The Spinoza Problem Read Free Page A

hesitates, turns back to Alfred, and in a not unkind voice whispers, “Rosenberg, you disappointed me, all of us, with your poor judgment in your speech last night. This poor judgment is not erased by having being elected class representative. Even so, I continue to believe you are not without promise. You graduate in only a few weeks. Don’t be a fool now.”
    Last night’s election speech! Oh, so that’s it . Alfred hits the side of his head with his palm. Of course— that is why I am ordered here . Though almost all forty members of his senior class had been there—mostly Baltic Germans with a sprinkling of Russians, Estonians, Poles, and Jews—Alfred had pointedly directed his campaign comments entirely to the German majority and stirred their spirits by speaking of their mission as keepers of the noble German culture. “Keep our race pure,” he had told them. “Do not weaken it by forgetting our noble traditions, by accepting inferior ideas, by mixing with inferior races.” Perhaps he should have stopped there. But he got carried away. Perhaps he had gone too far.
    His reverie is interrupted by the opening of the massive ten-foot-high door and Headmaster Epstein’s booming voice, “ Herr Rosenberg, bitte, herein .”
    Alfred enters to see his headmaster and his German teacher seated at one end of a long, dark, heavy wood table. Alfred always feels small in the presence of Headmaster Epstein, over six feet tall, whose stately bearing, piercing eyes, and heavy, well-tailored beard embody his authority.
    Headmaster Epstein motions to Alfred to sit in a chair at the end of the table. It is noticeably smaller than the two tall-backed chairs at the other end. The headmaster wastes no time getting to the point. “So, Rosenberg, I’m of Jewish ancestry, am I? And my wife, too, is Jewish, is she? And Jews are an inferior race and should not teach Germans? And, I gather, certainly not be elevated to headmaster?”
    No response. Alfred exhales, tries to shrink further into his chair, and hangs his head.
    “Rosenberg, do I state your position correctly?”
    “Sir . . . uh, sir, I spoke too hastily. I meant these remarks only in a general way. It was an election speech, and I spoke that way because that is what
they wanted to hear.” Out of the corner of his eye, Alfred sees Herr Schäfer slump in his chair, take off his glasses, and rub his eyes.
    “Oh, I see. You spoke in a general way? But now here I am before you, not in general but in particular.”
    “Sir, I say only what all Germans think. That we must preserve our race and our culture.”
    “And as for me and the Jews?”
    Alfred silently hangs his head again. He wants to gaze out the window, midway down the table, but looks up apprehensively at the headmaster.
    “Yes, of course you can’t answer. Perhaps it will loosen your tongue if I tell you that my lineage and that of my wife are pure German, and our ancestors came to the Baltics in the fourteenth century. What’s more, we are devout Lutherans.”
    Alfred nods slowly.
    “And yet you called me and my wife Jews,” the headmaster continues.
    “I did not say that. I only said there were rumors—”
    “Rumors you were glad to spread, to your own personal advantage in the election. And tell me, Rosenberg, the rumors are grounded in what facts? Or are they suspended in thin air?”
    “Facts?” Alfred shakes his head. “Uh. Perhaps your name?”
    “So, Epstein is a Jewish name? All Epsteins are Jews, is that it? Or 50 percent? Or just some? Or perhaps only one in a thousand? What have your scholarly investigations shown you?”
    No answer. Alfred shakes his head.
    “You mean that despite your education in science and philosophy in our school you never think about how you know what you know. Isn’t that one of the major lessons of the Enlightenment? Have we failed you? Or you, us?”
    Alfred looks dumbfounded. Herr Epstein drums his fingers on the long table, then continues.
    “And your name,