Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (20 page)

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Authors: Anne Rice

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"And we wept for them," said Cleopas.
"And you married an Egyptian woman."
"A Jewish woman," said Cleopas, "born and raised in the Jewish community in Alexandria. And of a good family who has sent you this."
Here came a surprise.
He stretched out his hand with two small scrolls in it, both of them in fine cases with bronze trimming on them.
"What is this?" asked the Old Rabbi.
"You're afraid to touch them, Rabbi?" asked Cleopas as he held out the gift. "Two short treatises from Philo of Alexandria, a scholar, a philosopher if you will, much admired by the Rabbis of Alexandria, and these purchased from published books in the market, and brought to you as a gift?"
The Rabbi stretched out his hand.
I took a deep breath as he took the scrolls.

I hadn't known my uncle had such scrolls. Philo's writings. I hadn't dreamt of such a thing. And to see the Rabbi receive them made me feel so glad that the tears came again but I was as quiet as before.

"And how many gray hairs has Philo of Alexandria?" asked the Rabbi.
Everyone laughed at that in their secret way.
But I was much better because they were not talking about me.
"If he had you for an accuser, he'd have gray hairs aplenty!" Cleopas said.
I heard Joseph rebuking him in a whisper, but the boys were laughing, and a great bright smile spread over the Rabbi's face.
Cleopas couldn't stop himself.
"We should take up a collection," he said, gesturing to the whole room, "and send the Rabbi to Alexandria. They are in dire need of Pharisees to straighten them out."
More laughter.
The old Rabbi laughed. Then the other two Rabbis laughed. They all laughed.
"I thank you for your gift," said the Old Rabbi. "Nothing's changed with you. And now that you are here, skilled craftsmen that you are, all of you, you can see there is work to be done in this synagogue, which the old carpenter, may God rest him, was unable to do while you were gone."
"I do see it," said Joseph, "and we are your servants, and will repair everything as you wish. A fresh coat of paint for this place, and lintels, that much I can see is needed, and we'll plaster the outside and see to the benches as you allow."
Silence.
I looked up. The three old men were again looking at me.

Why? What more could be asked? What more could be said? I felt my face on fire again. I blushed but I didn't know for what I was blushing. I blushed for all the eyes turned to me. The tears were wet on my face.

"Look at me, Jesus bar Joseph," said the Rabbi.
I did as he told me.
In Hebrew he asked, "Why did the Phoenicians cut the hair of Samson?" 
"I beg the Rabbi to forgive me, but it was not the Phoenicians," I answered in Hebrew. "It was the Philistines. And they cut his hair to make Samson weak."
He spoke to me in Aramaic,
"Where is Elisha who was taken up in the chariot?"
"I beg the Rabbi to forgive me," I said in Aramaic. "It was Elijah who was taken up, and Elijah is with the Lord."
In Greek he asked, "Who is it that resides in the Garden of Eden, writing down all that takes place in this world?"
I didn't answer for a moment. Then I said in Greek:
"No one. There is no one in Eden."
The Rabbi sat back and looked to one side and then the other. The other Rabbis looked at him and all looked at me.
"No one is in Eden writing down the deeds of the world?" he asked.
I thought for a moment. I knew I had to say what I knew. But how I knew it, I couldn't tell. Was I remembering it? I answered in Greek, "Men say it is Enoch, but Eden is empty until the Lord should say that all the world will be Eden once again."
The Rabbi spoke in Aramaic, "Why did the Lord break his covenant with King David?"

"The Lord never broke it," I said. This I had always known as long as I knew any answer. I didn't even have to think about it. "The Lord does not break his covenants. The throne of David is there. ..."

The Rabbi was quiet and so were the others. The old men didn't even look at each other.
"Why is there no King from the House of David on that throne?" the Rabbi asked, his voice getting louder. "Where is the King?"
"He will come," I said. "And his House will last forever."
His face was even more kind than before. He spoke softly.
"Will a carpenter build it?" he asked.
Laughter. The old men laughed first and then the boys who were seated on the floor. But the Old Rabbi didn't laugh. Just for a moment I saw sadness in his face, and then it was gone and he was waiting for me to answer, his eyes soft and wide.
My face burned.
"Yes, Rabbi," I said, "a carpenter will build the House of the King. There is always a carpenter. Even the Lord Himself is now and then a carpenter."
The Old Rabbi drew back in surprise. I could hear noises all around me. They didn't like this answer.
"Tell me how the Lord is a carpenter," said the Old Rabbi in Aramaic.
I thought of words Joseph had spoken to me many times:
"Did not the Lord Himself say to Noah how many cubits the ark was to be, and of what sort of wood? And that the wood should be pitched, and did the Lord not say how many stories the ark must be, and did the Lord not say that it should have a window finished to a cubit, and did the Lord not tell Noah where he was to build the door?" I stopped.

A smile came slowly to the face of the oldest man. I didn't look at anyone else. There was quiet again.

"And was it not so," I went on in our tongue, "that the Lord Himself brought the Prophet Ezekial to the vision of the new Temple, setting forth the measurement of the galleries and the pillars, and the gates, and the altar, saying how all things should be done?"
"Yes, it was," said the Old Rabbi, smiling.
"And my lord," I went on. "Was it not Wisdom who said that when the Lord made the world, Wisdom was there like a master craftsman, and if Wisdom is not the Lord, what is Wisdom?"
I stopped. I didn't know where I'd learned that part. But then I went on.
"My lord Rabbi," I said. "It was the carpenters that Nebuchadrezzar took to Babylon, instead of slaying them, because they knew how to build, and when Cyrus the Persian decreed that we could return, the carpenters came home to build the Temple as the Lord had said it should be built."
Quiet.
The Rabbi drew back. I couldn't read the meaning of his face. I looked down. What had I said?
I looked up again.
"Lord Rabbi," I said, "from the time of Sinai, where there is Israel there is a carpenter—a carpenter to build the tabernacle, and it was the Lord Himself who told out the measurements of the tabernacle, and—."
The Rabbi stopped me. He laughed and put up his hand for quiet.
"This is a good child," he said, looking at Joseph above me. "I like this child."
The other men nodded as the old one nodded. Again there was the laughter, not a loud laughter but a gentle laughter moving through the room.

He pointed to the floor right in front of him.

I sat down there on the mat.
There was more talk, friendly and easy, as the Rabbi received James and the other boys, but I didn't really hear it. I knew only that the worst was over. I felt my heart was beating so loud others could hear it. I still didn't wipe my tears, but they'd stopped.
At last, the men were gone. The school began.
The Old Rabbi recited the questions and the answers, and the boys repeated, and as the doors were closed the room grew warm.
No more was said to me that morning, and I didn't speak up, but I recited, and I sang with the others, and I looked at the Rabbi, and the Rabbi looked at me.
When we went home at last, there was the family meal, with no chance to ask anything, but I could tell by their faces that they would never tell me why the Old Rabbi had asked so much. It was their eyes when they looked at me, the way that they were trying to make me think that there was nothing wrong.
And my mother, my mother was very happy, and I knew she didn't know what had been said. She looked like a girl as she tended to the dishes and told us to eat more than we could.
I was as tired as if we'd laid marble pavers all day. I went into the women's room because I didn't know I was doing it, and I lay down on my mother's mat and slept.
When I woke, I could hear everyone talking and I smelled the porridge and the good smell of the baked bread. All the afternoon had passed and I'd slept like a baby, and it was time to eat again.

I went to the bath and washed my face and my hands in the cold water of the basin, and then I knelt and washed my hands in the mikvah. 1 came back to sit down and eat.

A bowl was given to me. In it were delicious curds with honey.
"What is this?" I asked.
"You eat it," said Cleopas. "Don't you know what it is?"
Then Joseph gave a little laugh and then my uncles all caught the laugh as if it were a breeze moving through the trees.
My mother looked at the bowl.
"You should eat it if your uncle gave it to you," she said.
Cleopas said under his breath for all to hear, " 'Butter and honey will he eat, so that he knows to refuse the evil, and choose the good.' "
"Do you know who spoke those words?" my mother asked.
I was eating the butter and the honey. I'd had enough and gave the bowl to James but he didn't want any. I gave it to Joseph who passed it on.
"I know it's Isaiah," I answered my mother, "but I don't remember any more than that."
That made them all laugh. And I laughed too.
And I didn't remember. Or think about it much again.

I wished for a little time, just a little, to ask a question of Cleopas alone, but the time never came. It was already evening. I'd slept too much. I hadn't done my work after school. I couldn't let that happen again.

18

AS THE DAYS PASSED I came to love the morning study hours. The three Rabbis were known as "The Elders" and the oldest of the three was the great teacher, himself a priest now too old to go any longer to Jerusalem, and he told us the most wonderful stories I'd ever heard. His name was Rabbi Berekhaiah bar Phineas and he was always at home in the early evening if we wanted to visit him, any of us boys, near the very top of the hill in a spacious house because his wife was rich.
In the mornings, we repeated and learned to memory much of the holy books just as we had in Alexandria, but here it was always in Hebrew, and when we talked it was often in our tongue, and we could very often get Rabbi Berekhaiah to tell us about his adventures if we tried.

In the evenings, he sat in his library, with the doors open to the court, a modest room as he always said, smiling, and it was if one compared it to Philo's great library, but it was a warm and inviting place to me. He was there for any question, and no matter how tired I was from work, I went up there at least to sit at his feet for a little while. The servants were gentle, they served us cool water, and I could have stayed there for hours listening to him tell his tales, but I had to go home.

The youngest of the teachers, who did not speak up very much, was Rabbi Sherebiah, and he was also a priest, though no longer could he go to the Temple either, as he'd suffered a terrible mishap once on the road up from Jericho when robbers had attacked him as he went to fulfill his duties in the Temple. They had beat him and his brothers and he'd fallen from the cliff and in the fall his lower leg had been crushed, and was taken off by the physicians in Jerusalem.
He walked on a peg, but this could not be seen for his robes, and seemed a whole man with a quick healthy manner about him. But no priest with a missing limb could go before the Lord, and so he had become a Rabbi in the village school, and was sought out for his teachings by everyone. It was said he had become a Pharisee only after he could no longer go to the Temple. His brothers were also priests, but they lived in Capernaum which wasn't very far away.
The Rabbi between them, who made up the last of The Elders, the Rabbi who had received us in the synagogue, was Rabbi Jacimus, and he was a great Pharisee, though all three Rabbis wore blue tassels on their robes, and Rabbi Jacimus was very strict in all his habits which he tried to teach to us.

All of the family of Rabbi Jacimus, and there were many of his uncles, brothers and sisters and their husbands and their children, were Pharisees and they dined only with each other, as was the custom with Pharisees, and the customs of Nazareth were not always what they would have. But everyone went to them for judgements. And two of the brothers of Rabbi Jacimus were village scribes who wrote letters for people, and even read letters for the very old who couldn't read so well. These men wrote up other papers which had to be done, and they were often in their courtyards very busy with such copying with a man or woman standing over them saying what had to be written. Or worse yet screaming and crying over what was being read to them.

These three teachers were the judges in disputes, but there were other very old men, men who seldom left their homes due to their age, who also came together with them if something had to be done.
In fact, sometimes people came to ask Old Justus, our uncle, his view of things. Now Old Justus couldn't speak, and I could see plainly, as could all of us, that he didn't know what was being said to him, yet people would come and pour out their woe to him and he would nod. And his eyes would bulge, and he'd smile. He loved people talking to him. And this made the people happy and they went away thanking us and thanking him.
My mother would shake her head. Old Sarah would shake her head.
Now I should say a lot of people came to Old Sarah. Men and women came to Old Sarah. Sometimes it seemed to me that Old Sarah was so venerable as they said, by virtue of her age and her cleverness and her quickness, that she was neither man or woman to people anymore.

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