The Year of Living Biblically Part 6

This week I vowed to make it all the way. I felt optimistic. At 6:00 p.m. on Friday night, the sun officially dipped below the New York horizon. I snapped shut my computer, shoved all my books in the corner, silenced the electronic cowbell on my cell phone that I've been meaning to change anyway--and did a little Berkowitz-like fist pump. Something clicked in my brain. It was a school's-out-for-summer feeling. A wave of relief and freedom. No matter how much I want to, I cannot work. I have no choice.

It was a beautiful moment. And short lived. An hour later, my brain clicked back, and I started to suffer pangs of withdrawal every time I walked past my idle PowerBook. What emails are piling up in my inbox? What if the editor of The New Yorker The New Yorker sent me a surprise job offer? On Sat.u.r.day at noon, I broke down. I checked. Who's going to know? sent me a surprise job offer? On Sat.u.r.day at noon, I broke down. I checked. Who's going to know?

I was too embarra.s.sed to tell Julie. Julie loves that I'm trying to break the seven-day work cycle--the Sabbath is her favorite part of my experiment. So I keep my failure a secret.

Worse, I then use the Sabbath to weasel out of household tasks.

"Can you put the papers in the recycling bin?"

"I really shouldn't. I'm not allowed to carry a burden outside of my house."

As she took out the papers herself, I could hear her footsteps thump down the hallway corridor.

You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him . . . --EXO D U S 22:21 --EXO D U S 22:21 Day 46. Tonight I invited a Jehovah's Witness into my home. I realize that this fact already puts me in an extreme minority.

And, mind you, I didn't just idly answer the door and let a Jehovah's Witness inside. I aggressively pursued the Jehovah's Witnesses. I phoned the headquarters and requested that a Jehovah's Witness be sent to my apartment. After three calls and not a little confusion on their part--it's not a common inquiry--I finally got my wish.

Yes, I'm aware that it doesn't make much sense. It's like volunteering for jury duty or paying to see a Vin Diesel movie.

OK, enough! The poor Jehovah's Witnesses. Their zeal for ringing doorbells have made them one of America's favorite religious punch lines. So I promise: No more cheap Jehovah's Witness jokes.

But I do want to know more about the Jehovah's Witnesses and what they really stand for. Because they are perhaps the fastest-growing biblical literalists in the world. Their current members.h.i.+p stands at more than 6.6 million, with about 300,000 new converts a year. They're also interesting to me because they are usually cla.s.sified as Christian, but, like the Amish, they lean heavily on the Hebrew Scriptures.

My Jehovah's Witness is named Michael, and he arrives right on the dot, at 7:30 p.m. He wears a brown suit, brown shoes, brown tie, and carries a brown leather case holding a Bible and a pamphlet. He looks somewhat like the actor Gary Busey, if Gary Busey had his hair parted in the middle.

Michael is warm and likeable. He has a deep voice, but it is more soothing than booming, more shrink than football coach.

And he is grateful. So grateful it's almost heartbreaking. He thanks me for having him over. "There are so many misconceptions about Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm just so glad you're talking to me to find out the truth."

He sits on the living room couch, leaning forward, his hands in the "fish-was-this-big" posture. "People say ours is a primitive Christianity--and we take that as a compliment." The Witnesses believe they're getting back to the original meaning of the Bible--the booklet Michael gives me is called "What Does the Bible Really Really Teach?" Teach?"

Michael, who works in computers at the ma.s.sive Jehovah's Witness headquarters in Brooklyn, gives me a crash course in his faith. Here, some of the highlights of the belief (vastly oversimplified, of course): * G.o.d should be called Jehovah, because that's what the Bible calls him. "You can call a person 'man,' or you can call him by his name, 'Bob.' G.o.d has a name: 'Jehovah.'"

* Humans should take literally Jesus's pacifist words. "You won't find any Jehovah's Witnesses in Iraq," Michael says. "Jesus said, 'He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.'"

* They don't believe in the Trinity. Jesus is not G.o.d, but instead G.o.d's first creation. (This belief is why they are sometimes seen as belonging outside of Christianity.) * Armageddon is coming soon--and believers will be resurrected and live in paradise. But most righteous people won't live in heaven. Almost everyone will live in a paradise here on earth. Heaven will be reserved for 144,000 pious souls who will reign with Jehovah as divine administrators.

* The Witnesses don't celebrate Christmas or Easter, as neither holiday is mentioned in the Bible. Birthdays are also out: The only two birthdays celebrated in the Bible were those of evil people-- one a Pharaoh and one a pro-Roman Jewish king. Michael's fine with the ban, especially now. "As I get older, I don't want to be reminded of my birthday."

* There is no h.e.l.l. The Witnesses believe h.e.l.l h.e.l.l is a mistranslation of Gehenna, which was an ancient garbage dump. They say that nonbelievers simply die at Armageddon, rather than being thrown into an inferno. "How can you have a kind and loving G.o.d who also roasts people?" he asks. is a mistranslation of Gehenna, which was an ancient garbage dump. They say that nonbelievers simply die at Armageddon, rather than being thrown into an inferno. "How can you have a kind and loving G.o.d who also roasts people?" he asks.

I am surprised by the Jehovah's Witness theology, especially this last point. I had always heard that they were a fire-and-brimstone sect, but here's Michael telling me they reject the notion of h.e.l.l. The belief is probably heretical by mainstream standards, but it has a gentleness to it.

It has been an hour and a half, and Michael is glancing at his watch every few minutes now.

"You just tell me when you want me to go," says Michael. "I'm from the Midwest, so I'm conscious of overstaying my welcome."

"No, I'm fine," I say. It's true. I could keep going for hours. I doubt Michael will convert me, but I love discussing the Bible. Can't get enough of it.

I ask him what's the most controversial part of his faith.

"The blood transfusion issue," he says. "People think we're kooks. But we absolutely use the medical system." (Was this a subtle dig at the Christian Scientists, I wondered?) "We just don't take blood transfusions."

The reason is the literal translation of several verses, among them Acts 15:29, Genesis 9:4, and Leviticus 7:26--the last of which reads, "Ye shall eat no manner of blood" (KJV).

The Witnesses make an unusual argument here. They say that the word eat eat should really be translated as "consume," and that transfusion qualifies as consumption. should really be translated as "consume," and that transfusion qualifies as consumption.

As Michael points out, this is seriously controversial. Critics say that the ban has caused numerous deaths, and the Witnesses have been the subject of several lawsuits. In recent years, the church elders have scaled back a bit. Now, elements of blood--such as hemoglobin--can be transfused. But still, the ban on transfusing whole blood remains.

To me, it boils down to this question: Should you obey the Bible's rules even if doing so endangers your life? I've looked in the Bible to see what guidance it gives. As I suspected, there's no clear-cut yes or no.

On the one hand, the Bible is filled with martyrs and near-martyrs to their faith. In the Book of Daniel, the evil King Nebuchadnezzar commands three Hebrews to bow down before a golden idol or else get thrown in a fire. The men refuse to bow. Nebuchadnezzar stokes the fire--making it seven times hotter--and tosses the rebels in. But G.o.d protects his faithful, and they emerge unscorched.

On the other hand, there are plenty of times when life takes precedence over obeying rules. Jesus lashes out at the Pharisees who criticize his followers for gathering grain on the Sabbath. Likewise, in modern Judaism, life trumps all. Even the most kosher rabbi would allow his followers to get pigs' valves put in their hearts if necessary (despite a misleading Grey's Anatomy Grey's Anatomy plotline to the contrary). plotline to the contrary).

As you might have guessed, I'd make a horrible Jehovah's Witness. Even in my biblical year, if I needed a blood transfusion, I'd be rolling up my sleeve before the doctor finished his sentence. I'm just not faithful/ brave/foolhardy enough to do otherwise. The Bible, in fact, has made me more reverent of life.

Finally, at ten-thirty--three hours after he arrived--Michael says politely that he should let me get to sleep. I'm about to say no, I could keep going, when his Palm Treo rings. It's his wife.

"Yes, we're just finis.h.i.+ng up here. I'm about to leave."

Michael stands up to shake my hand.

And then it hits me: I have just done something few human beings have ever achieved. I have out-Bible-talked a Jehovah's Witness.

You shall keep the feast of booths seven days . . .

--DEUTERONOMY 16:13.

Day 47. The Bible gives explicit instructions on how to build Noah's ark--300 by 50 by 30 cubits, with a roof and three decks of gopher wood. Later there's an impressive eight pages on how to construct the Tabernacle, the tent where the Ten Commandments were stored, right on down to its blue and purple curtains.

Luckily, I'm exempt from both these projects. They were one time only.

But the Bible does command me to build something else: a hut. Once a year, we're supposed to build a hut and dwell in it for a week so that we may be reminded of the huts used by the ancient Hebrews when they wandered the desert for forty years. It's a major biblical holiday called the Feast of Ingathering--or Sukkoth Sukkoth--and is still practiced by religious Jews. It starts today. (October, incidentally, is a huge month for biblical holidays. I've also observed Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah--but let me return to those later.) Frankly, the idea of building a large three-dimensional structure gives me a stomachache. I'm no handyman. Put it this way: When I watch Bob the Builder Bob the Builder with Jasper, I always learn something new (oh, so with Jasper, I always learn something new (oh, so that's that's what a strut is). what a strut is).

I try to console myself that the hut will be a nice change from all the negative commands, the "thou shalt nots." Here, a clear "thou shalt." So I dive in and tackle the first issue: Where to put up my hut? The roof seems logical. I call our building's manager and explain my plan.

"I can't let that happen," he says. "Liability issues."

"What about the courtyard?"

"The courtyard isn't accessible to anyone except one apartment."

"Which apartment?"

"It's not going to work. You can't build a hut in the courtyard."

So I go to my backup plan: building the hut in our living room. This is not ideal for two reasons. The first reason is that it's a hut in our living room.

The second is that my hut--called a sukkah, sukkah, in Hebrew--wouldn't pa.s.s muster with even the most laid-back go-with-the-flow rabbi in America. The rabbis say huts must be built outside, and conform to dozens of other rules as well. This time of year, approved sukkahs sprout up all over West Side roofs. in Hebrew--wouldn't pa.s.s muster with even the most laid-back go-with-the-flow rabbi in America. The rabbis say huts must be built outside, and conform to dozens of other rules as well. This time of year, approved sukkahs sprout up all over West Side roofs.

"Wouldn't it be easier just to use the sukkah on the roof of the Jewish community center?" Julie asks.

"Maybe," I say. "But I'd feel like I was cheating."

I explain to Julie that I'm on a solo mission to find the core of the Bible. I am a lone adventurer. I must blaze my own path.

"OK, but it sounds like you're making work for yourself."

She's got a point. My day starts with a trek down to a store called Metropolitan Lumber to pick up a dozen two-by-fours, a handful of cinder blocks, and some canvas. I begin to feel better about the project. There's something satisfying about buying lumber. It makes me feel like a guy who builds porches and rec rooms and uses words like drywall. drywall.

Next I sling my duffel bag over my shoulder and hike off to Riverside Park. I need some more materials. The Bible instructs us to get "the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook." (In biblical times, these might have been used to build the huts, though the longstanding Jewish tradition is to wave them in the air.) As I walk through New York's version of nature, I stuff my bag full of leafy boughs and willows. I buy a palm plant the size of a volleyball and a Middle Eastern lemonlike fruit called an etrog (traditionally thought to be the fruit in question). It feels good. I'm accomplis.h.i.+ng stuff. I'm sweating.

At 11:00 a.m., back in my apartment, I begin hammering crossbeams and holding nails in my mouth and sweating a lot more. Three hours later, thanks to the simpleton's blueprint I downloaded off the internet, I actually have the skeleton of a bona fide hut. Which promptly collapses like it's in a Buster Keaton movie and smashes into the wall. I start again, and this time add extra struts, and this time it stays up.

"Oh my G.o.d," Julie says when she arrives home.

I ask her if she's annoyed.

"A little. But more stunned that you actually built something. It's enormous."

Julie inspects my hut. It's got four wooden poles topped by a big sheet of white canvas that just grazes our apartment's ceiling. The interior is spare but decorated with boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook. She squeezes between the hut and the radiator to get another view. She eyes the cinder blocks, making sure that they didn't scratch the floor.

The Bible says to dwell in the hut, so I plan to dwell as much as possible--eat my meals in my hut, read my books there, sleep there. I invite Julie along, but she says she'll let me "fly solo on this one."

So that night, at eleven-thirty, I spread three blankets out on the wood floor. I lie down, put my hands behind my head, stare at the draped canvas, breathe in the citrus and willows (which smell like something they'd rub into you during a ma.s.sage at Bliss Spa), and try to figure out what I'm feeling.

First, I realize, I'm still on a high from building the hut. I put the thing up myself. Bertrand Russell--the famously agnostic philosopher-- said there are two kinds of work in this world: altering the position of matter on earth, and telling other people to alter the position of matter on earth. I like doing the former. I like breaking the stereotype of the physically inept Jew, at least for a day.

My elation is tainted with guilt, though. This sukkah is way too comfortable. This is supposed to remind me of the ancient huts in the desert, but here I am in a climate-controlled apartment--no sand, no wind, and no lack of food. I don't have to worry about the freezing nights or blistering days or plagues, which killed forty thousand of the six hundred thousand Israelites.

But that guilt, in turn, is relieved by this epiphany: This holiday is all about living biblically. G.o.d, if He exists, is ordering everyone--not just those with a book contract--to travel back in time and try to experience the world of the ancient Middle East. G.o.d created "immersion journalism," as my friend calls it. Maybe G.o.d approves of my project after all.

He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. --PROVERBS 14:29 --PROVERBS 14:29 Day 50. I've noticed that a lot of biblical living is about constant reminders. That's the purpose of the ta.s.sels I've safety pinned to my s.h.i.+rt--the Bible says they are to remind me of the commandments, like a biblical version of the string around the finger.

In the spirit of reminders, I've taped a list to my bathroom mirror. It's my Most Violated List. We'll see if it helps; it's worth a try. The list includes the following cla.s.sics: * Lying. Most recent violation: I told my friend I'd return his book about prayer very soon, when in fact I'd lost it.

* Vanity. I check my temples every day for signs of hair loss.

* Gossip. Julie and I talked about how her brother Doug still wears these loud, multicolored sweaters right out of The Cosby Show The Cosby Show.

* Coveting. I did a signing at a book fair a few days ago, and at the next table was Anthony Bourdain, the rakish celebrity chef/author. My table got such visitors as: my mother, my father, my wife, my son. Meanwhile the line in front of Bourdain's table resembled opening night of The Phantom Menace The Phantom Menace, though without as many Darth Maul costumes.

* Touching impure things. Handy Seat aside, it's just too hard to avoid.

* Anger. I gave the finger to an ATM.

You see, the ATM charged me a $1.75 fee for withdrawal. A dollar seventy-five? That's bananas. So I flipped off the screen. As Julie tells me, when you start making rude gestures to inanimate objects, it's time to work on your anger issues.

Mine is not the shouting, pulsing-vein-in-the-forehead rage. Like my dad, I rarely raise my voice (again, I like to be emotionally in control at all times). My anger problem is more one of long-lasting resentment. It's a heap of real or perceived slights that eventually build up into a mountain of bitterness.

Did I really need to get so angry at the juggler at the street fair who stopped juggling to take a cell phone call? And then talked for, like, fifteen minutes while Jasper looked on all eager and hopeful? Yes, it's annoying, but worse things have happened.

Or what about the guy in Starbucks who monopolized the bathroom for forty-five minutes? (In my defense, he was also wearing a black beret; this was 2006 Manhattan, not 1948 La Rive Gauche.) I was fuming.

And what about the incident at the soup kitchen?

I've been volunteering at Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in Chelsea. It's an incredible place, the largest soup kitchen in New York, the secondbiggest in the country; they serve more than 1,100 meals a day. The man who runs it is a charismatic tough-love leader who I could see commanding a rebellion against the Roman centurions.

And usually, I get a little ethical head rush from working at the soup kitchen. This, I tell myself, is biblical living at its best. I'm following the inspiring words in Deuteronomy 15:7: "If there is among you a poor man, one of your brethren . . . you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother."

And yet . . . even at the soup kitchen, I'm able to find slights. On my most recent visit, I get a.s.signed to kitchen duty--then immediately demoted. They tell me it's because of my beard. I understand. No one wants an unpleasant surprise in his rice pilaf. I am fine with it, until I spot some other volunteer working in the kitchen--despite having his face covered with a big bushy beard of his own.

Why the discrepancy?

"Oh, I'm shaving my beard tomorrow," explains my rival volunteer.

Which makes exactly no sense. Does gravity somehow stop working the day before you shave?

I get rea.s.signed to garbage duty. My job is to take the plastic trays from those who have finished lunch, remove the cutlery, bang the trays forcefully against the side of the garbage can--clearing off all the mashed potatoes and string beans--and then hand them to the stacker. I think I am doing a pretty decent job, which is confirmed by the garbage team captain, a guy in a Jets T-s.h.i.+rt who tells me, "Good job." I am feeling pumped.

Then, after an hour and a half, I'm the victim of a soup kitchen power play. This older guy named Max--he has a droopy face and a permanent scowl--comes up to me, hands me an iced tea in a particularly aggressive manner, and says: "Drink this. Then go away."

I don't want iced tea, and I don't want to go away. I just stare at him.

"Drink this. Then go away," he repeats, glowering.

As far as I can tell, he is no higher on the volunteer food chain than I am; for reasons unknown, he just wants my garbage duty spot.

The Bible says to respect your elders and do not quarrel. So I leave. But I stew about it for a good two days. Drink this. Then go away. What a b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

I've been battling my anger since this project started. I want to let go of my resentment. I know it's healthier, a better way to live. But how to do this when faced with a real-life soup kitchen n.a.z.i? The best biblical inspiration I've found is in the book of Jonah. A quick recap for those (like me three months ago) who know only the whale part: G.o.d calls on Jonah to preach to the evil city of Nineveh (now in Iraq). Jonah refuses. He tries to flee G.o.d by boarding a s.h.i.+p. This doesn't work: G.o.d creates a mighty tempest, and the frightened sailors throw Jonah overboard. G.o.d then sends a whale that swallows Jonah (actually, the Bible says "big fish," not whale) and spits him safely out onto land.

Chastened, Jonah agrees to go to Nineveh. Jonah preaches there, and it works. More than 120,000 men, women, and children repent. G.o.d forgives them.

You'd think Jonah would be happy with G.o.d's forgiveness, but he's actually angry. He wanted the evil ones smote. He wanted fire and brimstone. He gets so furious at G.o.d, he no longer wants to live. G.o.d says, "Do you do well to be angry?"

Jonah doesn't answer but goes off to the outskirts of Nineveh to sulk. So G.o.d decides to teach Jonah a lesson: G.o.d grows a plant that s.h.i.+elds the prophet from the harsh desert sun. Jonah is exceedingly glad. But the very next day, G.o.d causes a worm to kill the plant. Once again, Jonah is exposed to the harsh sun and gets very angry. Again, G.o.d asks Jonah: "Do you do well to be angry?"

G.o.d then drives home his point: Jonah lost his temper over a plant for which he "did not labor" and which lasted but a day. G.o.d says, "And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals." In other words, get some perspective.

So that's what I try to do. I ask myself the question G.o.d asked Jonah. "Do you do well to be angry?" I ask it out loud to myself. No, I don't, I answer. So I got elbowed aside by a strangely compet.i.tive soup kitchen volunteer. The world will not end.

I should remember the modern-day Ninevehs where thousands of lives are in danger--the crowd of homeless out the door at Holy Apostles, for instance, or pretty much anywhere in East Africa.

There is such a thing as biblically acceptable anger--righteous indignation. Moses gets angry at the Israelites for wors.h.i.+pping a false idol. Jesus gets angry at the money changers for profaning the Temple. The key is to pump up your righteous anger and mute your petty resentment. I'll be happy if I can get that balance to fifty-fifty.

David danced before the Lord with all his might . . . --2 SAMUEL 6:14 --2 SAMUEL 6:14 Day 55. It's the night of October 25, and I'm at the loudest, rowdiest, most drunken party of my life. Me and several hundred Hasidic men.