'Nu,' Reb Saunders said, smiling, 'how should you not know that? Of course. Good. Very good. Now, tell me-'
As I sat there listening to what then took place between Danny and his father, I slowly realized what I was witnessing. In many Jewish homes, especially homes where there are yeshiva students and where the father is learned, there is a tradition which takes place on Shabbat afternoon: the father quizzes the son on what he has learned in school during the past week. I was witnessing a kind of public quiz, but a strange, almost bizarre quiz, more a contest than a quiz, because Reb Saunders was not confining his questions only to what Danny had learned during the week but was ranging over most of the major tractates of the Talmud and Danny was obviously required to provide the answers. Reb Saunders asked where else there was a statement about one who interrupts his studies, and Danny coolly, quietly answered. He asked what a certain medieval commentator had remarked about that statement, and Danny answered. He chose a minute aspect of the answer and asked who had dealt with it in an altogether different way, and Danny answered. He asked whether Danny agreed with this interpretation, and Danny said he did not, he agreed with another medieval commentator, who had given another interpretation. His father asked how could the commentator have offered such an interpretation when in another passage in the Talmud he had said exactly the opposite, and Danny, very quietly, calmly, his fingers still playing with the rim of the paper plate, found a difference between the contradictory statements by quoting two other sources where one of the· statements appeared in a somewhat different context, thereby nullifying the contradiction. One of the two sources Danny had quoted contained a Biblical verse, and his father asked him who else had based a law upon this verse. Danny repeated a short passage from the tractate Sanhedrin, and then his father quoted another passage from Yoma which contradicted the passage in Sanhedrin, and Danny answered with a passage from Gittin which dissolved the contradiction. His father questioned the validity of his interpretation of the passage in Gitthi by citing a commentary on the passage that disagreed with his interpretation, and Danny said it was difficult to understand this commentary – he did not say the commentary was wrong, he said it was difficult to understand it – because a parallel passage in Nedarim clearly confirmed his own interpretation.
This went on and on, until I lost track of the thread that held it all together and sat and listened in amazement to the feat of memory I was witnessing. Both Danny and his father spoke quietly, his father nodding his approval each time. Danny responded. Danny's brother sat staring at them with his mouth open, finally lost interest, and began to eat some of the food that was still on his plate. Once he started picking his nose, but stopped immediately. The men around the tables were _ watching as if in ecstasy, their faces glowing with pride. This was almost like the pilpul my father had told me about, except that it wasn't really pilpul, they weren't twisting the texts out of shape; they seemed more interested in b'kiut, in straightforward knowledge and simple explanations of the Talmudic passages and – commentaries they were discussing. It went on like that for a loog time. Then Reb Saunders sat back and was silent.
The contest, or quiz had apparently ended, and Reb Saunders was smiling at his son. He said, very quietly, 'Good. Very good. There is no contradiction. But tell me, you have nothing more to say about what I said earlier?'
Danny was suddenly sitting very straight.
'Nothing more?' Reb Saunders asked again. 'You have nothing more to say?'
Danny shook his head, hesitantly.
'Absolutely nothing more to say?' Reb Saunders insisted, his voice flat, cold, distant. He was no longer smiling.
I saw Danny's body go rigid again, as it had done before his father began to speak, The ease and certainty he had won during the Talmud quiz had disappeared.
'So Reb Saunders said. 'There is nothing more. Nu, what should l say?'
'I did not hear -'
'You did not hear, you did not hear. You heard the first mistake, and you stopped listening. Of course you did not hear. How could you hear when you were not listening?' He said it quietly and without anger.
Danny's face was rigid. The crowd sat silent. I looked at Danny.
For a long moment he sat very still – and then I saw his lips part, move, curve slowly upward, and freeze into a grin. I felt the skin on the back of my neck begin to crawl, and I almost cried out. I stared at him, then looked quickly away.
Reb Saunders sat looking at his son. Then he turned his eyes upon me. I felt his eyes looking at me. There was a long, dark silence, during which Danny sat very still, staring fixedly at his plate and grinning. Reb Saunders began to play with the earlock along the right side of his face. He caressed it with the fingers of his right hand, wound it around the index finger, released it, then caressed it again, all the time looking at me. Finally, he sighed loudly, shook his head, and put his hands on the table.
'Nu,' he said, 'it is possible I am not right. After all, my son is not a mathematician. He has a good head on him, but it is not a head for mathematics. But we have a mathematician with us. The son of David Malter is with us. 'He is a mathematician: He was looking straight at me, and I felt my heart pound and the blood drain from my face. 'Reuven,' Reb Saunders was saying, looking straight at me, 'you have nothing to say?'
I found I couldn't open my mouth. Say about what? I hadn't the faintest idea what he and Danny had been talking about. 'You heard my little talk?' Reb Saunders asked me quietly. I felt my head nod.
'And you have nothing to say?'
I felt his eyes on me and found myself staring down at the table. The eyes were like flames on my face.
'Reuven, you liked the gematriya?' Reb Saunders asked softly.
I looked up and nodded. Danny hadn't moved at all. He just sat there, grinning. His little brother was playing with the tomato again. And the men at the tables were silent, staring at me now.
'I am very happy,' Reb Saunders said gently. 'You liked the gematriya. Which gematriya did you like?'
I heard myself say, lamely and hoarsely. 'They were all very good'
Reb Saunders' eyebrows went up 'All?' he said. 'A very nice thing. They were all very good. Reuven, were they all very good?'
I felt Danny stir and saw him turn his head, the grin gone now from his lips. He glanced at me quickly, then looked down again at his paper plate.
I looked at Reb Saunders. 'No,' I heard myself say hoarsely. 'They were not all good.'
There was a stir from the men at the tables. Reb Saunders sat back in his leather chair.
'Nu, Reuven,' he said quietly, 'tell me, which one was not good?'
'One of the gematriyot was wrong,' I said. I thought the world would fall in on me after I said that. I was a fifteen-year-old boy, and there I was, telling Reb Saunders he had been wrong! But nothing happened. There was another stir from the crowd, but nothing happened. Instead, Reb Saunders broke into a warm broad smile.
'And which one was it?' he asked me quietly.
'The gematriya for "prozdor" is five hundred and three, not five hundred and thirteen,' I answered.
'Good. Very good.' Reb Saunders said, smiling and nodding his head, the black beard going back and forth against his chest, the earlocks swaying. 'Very good, Reuven. The gematriya for "prozdor" comes out five hundred three. Very good.' He looked at me, smiling broadly, his teeth showing white through the beard, and I almost thought I saw his eyes mist over. There was a loud murmur from the crowd, and Danny's body sagged as the tension went out of him. He glanced at me, his face a mixture of surprise and relief, and I realized with astonishment that I, too, had just passed some kind of test.
'Nu,' Reb Saunders said loudly to the men around the tables, 'say Kaddish!'