face expressionless, except for an occasional upward curving along the comers of his lips whenever I clarified a particularly difficult point. By the end of the third day, it began to be something of a frustrating experience. I wished he would at least say or do something, nod his head, smile, even catch me at a mistake anything but that awful silence.

I was prepared' for Rav Gershenson to call on me again the fourth day, and he did. There was by now only one more thought unit left in the passage, and I had decided in advance that when I was done explaining it I would quickly review the entire passage and all the commentaries, outlining the difficulties they had found in the text and showing the different ways they had explained these difficulties. Then I would go into the attempt of the late medieval commentary to reconcile the diverse explanations of the commentaries. All of that took me just under an hour, and when I was satisfied that I had done the best I could, I stopped talking. Rav Gershenson was sitting behind his desk, looking at me intently. It felt strange to me for a moment not to be hearing my own voice any more. But I had nothing more to say.

There was a brief silence, during which I saw one of the Hasidic students grin and lean over to whisper something into another Hasidic student's ear. Then Rav Gershenson got to his feet and folded his arms across his chest. He was smiling a little now, and the upper part of his body was swaying slowly back and forth.

He asked me to repeat a point I had made two days earlier, and I did. He asked me to make myself a little clearer on a passage in one of the commentaries, and I repeated the passage by heart and explained it again as best I could. He asked me to go over the difficulties I had found in the various commentaries, and I repeated them carefully. Then he asked me to show how the late medieval commentary had attempted to reconcile these difficulties, and I went over that, too.

Again, there was a brief silence. I glanced at my watch and saw it was two-thirty. I wondered if he would start on the next passage with only half an hour left to the shiur. He usually preferred to start a new passage – or inyan, as it is called – at the beginning of a shiur, so as to give the class time to get into it. I was feeling very satisfied with the way I had explained the passage and answered his questions. I promised myself that I would tell my father all about it when I visited him in the hospital that evening.

Then I heard Rav Gershenson ask me whether I was satisfied with the late medieval commentary's attempt at reconciliation.

It was a question I hadn't expected. I had regarded the effort at reconciliation as the rock bottom of the entire discussion on the passage and had never thought that Rav Gershenson would question it. For a long moment, I felt myself wallowing in that dreaded silence that always followed a question of his that a student couldn't answer, and I waited for the drumming of his fingers to begin. But his arms remained folded across his chest, and he stood there, swaying slowly back and forth, and looking at me intently.

'Nu, ' he said again, 'there are no questions about what he says? '

I waited for Danny's hand to go up, but it didn't. I glanced at him and saw his mouth had fallen slightly open. The question had caught him by surprise, too.

Rav Gershenson stroked his pointed beard with his right hand, then asked me for the third time if I was satisfied with what the commentary said.

I heard myself tell him that I wasn't.

'Ah, ' he said, smiling faintly. 'Good. And why not? '

'Because it's pilpul, ' I heard myself say.

There was a stir from the class. I saw Danny stiffen in his seat, throw me a quick, almost fearful glance, then look away.

I was suddenly a little frightened at the disparaging way I had uttered the word pilpul. The tone of disapproval in my voice hung in the air of the classroom like a threat.

Rav Gershenson slowly stroked his pointed gray beard. 'So, ' he said softly, it is pilpul. I see you do not like pilpul. Nu, the great Vilna Gaon also did not like pilpul. ' He was talking about Rabbi Elijah of Vilna, the eighteenth-century opponent of Hasidism. 'Tell me, Reuven' – that was the first time he had ever called me by my first name – 'why is it pilpul? What is wrong with his explanation? '

I answered that it was strained, that it attributed nuances to the various conflicting commentaries that were not there, and that, therefore, it really was not a reconciliation at all.

He nodded his head slowly. 'Nu, ' he said, not speaking only to me but to the entire class now, 'it is a very difficult inyan. And the commentaries' – he used the term 'Rishonim', which indicates the early medieval Talmudic commentators – 'do not help us. ' Then he looked at me. 'Tell me, Reuven, ' he said quietly, 'how do you explain the inyan? '

I sat there and stared at him in stunned silence. If the commentators hadn't been able to explain it, how could I? But he didn't let the silence continue this time. Instead, he repeated his question, his voice soft, gentle. 'You cannot explain it, Reuven? '

'No, ' I heard myself say.

The Chosen

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Chaim Potok

Глава 14

Часть 5

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