Miryam
by
Luise Rinser
Part 4
That was when that Councilor
Gamaliel, who had spoken in favor of both accused, came to me as leader of one
of the groups we called communities. I seemed to him competent to answer his
question and he came right to the point: You were Rabbi Yeshua�s companion and
are initiated in his teaching, and knew him from close up. Tell me: Who was he?
You know that.
You understand me;
why don�t you answer my question?
What should I tell
you? He was a person the likes of whom can only exist once on our earth.
There have already
been great ones on this earth, great prophets, great saints too. What was
special about your rabbi?
Special about him
is that you have come and asked me what was special about him. Why do you want
to know that?
Because of him I
have slept badly for many nights.
Special about him
was not ABOUT him, but HE was what was special, and one became different and
special alongside him and saw the world in a special way.
Say it more
clearly.
More clearly? I can
only say it differently: He was the word of eternal love become flesh.
So you say. But how
does that fit with him cursing us? �My blood be upon you and your children.� Is
that love?
He never said that.
Your guilty conscience heard that, or one of ours, a bad reporter, who didn�t
understand Yeshua.
If I can believe
you, Miryam, and that was not true, then perhaps the other is also untrue: that
he said on the cross that he forgives all who are guilty of his death.
No: Father, forgive
them, is what he said. But he himself had already forgiven. His death was a
complete forgiveness.
Gamaliel covered
his face and left.
However: many in
the Council were afraid. That crucified one, who they thought finished once and
for all along with his teaching, proved himself highly dangerous alive, and
some said: We made a mistake, his death makes him a great martyr; and now you
see it, they are already inventing legends about him and making him into some
kind of god and us their god�s murderers, it will cost us dearly. Just look at
this young Stephanos, how he�s acting, he, Gamaliel�s student, who could have
dreamed that he would go over to that Galilean. Did you hear that Stephanos
said that the rabbi Yeshua, though dead, could rebuild the temple in three
days? Outrageous talk. Didn�t we hear it from the Nazarene himself? Destroy the
temple: what does that mean except destroy Jewish tradition and introduce
another. And his followers believe that, dangerous fools just as he was. So it
still goes on. What should we do?
They arrested
Stephanos and interrogated him. His defense speech was a masterpiece. It
betrayed Gamaliel�s school. The speech: a resume of Yisrael�s history until the
construction of the Davidic temple. Before that, Stephanos said, the Eternal
One lived with his people without a temple, for it is written that the Eternal
One said: Heaven is my throne, the earth my footstool. And he asked his people:
What kind of house will you build for me with human hands? Was it not my hand
that created everything? Therefore the Eternal One lives not in the temple but
in the spirit, and the Eternal One allowed the temple to be built only in order
to indulge King Solomon, and not as a dwelling place for Himself. His place is
everywhere and forever. You, however, think of stones instead of spirit.
They ejected him
from the city, and though Gamaliel tried to defend his student, Stephanos was
stoned to death.
One who was looking
on was Saul. It is hard for me to talk about him. I will delay it as much as
possible. I can�t avoid it, because he cannot be ignored in respect to our
history, Jewish and �Christian�, as our movement was later called.�������������
�
I would rather
speak of Jochanan, who was Yeshua�s and my friend. Our conversations were
eagles� flights when we spoke of Yeshua�s teaching. We called these
conversations thought-games, but they were much more than that - our struggle
to understand what Yeshua called FATHER but was no father as Zeus was, but pure
spirit. For Jochanan, Greek educated and Greek thinking, it was difficult to
bring his philosophy in harmony with our Jewish conception of the Highest.
For us Jews God,
though inconceivable and infinitely exalted, was nevertheless made according to
human measure: he loved and raged, rewarded, punished, took and gave, gave
orders, made the testament with his people. It was almost juridical: I offer
you loyalty and help, you obey the commandments that I gave you through Moshe.
He was OUR God. A Jewish God. At first a tribal god of the of the original
natives; then, with the growing knowledge of the wise among our people, the One
and Only, inconceivably great, yet one person, whom one spoke to as Thou, and
with whom one could converse, argue, bargain. Infinitely distant and very
close. Both in One. We could not name him by his real name. He had many names.
They were names for his characteristics, not for him.
Nevertheless: He
was PRESENT� , he was our contractual
partner, and he was our father. The father of all fathers and primeval fathers.
We could not conceive of him differently, for we had lived a thousand years
under the rule of the fathers.
But Jochanan sprang
cleverly over the merely juridical.
We spoke of it
often, just the two of us in the night, without witnesses, shocked by our own
thoughts.
God is spirit, said
Jochanan, and spirit is the same as love.
Or, more mysterious
and cleverer: God is THE WORD. He said that in Greek, because he couldn�t find
the appropriate word in Hebrew: Logos.
In the beginning
was the Word. God himself was the logos, and the logos became flesh and was the
Son of the Father and was the light of the world.��
That the logos was
in the beginning didn�t seem unfamiliar. My Greek friend had told me that
before something existed, something was already there: the idea of it, and the
idea was spiritual, and the idea took matter to itself and became
thing-reality. That in the beginning someone existed in whom all ideas were,
also seemed to make sense. Instead of idea, logos. Instead of thing-becoming,
creation. But then the thing about the son. Maybe thus: The Highest, logos of
all logoi, Jochanan said, wanted a Thou. Every father wants a son, every person
a vis-�-vis. The son always existed as idea in the father. And one day the
father spoke the word, and from out of the word the son became. Perhaps.
I didn�t take it so
seriously, more as a thought-game. But the thing dug deeper marks in me that I
thought. Who was this son?
If the logos took
on matter, then the word of the son must also appear as earthly matter. It must
become human. Human like us.
Jochanan also
tormented himself with this question, though neither of us quite understood why
it was so important for us.
Didn�t we have
anything else to think about?
One day Jochanan
drew in the sand. He was imitating the Rabbi, who often did that. What was it
that Jochanan drew?
A triangle with the
base on the earth, and a second one pointing downwards and meeting the head of
the one underneath it.
Jochanan indicated
the point where both apexes met: Here HE stands. Here above is the godly domain,
here below the human one. No separation, but different domains. HE is the
bridge. HE belongs to both domains. Son of God. Son of Man. The logos, which
introduces the upper domain into the lower. One day both domains will coincide,
and that will be the kingdom of peace, the kingdom of the spirit.
And this HE, do you
mean our rabbi Yeshua? Do you mean this seriously, or is it another
thought-game?
I don�t know.
Let�s keep playing:
How did this HE come from his spirit-domain into that of matter?
By conception and
birth. How else?
That what you say. Don�t you know, you half-Greek,
the story of the goddess Athena, whom the highest god, Zeus, conceived with
himself and carried in his head until she, motherless, sprang from his head as
a full grown woman?
That�s a heathen
belief.
Everything heathen
isn�t false.
It�s different.
But how?
Haven�t you noticed
that when Yeshua speaks of his father he doesn�t mean Josef the carpenter, who
is long dead?
Yes, I have. And
that he looks at his mother like a stranger and calls her madam, not mother.
Who is his father, who his mother?
Did you know that
his mother grew up in the temple, one of the many chosen daughters of Yisrael,
one who, more than any other, met the conditions of the prophesy about the
Messiah�s mother?
Did she?
It seems so. And
then they looked for a suitable husband for her.
Who did the
choosing?
Temple priests with
special powers. Wise ones. Initiates.
Do you believe
that?
I don�t know. I
know such stories from other religions.
For example?
They lead the
chosen ones into the temple. Put them into a deep sleep and order them to bed
together. Still asleep, they are separated and they remember nothing of what
happened, at most a dream of winged beings and spears of light.
But then, when the
conceived child comes?
Then it is divinely
conceived, fatherless.
And what�s it all
for?
In order to be able
to declare a man to be God.
Nobody thinks to
declare Yeshua God. What are you talking about?
You�re talking
about him, not me. I�m only telling what is thought in other religions.
Figments of the
imagination, I said and left.
But the whole thing
gave me no rest. I secretly watched Yeshua to see if I could perceive his
origin. I saw nothing like that. But I thought, it could well be that he came
from the spirit-domain to that of matter in an unusual way. This idea of winged
beings and spear of light. The spirit who travels into matter and conceives.
The logos, which becomes a human child. If this child is a human only in
accordance with love and a god in accordance with spirit? That�s an idea which
is not absurd. But why does Jochanan apply it to our rabbi? For he does, even
though he denies it. I talk to him.
What do you know of
Yeshua�s birth?
Nothing.
Tell me what you
know!
Very well: The
astrologers had calculated that at a certain point in time there was a very
unusual constellation in the sky: a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.
What does that
mean?
Jupiter is the
king�s star.
And Saturn?
Every people has a
planet attributed to it. Yisrael�s star is Saturn.
That means that in
Yisrael a king will be born, and a special meaning is attached to him. And
where is this king, please? We have only one, Herod, and he is miserable.
Jochanan walked
away, as though I had insulted him. �
Then something
occurred to me for the first time, something which shocked me as though it were
blasphemy. Why, I thought, did the astrologers assume with such certainty that
the foreseen child would be masculine? Why must the Messiah be a man? Why should
the Highest be a man? Of course no one said so, for no one could say anything
about the Highest that counted. But does even one Jew imagine that this eternal
HE could be a woman?
It even seemed
ridiculous to me. Not a woman, no, but not a man either. The unnamable, the
EVERYTHING, was man and woman.
But the Messiah,
couldn�t it be a woman? Aren�t there great women among our people,
prophetesses, wise ones, saints and also those who guided their people�s
destiny: Ja�l, Esther, Jehudit. And weren�t women more suited to bring peace
and care for life?
Jochanan, why is
man worth more than woman, why this silent agreement that the Highest is a man?
Because the spirit
is masculine.
You fool. As if the
spirit, although masculine, were bound to the man![1]
This time it was I
who walked away offended.
Now I reacted to
Jochanan the same way that Shimon did. When he was a witness to one of our
talks, one of the more harmless ones, that is, he shook his head: That you
always fly around so high! Who can understand that? What�s it good for? And all
those questions about who the rabbi is. Who�s he supposed to be then? He is he.
You must love him, then you�ll know who he is.
That Shimon. He was
so simple. A fisherman who knew nothing except what he�d heard in the synagogue,
and accepted it without thinking. But when Yeshua bent his finger and said:
Come! He left everything behind, the boat and the net, and said to his wife:
Wait for me, I have something important to do. She waited. Later she also left
her home and accompanied Shimon to Yerushalayim, and then farther, to Rome. I
don�t know if she witnessed his death, but I have reliable information that
they crucified Shimon, like the Master, but differently: with his head pointing
downward. I can imagine how willingly and as a matter of course he accepted
that. He was always ready to throw himself off a cliff, naturally, we said
amongst ourselves, as long as the rabbi grabbed the edge of his coat at the
last moment and was satisfied with the good intention, as the Highest was
satisfied that Avraham was willing to sacrifice his son, and nothing more was
expected. Ja�akob told me that Shimon had seen the rabbi, after his death and
return from the kingdom of the dead, walk on the water of the sea as though on
dry land. Then he jumped out of the boat and ran after the rabbi, thinking that
he had called him, but halfway across he lost his nerve and sank. Just in time
for the rabbi to pull him out. Shimon was very ashamed. I don�t know whether
the story is true or not, probably one of us invented it. But it shows how
Shimon was: a child, very lovable in his humble zeal.��������������
Once I asked him:
You are married, have a family and responsibilities. How could you simply walk
away? And the rabbi, how could he have wanted that? What if everyone did that?
That�s the way it
was. He said come and I came. And you, you also did it!
I�m independent,
that�s a difference, or not?
He hung his head.
You couldn�t ask him such things. He couldn�t answer. He himself was the answer
to such questions.
Once I noticed that
he carried a dagger under his cloak.
You, Shimon, are
you with the Zealots?
His face went red.
You never know, he said.
What?
If you�ll need it
some day.
You would kill,
Shimon? Or do you carry the thing to cut twigs?
He was stubbornly
silent.
Once, however, he
pulled the knife in earnest: when Yeshua was arrested, and he cut off one of
the guard�s ears; it could just as well have been his head.
Who was Yeshua to
him though? Did he take him for the Messiah? I don�t know.
The flash of
knowledge that once let him see the divine in Yeshua had gone out, and he
walked in darkness until that day when the flash touched him a second time,
fifty days after Yeshua�s death. Under the impact of the great light the
trembling earth steadied: kefa. rock. Later they called him by the Latin name
Petrus, which also means: the rock.
The rabbi loved him
very much. Jochanan saw it with restrained jealousy, he was a jealous one. As
though he were never sure if the rabbi loved him, he felt it necessary to
continuously reconfirm it: �The disciple whom the master loved.� Oh Jochanan,
no one denied you your place on his breast, and also not under the cross. Both
of us stood there, you and I, and held out until the end.
But we didn�t
always agree. There were two points of contention. One belonged to our
thought-games, the other to hard reality.������
The thought-game,
which was played for high stakes, our understanding of Yeshua�s teaching, never
ended.
The impulse was a
parable that Yeshua told. A farmer sowed wheat. A part of the seeds fell along
the way and was trampled and eaten by birds. Another part fell on hard ground
and dried out. A part fell into a thorn bush, grew, but was smothered by the
underbrush. A small portion fell on good earth and produced rich fruit.
Naturally we
understood the point. The seeds were his words. But: what kind of farmer is it
that sows so sloppily? He must know his own land. Really: who sows in thorns,
who sows on rock! Is it the seeds� fault if they can�t grow?
Rabbi, either you
chose a bad example, or wanted to tell us a terrible truth.
He said: You�re not
thinking it through. There is not only one time for sowing and one summer for
reaping. The great offer is repeated. The possibility for the ascension of man
is endless.
Fine, but that
doesn�t explain why the farmer is so foolish. Can he waste his seed that way?
Or is his faith in the harvest so great that he trusts even the rock to be
fruitful.
Yeshua said: No
seed is lost.
With that we were
satisfied for the moment, even Jochanan and I.�����
But already on the
next evening Yeshua rolled another stone in the way.
A man, he said,
wanted to have a feast and sent messengers to invite friends and neighbors. But
they came back with only excuses. One would marry the next day and had no time
or desire. Another had to buy a piece of land on that day. A third had to pick
up a pair of oxen he had bought. They all had something more important to do
than attend the feast. The host said to the messengers: Bring me all those who
no one invites, those who hang out in the alleys, the beggars, the landless,
the sick, the girls for sale. They are to be my guests. They all came. It was a
beautiful feast.
Mathaios said: The
story is different, I know it from the Persians. The invitees didn�t want to
come because they mistrusted the host, who knows why, maybe they smelled a
trap. In any case, they beat up the messengers. And then, an eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth, the host sent out other messengers and they beat up the one
who had beaten the first messengers.
That, said Yeshua,
is not my story.
Yehuda said: I
don�t understand why the man invites people he knows won�t come. He is as
foolish as the farmer who sows wheat on stone. You�ve got to know people, you�ve
got to reckon with their badness. The earth is no paradise where the lamb
sleeps with the lion.
Yes, Yeshua said,
you have to know people, you are right, Yehuda. But what does �know a person�
mean. He looked at Yehuda in a way that sent shivers down my spine and we all
felt an oppression like a loss of breath.
Only Yehuda didn�t
seem to feel anything. He said dryly: I would like to know how the story really
ended. Probably it has no end. The people from the street, the poor, the
despised, had a nice evening because of a rich man�s mood, they filled
themselves, drank wine instead of water. Good. And then? Then they were sent
outside and everything stayed the same for them. The landless stayed without
land, the sick stayed sick, the beggars poor. What I would like to know is:
what did the rich man do after the feast? That�s the main thing. Did he repeat
it, did he keep his house open for the poor, did he do anything to alleviate
poverty? Your story makes me uneasy, Rabbi. Should we praise this rich man because
he was good once? And his goodness isn�t even good. It�s nothing more than
disappointment and revenge.
Yehuda, Yeshua
said, you are missing the point, and you know it.
Yehuda was
stubbornly silent.
But Yeshua kept it
up. It was obvious that he wanted to pound the truth into us. But which truth?
The next night he
came with another story, one that tasted bitter to us all this time.���������
There was supposed
to be a wedding, everything was ready, only the bridegroom was missing. Evening
came, then night, the guests became nervous, the bride began to fear that he
would not came or had lost his way. So she called ten girls, had them fill
their oil lamps and place them along the way. They stood there and waited hour
after hour. They were tired and fell asleep. At midnight they heard the call:
the bridegroom is coming. But they sat in the dark, for the lamps had gone out.
Five of the girls had brought an oil supply with them, and they filled their
lamps. The others had to go into town first to get oil. Meanwhile, however, the
bridegroom arrived and took the girls whose lamps were burning into the hall
and closed the doors. When the others came, no one let them in no matter how
much they called out and knocked.
What a terrible
story, I said. What kind of bridegroom is that who makes everyone wait so long
for him? There�s no more oil, the food gets cold, the guests mistrustful, the
bride is worried to death, and no one knows if this bridegroom will come and if
he even exists and if the wedding will take place. And who knows if he who
finally arrives is really the bridegroom. Maybe the bride is still waiting. And
those who were shut out. They stand outside, having arrived a little late, and
they let them knock and call out, although their lamps are lit again. What a
hard man is that bridegroom. Rabbi, your story is a bad one. What does it have
to do with you? Wouldn�t you, in case you were the bridegroom, wouldn�t you
leave all the doors open? Could you happily celebrate the wedding when there
are those who are shut out? Shouldn�t you have rebuked the girls who didn�t
share their oil? Listen, Rabbi, I will share my oil and I will take those who
are shut out with me into the hall, or I will stay with them outside.
Yeshua said: You
are right.
How can you say, Rabbi,
that I am right when your story is quite different? Or you aren�t telling the
real ending, and its ending isn�t its ending, and no one know the ending. The
bride is still waiting.
Yes, she is
waiting, she is always waiting, and her waiting is her wedding.
Whoever can
understand that, let them, I said, and left.
But that evening
Jochanan and I returned to the subject of course, and our thought-game was
harsh. Always this talk about the chosen, I said; it�s too much like the
Essenes for me. The pure, the select, the saved, the grain of wheat that
remains in the sieve when the chaff has been sifted.
But how can it be
otherwise? Salvation in mass without paying attention to how one lives? Mustn�t
the person choose himself? Isn�t he free?
Free? Does the seed
choose it�s soil? It�s sowed whether it wants to be or not. Check out the soil
and put forth roots. It�s up to you. One receives knowledge, the other doesn�t.
And whoever doesn�t receive it, then nothing can be demanded of him, and he
can�t be punished because he doesn�t have it.
How can you say
that there are people who aren�t given knowledge? Don�t we all come from the
same father�s house? Aren�t we all children of love? Does the father send any
of his children into the desert without an inheritance? Is it the father�s
fault if the children waste the inheritance?
The question
remains, Jochanan: How is it that one child wastes the inheritance and the
other multiplies it? That�s the real question and it always comes down to the
same thing: there are chosen and not chosen. And that Yeshua confirms that
doesn�t agree with me, because it doesn�t agree with him.
But if the person
is so free that he chooses his own rejection?
Who would be so
impudent or foolish to do such a thing?
Do you know the saga
of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods in order to bring it to men
although he knew that it was forbidden and the punishment would be terrible?
One must think of the greatness of man and his freedom.
That was one of our
thought-games, and playing it was a compulsion and agonized us and led to
nothing. That story was one of our points of conflict. The other was palpable,
but no less difficult and painful. It had to do with the story about the
wedding. We couldn�t get over it. WHO was the bridegroom? WHO the bride?
Did it mean the
Messiah? Was Yisrael the waiting bride?
Yehuda, who
intervened in this discussion because he considered himself competent, said:
The thing is clear. The bride waits for the bridegroom. She has waited so long
that she already doubts if he will ever come, or even if he exists. And then he
comes after all, at midnight, that is when it�s darkest and no one expects him.
Well, do you understand? When Yisrael is in deepest misery, he comes.
With burning eyes,
but softly, he added: Maybe he�s already here.
We didn�t take up
the point. That was the forbidden question.
But I asked this:
And the girls who wait, some with burning lamps and others without?
Simple. Those
without oil are those among us who think that liberation will fall into their
laps like manna and the quails in the desert. Like those back there in the
caves. Like all who don�t want to get their hands dirty. Eat the lamb, yes, but
others must slaughter it.
What are you
saying, Yehuda? You mean violence.
Did I say that? You
dreamt it. But you don�t dare to think clearly. You, Jochanan, you talk of
love. The rabbi talks of love and peace. So: what is love for Yisrael? What
then? To watch while it�s destroyed? Or doesn�t love for Yisrael mean to fight
for its liberation? Who fights, kills. To love Yisrael means to kill several
thousand Romans. How else should it happen? Tell me, you wise, you pious
ones!���������������
What he said was so
reasonable, and so terrible. But didn�t he have the correct view of the reality?
And we others: weren�t we dreamers?
When I was alone
with Jochanan, I said: Yehuda confuses me. Something in me says he is right. At
one time, before I met the group, I also had a dagger, and if I hadn�t met you,
but a group of rebels, I would have gone with them.
And you would have
killed.
And perhaps have
been killed.
And nothing would
have changed.
Death for a great
cause is not in vain.
Then go and kill
and let yourself be killed! This half-heartedness isn�t worthy of you.
Half-heartedness? Am
I not with the rabbi with all my heart? What can I do if my Maccabee blood
stirs? What can I do if I�m not like you?
What am I like?
There�s mockery in your voice.
What are you like?
Sometimes you seem like a little lamb, sometimes like an eagle. What you really
are isn�t yet defined.
You�ll find out.
There are times when people consider him a hero who kills many foes, and there
are times when the hero is he who offers the other cheek when he�s hit in the
face. That�s what the rabbi says. The one who hits back doesn�t realize that
he�s hitting himself.
That is very nicely
said. But then Yisrael�s whole history would be wrong. We were hit, and we hit
back.
Yes, and what was
the result? We lost everything.
Now keep your feet
on the ground, Jochanan: according to you we must silently tolerate the Romans
and that pack of friends and profiteers. Don�t give me that, please! And don�t
say now what�s on the tip of your tongue.
What then?
The thing with the
coin. Must we pay taxes to the Romans, Rabbi? I wasn�t there so I didn�t hear
his answer. But you spread it around: Whose likeness is on the coin? The
emperor�s. So, give to the Emperor what is due to him, and to the Eternal One
what is his. That really makes me angry.
Now YOU keep your
feet on the ground! Could he have said: deny Rome the taxes? Don�t you
understand what he meant? Not that we should humble ourselves before the
Romans. He meant something completely different. What is money? Nothing. What
you give to the emperor is nothing. Let him have it.
You say that money
is nothing. Tell that to the people! Tell the farmers: pay taxes willingly, for
that which you pay is nothing. The money they must pay is another word for
wheat and wine and freedom! Now don�t start with the Essene teaching: the end of
time nears, you don�t need money and property anymore. Don�t tell me that.
If you don�t want
to hear it, I�ll be silent.
So be silent.
Again we parted
arguing. Of course: he was right, but Yehuda was also right. Each spoke in his
own language. I began to understand: each spoke of a different reality.
However: are there two realities? Does a kingdom exist in which the law of
violence counts, and one in which it does not? One in which you defeat the
enemy with weapons, and one in which you disarm him before he attacks by
throwing away your own weapon and approaching him and giving him the fraternal
kiss? Does that exist? What enemy would not think such a person a fool or a
turncoat, a despicable coward? No, that won�t work. But how then? Always attack
and counter-attack? And so on forever? To keep spinning the black wheel?����������
It was good that in
those days something new was introduced, something unexpected: two women came,
Yochana, the wife of Chuza, Herod�s finance minister, and a court-lady by the
name of Shoshana.
My jaw dropped. I�d
known them for a long time. Yochana had been one of my father�s best customers,
she came often to Magdala representing Herod. She came with great pomp and
ordered the best oils and aromatic waters and ointments, She was rich herself
and well married, it seemed, and had three children. Now she came on foot, she
and her serving lady, and they were dusty and without make-up.
What do you want
here?
To live with you.
�Do you spoiled women have any idea of how we
live?
We do have an idea,
and that�s why we�re here, Yochana said.
What�s happened to
you? What changed you so much? Is this a joke or are you in earnest?
I am very much in
earnest. I have burnt all bridges behind me.
Why?
Life at the court
has bored me for a long time now, or rather it sickened me. But I accepted it.
Until that happened, I mean the Baptist. When Princess Shulamit brought the
silver tray with the Baptist�s severed head on it as though it were a calf�s
head, disgust overcame me. The dead eyes stared at me. I went out and vomited.
In the evening I said to my husband: can you stand that? He said: What can I
do? I�m a minister, Herod is the sovereign. So, I said, you agree with this
murder and all the whoring at court? What does agree mean, he said, I must
close my eyes to it. Then keep them closed, I said, but mine have been opened,
once and for all, and I�m leaving. You�re leaving? Where to? Away. And then I
said something I wouldn�t have said an instant before, I said: I�m going to
look for the one the Baptist spoke of. Chuza said: You�re crazy, as crazy as
the Baptist. Then I�m crazy, I said, and you can be glad to be rid of me. I
want to be free. It was as if Chuza had been struck on the head. You want to be
free, aren�t you free now? No, said I, I am not free. He asked: Am I perhaps
the cause of your not being free? Do you want a divorce? Is there another man?
I said: No other man, but maybe something else. He said: Are you unsatisfied?
Do you want more money, more jewelry, more servants? Or am I no longer good in
bed? I said: You don�t understand, it�s something completely different. What
then? We waste our lives here eating, drinking, gambling, whoring. He was
shocked at his wife�s, the court lady�s, words. I didn�t spare him. I said: We�re
rich, but where does our wealth come from? We don�t work. Someone works so that
we have money to gorge ourselves and whore around. Who works? The people. They
work for us and we suck it up. Come, let�s go, let�s lead a different life.
But, said he, I am a minister, I swore an oath to the king. Listen: this king
has the right to expect loyalty. He is miserable, a fool, a prophet murderer,
you manage blood money, Chuza! Come! He was impressed. He said: But what would
we do, what would we live from? And our children? I said: We�ll take them with
us. He wavered. But then he secretly sent the children away, gave me a purse
full of money and traveled to Greece. And here I am. Here, take my purse, it�s
all I have, but it�s enough.
Yeshua accepted
them without many questions. The men however put their heads together and
discussed it and came to no conclusion. Yeshua hadn�t asked them, but what
would they have said if he had asked them? They sighed. Three women. They were
used to me, I was already one of them. But now two more: what were they good
for?����������
But Yehuda said:
It�s not so bad, they brought money, quite a bit.
It this
horse-trading? Does one pay in order to accompany the rabbi?
Shimon said: Life
with us will soon be too hard for them; let them stay until they leave on their
own; such as they don�t last long, it�s a whim.
But how they
lasted! They put their hands to the plow and didn�t look back once, and only
that moment when our old sailboat in Yafo left Yisrael did Yochana weep. She
wept for her children. She never saw them again.
We didn�t stay
three women for long, a fourth came: Shulamit, Ja�akov�s and the elder
Jochanan�s mother. She didn�t come because of conviction but because she missed
hers sons, she was very close to them. She said it openly. Yeshua didn�t want
family ties. With reason, as it turned out. She wasn�t with us more than a few
days when she demanded privileges, though not for herself, but for her sons.
The rabbi wanted to give us an example of the kingdom of peace: a feast of
peace, a feast of love. At that Shulamit threw herself to the ground.
What do you want?
Get up.
The scene was
embarrassing.
Rabbi, my sons have
given up everything for you. How will you reward them? Let them sit next to you
at that feast, one on the right, the other on the left!
I laughed at such
lack of understanding. Yeshua rebuked me and said: She is such a short time
with us, how should she have knowledge? But even you, who have been with me a
long time, all of you have not understood that in the kingdom of the spirit no
one is master and no one servant, there are only brothers, each of whom is the
servant of the other. You want a reward for following me? Fools. Isn�t it
enough that you have found the drachma which your ancestors have sought for a
thousand years?
They were both
ashamed because of their mother.
To Shulamit he
said: Do you tie birds with ship ropes?
Yeshua was right to
reject family ties, for himself, for us. His own family made trouble for him. I
met them at a wedding in Cana. The bride was a relative of Yeshua�s and she
invited him and us. A humble wedding of poor people. They were all poor, also
Yeshua�s brothers, the sons from Joseph�s first marriage. They weren�t happy to
see their brother. Sidelong glances, short, cold greetings, distrust. Only the
mother was friendly, but it seemed to me that she was shy of showing that she
loved her son Yeshua, in her way. She wanted to speak to me.
So it�s you! She
said.
That was puzzling.
You are together
with my son?
Together? How do
you mean that? I am one of his pupils. He also has others.
Yes, but you have
been longest with him. Tell me, what do you think of him?
Would I be with him
if I didn�t consider him to be a great rabbi?
I must admit that I
wasn�t very friendly to her. I didn�t like her asking me, a stranger, about her
son. She noticed, and quietly withdrew.
So that was his
mother. Was she really? Was she the one who grew up in the temple, about whom
Jochanan and I spun such dreams? If she was, then she had forgotten her past.
It seemed to me that she didn�t realize whom she gave birth to. But then: the
thing with the wine. There was none left and the party was far from over. Great
embarrassment. I saw how is mother went up to him and spoke to him. He stepped
back, she pressed, he was unwilling, but she followed him, she almost stepped
on his heels. What did she want from him?
It was obvious: she
wanted him to help the poor newly married couple, who were ashamed because
there was no more wine. I wanted to say: we still have money in the purse, one
of us should go and buy wine.
But something had
already happened:� suddenly there was
wine again, great flasks full. It was simply accepted, no one gave it much
thought.
Someone had brought
wine, why not? A late guest with a wedding present.
His mother, though,
wore a triumphant smile, as one who has accomplished what she wanted.
Did she now have
the answer to her question?
I went up to
Jochanan. Did you see that?
He didn�t ask:
What?
I said: Does he do
such things often? Does one learn that down there in the desert? Is that what
they call dominating the force of nature?
He said: It can be
learned, certainly, but that she challenged him to do it, that was wrong. He
shouldn�t do such things. When they find out that he can do such things, they
will spread it around and demand that he change stones to bread and scorpions
to fish and the earth to paradise, and if he doesn�t do it they will revile and
kill him.
How did his mother
know that he could do something like that?
She had her dreams
about him being special, and now she has a proof. She will want another, then
another, and will never be certain.
What does she want
to test for?
For that for which
there is no test. For what HE HIMSELF is the test.
Yeshua didn�t wait for
the party to end. He left. He left without saying goodbye to his mother. For
her part, she stood aside.
But I understood
Yeshua�s conduct when some time later in another place he was told that his
mother and his brothers had arrived. He said: Who is my mother, brother,
sister? The one who is related to me not by blood, but by the spirit.
Why had they come?
They said it: to take him home. They thought him mad, and in his madness
dangerous. The way he talked against the priests no reasonable person talked.
It was naked defiance, it was madness that would end badly and cast suspicion
and discredit on the whole family.
Yeshua refused to
see them. The family turned up again and again in order to take him home. We
protected him.
His mother had a
long way to go before she knew who he was. She knew it in it�s full meaning
when she stood under the cross on which he died. The hour of his defeat, which
she had feared all her life, brought her the great knowledge.
We were four women
when we first went together to the Pesach feast in Yerushalayim: Yochana,
Shoshana, I, and Shulamit. The men: Shimon and Andreas, Ja�akov and Jochanan,
Philippos and Bartolomaios, both pupils of the Baptist, as well as Matthaios
the tax collector, Thomas and two other Galileans: the other Shimon, who was
from Cana, and the young Jochanan, my comrade at thought games, and the latest
arrivals: Yehuda and Carioth. A large group, not to be ignored.
We weren�t ignored,
oh no, there was a lot of talk: a rabbi and, even including Shimon, a bunch of
young men, together with those women who appear with their rabbi in public.
What if it spreads? If more and more women join them?
You take them too
seriously, it�s a vogue, it�ll disappear as it came.
What do the people
see in this Galilean? With the best will I see nothing special about him.
I heard that they
live like the Essenes, they don�t touch each other.
Oh sure. They are
all young. And that one from Magdala with her snake-hair, she and her rabbi!
Don�t tell me that.
I�d like to know what
the rabbi offers the women to make them run after him like that.
Women always run
after men. Nothing occurs to them by themselves. We males beget children and
ideas, the females do the rest.���
We were told that
one of them said: Is it true that they run after a man? Isn�t it more likely
that they follow a person who doesn�t take them for women, but as human beings?
They are seeking something that, they say, we don�t give them. But what?
Spirit!
Women and spirit!
Contradiction.
What do women need spirit
for? They should stay home and not wander all over the country. They should
bear children. They should work, and those young men too, instead of standing
around the squares and giving rebellious speeches in the synagogues and
tempting young people out of their homes. There are always more of them.
Something like this spreads like wildfire.
This and much more
was rumored about us, but far from Roman ears: What if it was completely
different? If it was preparation for revolt? Look where this rabbi gets his
followers from: the landless, the poor, the unsatisfied. Night after night he
sits together with such types in notorious taverns The people are in ferment
and he takes advantage of it.
But against the
Romans he says not a word. Haven�t you heard how the scribes asked him about
paying taxes to the Romans? Give to Caesar what you must give.
You�re telling only
the half of it: and give to the All High what he is due.
What�s that
supposed to mean?
It�s supposed to
mean that we shouldn�t occupy ourselves with worldly questions. The Essenes
also say that. It doesn�t matter if we have an emperor or not, if we have
property or not, for soon there will be no emperor or property, the end of time
is near and sweeps everything away, kings and emperors and Romans.
And Jews also?
The question
remained open, it was too difficult. All the questions about the rabbi remained
open.
There were always
new ones. For example the thing with the adulteress. What did she have to do
with Yeshua? It was supposed to be a test. The scribes wanted to know how this
rabbi kept to the law. He spoke of love and tolerance. Fine. He also said he
didn�t want to change the law. Let�s lay a trap for him.
They brought a
woman before him who had been caught in bed with her lover. According to Jewish
law she must be stoned to death. If Yeshua was against the stoning, he was
against the law. But if he was for the law, he would be contradicting himself:
hadn�t he said that one should not judge others, for that is against the law of
love and one is then judging one�s self?
The woman wasn�t
stoned to death and Yeshua wasn�t accused of being a lawbreaker. His cleverness
was greater than that of those who had laid the trap.
I wasn�t a witness
to the scene, I shuddered at the stoning, but when I heard that the woman was
alive, I ran to her. She was still trembling all over. How did it happen? Why
wasn�t the punishment carried out?
She told me: Those
who brought me before the rabbi stood in a half-circle around me and him, and
each one had his stone in hand and a pile of stones alongside him. Why didn�t
they throw them? They were waiting for the rabbi�s word. But he sat there and
drew with his finger in the sand. Complete silence. It wouldn�t have taken much
longer and I would have died of fright without being stoned. The waiting was
terrible. And then the rabbi�s voice: He among you, you men, who is without
guilt, throw the first stone. Now. I crouched down. It wouldn�t have helped,
but I crouched anyway and closed my eyes. But no stone came. Imagine: one after
the other dropped his stone and left. It was wonderful how the rabbi brought
them to it. They could have considered themselves righteous, compared to me.
But to be sure, Miryam: one of them had already lain in my arms, he couldn�t
very well have thrown at me. And the others: nothing but sinners. They are also
adulterers, or cheaters, whatever. And then I was alone with the rabbi. Now he
would say hard things and despise me. What do you think he said, and very
mildly he said it: No one threw a stone at you, although are also not without
guilt. Go home now and change your life. That was all. Then I wept, and how I
wept! How good he was to me, your rabbi!
And now, what will
you do?
Never again,
Miryam, never again forbidden love.
And he who slept
with you? Why didn�t they bring him also to be stoned? The law says that the
man must also be punished with death.
Oh, you know, men
amongst themselves. They let him go. He was one of them, you understand. The
worst of it is: we are in love. I have a hard husband who beats me, and he has
a viper for a wife. He and I, we were comfort and support for each other. But
now? It is no longer possible. We don�t want to separate because of the
punishment, not because of that. It�s your rabbi�s word: Change you life! How
he looked at me! It went through my whole body. It hit its mark. He is one who
has power. Perhaps a prophet. Surely a saint.����������������������������������
The scribes,
however, neither forgot nor forgave Yeshua that he had forced them to humble
themselves. Afterwards, they didn�t understand themselves how it had come
about. Compared to that adulteress they � some of them at least � could have
considered themselves righteous and thrown the first stone. Too late now.
They�d have to set another trap for him.
Rabbi, how is it
with the divorce law?
Aren�t you scribes?
Don�t you know?
Of course, of
course. But there�s a problem. Moshe allowed divorce, but the All Mighty
created humanity as man and women, who become one flesh when they marry. How
can flesh be separated from flesh?
If Moshe
nevertheless allowed divorce, he had a reason. You know it, or don�t you?
We know it: The man
can give the woman a divorce-letter if she has leprosy or is unfaithful to him
or has mismanaged his belongings or if she is sterile for ten years.
And the woman: can
she also give a divorce letter?
She can demand
one.��
According to the
law. What happens to the divorced woman though? She goes back to her family, no
man wants her anymore, she ages joylessly. But the man takes a young wife, for
that�s what he really wanted: to get rid of his wife because he is sick of her.
Rabbi, they say you
are unmarried, you don�t know what a burden a shrewish wife can be, especially
when she ages. All the wounds on earth are not as bad as that which a shrewish
wife inflicts on a man, and no serpent has more spiteful venom than a female
tongue. Better to live with a lion than with an angry old woman.
Yeshua said: You
have learned Yeshua Ben Sira�s sayings well. He was also a man, and the holy
scripts all originate from men. What would happen if there was a script written
by a clever woman? What would she have to say on this subject? Perhaps this: No
ox can kick harder than an angry man, and no dog pounces more greedily on a bitch
than a lustful man on his wife.
But they like us
the way we are: so manly.
You just said that
they are nagging and spiteful. A question for you: were they nagging and
spiteful when you married them? If yes, why didn�t you choose better? If no,
then marriage has made them sulky and bitter and nagging. Is it their fault, or
also yours?
One of them said:
One time so strict, Rabbi, another time so lenient; how can they go together?
One of them is the
law, the other the lenience of the judge.
Behind his back
they said: How he plays the judge and at the same time says that one shouldn�t
judge. A scatterbrain who is also dangerously clever.
One of them,
however, asked Yeshua: If you think so highly of marriage, Rabbi, why are you
unmarried?
He said: Some there
are who are incapable of consummating marriage due to a birth defect. Others
because of castration. Still others, however, live unmarried for the sake of
the spirit. He who can grasp it, let him grasp it.
They didn�t grasp
it.
They knew about the
Essenes� unmarried life, but they lived in communities in the desert, and only
men lived together. But every Essene follower who lived in the tent camps was
married and had children. Rabbi Yeshua�s followers were neither one nor the
other. What to think about them? Would it would go well in the long run? They
would have to be watched.
In fact, this group
with the Nazarene must be kept under secret control, especially since the
scandalous events in the temple. How could he have dared to act as he did if he
didn�t have powerful people behind him who protect him? Who was behind him? The
Pharisees? Or perhaps the Sadducees? Give to Caesar that which is Caesar�s: is
he a friend of the Romans? Or does he speak with a snake�s forked tongue?
He came into the
temple. He hadn�t been there in a long time and didn�t know that the merchants
and money changers carried out their business in Salomon�s court, naturally
with the priests� permission, how else. It was like the market there: they
yelled, haggled, fought, the sacrificial animals bleated and roared, it stank
of urine and excrement. Yeshua stood there stiffly for a moment, then he dove
in, a storm, among the merchants, overturned their tables and cried: Is this a
den of thieves or a house of prayer? Out with you!
�
He was like a
madman, but one with authority. Nobody stopped him, that was strange, no one
laid a hand on him. The merchants caught their animals, the money-changers
knelt on the floor and picked up their coins, the animals were driven out and
suddenly the court was empty.
Then the priests
came: What do you think you�re doing?
And he: And what do
you think you�re doing? You should have done what I did.
Who are you, that
you do this? Do you have a mandate and from whom? Show us a document that
identifies you.
He said: You must
know me, you heard me preach in the synagogue and here in the temple. Why do
you ask?
We are asking for
your mandate!
He looked at them
one after the other, then he said: I�ll give you a sign, pay attention to my
words, listen: Tear this temple down, and in three days I will rebuild it.
Words of a madman.
In three days you would build what it took our fathers a half a century to do?
One said softly: Is
he a magician?
Another: He can�t
mean that literally. What is the meaning behind it?
They said: Explain
yourself!
But he didn�t
answer, he pulled his cloak close around him and walked through all of them and
out of the temple. We followed him and he was uncanny to us. Was there some
craziness in him after all?
We stayed no longer
in Yerushalayim.�����
Part 1��������������������������������������������������������� �������������������������� ������������������� Next >��
