Examining Judgment

By TALIA ROSENBLATT

JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE MILLENIUM
A Novel of the Middle Ages.
By A.B. Yehoshua.
352 pages. Harvest Books. $14.

Yehoshua's Journey To the End of the Millennium is a story of journeys and judgments. Set in 999, Ben Attar, a Jew from North Africa, his nephew Abulafia, and Abu Lutfi, a Muslim, are merchants joined in a three-way partnership. Each year, Ben Attar and Abu Lutfi gather spices and materials from the exotic land of Africa and undertake a voyage to the shores of Europe. Their custom is to meet Abulafia just before the fast of the Ninth of Av, remembering the destruction of the Temple, to take stock of the merchandise. Abulafia then travels on land to sell the sought after goods. The partnership is a model of synchronicity: between North and South, Jew and Muslim, and Jew and Christian, as Abulafia sells the goods throughout Christian Europe.

The harmonious arrangement is overturned when Abulafia marries the blue-eyed, flaxen haired Mistress Esther-Minna, a rabbi's daughter who grew up in Worms and lives in Paris. Esther-Minna is appalled to learn that her husband's mentor and uncle, Ben Attar, has two wives, and furthermore, that Southern, or Sephardic Jewry permits such things. While the widowed and childless Esther-Minna is a strong-willed and confident woman, she fears the long journeys her husband will continue to take every year and furthermore, that Abulafia, who is ten years her junior, might deign to take a second wife. With her scholarly brother, Master Levitas, to support her, Esther-Minna repudiates her husband's uncle and partner Ben Attar for his dual marriage, thereby disbanding the three-way partnership.

Ben Attar sets out on a dangerous journey to Paris with his two wives, his partner Abu Lutfi, and Rabbi Elbaz, in order to defend his dual marriage and thereby win back his nephew and protégé Abulafia. Although Rabbi Elbaz wins his case at the lay tribunal convened in Paris, he suggests subjecting the matter to further trial, this time in Worms, to be decided by scholars instead of lay people. This time, Ben Attar is defeated. The second wife becomes gravely ill, convinced that the judge misunderstood her assertion that women can be joined to two men spiritually, not physically. Because she is too sick to continue, Ben Attar and his wives spend Yom Kippur at the home of a physician and at the conclusion of the fast, the second wife dies. Once again, the group travels to Paris where they bury the second wife, and finally, under the cloud of death, the partnership between North and South is reestablished.

Yehoshua ingeniously sets his tale at the dawning of a new millennium, inviting the reader to journey back in time. We arrive at a far enough distance to safely judge the consequences of their actions, and yet, for all the time that has passed, it seems that in many ways, little has changed. They mourn, as we do now, the destruction of the Temple, they atone for their sins on Yom Kippur, they rejoice during Sukkot, the feast of the Tabernacle. Just as the Jewish year circles back upon itself, so it seems that history is a series of somersaults.

On the High Holidays, we are asked to reflect on the year that has passed and assess how far we have come, individually and collectively, behaviorally and spiritually. Yehoshua demands that we do the same. The battle between those who advocate rigid observance of law and those who favor adherence to the spirit of the law continues. Ben Attar's fear that his financial success may engender enmity among his Muslim neighbors is a fear that still permeates the Jewish psyche. Almost comically, one thousand years later, we are still struggling to find the balance of power between men and women. More profound is that over one hundred years before the Crusades, the Jews of Christian Europe fear they will be expelled from their homes or killed. One cannot help but call up images of the realization of their fears throughout the last thousand years, not so far in the distant past.

At the end of the novel, Ben Attar is nearly broken by grief. His travels have cost him dearly. As he sets sail for home, he sadly resigns himself to his new cargo, slaves. The message is clear: the days of innocence are over. The lines between North and South, Jew and Muslim, and Jew and Christian, have all been clearly drawn. Ben Attar has learned that one cannot fight for his own personal choices to be deemed universally moral. Just as he is forced to give up his wife by submitting to a foreign understanding of virtue, so he must concede to Abu Lutfi's decision to take up the slave trade.

While Yehoshua gracefully refrains from judging his own characters, over and over, he asks that we examine judgment. Who is fit to judge another? Is there such a thing as truth in judgment? We find ourselves asking why north has a right to judge south? The list goes on but the answer remains; humans are not sound judges. We pass judgment on one another because that is our nature. In every age, we trust that our assumptions about medicine and morality are true, but with the clarity of time we often see differently.

The cantor leads Ben Attar and the others in prayer on Yom Kippur: What shall we say before thee, O thou that dwellest on high, or what shall we recount before thee, O thou that inhabitest the heavens, for surely thou knowest all the hidden things. At the end of the novel, neither side feels itself to have been victorious. Rather, they accept their circumstances and rededicate themselves to their partners, peers, loved ones and their faith. Knowing that these are the bonds that last, they journey into the next millennium. Something to be mindful of as we journey into the next New Year.


Reprinted with permission from the AVI CHAI Bookshelf, where birthright israel alumni can order free books and periodicals.