22/3/96

Peas in a pod

There is but one spot on Earth where the three men of God could meet ...

    Reverend Jeremiah L. White was kneeling at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
    Rabbi Ya'acov Yosef Zeitz was swaying feverishly at the Western Wall.
    Sheikh Ali Ali was prostrate at the Dome of the Rock.
    At precisely the same second, as if by Divine design, the three men were overcome with a smouldering urge to abandon their prayer and hurry to the one spot on Earth where they could magically transcend their religious fundaments to find a common purpose unrestricted by the severest of their taboos: the public toilet on Akabat el-Saraya Street in the Old City.
    By a miracle, there were exactly three urinals -- and none was occupied.
    The three men arrived at the same moment.
    They were extremists even to their co-religionists; to each other, they were of alien species. Yet here, they were as alike as three peas in a pod.
    They approached the ceramic utilities wordlessly, facing straight ahead.
    Each with the same purpose, each with the same method, the same primal satisfaction. It is here, only here, that all men are truly equal.
    "Ahhh," said Rabbi Zeitz unconsciously, and became embarrassed.
    Ali softly cleared his throat self-consciously.
    White quickly spoke, much too loudly. "Hey, nice day we're havin'."
    "Mm," grunted the others.
    Then silence again.
    "Say, you fellows from around here? I mean, you both Israelis?"
    The answer to that for both men was yes, and no, but neither was about to say so. "Lubbock, Texas, myself. Name's White. Reverend, Church of Christ. I'd, uh, shake your hands but...." He grinned, and the others chuckled. Everybody relaxed a bit. "So. Anybody else in this room speak English?"
    "Just a little," said the Jew. "A few words," said the Arab.
    They had run out of conversation.
    Each one finished his function at the same time and tidied himself in the same way.
    They flushed. "Dang, just like in America."
    Ali volunteered a personal insight. "I have a cousin in America. Detroit, he sent me a postcard once."
    "Well, you don't say!," White exclaimed, grateful at the attempt to continue his amicable efforts. "It so happens I been there once. Revivalist weekend, back in '82. Took my wife and kids."
    "You have children?" said the black-clad rabbi despite himself.
    "Yup. Eight of 'em. You?"
    "Thirteen," said Zeitz proudly.
    "Eleven," said Ali, "and another due any day."
    They abluted at three identical sinks.
    "We sure are blessed, that's for certain," said one of them, and the others laughed heartily.
    White stuck out a meaty Texan hand. "Didn't catch your names."
    "Ali Ali." They pressed flesh. "From Hebron. There is a large mosque there and I am the sheikh of it."
    "Ya'acov Yosef Zeitz, a rabbi from Bnei Brak." He, too, shook hands with the Christian.
    Suddenly, time froze. No one dared breathe. It was an awful moment. It had to happen, but it could not. The reverend understood. He placed a hand on their backs and imperceptibly drew them to face each other. He smiled as their hands, like magnets of opposite poles, met and clung together. As did their eyes. The rabbi shrugged good-naturedly. "You never know who you're going to meet in the bathroom."
    The sheikh took the cue. "Tell me, rabbi, what is it like in Bnei Brak? I have never been there."
    "Jewish. Very Jewish."
    "And Hebron is --" Reverend White did not comprehend the enmity of the icy pause, or why the Arab's voice tailed off "--uh, a nice place."
    And because of his ignorance, White carried on. "Came a long way to see nice places. 'Specially churches. Seen some mighty fine churches here in the Holy Land -- though I haven't been to your neck of the woods, sheikh."
    "You are most welcome, my friend," said Ali. "But nobody comes to Hebron to see a church."
    Zeitz didn't wait for the question. "No. No churches in Bnei Brak," he said tersely, masking the revulsion he felt at the thought. "To tell you the truth, it's not a nice place for a tourist from Lubbock. Unless you want to spend a day visiting a Coca Cola factory."
    White had never been to a city that didn't have a church. He had an idea. "Well heck, rabbi, we'll build you one! A great, glorious church, a gift of God, from my people to yours! It'll be the pride of Bnei Brak. Like we always say in Texas, 'the greater the steeple, the greater the people.'" He hugged the Jew excitedly, nearly knocking off the man's shtreimel.
    "No!"
    "Don't be so polite, rabbi, we'd love to do this for you. What you folks call a 'mitzva,' I think." The reverend was grinning broadly, his eyes atwinkle. "Think nothing of it."
    "Gott in himmel!" Zeitz groaned. He was shaking.
    "Wonderful idea, reverend," Ali goaded. "I would say with all my heart that the Jews deserve it."
    White was moved by the unlikely brotherliness of this Arab for that Jew. But hey, that's the Holy Land for you, he thought. "Mighty Christian of you, Ali. Come to think of it, I don't see why we can't make this place of God a place for all his believers. It's perfect: Ali, you will bring your Moslem flock on Fridays; Zeitz, you and your Torah on Saturdays; on Sundays we raise the Crucifix. Three days of nonstop prayer and penitence, and the rest of the week, interdenominational bingo." White was beaming. "Who'd a thought," he guffawed, "that a Nobel Prize could be won in a toilet!"
    The rabbi seemed to be in a trance of prayer, which encouraged Reverend White. "A name. We need a name. And I think I've got one, a real dilly: we'll call it the Universal Church of Allah and Our Lord of Perpetual Jewishness.  What do you say, friends?"
    Sheikh Ali was struck dumb. Such sacrilege to his beloved Allah! They'd get an Islamic death sentence to go with the Nobel Prize.
    Rabbi Zeitz was seeking within himself the courage and wisdom to combat this dangerous new Crusader. God was looking to him, at this critical moment in history, to save the Jewish People.
    Gevalt, he thought, gevalt, a crucifix in Bnei Brak!
    Reverend White was very happy.
    Rabbi Zeitz nervously stroked his long gray beard. "I wouldn't say it's a very bad idea," he said slowly, cautiously. "But let's put it on the back burner for a while. When the Messiah arrives we'll talk again."
    "You mean, when the Messiah returns."
    The rabbi was startled. "What? He came and I missed Him?"
    The sheikh intervened to stem the confusion. He whispered to the reverend: "Wrong prophet. Jesus is the non-Jews' Jew, not the Jews' Jew."
    Then the sheikh whispered to the rabbi: "Relax. He was only kidding."
    Reverend White proposed they have a drink together -- "'Cause friendship don't have much hope stuck in a bathroom" -- but the sheikh and the rabbi mumbled they weren't thirsty. "Then let me buy you lunch." Who could say no? They said no. Deflated, he suggested they find somewhere to pray together, "to consecrate this ordained Fate that has brought us together," he said grandly. For religious reasons, they said, unfortunately, they could not.
    The reverend sighed. "Well," he drawled, "it seems we can't do much more together than bless our humblest of bodily functions."
    The rabbi allowed that perhaps he could be forgiven this. He nodded to the good Christian. "Maybe this would not be impossible..." The Moslem shrugged. "If it be the will of Allah."
    The cleric from Lubbock beamed happily. This'd be something to tell the folks back home. He drew his new friends close and intoned: "We are gathered here..."
    He knew his prayer was not being heard. He knew now, too, that in Bnei Brak, in Hebron, even in Lubbock, the synagogues, mosques and churches were filled with people for the wrong reasons. For that matter, he thought wrily, so were the public toilets.
    Reverend White finished his prayer. "Amen," the men agreed. He opened the door and stepped back out into Holy Jerusalem. As the three men went their separate ways to their respective shrines, he thought to himself: the closer one is to God, the farther he is from Man.
    "Hey!," the Christian shouted suddenly. Still in earshot, the Jew and the Moslem stopped and turned. The big Texan was grinning. He jerked a thumb at the bathroom and drawled: "Y'all come back someday, y'hear?"