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Friday, 18 May 2007 |
Yahweh, Master of the Universe, blest me with a brilliant son. And he cursed me with all the problems of raising him. Ah, what it is to have a brilliant son! Not a smart son, Yahweh, but a brilliant son. Joshua, a boy with a mind like a jewel. Ah, what a curse it is, what an anguish it is to have a Josh whose mind is like a pearl, like a sun.
Yahweh, when my Joshua was six years old, I saw him reading a story, he swallowed it as one swallows food or water. There was no heart in my Joshua, there was only his mind. He was a mind in a body without a heart. It was a story about a poor old man and his struggle to get to Jerusalem before he died. Ah, how that man suffered! And my Joshua enjoyed the story, he enjoyed the last terrible page because when he finished it he realized for the first time what a splendid memory he possessed. He looked at me proudly and re-told the story from memory, and I cried inside my heart.
I went outside and shouted to the Master of the Universe, "Why? What have you done to me? A mind like this I need for a son? A heart I need for a son. A soul I need for a son. Compassion I want from my son. Righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want from my son, not a mind without a soul, without a heart."
Chaim Potok
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