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The Conversion of the Jews “Bull.” Philip Roth (1959) “That’s what Rabbi Binder says, that it’s impossible—“ “Sure it’s impossible. That stuff’s all bull. To have a baby “You’re a real one for opening your mouth in the first place,” you gotta get laid,” Itzie theologized. “Mary hadda get laid.” Itzie said. “What do you open your mouth all the time for?” “That’s what Binder says: ‘The only way a woman can have “I didn’t bring it up, Itz, I didn’t,” Ozzie said. a baby is to have intercourse with a man.’” “What do you care about Jesus Christ for anyway?” “He said that, Ozz?” For a moment it appeared that Itzie “I didn’t bring up Jesus Christ. He did. I didn’t even know had put the theological question aside. “He said that, what he was talking about. Jesus is historical, he kept intercourse?” A little curled smile shaped itself in the lower saying. Jesus is historical.” Ozzie mimicked the half of Itzie’s face like a pink mustache. “What you guys do, monumental voice of Rabbi Binder. Ozz, you laugh or something?” “Jesus was a person that lived like you and me,” Ozzie “I raised my hand.” continued. “That’s what Binder said—“ “Yeah? Whatja say?” “Yeah? ... So what! What do I give-two cents whether he “That’s when I asked the question.” lived or not. And what do you gotta open your mouth!” Itzie Lieberman favored closed-mouthedness, especially when it Itzie’s face lit up. “Whatja ask about—intercourse?” came to Ozzie Freedman’s questions. Mrs. Freedman had “No, I asked the question about God, how if He could create to see Rabbi Binder twice before about Ozzie’s questions the heaven and earth in six days, and make all the animals and this Wednesday at four-thirty would be the third time. and the fish and the light in six days—the light especially, Itzie preferred to keep his mother in the kitchen; he settled that’s what always gets me, that He could make the light. for behind-the-back subtleties such as gestures, faces, Making fish and animals, that’s pretty good—“ snarls and other less delicate barnyard noises. “That’s damn good.” Itzie’s appreciation was honest but “He was a real person, Jesus, but he wasn’t like God, and unimaginative: it was as though God had just pitched a we don’t believe he is God.” Slowly, Ozzie was explaining one-hitter. Rabbi Binder’s position to Itzie, who had been absent from “But making light . I mean when you think about it, it’s Hebrew School the previous afternoon. really something,” Ozzie said. “Anyway, I asked Binder if He “The Catholics,” Itzie said helpfully, “they believe in Jesus could make ail that in six days, and He could pick the six Christ, that he’s God.” Itzie Lieberman used “the Catholics” days he wanted right out of nowhere, why couldn’t He let a in its broadest sense—to include the Protestants. woman have a baby without having intercourse.” Ozzie received Itzie’s remark with a tiny head bob, as “You said intercourse, Ozz, to Binder?” though it were a footnote, and went on. “His mother was “Yeah.” Mary, and his father probably was Joseph,” Ozzie said. “But the New Testament says his real father was God.” “Right in class?” “His real father?” “Yeah.” “Yeah,” Ozzie said, “that’s the big thing, his father’s Itzie smacked the side of his head. supposed to be God.” 2 “I mean, no kidding around,” Ozzie said, “that’d really be bar-mitzvahed1 if he could help it. Then, Itz, then he starts nothing. After all that other stuff, that’d practically be talking in that voice like a statue, real slow and deep, and nothing.” he says that I better think over what I said about the Lord. Itzie considered a moment. “What’d Binder say?” He told me to go to his office and think it over.” Ozzie leaned his body towards Itzie. “Itz, I thought it over for a “He started all over again explaining how Jesus was solid hour, and now I’m convinced God could do it.” historical and how he lived like you and me but he wasn’t God. So I said I understood that. What I wanted to know Ozzie had planned to confess his latest transgression to his was different.” mother as soon as she came home from work. But it was a Friday night in November and already dark, and when Mrs. What Ozzie wanted to know was always different. The first Freedman came through the door she tossed off her coat, time he had wanted to know how Rabbi Binder could call kissed Ozzie quickly on the face, and went to the kitchen the Jews “The Chosen People” if the Declaration of table to light the three yellow candles, two for the Sabbath Independence claimed all men to be created equal. Rabbi and one for Ozzie’s father. Binder tried to distinguish for him between political equality and spiritual legitimacy, but what Ozzie wanted to know, he When his mother lit the candles she would move her two insisted vehemently, was different. That was the first time arms slowly towards her, dragging them through the air, as his mother had to come. though persuading people whose minds were half made up. And her eyes would get glassy with tears. Even when his Then there was the plane crash. Fifty-eight people had been father was alive Ozzie remembered that her eyes had killed in a plane crash at La Guardia. In studying a casualty gotten glassy, so it didn’t have anything to do with his dying. list in the newspaper his mother had discovered among the It had something to do with lighting the candles. list of those dead eight Jewish names (his grandmother had nine but she counted Miller as a Jewish name); because of As she touched the flaming match to the unlit wick of a the eight she said the plane crash was “a tragedy,” During Sabbath candle, the phone rang, and Ozzie, standing only a free-discussion time on Wednesday Ozzie had brought to foot from it, plucked it off the receiver and held it muffled to Rabbi Binder’s attention this matter of “some of his his chest. When his mother lit candles Ozzie felt there relations” always picking out the Jewish names. Rabbi should be no noise; even breathing, if you could manage it, Binder had begun to explain cultural unity and some other should be softened. Ozzie pressed the phone to his breast things when Ozzie stood up at his seat and said that what and watched his mother dragging whatever she was he wanted to know was different. Rabbi Binder insisted that dragging, and he felt his own eyes get glassy. His mother he sit down and it was then that Ozzie shouted that he was a round, tired, gray-haired penguin of a woman whose wished all fifty-eight were Jews. That was the second time gray skin had begun to feel the tug of gravity and the weight his mother came. of her own history. Even when she was dressed up she looked like a chosen person. But when she lit candles she “And he kept explaining about Jesus being historical, and so looked like something better; like a woman who knew I kept asking him. No kidding, Itz, he was trying to make me momentarily that God could do anything. look stupid.” After a few mysterious minutes she was finished. Ozzie “So what he finally do?” hung up the phone and walked to the kitchen table where “Finally he starts screaming that I was deliberately simple-minded and a wise guy, and that my mother had to 1 I.e., he would be denied the ceremony of bar mitzvah that initiates a Jewish boy of come, and this was the last time. And that I’d never get thirteen to his religious duties. 3 she was beginning to lay the two places for the four-course had asked him petulantly why he didn’t read more rapidly. Sabbath meal. He told her that she would have to see He was showing no progress. Ozzie said he could read Rabbi Binder next Wednesday at four-thirty, and then he faster but that if he did he was sure not to understand what told her why. For the first time in their life together she hit he was reading. Nevertheless, at the rabbi’s repeated Ozzie across the face with her hand. suggestion Ozzie tried, and showed a great talent, but in the All through the chopped liver and chicken soup parts of the midst of a long passage he stopped short and said he didn’t dinner Ozzie cried; he didn’t have any appetite for the rest. understand a word he was reading, and started in again at a drag-footed pace. Then came the soul-battering. On Wednesday, in the largest of the three basement classrooms of the synagogue, Rabbi Marvin Binder, a tall, Consequently when free-discussion time rolled around none handsome, broad-shouldered man of thirty with thick of the students felt too free. The rabbi’s invitation was strong-fibered black hair, removed his watch from his answered only by the mumbling of feeble old Blotnik. pocket and saw that it was four o’clock. At the rear of the “Isn’t there anything at all you would like to discuss?” Rabbi room Yakov Blotnik, the seventy-one-year-old custodian, Binder asked again, looking at his watch.

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