Great Lion of God by Taylor Caldwell Page B

Hillel’s demurrings on the subject not only ridiculous but incredible. “God made us as we are,” Reb Isaac had said, staring at Hillel as if he suspected him of heresy at the very least. “We are naturally endowed with appetites, which must be controlled if we are to attain civilized manhood and walk proudly as Jews. Are we Romans or Greeks? Are we Epicureans? No, thank God, blessed be His Name! It has been said that men have been given lusts in order to conquer them, and thus become more than animals who obey all their lusts. How, then, can we know these things until we first acknowledge the lusts in honesty and understanding, and then modify and use them in the service of God and man?”
    “We Pharisees,” said Hillel, “know the Holy Commandments concerning all things, including adultery. We do not condone nor suffer violations. Therefore, we have taught modesty as well as restraint.”
    Reb Isaac’s black stare had ironically widened. “You younger Pharisees, it would appear, do not know the essence of the Law! Tell me, Hillel ben Borush, would you say only to your son, ‘It is not wise to caress or kiss a woman?’ The boy would become confused and uncertain. But if you say to him, ‘You shall not enter and lie with a woman when it is not permitted,’ he will know of a certainty what you mean, for children are not so pure and innocent as you would seem to suspect. They have instincts, and some of their instincts are stronger than men’s.” The old man smiled what Hillel thought was a diabolical smile but in truth was only an amused one. “We do not condemn fornication, my son, though we do not advocate it! It is adultery which is the crime. Let us be men and not coy women.”
    Hillel, as Reb Isaac suspected, used daintier language than advocated when he spoke to Saul of “the duties of pious men.” Saul had then been but six years of age. He had studied his father in dutiful and respectful silence. Only his high color became higher. He had seen the mating of swans and goats and birds and small chattering animals and had thought nothing immodest about the matter. But Hillel’s hesitant approach, his open and gentle embarrassment, his pained slight smile, had not only astonished the boy but had made him embarrassed in turn, and wondering. He already knew that men mate as do the beasts, but less openly. He had not considered that his sister had been delivered by some thaumaturgy or the visitation of an angel. He was already studying the Scriptures ably.
    Then the astute Reb Isaac approached the subject with bluntness. We are warned to beware of the strange woman, in the Scriptures,” he said, “for it is said that she is the gate to hell. Stolen waters are sweet and bread eaten in secret appears to be more delightful than honest bread. If a strange woman diverts a man from his duty as a man, then she has destroyed him. Hark to my words, my son: A woman is far more powerful in all ways than a man, for all she does not possess muscles of any notable size.” He then became more explicit, in an effort to overcome what he discerned was the boy’s shamefacedness, due to poor Hillel’s stammering and circumlocution. In consequence of this determinedly brutal approach—and Saul’s own barely stifled contempt for his mother’s pretensions and airs and graces—and Hillel’s awkward sheepishness, Saul early acquired not only a strong suspicion of women but a far more rigid attitude toward them than even Reb Isaac could have desired. He never fully recovered from his belief that there was something intrinsically vile about the relationship between a man and a woman, and that even the propagation of the race—created to praise God—did not entirely condone it. Before he was fourteen he had almost concluded that God had been in error in inventing such a process, and that one more befitting the dignity of man ought to have occurred to the King of the Universe. Reb Isaac, never a teacher who avoided the