The Spinoza Problem by Irvin D. Yalom Read Free Book Online

right. We will see you in two weeks to read your written assignment and to discuss all aspects of your reading assignment. Is that clear?”
    Another nod. “Sir, may I ask a question? Before, you said two assignments. I have to do genealogical research; I have to read two chapters. And I have to write three copies of the material on Benedict Spinoza.”
    “That’s correct,” said the headmaster. “And your question?”

    “Sir, isn’t that three assignments rather than two?”
    “Rosenberg,” interjected Herr Schäfer, “twenty assignments would be lenient. Calling your headmaster unfit for his position because he is Jewish is sufficient grounds for expulsion from any school in Estonia or in the Fatherland.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Wait, Herr Schäfer, perhaps the boy has a point. The Goethe assignment is so important that I want him to do it with great thoroughness.” Headmaster Epstein turned to Alfred. “You’re excused from the genealogy project. Concentrate fully on Goethe’s words. Meeting adjourned. We will see you here in two weeks exactly. Same time. And be sure to turn in your copies of the written assignment to me the day before.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    AMSTERDAM—1656
    G ood morning, Gabriel,” called Bento as he heard his brother washing in preparation for the Sabbath services. Gabriel merely grunted in response but reentered their bedroom and sat down heavily on the imposing four-poster bed that they shared. The bed, which filled most of the room, was the one familiar remnant of their past.
    Their father, Michael, had left all the family possessions to Bento, the elder son, but Bento’s two sisters protested their father’s will on the grounds that he had chosen not to be a true member of the Jewish community. Though the Jewish court had decided in favor of Bento, he then startled everyone by immediately turning over all the family property to his siblings, keeping for himself only one thing—his parents’ four-poster bed. After the marriage of his two sisters, he and Gabriel were left alone in the fine three-story white house that the Spinoza family had rented for decades. Their home fronted the Houtgracht, near the busiest intersections in the Jewish section of Amsterdam, just a block from the small Beth Jacob Synagogue and the adjoining classrooms.
    Bento and Gabriel had, with regret, decided to move. With their sisters gone, the old house was too large and too haunted by images of the dead. And too expensive as well—the 1652 Dutch-English war and pirate raids of ships from Brazil had been disastrous for the Spinoza import business, obliging the brothers to rent a small house only a five-minute walk from the store.
    Bento took a long look at his brother. When Gabriel was a child, people often called him “little Bento,” for they had the same long, oval face, the same
piercing owl eyes, the same powerful nose. Now, however, the fully formed Gabriel was forty pounds heavier than his older brother, five inches taller, and far stronger. And his eyes no longer seemed to peer far into the distance.
    In silence, the brothers sat side by side. Ordinarily, Bento cherished silence and felt at ease sharing meals with Gabriel or working together in the shop without exchanging a word. But this silence was oppressive and begat dark thoughts. Bento thought about his sister, Rebekah, who in the past had always been loquacious and bubbly. Now she, too, offered him silence and averted her glance whenever she saw him.
    And silent, too, were all the dead, all those who had died cradled by this very bed: his mother, Hanna, who had died seventeen years ago, when he was barely six; his older brother, Isaac, six years ago; his stepmother, Esther, three years ago; and both his father and his sister Miriam, only two years ago. Of his siblings—that noisy, high-spirited, band who played and quarreled and made up and sorrowed for their mother and slowly grew to love their stepmother—there remained only Rebekah and