Karp's look of surprise turned to one of delight as he spun to face the voice's owner. "John Jojola! You nearly gave me a heart attack."
"We Indians are sneaky like that," Jojola said, smiling. "Hey, sounds like you need to get going, I'll be here when you get back…if you don't mind."
"Ah, jeez," Zak whined. "It's just a stupid bar mitzvah class."
"Hey," Jojola said to him with a half-serious scowl. "Don't neglect your spiritual side or when you need it most the spirits may not be there for you."
"Is that an Indian saying?" Giancarlo asked.
"Um, no, not that I know of…I just made it up, but I believe it," Jojola said. "Now get going or I won't tell you that story later of how Brother Bear lost his tail."
When the twins had grumbled their way out the door, Karp looked back. "So what brings you to New York?" he asked, not sure that he wanted to hear the answer.
"A dream," Jojola said. He laughed when he saw the confused look on Karp's face. "Go on. It's no big deal. We'll talk when you get back."
Why are these things always no big deal, Karp thought as he headed down the stairs, until they are a big deal.
That past spring, the twins had suddenly expressed an interest in going through their bar mitzvah. The request had taken him somewhat by surprise as the boys had been brought up in the Catholic heritage of their mother. However, the more he thought about it, the more pleased he was that his sons were so open to exploring their other half. Then that summer he'd been approached by the rabbi at the synagogue where the twins were taking classes. The rabbi was asking prominent Jewish men to teach classes, which would also contain girls who were studying for their bat mitzvah. Karp had agreed, in large part because of the lure of spending more time with his sons.
The meeting with Liz Tyler and the lesson about integrity were on his mind when he began that night's lesson by setting up a slide show and then turning to the class. "I'm going to talk to you today about a Jew who changed the world. Can anybody guess who?"
"Solomon!" Giancarlo shouted. "Our legal system is based on his court."
"Bob Dylan!" Zak shouted louder. "He rocks!" He didn't really like Dylan-that was more his mother's music-but it was the only Jewish rock musician he could think of quickly and it got the desired laugh from the class. All except Rachel Levine, the thorn in the side of his twelve-year-old maledom and the class know-it-all.
"Try not to be so silly if you can possibly help it, Zak," Rachel said and turned her attention back to Karp. "I believe Mr. Karp must be speaking of Abraham, the father of three great religions-the oldest, Judaism; Christianity; and Islam, which calls him Ibrahim." A look of concern crossed the girl's face. "Of course, the answer depends, Mr. Karp, on whether you're speaking about actual people. As I'm sure you know, Abraham may have been more myth than man."
"What makes you think he wasn't real?" Karp asked. "Isn't he buried with his wife, Sarah, in the Cave of Machpelah near Hebron?"
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Yes, there was probably a historical figure named Abraham, hard to prove scientifically, but really, Mr. Karp, I was talking about the man who spoke to God and all that nonsense."
"My sister talks to a saint who's been dead for five hundred years," Giancarlo said matter-of-factly.
"Yeah, some dudes shot her full of arrows-the saint, not my sister," said Zak, always one to dig into the bloodier side of any story.
"My mother says your sister is crazy," Rachel retorted. "I guess talking to dead saints proves it."
"My sister is not crazy-at least not legally," Giancarlo replied thoughtfully. "She definitely knows the difference between right and wrong. Besides, it could just be the manifestation of post-traumatic stress syndrome after nearly being slaughtered by a homicidal maniac and then almost murdered by a sheriff in New Mexico. Other than that, she's as normal as you are."
Zak, having run out of anything clever to say himself, backed up his brother. "Yeah, and take that back or I'll-"
"You'll what? Physically assault me? I'd call the cops and you'd be locked up and then your dad would have to prosecute you and send you off to prison," Rachel said and stuck her tongue out.
"And she speaks about sixty or something languages," Giancarlo continued in the defense of his sister.
"Speaking in tongues is demonic," said Ira, a timid boy but acknowledged by all but Rachel as the class's religious scholar.
"She doesn't speak in tongues, you idiot, she knows other languages-French, Chinese, Samoan," Zak shouted and then stuck his tongue out at the girl.
While this was going on, Karp had looked on with slack-jawed amazement at how quickly things had deteriorated. Just like my staff meeting, he thought. "Okay, okay, enough, this debate has veered off into the spectacularly ridiculous," he said. "I wasn't talking about Solomon or Abraham or even Bob Dylan, although they were all good answers and great Jews. Did you know that Positively 4th Street was written just a few blocks from my home? Never mind." He turned on the slide projector. "The Jew I was talking about was…"
The first slide appeared on the screen. It was El Greco's painting of Jesus upsetting the tables of the money changers in front of the temple in Jerusalem. "…Jesus of Nazareth," he said.
"Jesus!" Ira exclaimed in something near to a panic.
"Isn't he a Christian?" Zak asked.
"He was a Jew first…everyone knows that," Rachel said. "Mr. Karp, are you sure this is appropriate for this class?"
"Sure, why not?" Karp replied. "He never stopped being a Jew. He was born a Jew and died a Jew and somewhere in between being born and dying, he delivered a powerful enough message that a lot of Jews, as well as a lot of other folks, came to believe that he was the Messiah. But as Jews, we considered him a rabbi-like Rabbi Yakowitz-and a great scholar of the Torah. That's all he is in this painting by El Greco called Purification of the Temple, a Jewish carpenter and rabbi."
"What's he doing?" Zak asked, hoping for a good riot story.
"Well, this is during Pesach, or Passover-which, as we know from our studies, is the eight days in the spring when we celebrate the freedom and exodus of the Israelites from Egypt-and Jesus was upset that the money changers were conducting business in the Temple of Herod, which was supposed to be a place to go to pray. He was also upset that sacrificial animals were being sold there-'the blood of innocents,' he said-and the money changers were part of that business.
"The point is that this attack on the establishment was one in a series of acts of civil disobedience by Jesus that would put him in conflict with the people in charge," Karp said.
"The Romans," Zak said helpfully.
"Yes, but almost more so the Jewish leaders-the old rabbis and holy men," Karp said. "These acts frightened them because they knew he was morally right."
"Bet he wouldn't have done it if he knew he was going to get nailed to a cross," Zak said.
"Really, Zak?" Karp asked. "It's an interesting question. Christians say that Jesus knew what lay ahead of him and chose his path anyway. But let's say for the sake of argument that he didn't know. He was a carpenter, he could have settled down, married, had children, and lived happily ever after. But there was something inside of him-some say it was God-that made him do the things that would get him crucified. Whether it came from God or was just part of who he was, what it amounted to was that he had integrity."
Karp paused. He hadn't intended to use that word, but now that it was out, it seemed right. Jesus had integrity. He pressed the button on the slide projector and the next image appeared on the screen, El Greco's painting The Crucifixion.
"Sometimes having integrity can cost you everything you have, even your life."