Lyalya, I hate the Jewish Question! It is the most disgusting question in the history of our civilization. It should be abolished as a fiction, as nonexistent. Why do all humanitarian, cultural, and philosophical problems—to say nothing about purely religious problems—constantly dance around the Jews? God has laughed at his chosen people far more than at any of the others! He knew perfectly well that a person cannot love God more than himself. That is something only a very few chosen people can do. Daniel was one of them, and there are a few others. For these people the Jewish Question does not exist. It should be abolished!
At 4:30 this morning I stopped puking and at 2 o’clock this afternoon I more or less got up and sat down to finish the book.
I am sending you Part Three. Not much more to go.
Love,
Lyusya
PART FOUR
1. 1984, Kfar Saba
L
ETTER FROM
T
ERESA TO
V
ALENTINA
F
ERDINANDOVNA
Dear, sweet Valentina,
It seems like unbelievable good fortune! When we had quite lost hope that Efim could become a serving priest, everything suddenly changed as if someone had waved a magic wand. Amazing as it may seem, it is Daniel who has got everything moving. He was received at the Ministry of Religious Affairs by the Minister herself, a woman, can you believe it? I do not know why the meeting took place, or even whether he was summoned by the Ministry or chose to go there himself, but what was being discussed was the existence of Christian churches in Israel. The lady minister said, We know that you love Israel and we need the kind of Christian Church which will not quietly engage in subversive games against us. Daniel said he loves this land, conducts sightseeing excursions through it, and is also helping to build it, although the minister might not agree with that. This lady is fairly young and, as Daniel said, very perspicacious and even witty. She commented that the further Christian building progresses, the more it resembles the Tower of Babel. “We Israelis would like to build our little orchard in the shade of that great tower but at a considerable distance from it, so that when it falls down, it does not bury our modest borders under its rubble.”
Daniel said that Christianity builds relations between man and God, and the aggressiveness of modern civilization shows itself quite independently of denominations, while any dialogue between man and God leads to the restraining of aggression and to peacemaking.
She laughed and said that Israeli society completely disproves his point of view because there is not a country in the world where there is so much religious tension. Daniel said he had no answer to that. Then she asked whether he could recommend priests who love Israel as he does himself, or at least do not hate it like the majority of priests she knows. She wanted priests capable of peacemaking and not of fanning interreligious conflicts. At this, Daniel named Efim! I do not know how the mechanism works, but shortly afterward Efim received an invitation to visit the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission and went to the Church of the Trinity. He supposed he would be received by an archimandrite, but was met instead by someone who introduced himself as Nikolai Ivanovich and who proceeded to interview him.
Nikolai Ivanovich is a kind of personnel officer, and one may suppose that finally the letter from the abbot in Vilnius has had an effect. Efim is now awaiting appointment to a parish.
A week ago we went on a magical trip to the Dead Sea and spent two days in a guesthouse in one of the oldest kibbutzes. They have a marvelous botanical garden, old houses built by the first settlers, and one new building where they rent rooms to visitors. Everything is very clean and pretty, and there are rare plants and even a baobab tree. The whole kibbutz is situated on a hill. In one direction there is a view of the Dead Sea, and in good weather when there is no haze you can see Jordan. In the other direction there is a ravine at the bottom of which a river flows in the spring before drying up. In this rocky ravine there are a lot of caves and we were shown one in which, according to legend, the young David hid from King Saul who was persecuting him.
It was after this journey, which in some sense could be called our honeymoon, that our marriage was consummated. I know I have to thank you for your advice, and another doctor here to whom we had to go for consultations, but most of all God who united us by his great mercy. Efim and I are very happy and full of hope. Of course we are no longer young, but our prayers for the granting of offspring are now supported by the requisite actions.
One more substantial and also pleasant piece of information: the publishing house has proposed that Efim should edit Readings on Reading, a series of domestic lectures by Father Mikhail which you are very familiar with. The fee is modest, but I am almost certain that they will appreciate Efim and continue to give him work in the future. I hope that he will ultimately succeed in publishing his Reflections on the Liturgy there.
I think Father Mikhail already knows about this favorable development, but if not, please give him the glad tidings. The book should come off the presses at the end of this or the beginning of next year.
I will let you know the moment our news ripens.
With love,
Teresa
1984, Be’er Sheva
F
ROM A LETTER FROM
T
ERESA TO
V
ALENTINA
F
ERDINANDOVNA
… hot and stuffy, oppressive and dehydrating. The wind is from the Negev Desert. I know now for a fact that hell is fiery and not icy. A hot, inebriating wind which blows away your brains and all your thoughts, your heart and all your emotions, and you wait for night when it will not be so hot, but your expectations are disappointed. The Hamsin blows and turns you into a cliff which feels nothing or a pile of rocks or a handful of sand. You pour water into yourself every five minutes, because without it you would be like a withered plant within hours. People do not sweat properly here because as soon as sweat is secreted on the surface of your skin it evaporates and the water you drank is already gone. I am hardly able to eat. Sometimes at night time I gnaw an apple or salt biscuit with sweet tea.
Efim laughs and says that salt herring with sweet tea is a favorite Jewish treat. We have been here for two months and until now I haven’t been able to write because I could not get up and put pen to paper. I have become so thin that my clothes dangle from me as if I were a clothes hanger. I think I have lost about 10 kilograms. Efim has also lost weight, but he copes with the heat far better than I do.
The little church is wonderful, small, built of stone, and no services have been held in it for a long time because after the last priest, a Greek monk, died the few parishioners dispersed. How amazed Efim was when he discovered several Jews from Russia among his new parishioners, including a couple who lecture at the local university. Two large Bedouin families also came, several Greeks, and a Japanese man married to a Russian-Israeli woman.
The Japanese converted to Orthodoxy from Lutheranism. Not even the D—l knows what is going on in his head, but Efim very entertainingly relayed their discussion of ethics as seen from the viewpoint of a Shintoist Japanese and a modern Christian. When he was young, the Japanese was a Shintoist, but converted to Lutheranism back in Japan. He came to Israel 20 years ago with a Protestant tourist group, met an Orthodox monk in the Old Town whom he took as his teacher, and followed him into an Orthodox monastery near Jerusalem, where he lived for three years. This Shintoist Zionist decided to settle here temporarily but is now a permanent resident.