Baruch had looked at him questioningly, but Jacob had whispered, “I decided to talk to him after this is over.”

And everyone was congratulating him, and one of the neighbors’ wives said, “Just look at Jacob’s eyes. You have wonderful eyes, Jacob. Those are real physician’s eyes, just like your father’s.” And another of their friends chimed in, “He’s going to be a wonderful physician.” And someone said to Jacob’s mother, “You must be very proud of him.” And his mother said she was.

So for a moment, only the woman Cousin Baruch was talking to heard Baruch say: “He isn’t going to be a physician.”

“What do you mean?” she said, so that several people turned to look. “Of course he’s going to be a physician.”

“Suit yourself,” said Baruch. “I’m just telling you he doesn’t want to be a physician.”

Jacob’s mother heard that.

“What are you talking about, Baruch?” she demanded impatiently. She liked Baruch better than her husband did, because he was her family, but she didn’t like him that much.

Baruch shrugged.

“I’m just saying he doesn’t want to be a physician. He wants to work for me. Is that so terrible?”

“No he doesn’t.”

“Ask him.” He pointed to Jacob. And everybody looked at Jacob. And Jacob looked back at them, and wished that the ground could open up and swallow him forever.

“I am very disappointed in you,” his father said later that night. “I am sorry that you don’t want to be a physician, because I think you would be a good one. But to go behind my back … You talk to Baruch, with whom we are not close, before you even talk to your own father. Then you make a mockery of us all. Honor Thy Father and Mother: You break this commandment, on the very day of your bar mitzvah. Shame on you, Jacob. I hardly know whether to call you my son.”

That had been his first great crime. Even now, the memory of that day made him cringe with shame.

But in due course, he had started to work for Baruch, and for ten years he had continued with him, until Baruch dropped dead in the middle of an argument with somebody one day. By that time, Jacob had learned the business of moneylending very thoroughly, and he continued on his own. And thanks both to his skill, and to his father’s many friends in the city, he was able to do very well.

He had married Sarah, and been happy, and started a family.

So what had possessed him to make the terrible error of judgment, to commit the unspeakable crime that had brought tragedy to his own life, misery to his family, and now the loss of his daughter?

If one were to seek deep causes, Jacob considered, one could say that it was the Crusades that were to blame.