III
Whereupon Rabbi Mayer assembled all his students, and spoke to them.
“Your words about my wife Beruriah have reached me, and your doubts concerning her have come to my ears. When one feels doubt about his companion groundlessly, what is that companion to do? Shall he not come and say, ‘What is the ground for your suspicion, and how have I called forth your misgivings?’ And shall he not say, ‘You are a wicked comrade, else should you have raised no doubts against me, since there is no foundation for them.’ Shall I not tell you all that you are evil minds, unworthy of sitting before me, since your own thoughts are base and you yourselves are a toy in the hands of seduction? Wherefore you doubt, too, the purity of my wife Beruriah? Would I not be right to dismiss you all from me, damming the stream of my learning against you?”
A terror descended upon the disciples and they were tossed in deep disquietude. Those among them who, more than the others, had uttered the doubts and spread them, sat rooted, with downcast eyes, abashed and crestfallen. But those who had simply listened to the doubts, without repeating them, looked about in fear and consternation, as if seeking the guilty. And one arose, saying, “Rabbi, surely you will not punish those who listened, even as those who uttered?”
Rabbi Mayer replied, “The same penalty for those who listened as for those who spoke. For not alone is the mouse the thief, but the hole also.”
Whereupon the disciples began to murmur, softly and sheepishly, “But we doubt no longer.”
Rabbi Mayer laughed.
“Wise pupils have I in you, and to think that you will spread the Law through Israel! Such as you will prove a reptile pure in only one way: when it will profit you.”
The disciples were now dejected more than ever. And Rabbi Mayer spoke again to them, as was his practice, through a parable.
“A fox met a hen, and said to her, ‘I have heard that you doubt my being the most virtuous of creatures. For that I will straightway devour you.’ The hen was seized with fear and cried, entreatingly, ‘I do not doubt it, and if I ever did, I will never doubt it again.’ And the fox, who was in a pleasant humour because his stomach was full, spoke again to her: ‘This time I let you free. But remember, should you ever in future express the slightest doubt, you will be as good as dead.’ Whereupon the hen took oath that never should she express the slightest doubt. But when the fox had released her and gone on his way, she snuggled her head in between her wings and furtively thought to herself that there was none so wicked as the fox.”
And now Rabbi Mayer raised his voice and said, “No, not with intimidation would I banish the doubts you feel concerning my wife Beruriah. For after all, you will take refuge deep in your hearts, and admonish your thoughts never to dare rise to your lips. You will tell yourselves that you are right, but that because you did not wish to lose me, you pretended to be convinced. I wish, however, that all doubts truly cease,—that they be driven from your hearts and that your souls be cleansed of them.”
The disciples sat still, as if considering how this might come to pass, and one among them who was not over careful, blurted out, “If you will cease to doubt, so will we, too.”
At first Rabbi Mayer’s face grew fiery red, but he uttered not a word, as if to refrain from speaking in great anger. Then his countenance turned ghastly pale, sunken and wan from surging, volcanic wrath. Then he spoke:
“Woe unto him whose thoughts are those of a fool, but greater woe still if he master not his lips. Did you then doubt, at first, because I doubted? Who of you will dare to rise and say that Rabbi Mayer doubted his wife Beruriah? But those doubts which you could not conceal within yourselves, and had to drool out and pour into others’ ears, even as venomous snakes, have become like the source of a plague, spreading pestilence to right and to left, near and afar. Even I have caught the contagion of your doubt, and, as you speak, so speak I now myself. ‘Perhaps Beruriah is true to me because no tempter ever sought her ear.’”
Those of the disciples who had been first to sow the seed of doubt wished to lift their heads in triumph, but they refrained, content to smile within their hearts, and barely able to keep the smile from prancing to their lips. But the wise Rabbi Mayer had noticed the spark of triumph that had flashed in their eyes, and thundered forth in tones that scattered terror:
“Never have I entertained doubt of my wife Beruriah. Nor has the slightest suspicion assailed me as to the purity of her heart. But your evil venom has corroded my being, and the stench of your words has grown foul thoughts within me. Now I tell myself, ‘The apple is wondrous fair, but who can say what passes in its heart?’ This have you wrought with the poison of your doubts: that Rabbi Mayer should feel uncertainty as to the virtue of Beruriah, his wife. Shall I not drive you from me with rods and curses? But no. I have determined otherwise. What does one do to learn whether the beautiful apple be sound at the core? He cuts it open. I, too, will cut open, will peer into, Beruriah’s heart; I will test her soul. And hear, now, what I have resolved upon: For thirty days I will not appear to her in Tiberias,—and thirty days, I believe, will be enough to test the power of a woman’s virtue, when her husband is absent from her. And you—choose from among you one who shall take it upon himself to be her tempter—.”