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captivity
his father had said once,
as had gullible Palestinian
Jewish “people of the land,”
the spiritually impoverished
am ha’aretz
, with their
purblind, narrow-minded,
and pernicious notions,
which commercial travelers
returning to Rome’s Jewish
quarter from Palestine would
often recall, disapprovingly,
with a shudder.
Uri, in his hovel, spent a lot of
timemullingover resurrection,
coming to the conclusion that
if the Creator had just a touch
of compassion He would make
resurrection possible, and he,
Uri, would meet with many
fair, clever, and wise people
who had lived before he was
born, and would also live after
he was dead, and they would
carry on a timeless discourse,
rich in ideas, in a fragrant and
radiant space without time,
after the Last Judgment,
where bodies become
weightless and painless, and
human bodies that had been
restored by magic would float
and fly even without wings,
as he pictured himself doing
in his most delightful dreams
as, so to speak, a foretaste
of existence after the Last
Judgment. It was rational,
even natural, for that to be
so, because if there were no
resurrection with Judgment
Day and the end of time, an
individual’s life would not
have the slightest meaning at
all.
Uri passed his time either with
his eyes screwed up, gazing
out at the life of the yard,
happy at least that he could
see at all, or else he read.
Hedidnotneedtobeinstructed
in anything; he would have
been able to instruct others,
but he had no desire to do so,
even though his father had
also asked him. If he did not