Читать книгу Jesus and Menachem - Siegfried E. van Praag - Страница 10

Menachem returned to his mother’s house no more for he knew that only a few servants and his father’s agent had remained behind. His father travelled much and Menachem feared that he did good business with the Tetrarch of Galilee, the sly fox Herod Antipas.

Marcus Mercator had taken a new wife unto himself, the daughter of a Greek Jew and an Edomite, and found joy therein. His father lived with the times, he had left those who grieve and proved in advance that one can escape the affliction of one’s people, albeit only for a time. His mother had returned to Jerusalem out of longing for the world of her childhood.

Absorbed in thoughts of Ben Nesher and his destiny, he headed in the direction of the Sea of Kinnereth, Then he turned back to Nazareth in order to meet Ben Nesher whom he had resolved to accompany. The Romans offended Israel greatly. The time for prudence had passed. In the book of Koheleth5 it was recommended how one ought to divide one’s time. Menachem remembered the line “There is a time for saving and a time for giving.”

Satisfied with his decision, Menachem re-ascended the street of the carpenters until he reached the alley of the jackals. He entered the enclosure and looked in the dry shed. Ben Nesher has vanished. And now there came a strange feeling over Menachem, for not only was Ben Nesher gone, but he likewise missed Yeshua’s presence. He ran into the house. In the only room which served as their dwelling sat Joseph the carpenter with his head in his hands. Miriam stood before the fire with tear-stained eyes.

“Where is Ben Nesher, the captain of Yehuda the Galilean?”

Joseph raised his arms and let them fall again.

Menachem looked around the low room. Never had he seen an enclosed space so empty or barren.

“He is gone,” replied Joseph and Miriam at the same time in an anxious tone.

“With Ben Nesher?”

“Are there still parallel roads then in Israel?” asked Miriam with a sob in her throat.

“Nay, not with Ben Nesher,” replied Joseph.

“He could not be otherwise,” groaned Miriam, and Joseph agreed with a sigh: “He could not be otherwise.”

“But it falls heavy on us. Yeshua was our light,” said Miriam.

“Let’s go outside, mother,” suggested Menachem. “It is too dark in here.”

Miriam understood Menachem; she bent under the low door and sat down on a bench in front of the hut. The young man sat down beside her, reaching out his hand which Miriam took and held in her lap while softly muttering: “Ben ami” which means “son of my people.”

Then she began to speak in a mournful voice. “He could not be otherwise but why not?” We know not why he has quit his father’s house without saying goodbye to us and waiting for our blessing.”

“It must have been hard for him also, Miriam.”

“It is hard for him but God knows where he must go. He was our light. Why did it have to be extinguished now?”

Then Miriam fell into the lamentations and recollections of a mother who stores the daily life of her child in the treasure-house of her soul. For a mother is nourished by her weaned children.

“Yeshua was ever a strange child, Menachem. Perhaps that was bound up with the dream I had when I carried him. Once many years ago his father and I went with him to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover feast. There were many with us from Nazareth and surrounds. We celebrated the festival joyously, ate the matzos in the field outside the city and each day we went together to the Beit HaMikdash.”6

“During the first days of the festival I never saw Yeshua happier than in the Temple. He looked around all over as though he wanted to carry everything away with him. But toward the end of the festival he said: ‘I will not return there for the present.’”

“‘Why?’ his father and I asked.

‘Because I can see nothing in front of me but the ground and I wish to look up.’ Thus the last days he did not go with us to the Holy Temple.”

“Then came the time when the festival was over and we began to count the summer days. Our people from Nazareth went back with other groups from the neighborhood and we remained together. For we had to pass through the land of Samaria. After the Passover feast the Samaritans are not to be trusted because they are jealous of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Yeshua walked with us and from time to time I set him on top of Sirach the farmer’s donkey. The second morning I wished to comb his hair. He was gone. And he had not slept beside me that night. His father and I were greatly disturbed. We ran from one group to the other.

But Yeshua was not there and no one had seen him. Should we mourn over him? I could not do it. I prayed to God: ‘Take my life. But let me not mourn over Yeshua and let me not live if my child does not live. You spared Isaac for the sake of Sarah and Samuel for the sake of Hannah. You have not taken him away, that cannot be.’ Then I found peace. A whole morning I had peace but his father still wandered around seeking him with eyes cast down. At midday I became uneasy again. One’s confidence does not last long when something dear to you is lost. It is a sin; one should have faith but so much had happened. At midday I became sorely uneasy once more so I sought him in the multitudes again. God heard me calling and imploring ‘Yeshua, Yeshua, my child!’

He did not come. Had the bears caught him? I covered my eyes with my hands. Could it be that the Samaritans had carried him off for service on top of Mount Gerizim because he was a Jew?

‘We may not mourn yet, wife,’ said my husband.

‘We may not mourn yet,’ I said to him.

Then God gave me peace. We went on. We gave ourselves additional respite. And when we arrived in Nazareth, the child stood at the door. I fell upon the ground and I called out: ‘Blessed be God. Praised be the Lord, for He gives children to a mother and He does not take them away before He has taken the mother!’”

“Amen!” said Joseph. “May His Name be praised forever and ever.”

“But Yeshua did not understand; he stared at us with eyes wide. He only asked: ‘Why were you afraid?’”

“Later we heard that he had been with some pious learned men and had talked to them like a wise man from Jerusalem.”

Then Miriam began to weep. “But now he has gone away and I know not whither. Then he was nine years old. Now he is twenty. I cannot be with him anymore.”

“God is with him,” said Menachem.

“I cannot be with him anymore,” said Miriam sadly. “God keeps a reckoning with a man of twenty years but not with his mother.”

“Yeshua believes that a man should have faith,” declared Menachem, although he knew that Yeshua meant a type of faith that did not exclude the dead. “Yeshua has useful work to do, he will return. You will see him walking on the roads of Galilee with friends who hearken to him eagerly. Yeshua is not like other children, Miriam.”

“I know it, I know it,” sighed his mother. “He is a strange person. That I already heard when I still had to give birth to him. Unusual children weigh heaviest in the arms and heart of a mother. Heaviest and warmest. When they leave, the concern and the fear become worse.”

“It is so,” said Menachem, “but I think of Yeshua. He drives and dedicates himself ever harder. I must go now, Miriam. I shall seek him for you.”

“Why are you so good to me, Menachem?”

“Because Yeshua is my friend.”

“But he has spoken little of you to me.”

“Yeshua speaks little. Yet he is my friend.”

“Is there no other reason, Menachem?”

“Because the mothers in Israel weigh heavy upon my heart, Miriam.”

“Comforter!”

“Perhaps, of those who remain behind! I will return on the festival to see you again, and to speak with you more about Yeshua.”

She took his hand and said again: “Ben ami!”

“Bath ami” he whispered, which means “daughter of my people.”

For in Menachem a calling was growing to be a friend of his people.

Afterwards Menachem went to seek Ben Nesher. He could not understand why the patriot had left earlier than the time they had agreed upon.

Menachem knew Lower Galilee like the back of his hand. He wandered along the paths that trailed over the hills, he searched in forests and behind the trunks of cedars. He watched all the roads which led out from Nazareth but he found Ben Nesher nowhere. The few trusted ones whom he could question about the captain did not even know he had been in the area. What to do now? Go north to the Syrian border where the threatening Hermon rose up like a misty giant? To the east where the Roman servant in Tiberias availed himself of the corrupt times to fill his pockets? To the sea where the comfortable Roman rests his legs on Israel’s gaunt belly? Or to the south? He surmised that Ben Nesher had set out for the mountains of Judea where rebels had in the past felt safest. Thus he decided to quit his beloved Nazareth with the people he knew and the fertile bed of Galilee under its blankets of grass and crops. He would go to austere Judea which God had designed Himself and there seek Ben Nesher. For he wore the rebel leader’s brand and chain until another encounter would bring another instruction.

But first Menachem turned back to Nazareth to bid his friend Yocheved farewell. He entered the front door of the house of the Pharisee Abba Alexander and headed straight to the rooms where he expected Yocheved to be. The apartments through which he passed were dark. Suddenly he felt two arms holding him captive.

“Is it you, Menachem?”

“Aye. I come to take farewell of you for the present and to see the child. Then I go to Judea. My mother awaits me.”

“It is not true, Menachem. You are going into danger. You are afraid that you are neglecting your duty. Speak softly. There is danger here. A stranger has pushed himself into the house. I fear for the life of my father. Feel this and follow me.”

Menachem touched Yocheved’s hands. They were gripping a sharp object.

She took his hands and said: “Follow me.”

They came to the room of Abba Alexander and overheard a heated dispute.

“Two thousand drachmas, not a coin less!”

“I repeat it, man. I cannot give it to you and I won’t!”

“So, old miser, you have nothing left for your people then? My men and I sleep on the rocks, eat locusts, can be captured and slain by the idolators at any moment, and you refuse the small relief with which we must buy food and weapons?”

“And how do I know you do not extort the gold for yourself?”

“If you had eyes in your head, you would be able to discern that.”

“I will not give it.”

“I must have it, otherwise . . .”

“I won’t give it!”

“You do not wish to help your people then?”

“I do not wish to plunge my people into misfortune!”

“There you have now the Pharisees. Fine detached people. They study the Law day and night but God’s honor is not worth two thousand drachmas.”

“You are exposing us to danger.”

“We wish to purify the land. It is impossible to wear the yoke of the Romans and serve God at the same time.”

“For him who follows the Law nothing is impossible, young man. If you wish to be true to God’s Law you can live everywhere, and if that is not possible, die everywhere. There is no other way.”

“Only two thousand drachmas!”

“There is no other way. Life outside the Law is a shadow, it is separation from the substance. But you think only of life outside the mitzvoth.7 You speak of God’s Honor and you mean your vanity!”

“Hand over, man. He who permits himself to be defiled by the Romans on the outside, reflects it on the inside. I demand two thousand drachmas.”

“You think I’m a miser. I shall give to the Temple.”

“The Temple receives enough. I demand two thousand drachmas, otherwise . . .”

“Otherwise, what?”

“Your house goes up in flames and for you I have something too!”

Yocheved tried to shove the curtain aside but Menachem forestalled her gesture. The man who wished to wound Abba Alexander stood now with his back to them so Yocheved could have stabbed him. Menachem who had recognized the voice of the stranger pushed Yocheved back and entered the Pharisee’s room first.

“Abba, I know this man. He is Ben Nesher, the captain of Yehuda the Galilean. Give him the two thousand drachmas which he demands.”

“And who gives you the right, young man, to tell me what I must do?”

“Because Ben Nesher is too good for you to make him a sinner. It is written, ‘Thou shalt not murder!’”

“I will not give the money because I may not give it. They wish to know better than God and to act ahead of God. The end has not yet come. They want to bring it closer by violence against God’s purpose.”

“We only know what we must do, Abba. That is the only thing we know of God’s design. Hand over the money.”

“Nay.”

“Then I let Ben Nesher do his work. I crave your forgiveness, Yocheved.”

“Will you let my father be murdered, Menachem?”

“I shall not lift my hand against anyone who has sacrificed his blood for Israel.”

There followed a few moments of silence. Then Abba Alexander arose.

“Good, the wise men say that when one is threatened by danger he may break the Law, except when the oppressor demands that God’s Holy name be defiled. I shall give up the gold to buy my life. At this moment I eat unclean flesh. I shall atone for this.”

Abba Alexander opened a closet where he stored his money chest. He counted out the gold to the captain.

“I do not love my father. There is no tenderness in him,” said Yocheved softly to Menachem. “I hold not with his interpretation. But when you refused to fight for him I loved him.”

“I go to fight for Ben Nesher. He loves us so much that he has become our despair.”

“Have you nothing left over for me then, Menachem? Will you not take one step out of your way for me? Do I mean so little to you that you cannot do for me nor leave me one deed, that you cannot postpone one intention for my sake?”

“You counsel me ill, Yocheved.”

“In you too, there is no tenderness, Menachem. There is no more tenderness among the men of this folk.”

“My tenderness will come when you no longer put yourself first, Yocheved. God keep and protect you!”

“Colder than ice are the words of a man whom one loves in vain. God be with you, Menachem.”

Then the young man gripped the great Ben Nesher by the arm. “I was coming to seek you and did not think I would find you so close. I am going with you.”

With swift steps the two men abandoned the house of Yocheved, who stood near a window staring after them:

“My lover deserts my house like a thief. Now I remain behind with a father who lives not among humans. He does not even notice me. The least of the commentaries in the Mi-Sinai8 which his wise men say is derived from the Law of Sinai, is dearer to him than my soul. One cannot serve God and people at the same time, no matter what they say. My mother has run off with her lover. This is no house in which to stay. Its doors are shut but in all of Nazareth there is no house more open and colder. I shall run away also. May not a chaste virgin do the same as an adulterous wife—run after a man?”

5. Ecclesiastes.

6. The House of Holiness, the Temple.

7. Righteous deeds.

8. Oral law.