Chapter 2: “The Spirit of Freedom” ¹

The quiet, smooth whooshing of the maglev drilled into Josiah’s ears and drove him nuts because his father and the chief judge were not saying anything.

The uneasy silence erupted when a man charged up to Eli.

“How dare you!” he shouted, showing a finger in Eli’s face.

“How dare I what?” intoned Eli, looking bored.

The man’s rage boiled into a rant. “You banished my brother! He did nothing wrong! All he did was to educate people about the defects in our society.”

“Defects like…?” Eli began.

“Hey!” Josiah interrupted with a shout, jumping to his feet. “How dare you talk back to the chief judge!”

Eli grabbed his arm and spoke sharply. “Josiah, it is his right to criticize me. Sit down.”

Josiah felt ashamed, and he slowly sat and dropped his face.

The train remained quiet for a moment, and then Eli turned to the man and said, “You were saying?”

“Uh, yes, umm…” The man paused. “Where was I?”

“The defects,” Eli said. “What are the defects?”

“Right. They are things like how power is centralized in one person. We need checks and balances.”

Eli nodded. “I believe I remember who your brother was. He was a lesser judge, right?”

The man fidgeted. “Yes…”

“You are bearing false witness by omission because that’s not all your brother did. Am I correct?”

“No, of course not!” the man insisted.

“Really? Because from what I remember, I reversed one of his decisions, and he became angry about it. Is that correct?”

The man asserted, “It is not correct!”

“Oh, but it is. Your brother’s name was Zeezrom Hollander, correct?”

The man hesitated. “Er, yes.”

Eli spoke louder. “I encourage everyone to look up the public records of that case.”

The man gazed around the train and saw many people looking at their smartphones. He shrank a little.

“The chief judge is right,” said a woman. That’s what happened."

Another man piped up. “Oh, it seems Judge Hollander had taken a bribe.”

“Mr. Hollander, do you dispute those facts?” said Eli.

The man quietly spoke. “No, sir.”

“You do realize that you did, in fact, bear false witness, both by omission and by claiming that what I was saying was wrong, correct?”

Hollander mumbled, “Yes.”

“The punishment of bearing false witness is that the accuser is given the same punishment that he tried to inflict on the accused,” said Eli. “You tried to publicly humiliate me and turn public opinion against me for a false reason.”

“False reason?” asked Josiah.

Eli smiled. “Yes. It’s perfectly okay to turn public opinion sour for something that is true. Otherwise, Mr. Hollander and his brother are correct that there are no checks and balances.

“But in fact, there are. First of all, I serve at the pleasure of the people and at the pleasure of Jesus Christ. He will remove me out of my place if I get out of line. And by allowing people to speak their opinion of me, to convince others that I am wrong, that is another check against me.”

Then he patted Samuel’s shoulder. “But other than Christ, your father is the biggest check on my power. He would never let me get away with anything, for which I am grateful.”

“You’re grateful?” asked Josiah.

“Of course. Power corrupts, right? It has less of a chance to corrupt if someone is always there watching, and I don’t want power to cause me to lose my soul.”

“Oh.”

Eli turned to the man. “I believe your punishment has been effectively given already by you being corrected in public as you were. However, I do need to add a record of this case to the public archive of all cases. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No further action needed on your part. You may go.”

The man slunk away. Eli turned to his bashful, unnoticeable assistant. “Can you make that record for me?”

“Already done, sir.”

“Thank you.”

Josiah watched the man go and then turned to Eli. “So you really let people insult you?”

Eli nodded. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Doesn’t Jesus Christ let you insult Him?”

Josiah snorted. “I don’t believe in Jesus Christ.”

“And that’s your biggest problem,” Eli replied.