Among the learned men who came from Germany, there were several distinguished scholars. Some were experienced medical doctors; some occupied academic chairs and were renowned throughout Germany and beyond. There were those who had been a thorn in the flesh of their Christian colleagues and those whose learning served them well, so that their Christian peers took note of their learning but not of their Jewishness. They now roamed the streets of Jerusa-lem, destitute, with no prospect of a livelihood. This country has only one university, and all its academic positions were occupied. Not many people would act as the scholars of Bathyra did, yielding to the authority of Rabbi Hillel. What an opportunity to make Jerusalem a metropolis of medicine and scholarship! But, because of financial calculations and narrow vision, these great men did not find a footing here. They left the country, and their wisdom was dispersed in other lands.
When these exiled scholars arrived from Germany, Manfred Herbst was like a man who wakes up and is unable to find his clothes.
Since the meaning is simple, I will not pursue the metaphor.
As we know, Herbst was one of the first lecturers at the first Hebrew university in the world, and, as such, he was honored, along with others who, being the first to be appointed lecturers and professors at the Hebrew University, were important in other people’s eyes as well as their own. They lived serenely, relishing this honor, delivering lectures, reading books, each man in his own field. They wrote books too. Those who produced many books rejoiced in them and displayed them prominently; those who produced only one or two maintained that more books do not equal more wisdom; and those who didn’t produce any books at all turned out the sort of dutiful papers that are referred to in the footnotes of scholarly journals and, after a certain number of years, become a monograph.
What about Herbst? After his book on the life of Leo iii, the Byzantine emperor, he published nothing except for several papers that appeared in various collections. But he continued to read widely, even outside of his field, to take notes, compare texts, and collect material for a new book he intended to write on burial customs of the poor in Byzantium. With the arrival of the great academics in exile from Germany, he emerged from the complacency enjoyed by his colleagues, the professors of the Hebrew University.
Herbst began to examine his behavior and was forced to attribute his position to the fact that he had come to the country early, when the university was being established and there were many openings. He recognized that he had been recommended by his renowned professor, Alfred Neu, and made a lecturer on the basis of a book that he had by now fully exploited. Now he had only those tedious notes and references, which became more tedious as their number increased.
Out of habit, and because he had no proper plan, Herbst pored over his books, read prodigiously, took notes, and added more and more references, assuming that in time he would make them into a book — like those instructors who assume that in time they will be granted tenured positions. As the old saying goes: What reason doesn’t do is often done by time.
Herbst sits in his study, reading, writing, making note after note. His note box is filling up. The connection between the notes becomes less and less apparent, every additional part seeming to diminish the whole. Learning can become impotent; fed on its regular diet, in the end it loses its potency.
His reward came from an unexpected source. Herbst, as we know, in addition to reading everything in his field, also read books that were totally unrelated — even books one would be shocked to know he was reading.
Through one such book, Herbst made a discovery envied by more than one scholar of Italian church history. Even Professor Ernst Weltfremdt, who was not known to lavish praise on a friend, was moved to exclaim, “Bravo, dear colleague, you have made an important discovery!”
Since everyone conceded that Dr. Manfred Herbst had made an important discovery, we will go into some detail about it.
Scholars of Italian church history were struggling to determine when churches were first built to honor Prieguna the Meek, the duckeyed saint. As the earliest existing church in her name was known to have been built at the time of Pope Clement iv, it was assumed that churches were first built for her in his time. Dr. Herbst discovered that, in the very heart of Venice, there was a church named for her that predated Clement iv. How did he know this? From a collection of letters written by courtesans. He found one such document in which a courtesan reports to a friend that she has left her lover, the cardinal, because he scolded her for being late, although it was his fault that she was late rather than her own: she always took the shortcut through the courtyard of the Church of Prieguna the Meek, but on that day there was a detour, because of a woman in labor who was taken into the church and on whose account passersby were denied access to the courtyard. As His Eminence the Cardinal knew, it was he who made the unfortunate woman pregnant and caused the event that forced the courtesan to take the longer route.
Although the Holy See removed Prieguna the Meek from the Catholic calendar after the pope’s committee on Catholic saints concluded that the Meek One herself as well as her story was a legend, and she was divested of her holiness, still and all, Herbst’s discovery remains important. For, even if Prieguna the Meek never existed, the churches built in her name surely do.
A greenish light shines on Herbst from the south window. Herbst looks away from the light, concentrating on the books at his side and the pencil in his hand. He sits copying out material that will pull his book together. His book is still but an embryo in the womb of scholarship; at full term, a book will emerge. Meanwhile, Henrietta was at full term and bore him a daughter.
You may remember that when Professor Ernst Weltfremdt was promoted to the rank of full professor, Herbst went to congratulate him and met a relative of Professor Alfred Neu’s, and a furtive love developed between the two of them, so that, whenever he saw her, it seemed to Herbst that he was suffused with a breath of innocence and in the end it turned out that when he meant to call her he found Shira. How do we relate to this incident, wherein innocence led to its opposite?
Herbst was already engaged in the struggle to eradicate the Shira episode from his heart. If he did remember it, he assured himself: It was an accident, involving no sequel; tomorrow I’ll be back at work, with no time for frivolous thoughts. Still, Herbst was curious about one thing. Did Shira plan to invite him to her room; did she do what she did deliberately and with forethought? In other words, Herbst wanted to analyze his acts, to know who had initiated them, he or Shira. Much as he thought about them, only one thing was clear: Shira was adept at lovemaking, and he was not the first of her lovers. Still, he had no wish to know who her lovers were and if she was still involved with them.