The Trial of God

MARIA: Hell? Is he talking about hell? Good. For a moment I was afraid he was making sense.

BERISH: Prosecutor. That’s what I am going to be. Prosecutor.

MARIA: What’s that?

AVREMEL: That’s someone nice who has the right to be nasty.

SAM: Isn’t this a circus...of sorts?

MENDEL: No. It’s theater. There is a difference.

SAM: Really? What is it?

MENDEL: A circus employs only clowns.

SAM: So does the theater.

MENDEL: Once you’re on your knees, you can’t stand up straight again.

AVREMEL: You came to us from Zhironov?

YANKEL: Were you there when—

MENDEL: Yes, I was there.

AVREMEL: How did you manage to escape?

SAM: There is always one singled out to escape.

YANKEL: A miracle!

SAM: There is always someone to call it a miracle.

BERISH: Men and women are being beaten, tortured and killed—how can one not be afraid of Him? True, they are victims of men. But the killers kill in His name. Not all? True, but numbers are unimportant. Let one killer kill for His glory, and He is guilty. Every man who suffers or causes suffering, every woman who is raped, every child who is tormented implicates Him. What, you need more? A hundred or a thousand? Listen: either He is responsible or He is not. If He is let’s judge Him; if He is not, let Him stop judging us.

BERISH: I distrust miracles. They exist only in books, and books say anything.

MARIA: The people can say anything they please—

MENDEL: Right. Under one condition: that they do not say it.

BERISH: I resigned from membership in God—I resigned from God. Let Him look for another innkeeper, let Him find another people, let Him push around another Jew—I’m through with Him!

MARIA: Don’t you worry, Master. You say things, but God isn’t angry How could He be? He isn’t even listening.

PRIEST: Are you taking their side, daughter? You’ll burn in hell.

MARIA: Better in hell with them than in paradise with you.

MENDEL: What shall we play?

BERISH: Can I choose?

MENDEL: Of course; it’s your theater.

MARIA: Long live theater...What’s theater?

BERISH: When you do something without doing it, when you say something without saying it, while thinking that you did say, and you did do something—anything—that’s theater.