The real, the theoretical, and the spiritual

Judaism, Wntr-Spring, 2004 by Curt Leviant

By contrast with the Hungarian setting of Ladies and Gentlemen, Weekend in Mustara....

  unfolds on the fictional island of Mustara in southern Europe, a
  mountainous, totalitarian country that tolerates Judaism. Its few Jews
  cling to their heritage, embodied in their beautiful but sparsely
  attended synagogue and their museum, where a great memorial book is
  inscribed with the names of all Mustara Jews martyred during World War
  II. A scholar of medieval Hebrew manuscripts comes to the island
  searching for traces of Yehuda Halevi, the great Hebrew poet of the
  Spanish Golden Age. He is soon enmeshed among elusive personalities
  and tangled loyalties, but only when he finds himself displaced in
  time--in a kind of theater of the absurd-are the purposes of his
  journey finally realized.

In Weekend in Mustara, like in Ladies and Gentlemen, the Original Music of the Hebrew Alphabet, a scholar searches for a Jewish treasure--this time, something by Yehuda Halevi. The scholar, a first-person narrator named Curt Leviant (no relation), is also a poet. Curiously, even before he had ever heard of Yehuda Halevi, he once wrote a four-line poem that, as he discovered years later, matched word for word a little poem that Yehuda Halevi had written centuries earlier.

In this tale too the protagonist encounters a political system at odds with his own American democracy; and here too incidents and places are based on real events. And here too a relative--my wife, Erika--brought me one element of the tale.

The story behind Weekend in Mustara begins with a letter I wrote to a rabbi in a southern city in Italy. In fact, I wrote three letters over a period of three or four months prior to my journey, but never got a reply. I went anyway, found the synagogue, and attended Friday night services. Only a few people were there, some odd-looking folk, who sat far apart from one another. There seemed to be no connection between them, and I remembered this when I later composed the novella. The beautiful synagogue had no windows and seemed to be below street level. It was rather heimish and cozy, with an unusual feature. The wooden canopied bimah was not in the middle of the shul, but--in Sephardic fashion--just to the right of the entrance doorway.

After services I introduced myself to the rabbi, who at once apologized for not writing. He said he found it very hard to write letters. Then he asked me: "Would you like to see the synagogue?"

I thought to myself: What's with this guy? First he doesn't answer my letters and now he pulls my leg.

"Haven't we just prayed in the synagogue?" I asked.

Instead of an answer, he offered a sly smile as he summoned the gentile caretaker and said a few words to him in Italian.

"Follow me," the rabbi said.

I followed the two men up a set of marble stairs. We came into a large lobby, also laid out in beautiful marble. Three huge wooden, intricately decorated doors attracted my attention. The caretaker opened the middle door and flicked a dozen switches. I thought I had entered a dream world. Before me was an enormous, gorgeous sanctuary, with a huge Aron Kodesh covered with a large, Persian carpet-like velvet curtain. A woman's gallery soared high above me. Beautiful crystal chandeliers hung from many places in the ceiling. "We use this synagogue only for the High Holidays and special occasions," the rabbi said proudly.