THE VET

"Do you know who The Three Pillars of Judasim are?" I asked my Mother one day.
“The Pillars of what?” she asked.
“Well, the men who started the Old Testament.”
"Oh, you mean the people at the beginning of the Bible." she wanted to know.
"Yes Mother, right at the very beginning."
She gave it some thought and came up with: "Well, let's see, dear, there was God." She looked in my direction to see if she was on the right track. It was not the answer I was looking for, but a natural conclusion, I thought.
"Then Jesus." she went on, gaining confidence. Ok, I knew where she was going: The Trinity.
But instead of The Holy Ghost, she concluded with, "And then The Vet."

"God, Jesus and The Vet?" said I after a pause, not too sure if I heard correctly. At 93 Mother was still sharp as a tack. Perhaps I had misunderstood.
“The Vet?”
"Yes dear, The Vet." she persisted.
Now I am scrambling. What Vet could she mean? Was it a veterinarian she was thinking of, or maybe a veteran of a Biblical War? Or maybe it was a word that sounded like "Vet."

"Did the Vet take care of the animals on the ark?" I asked, trying to piece it all together.
"Well, he may have," volunteered my Mother seemingly unsure of what the Vet’s exact occupation was, other than his duties as Pillar. Having answered the question, she was eager to move on to the more interesting subject of describing a recent unpleasantness at her dinning table in the Retirement Home.

I had asked her about the Pillars of Judaism, because as a regular church-goer, I assumed she would have some familiarity with the Old Testament. The subject of the three Pillars had come up in an article in the newspaper. And I had quizzed several staff members on the subject at work, as they began preparations for Yom Kippur. I suspected one of the Pillars to be Abraham, another possibly Isaac, and I wondered if perhaps Moses might be the third. Ironically, none of the Jews on our staff were of any help at all.

I returned to my Mother’s Room at the Home the next day. After the usual pleasantries, I said. "Mother, let's revisit our discussion of the Bible that we had the other day." I suppose I hoped that a good night's sleep might re-align some of her shakier synapses. "We were talking about the three men who started the Bible," I noted, getting us up to speed. "Now, who were they again?"
"Well let's see, dear," she began. "There was Paul."
Better, I thought. At least it's a person and not a deity. "Paul is a little later, Mother. More New Testament, really.”
"Oh yes. Well then it must have been Saul," replied my Mother. Good, I thought, at least it's an Old Testament name? King Saul!
"And then there was Paul,” she suddenly continued.
“Paul?”
“Yes.”
“Saul. And Paul?”
“Yes. And then the Vet!"
“The Vet?” I was puzzled by this mysterious creature, who seemed to crop up in all my Mother stories of the origins of the Bible.

“Why were Saul and Paul and The Vet the Three Pillars of Judaism?"
"Well Paul and Saul were very sad and lonely men, and they were on their way to Bethlehem.
"Bethlehem!" I gasped.
"Yes. Paul was a bit of a low-life and had gotten into trouble stealing.
“Sheep?”
“Something." She stopped while she considered her statement. Finding no rebuttal from me, she went on. "And on the way, they ran into the Vet."
"On the way to Bethlehem? OK. So did the Vet have a name?" I asked.
"I don’t know," said Mother.
"Well what did the Vet do?"
"Oh, for heaven’s sake, I have no idea what he did for a living.” she replied, somewhat impatiently. “It’s all in the Bible!” And eager to continue, she added "And then they went on to Bethlehem."
"All three of them?" I interrupted.
"Not the Vet. He went someplace else."
"OK. Then what happened once Paul and Saul reached Bethlehem?"
"Well,” she snapped, as if she was being put in the unpleasant position of having to state the obvious: “That's when the world began."

"Really? What about Adam and Eve?" I ask totally dumfounded.
"Oh, they came long after,” announced my Mother, clicking on the remote to her favorite soap opera, thus putting an end to the subject.

Later on, while discussing this bizarre story of The Vet with a friend (a regular church-goer herself), she volunteered, "Look at it this way. It’s just as plausible as the King James version."

© Bruce Gray 1997