Miryam
by Luise Rinser
Part 6
The next
day was Shabbat and Yeshua went with us to the synagogue, he kept to the rules
of the Law.
As is
customary, they handed the scroll to the guest and showed him where they had
already read and where he was to continue, and Yeshua read. They were the words
of the prophet Yeshayahu.
�The spirit
of the Almighty rests upon me, the Lord has anointed me. It is He who has sent
me to bring a glad message to the poor, to loosen the bonds, to comfort the
mourners and to proclaim a Year of Rejoicing.�
He read no
farther. He returned the scroll. Now it was his turn to interpret the words.
He sat
quietly for a while, and all eyes were upon him. Then he began to speak. What
did he say? He only repeated Yeshayahu�s words:
I am sent
to proclaim a Year of Rejoicing.
Why did
that sentence suddenly sound so different, as though an even older manuscript
had shone through an old one? �I am sent.� That �I�, what did it mean? The
scribes looked nervously at each other. He left them time to think. Then he
said for the third time: I am sent to proclaim a Year of Rejoicing.
Now they
heard that �I� even more.
And then
another pause.
One of the
scribes said: You talk of a Year of Rejoicing. But it is no Year of rejoicing
now, not even twenty years have passed since the last one, the next one won�t
be for another thirty years.
Hear what I
say. There are Years of Rejoicing which you reckon, and Years of Rejoicing
which escape your reckoning.��������������
They shook
their heads.
And who
determines such a Year of Rejoicing, when not the Law of Numbers?
Yeshua
said: Laws don�t decide, but the people�s need.
One of the
scribes said: Explain yourself better. Didn�t you say that you are the one who
proclaims the Year of Rejoicing? Must we not understand it so? But who are you,
that you could do that?
Who I am
you will know later. What I am proclaiming is the Year of Grace. A question for
you: what happens during a Year of Rejoicing?
When they
didn�t answer right away, in order not to fall into a trap, he gave the answer
himself:
The Year of
Rejoicing is the year of the freeing of the slaves, forgiveness of debts, the
return of bought or expropriated land, the restoration of justice.
We know
that, they cried, but this is no Year of Rejoicing.
You are
right: it is no Year of Rejoicing, injustice reigns, stolen property is not
restored, expropriated land not returned, debts are not forgiven, the slaves
are not freed, property is not shared. Not a Year of Rejoicing!�����������
Why do you
reproach us? Is it our fault that it�s not a Year of Rejoicing? Is it our fault
that everything is going so badly? Go to Herod, go to Pilate, go to the High
Council! And anyway, why do you appear here as if you were who knows what, you
son of a carpenter? Does it amuse you to play the prophet? Or even the Messiah?
They yelled
such things in confusion.
Then Yeshua
stood up, and something went out from him that silenced them. He let them wait
a while. They didn�t know what to do, they stepped from one foot to the other.
Suddenly one of them, who was very old and whose voice trembled, said: Tell us
who you are.
Yeshua
said: I am he who
fulfills the scripture,
and it is fulfilled now.
I was
shocked. What did he mean? What did that �now� mean? This hour, or this episode of our history, or
an eon-long now? And if
now is now: what is fulfilled?
They were
furious at what he said and they cried: He applies Jeshayahu�s words to
himself! We heard right: I, the Lord�s anointed one, I, who fulfil the
scripture. Outrageous words.
One went up
to Yeshua and screamed in his face: Say openly who you claim to be! Say: I, the
Messiah, Say: I, the Son of Man!
They all
pushed against him and threatened him and shoved him out of the synagogue. To
the rock! they cried. Previously blasphemers were thrown from the rock. When we
realized that we threw ourselves between Yeshua and his persecutors. Yehuda
especially screamed and cursed and manhandled them. Then Yeshua turned around
and suddenly it was quiet and we heard him say in a calm voice: What you wanted
to do others will do at the appointed time. You, though, should thank the
Almighty that he spared you from the guilt of shedding blood.
He wrapped
his cloak tightly around him and walked through them and out of the town. No
one followed us.���������
We left the
town embittered, and not only against the scribes. Only why had Yeshua provoked
them in the way he did? Was that necessary? What was the result? How were those
provincial teachers expected to understand him? Nevertheless: that they wanted
to kill him, that was incomprehensible. Furthermore, they had no authority to
do so. In the occupied country only the Romans could give it. And on what did
they base their judgment? On his words? What had they heard to make them so
furious? �I am he who fulfils the scripture.��
Did he claim to be the Messiah? And even if he had: death is not the
penalty. Many wandered around the country and acted like and declared
themselves to be the Messiah, and no one even threw a stone at them. What had
really happened then? The scene was dark, the attack and the defense. A glance from him and they were defanged. They stood there like beaten dogs. And he
simply walked away. But his words, those dark words: What you wanted to do
others will do at the appointed time. What did he foresee? What was he
conjuring up?
The only
satisfied one, more than satisfied, was Yehuda. Rabbi, you spoke wonderfully.
It was a great speech. The Year of Rejoicing! That�s it. The abolishment of
wage slavery, the return of expropriated land, land reform, equal distribution
of property. Back to the life of our forefathers, where everything belonged to
all before they came to Canaan and set up Baal over Adonai. Back to a time of
justice. Forward to it! And you, Rabbi, you are the one who will lead us to it.
You are the envoy, the anointed one!
What had
come over Yehuda? His own words frightened him, as though another had spoken
them. But he allowed himself no retreat. What has been said has been said. The
anointed one, the envoy. Whatever his words were, he meant the revolt; it and
only it could bring about a just situation for Yisrael, the old-new social
order, and he meant Yeshua�s leading role.
Yeshua
listened to Yehuda�s long speech while walking and said nothing, so that Yehuda
was also silent.
So we went
silently on our way and didn�t even ask where to, until Yeshua said: To
Kerfarnachum.���������������������
But we
never got there.
Bad news
held us up: Herod had succumbed to insanity after he had the Baptist killed. He
no longer slept, wandered around the palace crying: The Baptist isn�t dead, he
has returned from the kingdom of the dead, kill him or he will kill me!
And he gave
orders to kill the new Baptist. Everyone knew that his insanity was speaking.
However, who could know if willing hands would not be found.
We must
flee, Rabbi!
And we
fled. Long wanderings by night, sleeping by day in hiding. We always found an
empty sheep stall, a cave, a hearth, and always a well, a cistern, dates and
wild berries and herbs, and the flight became a time of joy. No scribes, no
sick people, no demands and the rabbi alone with us and we discovered what we
had forgotten: that we were all young and could make jokes, even Yehuda. We had
never seen him that way, and would never again. Once we organized a race, and he
won. We forgot that we were fugitives being chased by secret bloodhounds. We
crossed the Syro-Phoenician border at Tyros on the ocean. We were inland folks
and never seen the ocean. We jumped in and were like children and splashed each
other and dived under, almost all of us had grown up near the sea, we swam like
fish. We were happy, simply happy, also Yeshua, and, happily exhausted, we
slept on the beach.
But peace
didn�t last long. As we rested on the beach a woman saw us, and that was no
accident, she had heard, who knows from whom, that the miracle rabbi, the great
doctor, had come, and she appealed to him: My daughter is possessed, Rabbi,
drive out the demon!
Leave the
rabbi alone, Yehuda said, and stop talking about demons, she is sick, find a
doctor.
The woman
said: I had three doctors and none cured her, for it�s no illness, it�s a
demon, drive him out, Rabbi!
She was so
stubborn, so wildly believing, that Yeshua yielded. He said: You�re Greek,
aren�t you? Why don�t you appeal to your priests and your gods? Am I a Greek? I
am a Jew, woman!
She said:
Jew or Greek: you are one who can cure like Asculap, but Asculap is dead.
Yeshua
smiled, but he didn�t offer to help her, on the contrary, he said: To whom does
one give bread: to one�s own children or to the stray dogs?
The woman
was Greek and had the Greek sense of humor: Yes, she said, to the children of
course, but crumbs fall from the table for the dogs.
Yeshua
laughed. The woman was not diverted. She stood her ground and stared at him.
Yehuda said
in Aramaic: She�ll stand there until she gets him to do what she wants; we
won�t get rid of her; she wants her miracle, and if we know the rabbi�
No
miracles, only no miracles!
Shimon
said: But her faith, her hope! How can he disappoint her.
Yeshua said
nothing, he looked at the woman and she at him; it was obvious that she wanted
to squeeze the miracle out of him, cost what it may. Drops of sweat broke out
on his forehead. Finally he said: Go home, woman. Your daughter is healthy.
What was
that supposed to mean? Didn�t he believe in the illness? Or was it like with
that Captain to whom he attributed healing power? Did it mean: Go and heal the
child yourself?
However the
woman understood it, she gave a cry of joy and ran off.
That�s the
end of our peace, I said. Now all the misery of Sidon will be at your heels,
Rabbi! And it will be the same here as there: they demand miracles.
Let them
come. They demand outer signs because their inner eyes are blind. Some among
them will become seeing.
What about
the girl, Rabbi?
She is
cured.
Nothing
more.� She is cured. Holding her
mothers� hand, she ran to us and laughed.
The mother
fell at Yeshua�s feet: Rabbi, during the time I was with you my daughter had a
powerful attack, but then she suddenly lay still. And that was the moment when
you said: the girl is healthy.
Stand up,
woman! Yeshua said, and don�t say anything about it, I beg you.
Too late:
the city knew about it already and the army of the sick was on its way; all the
misery descended on us. I was superfluous to that scene and thought: It�s a
beautiful day, Yeshua doesn�t need me, I�ll go to the ocean.
Miryam! Are
you fleeing?
Denial
didn�t help with him, and all my escape routes were blocked.
We stayed a
whole week in Tyros and surroundings. Then we went south along the beach to
Ptolemais. There we received news from home: all was calm. So we dared to cross
the border and make our way home. For a short while we stayed hidden on the
north shore of the Kineret Sea. Shimon and Andrew had reliable friends there.
Yehuda, who wasn�t known there, acted as scout.
It�s calm,
he said. Come out of your caves, desert foxes! And you wild pigeons: fly away!
It�s springtime!
You are in
such a good mood, Yehuda. Seeing you like this, rubbing your hands, makes me
nervous. You don�t have the smell of burning in your beard again, do you? What
have you cut with your dagger? Grass and reeds?
You live in
your fancies, Miryam. My dagger is rusty and my beard fusty, so what do you
want?
What�s the
cause of your good mood?
Do I please
you more when I grumble and gnash my teeth and yell dark prophesies?
Frankly,
Yes, Yehuda. Cheerfulness doesn�t fit you.
You�re
right, it�s not my way. I stole it. It belongs to the favorite, the half-Greek,
the philosopher. He only needs to talk nicely. He doesn�t have to dirty his
hands. He doesn�t smell of smoke. He floats above it all. But one day it will
be clear who loves Yisrael more, he or I.
What are
you talking about? Why this anger from out of a blue sky? Did something happen
between Yochanan and you?
Did it? It
does and will, and it is not only between him and me. But what do you know? he
sobbed.
Yehuda,
don�t run away. Sit down. Let�s talk this over reasonably.
Reasonably?
I�m the only reasonable one here. I am the one who sees Yisrael�s condition,
and I am the one who acts. The rest of you also see it, but all you do is talk
and deplore.
You act,
Yehuda? How?
Figure it
out for yourself. Do you think I go around gathering news and informing people
and forming groups and finding meeting place for fun? That�s what I call
acting, and that is reasonable, and necessary. How else will freedom and change
come about?
Yehuda, the
rabbi thinks otherwise: nothing outer changes, rather the inner man changes.
Yes, yes,
I�ve heard him say it. Sounds nice. I�ve had it up to here though. People
change? Push a millstone up a mountain. It�s possible. Oh sure. It only takes
time, and that�s just what we don�t have. The opposite must be done: we must
change the situation and the people with adapt to it, voluntarily or by force.
Don�t you know our people�s history? Don�t you celebrate Chanukah with us? What
are you celebrating? The memory of the Maccabees� resistance. Aren�t you a
daughter of Maccabees?
Yehuda,
here was a time when I was willing to fight. But then I threw my dagger away.
And if I
bring you a new one? You don�t want that? No? You give up? You desert me? So
that�s the way it is.
He jumped
up and walked into the night, mute with anger. He didn�t scream. Why then do I
still hear his scream? Is it our fault that he felt himself betrayed? That he
felt that the one he loved so much had given up on him? That he saw himself as
he unloved? And wasn�t he right? Didn�t we let him fall?�����
Even beyond
his death he remained the unloved, the lost. Only I saw that glance with which
Yeshua looked at him during the arrest: it was the glance of love, and it gave
him the deathblow.
The rabbi
couldn�t hear our conversation, but on the same night, when Yehuda returned,
late, he called us to him.
Those of
you who are fishermen know that a thrown out net does not only find good fish,
but also all kinds of others. What do you do with them? You throw them back
into the water. Is it not so? Listen: a farmer planted wheat, it grew nicely
but there were many weeds. The harvest was free of weeds though. How did the
weeds get there? Let us pull them out, said the workers. But the farmer said:
Leave both to grow until the harvest. If you do the weeding now the danger
exists that you will not only pull out the weeds, but the wheat sprouts as
well.
What did
the rabbi mean to accomplish with this story?
Philippos,
the strict Baptist disciple, said: Yes, Rabbi, but when a tree bears bad fruit,
one cuts it down. Didn�t you once curse a fig tree because it bore no fruit in
winter?
What are
you talking about, Philippos! You�re talking nonsense. Who told you that? And
you believed it?
Whether it
happened of not, cursed or not, Rabbi: you expect too much.
Do I demand
figs from you in winter? Didn�t the farmer have indulgence with the weeds?
Doesn�t the housewife wait patiently until the dough is leavened? And doesn�t
the shepherd look for every lost sheep? Why do you speak then of cursing? I
don�t want damning and destruction, but life. I have come to bring peace. But
before peace exists, rupture arises.
Yehuda
threw me a triumphant glance. Water for his mill, as he understood it. He
understood wrongly.
Yeshua went
on: Not that I want rupture. I want nothing but peace. Nevertheless peace comes
only through determination. Truth is a sharp knife. One cannot serve two
masters or fight in two camps at the same time. You cannot enter a house and
give the greeting: Peace be with you! if you carry a dagger under your cloak.
You cannot fill old skins with new wine without breaking them. You cannot say:
I keep the commandment of love if you only love your friends and hate the
others. Decide! You are free to leave me and go to those who think they can
bring about peace through violence. I say to you though: if Yisrael chooses
violence it will perish through violence, and no stone of Yerushalayim will
stand on the other, and foxes and owls will reside in the temple�s ruins.
I slept
badly that night. We all slept badly. Finally I got up and crept out. A stone�s
throw away I saw a brightness, as if the moon had fallen on a rock. But the
moon had set long ago and the night was dark. It wasn�t a fire either. It was a
constant white light. I went a few steps closer, but then something stopped me
as though I shouldn�t cross a border.
But I saw
that the brightness was a person.
Miryam!
His voice.
At the same time the brightness went out and I could cross the border.
Come here,
Miryam! Closer. Sit down. You have cold hands.
Yours are
warm, Rabbi.
Why are you
shaking, Miryam?
The Light,
Rabbi! What was it?
You saw
that? It�s nothing special.
I didn�t
dare to ask more, but I longed to lay my head on his knee, and I did it. But he
pushed me gently off.
Not that,
Miryam. Break the cord before it becomes a chain.
Hard words
for one who loves, Rabbi.
He stroked
my hair. Go and sleep, Miryam, it�s getting cool.
I went. He
demanded so much of me!
But I slept
dreamlessly till morning. He woke me himself. Wake up, night wanderer. We�re
heading south!
His hair
was damp with dew.
You haven�t
slept, Rabbi.����������
The day
became hot and there was a lot of dust in the air, but we walked steadily on.
If the rabbi wasn�t tired, we weren�t either.
He was so
far from tired that he preached that night in a small town. I however fell
asleep while he was talking. I woke to children�s cries and scolding by our
people: Leave him alone, he�s dead tired. Don�t you understand that even he
must sleep?
And then
his voice: Come, come!
A group of
children crowded around him, and those who could not yet walk were brought by
their mothers. The blessing, Rabbi, the prophet�s blessing!
How they
pressed against him, and how he liked everything they did. They became bold and
climbed onto his knees and kissed him, and he joked with them.
It was a
very pretty picture, and new to us: the rabbi with children.
Yochana
said: Look at that. The rabbi as father.
Suddenly
she began to cry.
Would you
like to return to your children, I asked her.
Can�t I cry
and be with the rabbi anyway?
Then
Shoshana, who had no children, cried, and Shulamit cried because her sons, though
always near, had so obstinately withdrawn from her, and I cried because they
did.
Yochana
misunderstood my tears. When you see that, Miryam, don�t you wish to have
children?�����
No, I said.
And with whom? And now enough of such talk. We have chosen, once and for all.
Not halfway.
Finally the
mothers left with their children, the cries and twittering were lost n the
distance.
Yeshua
watched the children leave, then said: Whoever does not become a child will not
find the father.
At least
that what I understood him to say. The others heard differently. As so often
happened, each one heard his own voice: If you do not become like these
children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Or: Only children find the
kingdom of heaven. Or: Children live in the kingdom of heaven. Or: These
children will experience the kingdom of heaven.
We puzzled
over it.
Only Yehuda
thought he understood: It clearly means that this generation will know the
kingdom of peace.
You hear
what you want to hear. He didn�t say that.
Shimon
said: What the rabbi means is that we should be so full of trust, so unaffected
before Adonai as children before their father.
Yeah, yeah,
said Yehuda, and believe that this father feeds and clothes us and corrects all
the mischief we�ve done and forgives us seven times seventy times. That�s what
you mean.
Shimon
didn�t hear the mockery. Yes, that�s what I mean, that�s what he meant.
Philippos
said: There is a rejection of grownups in the rabbi�s talk, that is, the
clever, the suspicious, the profiteers and the powerful. To be a child means to
be without property and power and to let yourself be led.�
Thomas
said: Led by whom? Trust whom? Overly trusting children are good for nothing.
Sheep who don�t smell the wolf are torn apart.
Yochanan
said: You must think higher. What Shimon said is correct, only I will say it
differently: To be a child means to feel, or better still be certain that an
primal harmony exists into which everything fits.
That�s too
high for me, Yehuda said. Too much dissonance pricks my ear for me to believe
in this harmony.
I said:
Yehuda, what are you working for?
For the
liberation of Yisrael of course.
That means
that you want happiness and peace for Yisrael. But that is harmony. How do you
know anything about harmony? You remember only dissonance. You also have your
dream, Yehuda. Perhaps it means: To be a child means to have a grand dream? Who
gives up dreaming gives himself up.
Shimon
said: Joseph�s dreams in Egypt.
Yes, I
said, but not only Joseph was a dreamer. All Yisrael dreamed, and of what? Of
Canaan, the land where milk and honey flows. And they followed the dream, and
as in a dream they went through the sea and the desert, and whenever they
stopped dreaming the dream and gave up hope, disaster struck, in order that
they could continue to follow the grand dream that led them. If Yisrael hadn�t
dreamt we wouldn�t be here.������������
Yochanan
then asked: Has Yisrael arrived? Is this the dreamed of Promised Land? If it
were, Yehuda wouldn�t be still dreaming. We never have anything but our dreams,
and they are our reality.
That�s how
you see it, Yehuda said. I see it differently. My dreams are quite a bit closer
to reality than yours.
The talk of
becoming a child still ran through my head the next day, and finally I asked
Yeshua himself, and told him our solutions to the puzzle.
Tell me
yours, Rabbi!
Answer me
this: Where is the child you once were, Miryam?
I grew from
it. It is in me. I was it and am it and always will be.
What is it
then, that was and remains?
Just that:
I
What is it?
Don�t you know? I�ll ask you another way: Where does what you call �I� come
from?
From my
parents and grandparents.
Wrong. From
them comes the form in which your I appears on this earth. Your I and every I
is older than all ancestry. It is as old as the primal light. You are a spark
from that light. The human being is light from light, spirit from spirit, child
of the Eternal One.�������������
But didn�t
you say that one must BECOME a child? Now you say that one is a child at all
times.
What one
is, one must become. The divine child must always be born anew. Divine birth
occurs unceasingly.
Rabbi, you
give man a high rank. Why, then, is man so ungodly small and evil?
His rank
will not be taken from him as long as the divine child in him cries for the
Father.
Children
cry for the Mother, Rabbi!
The Eternal
One is Father and Mother.
And if man
smothers the divine child�s cry?
The divine
is immortal. Miryam: you still think in years and centuries. The divine is
measured otherwise, and everything reaches its goal. Each child finds its home.
Read the prophet Yeshayahu. There is written: You come from nothing. But also:
You are gods. Try to understand that, Miryam.
A few days
later the question of immortality came from a completely different side and in a
different way � from scribes who had come from Yerushalayim to speak with
Yeshua. They were Sadducees and wasted no time.
Rabbi, we
have a point of contention with the Pharisees. It is an old argument, as you
know. Tell us your opinion. We value it. Tell us. Do you really believe, and is
it to be believed, that a person who dies rises again to a new life?
It was
clear to him what they were aiming at: they wanted to know on which side he
stood, on theirs or that of the Pharisees, who believed in the resurrection,
which they denied. To believe in it or not determined how one stood
politically. In fact, though, the idea of life after death was completely alien
and without interest to them. They did not come for instruction, not at all.
Therefore you could call their question a trap. So he answered them, as they
deserved, with a counter-question:
What does
the scripture say?
In Psalm 49
is written: �Their graves are their homes forever, their dwelling places for
all generations. They run to the underworld like sheep and their form shall
waste away. Humans are like animals that perish, and none sees again the
light.�
I wanted to
say: You don�t think sharply enough when you opine that with the decay of the
form the spirit also decays. I would have liked to tell them what Yeshua had
taught me about immortality. What would he say to them?
He said:
Explain yourselves!
All right,
Rabbi, listen: Moshe wrote, and our law has remained so: If a man dies and
leaves behind a wife, but no child, the dead man�s brother must marry the
widow. Right? Good, now listen further: There were seven brothers. The first
one died and left a childless wife. The dead man�s brother married her. But he
died and left the same childless wife. The third brother married her, but he
also died, childless. The fourth acted according to the law, but he also died
and finally all seven died and, last of all, the wife died.
I couldn�t
hold back my laughter. I laughed and laughed.
Why is the
woman laughing? One of the Sadducees asked. It is improper.
Yeshua
smiled.
I said: I�m
laughing because I like your story. It�s as funny as the one about the farmer
who sends his servant to cut the wheat, and when he doesn�t come back the
farmer sends another to find him, but he doesn�t return either, and so on with
no end. It�s lucky there were only seven brothers and not twelve or twenty.
The
Sadducees were angry. One said: Rabbi, send this woman away. What have women to
say here?
Yeshua
ignored their anger. He said: What do you want with that story? Speak!
Rabbi, the
Pharisees believe in the resurrection of the dead. Tell us, if there is a
resurrection of the dead, to which of the seven men does the one wife belong?
I thought:
All seven.
But Yeshua
said: None.
Why not?
Why not?
Because marriage and procreation belong to the transitory in time and space. In
the great cosmic Shabbat nothing more will be begun and nothing ended.
They were
silent and pensive. Yeshua continued: Don�t you know the place in the Scripture
when the Almighty speaks to Moshe from the burning bush: I am the god of
Avraham, the god of Yisrael, the god of Ja�akov? My question to you: Is the
Almighty a god of the dead? Does he tend to the dead in the underworld, does he
reign over dust or over an unthinkable nothing? I tell you: He is a god of the living
� or he is nothing. But if he is, then those who go to him live again. Doesn�t
that seem logical to you?
They were
silent, thinking.
He went on:
You await the Messiah and say he is the son of David. Do you know the Psalm in
which David speaks of the Messiah and calls him his lord? How can he who is
still to come be he who, at the same time, according to the Psalm, sits at
David�s right hand?
They had no
answer to that. How were they supposed to understand such talk? Of us Yochanan
was the first to understand and he translated it into his language: The logos
was from the beginning, therefore he is the ever-present and eternal-future.
Yeshua,
already leaving, turned around and said: Well said, Yochanan. I say to you all:
before Avraham was, I am.
With that
he left us. The sentence should have been: Before Avraham was, am I. But the I
was emphasized in a terrible way, as though there were no other I but him.��
There were
times when Yeshua seemed overwhelmingly great, especially to me. But he always
quickly backed off like someone who shows something, then immediately covers it
before you can see what it is and later you don�t even know if you saw
anything.
I was
interested in the question whether all people were brought back to life again.
All! The
Rabbi answered.
But will
they all continue to live in the same way: the just and the unjust? Is there a
judge who decides that?
He said:
Aren�t you able to free yourself from earthly ideas? Didn�t I tell you about
the divine child?
I didn�t
understand him. That high knowledge was swept away from me. As so often
happened, I got the answer the next day when Yeshua made my question the theme
of his sermon. We went over that sermon a hundred times, until finally no one
knew the exact words. But the essence remained and lost none of its power.
This was
the story:
At the end
of time all the peoples of the earth will gather and there will be great
confusion and fear. Then one appears and sits on the judge�s bench. With a
single motion of his hand he divides the human throng and indicates to each his
place, to the right or to the left. But no one knows why he or she is here and
not there. The confusion doesn�t last long and the judge speaks, he says to
those on the right: �You gave me food when I was hungry; you bandaged my wounds
and gave me medicine; you gave me shelter when I was hounded from my house; you
opened your door to me when I was persecuted, homeless, a refugee from the
powerful; you helped me obtain justice and freedom when I was thrown into
prison because my cry for righteousness was misunderstood; you have worked for
peace in my name and have been beaten for it. Come then, friends, into my
kingdom.� To the other, however: �You feasted when I was hungry; you threw me
out on the street and took my house; you spit on me because I was humble and
from a foreign land; you handed me over to the persecutors when I asked for
lodging for a night; you had me work for you and when I became weak you threw
me out; you withheld my wages because you bought arms to wage war; You beat and
killed me when I argued for peace and righteousness. Get out of my sight.� Then
the ones so addressed all said: �We never encountered you, how could we have
done good or evil to you?� But he said: �You never encountered anyone but me.
What you did or denied to a living being you did or denied to me.�
The
listeners departed silently.
I had
questions though, and I didn�t find the answers.
Rabbi, help
me to understand that story. Who has the authority to judge? Who can accept and
reject? Tell me: Who is the judge?
Don�t you
know? Is the judge another than the one being judged?
Rabbi, I
wouldn�t know where to put myself through my own insight. I would prefer you to
be my judge.
I am it.
Rabbi, you
contradict yourself. First you say the person judges himself. Now you say that
you are the judge.
Is that a
contradiction?
Who can
understand that?
One day you
will understand it?
Never! I
cried and ran off. I felt pursued. He talks nonsense, I thought, and drives me
crazy by it.
I stayed
away a whole day. I�ll never go back, I thought. Life with him is unbearable. I
must save myself.
I returned
of course.
He stood at
the entrance of the shack in which we were staying for a few nights.
We were
worried about you, Miryam. Thomas and Philippos are looking for you.
And you?
Weren�t you worried? You�re so sure of me, right?
He looked
at me a long time. Scrutinizing. Is it too hard for you with me?
Yes, I
screamed. You are unbearable.
Do you want
to leave me?
I thought:
Where should I go? I live from his presence.
But I said
defiantly: Every rope breaks when one stretches it too tautly.
Come now,
he said. Supper is ready.
That was
all.
There was
no longer talk of leaving.
We rested a
couple of days.
I wouldn�t
have been so calm if I�d known what happened to Thomas and Philippos the day
they went looking for me. Mounted police stopped them and searched them for
weapons. They had none. They were let go.
When I
heard about it I was shocked. Yehuda! I thought, he makes himself and us
suspicious, too often he disappeared into the night, too often he came home
with an empty purse, too often he rubbed his hands together. And he did it with
wrathful satisfaction.
Finally he
could no longer keep the news to himself. He took me aside: Miryam, our thing
is becoming clear and active.
Our thing?
What thing?
What thing?
Listen: There�s a great guy among the rebels. He has a head on his shoulders, I
tell you, and he has experience and an exact plan. He has his people in his
hand. He decides who�s to be robbed, extorted, kidnapped, killed next. He�s
clever: he never let�s his people attack the Romans directly, only Jews, only
those who give the Romans a hand, or also even a little finger. All
Yerushalayim trembles. No matter how much the police search for them, they
aren�t caught. They work in small groups without a permanent base, sometimes
here, sometimes there, sometimes at night, sometimes in broad daylight, and
before they are even seen they disappear with money and hostages. It�s all
according to the plan this head worked out. And imagine: he never appears
himself. Only a few of his people have even seen him. It�s as though he didn�t
exist. But he does. I�ve met him. His name is Bar Abba.
How you
admire him, Yehuda! You admire someone who uses violence. Why don�t you desert
to him? This Bar Abba is close to your heart! That�s a man, right? Completely
different from our rabbi. Say it openly! Why are you still with us?
Yehuda
lowered his head.
Shall I
tell you, Yehuda? Because you�ve gotten it into your head that the rabbi is Yisrael�s
liberator, he, and no other. But if it�s not that way?
He lifted
his head high. Can�t you bear to see me happy?
Yehuda! You
aren�t happy. You are deathly unhappy, and on the false path, and you have
blocked the right one. You choose Bar Abba instead of Yeshua. You choose
violence and destruction instead of peace.
He stopped
listening to me, he walked away. How he fled from his own knowledge! How he
fell head over heels into the abyss, which he had dug himself. Should I have
spoken to the rabbi about him? Shouldn�t he have forced him to decide? I said
nothing. Let the weeds grow with the wheat. I had no right to judge.����������������������
At that
time we were on our way south and came to Jericho. A knife seemed the pierce my
heart: the balsam forest that belonged to my father and that my brother sold in
order to bring the proceeds with him to his desert cloister; the forest was no
longer there! Cut down. In its place stood one of Herod�s new palaces. As
though what he had inherited from his father wasn�t enough for him: the villas,
baths, palaces, the racetracks, the theater. Another palace then. And on the
ground that was so fertile.
What�s the
problem, Miryam? Everything is transient. Does your heart hang on a balsam
forest?
I�m not
crying because of that.
Why then?
If
Yeshayahu were here he would cry out what he cried out and wrote a thousand
years ago: �Woe to them who place house upon house, until no room is left and
are only landlords.�
Eight
hundred years ago, Miryam, to be exact. But do you know the next verse? �Many
houses will lay in ruins, the others empty of people.� Nothing stays as it is.
Some day fertile land will be here again, sheep will graze and people full of
hope will live in the houses. To weep over the passing of the transient is
foolish.
Rabbi, the
transient is beautiful and the intransient is invisible, as though it didn�t
exist.
O relapsed
one! Forgetful! Of little faith!
Rabbi,
sometime I think: you are only a dream � my dream, transient like everything.
But I AM! I
am he who IS. I am who stays. I am the intransient dream, which is reality.
The word,
not spoken louder than the preceding ones, roared in my ears like the sound of
the ram-horn. I was dizzy.�����
Come now!
Yeshua said, now in his normal voice.
Someone in
Jericho had announced our arrival. The people were already streaming toward us.
There was so much pushing and shoving on the narrow alleys that I was afraid.
There couldn�t only have been rebels among the crowd, but also informers from
Yerushalayim. We were under suspicion. To what extent we would learn later.
Nothing happened yet. Nothing, except that Yeshua stood before a mulberry tree
and called up into the branches: What are you doing up there? Come down!
The one he
addressed called down: I am so short, Rabbi, that if I�m down there I won�t see
you.
Yeshua
laughed. Come, you�ll see me better. I�ll have supper with you if you�ll invite
me, Zacheus.
Zacheus
(where did Yeshua know him from?) slid down the trunk and stood in front of
Yeshua. He was really very small and one could have taken him for a child as he
now jumped for joy. Rabbi, will you honor my house?
The people
around us muttered: He goes to this tax collector, to this chief thief, the
swindler; doesn�t the Rabbi know anything about him?
Zacheus
must have heard them. He hung his head.
Yeshua
lifted him by his mop of hair: Is what they say true?
It�s true,
Rabbi.
Yeshua
laughed again. But to the others he said: And you? Have you never swindled, or
taken or given bribes, never overcharged? Are you all just ones? Is this one
the only sinner?
The
retreated, embarrassed and annoyed.
Zacheus,
though, said: Rabbi, you turned my heart inside out like a sack, and look what
falls out: a thief�s booty, Rabbi! But I swear to you: today I will give back
everything unjustified that I own. Not only that: I will give back fourfold to
those I tricked and half of all my possessions to the poor.
Enough,
enough! Yehuda murmured, enough contrition.
But Yeshua
put his arm around Zacheus and said: I have come to seek lost sheep, and I find
them. Come, take me to your house.
Yehuda
said: I�m going to eat somewhere else. I can�t stand such fuss and blabbing.
Giving money to the poor � What good is that? They run through it in three
days. One must be able to handle money, otherwise it runs through your fingers
and then look for it in the sand.
What was
awkward with Yehuda was that you could never call him completely right or
completely wrong. He was against the rich, but gave great importance to money
for, say what you will, money makes you happy, of course only if all have it
and all have it equally. Equality meant for him equality of possessions and
righteousness meant taking away the possessions of the owners and distributing
them to all. Then there will be peace. In his thinking it was all so simple.
We only
stayed one day in Jericho because the town was full of soldiers and mounted
guards. It was already too close to the capitol and also too close to
Alexandrion, where Herod had his treasury and where an important robbery had
already taken place. The area was closely guarded.
We stayed
overnight outside of Jericho and kept hidden. However, the next morning the
word was out: The miracle rabbi is here!
Ever and
again the same show!
I walked
among the groups of waiting people, pretending that I didn�t know the rabbi,
and asked them what they thought of him and what they expected.
Why did you
come here if you don�t who he is? Don�t be so curious, Woman!
Another
said: He�s a wonder worker. Didn�t you hear what he did in Galilee? He touches
the sick and they are well.
And how he
preaches! We are already better because of his words.
They say
he�s Elijah, the prophet, who has returned.
Another
with his hand before his mouth: He�s on our side against the Romans and the
rich. If the people get behind him something can happen. Do you understand?
Another
pushed him: Stop blabbing. That�s dangerous talk. Who knows who she is?
I went
further with my question. One said: Don�t get involved. Who knows what they�re
cooking up?
What then?
This rabbi,
he talks piously, and afterwards you notice that you�ve heard a call for
revolution. He plants poisonous seeds.
A youth who
heard that said: He cured me of epilepsy.
Someone
took him aside: Who told you to say that? How much did they pay you?
The youth
yelled: I�m telling the truth and you know it. What has the good rabbi done to
you?
I took the
boy with me to Yeshua and told him how he had defended him so courageously.
Yeshua put his hand on the youth�s head and said: On such as you I build my
kingdom.
The youth
said: I want to stay with you.
Yeshua
said: You�re too young. In a couple of years you will be one of mine. What�s
your name?
Stephanos.
The rabbi
said to me: He will share my fate.
What do you
mean, Rabbi? Your words are chilling.
That
evening when the people had gone, cured or not, in any case comforted, and we
were all together alone, Yeshua told the story that caused me to understand in
a flash what he meant by what he called his fate, and what the youth would
share:
A man
planted a vineyard, leased it and left the country. At the appropriate moment
he sent a messenger to pick up the contracted amount of grapes and wine. The
lessee beat him and sent him away with empty hands. The owner sent another
messenger. The same happened as with the first messenger. He sent one after the
other. In vain. Several were even beaten to death. Finally he sent his own son.
They will recognize my son and won�t dare to lay a hand on him, for he is the
heir and their future lord. But the lessee said: If I kill the son, there is no
longer an heir and the whole vineyard will be mine, for the owner is far away
and will not return. So he killed the son. What will the lord of the vineyard
do when he finds out?�
An eye for
an eye, a tooth for a tooth: the lord will come and have the lessee and all his
helpers and helpers� helpers killed.
Another
said: What a foolish lord! He learns nothing from experience.
A poor
knower of men, that lord. He should have known beforehand what the lessee was
like.
He should
have given the messengers armed protection, and especially his own son, after
all that happened.
I said:
Rabbi, the story is terrible and completely inconceivable. Why did he send his
own son to his death? For that�s what he did. Shouldn�t he have foreseen that?
But if the
son went of his own accord?
The father
should have forbidden him to do it.
If the son
did not allow himself to be held back?
The father
should have locked the doors and gates, installed steel bars. Is the father not
lord? Must not the son obey him?
He obeys.
So the
father sent him after all?
So is it.
How can you
say then that he went of his own accord?
Yeshua
didn�t answer. That story left me no peace. What did he mean by it? It seemed
dark and terrible. I didn�t want to understand it.
The next
day I held on to Yeshua�s arm: Rabbi, that story! Who is the father, who the
son, who are the messengers, what does the whole thing mean?
You�re
usually so clever at solving riddles.
How can you
joke? That story makes me afraid.
So you did
understand it?
Rabbi, who
is the father who sends his son to his death?
Who is
father, who son?
At that
time I put those words aside. What I understood was this: he spoke of his own
death.
Yeshua, I
said, your death will be mine.
He hit me
on the arm with his open hand. A rectification. That�s what you think, Miryam?
You would desert my cause? Not accept the inheritance?
You are my
life, Rabbi, and if you go you take my life with you, even if I stay here as
long as you so order.
Why are you
speaking of life and of death, unteachable one? I will conquer death through my
dying. I am he who remains, I am the living, I am the life. Whoever loves me
lives and learns not to know death. With that he left me standing there. I
understood nothing of all that. Nothing except that he would die. I wasn�t
fooled by him speaking of victory. There are victories which are defeats. Now I
know better: there are defeats which are victories. The defeats of the divine
must always be victories of the divine.
I know that
now. But then I went out and wandered through the fields. He�s going to die.
One day he�ll no longer be here. But when? He didn�t speak as though it were
very far away. And if he is gone before his work was done? What work though?
Deep down didn�t I share Yehuda�s hopes? Didn�t I want the victory of my people
over the Romans, a free Yisrael? Wasn�t it Yeshua who was giving up?
I threw
myself into a thorn bush: let the thorns scratch my face and arms.
I fell
asleep.
Yehuda
found me. He pushed me with his foot as if I was a cadaver, but there was fear
in his eyes. He did it with clumsy care, almost gentleness. But he immediately
regretted having shown emotion and he said roughly: Come on! We�ve been waiting
for you for hours with supper. Then early to bed and up early. We�re going to
Yerushalayim. Aren�t you glad?
O Yehuda:
Yerushalayim�s ground is hot.
All the
better: grapes ripen sooner on hot earth.
Grapes,
yes. But we�ll burn our feet.
Come, you
dark prophetess!
Rabbi, I
said that evening, do you really want to go to Yerushalayim. People are waiting
for your words in many other places.
Spoken to
the wind.
We went
carefully though, in small groups. Yeshua took me with him, Yochanan, Shimon,
Thomas and Philippos. Peaceful people. Inconspicuous. We thought. Why then
those sidelong glances here, joyful greetings there? I would have much
preferred that no one notice us. Why then did something have to happen that
attracted the glances to us? And whose glances, what glances!
A beggar
sat at the city�s gate. He was blind. I said: Yehuda, give him something.
But Yeshua
held us back: Patchwork!
The he
asked the beggar, whose hand was stretched out to him: How long have you been
blind, friend?
Since
birth. Why do you ask?
Yeshua
pulled his eyelids up and turned his face to the sun.
He�s really
blind, Yeshua said.
Of course
I�m blind. Are you a physician?
I am one
who can heal.
I pulled
Yeshua�s arm: Rabbi, no, not here on this hot ground! Nothing that looks like a
miracle, I beg of you.
He shook
off my hand: Don�t you want me to help where I can?
He said to the
blind man: Keep still. I�m going to rub something on your eyes, it doesn�t
hurt. Do you want me to cure you? Do you believe that I can?
Cure me,
Lord, whoever you are.
So Yeshua
took some earth, mixed it with spittle and applied it to the blind eyes.
That feels
cool, the blind man said.
And now,
Yeshua said to Shimon, take him to the pool and wash his eyes out.
Rabbi, I
said, what should I wish for: that he sees or that the healing fails?
Who asked
for your wishes? Be silent and wait.
How strict
he could be. He wasn�t so strict with anyone else.
So I kept
silent and waited. We all sat there silently and waited.
What a
scream came from the pool!
I see! I
see!����
�����������
Translation:
Frank Thomas Smith
Continued
in the next issue of Southern Cross Review
