One Hundred Philistine Foreskins (35 page)

The gospel choir was called Kol-Koreh-BaMidbar. Temima's inner eye alit on the verse in the book of Isaiah—A voice rings out in the desert!—from the post-traumatic fortieth chapter, Comfort, O Comfort My people. Melekh Sinai was conducting from a podium in the pavilion, his back twitching to the audience at a specially called town meeting that everyone was required to attend when Temima stepped out of her cave that morning and heard the singing. She approached and stood listening behind the women and girls seated in the rear on the straw mats separated from the men and boys in the front section of the congregation by a line of potted sabra plants heavy with prickly fruit. It was a rendition of the spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”—the sweet harmony of the high-pitched little boys' voices lined up in front, the baritones and basses, including a few full-grown men, in the row rising behind them. The full year of mourning for her baby Kook Immanuel had not yet passed and she was still in need of comforting. It was as if the
music were stabbing her heart; no wonder the sages forbade music during this period, not because of its pleasure but for its pain. Off in a corner to the right Temima could see the curtain stirring softly in and out as if breathing. Behind this she knew sat Shira conducting her small orchestra of women striving to stay together with the singers now invisible whom she had rehearsed rigorously in private, passing the baton in the public arena to a man, as was required.

When the performance ended, the congregation rose as one, linked arms, the men with the men, the women with the women, and, swaying from side to side, broke out in the ecstatic refrain from the hymn, “Amen.” But in the Bnei HaElohim version, “Amen” was replaced with “Elmore” in glorification of Abba Kadosh, prophet and messiah, whose slave name had been Elmore Clinton; the refrain was transformed into a cry of longing for the imminent grace of Abba Kadosh's divine presence—El-More, El-More, El-more, Elmore Elmore.

The members of the gospel chorus melted away into the singing swaying crowd nearly overcome with the anticipated arrival of Abba Kadosh, prophet and messiah. Melekh Sinai turned his lectern to face the audience, pulled out a Tanakh from the compartment underneath, and set it down on its slanted desk. As if by a chop from above, the singing was cut off, the entire congregation was struck silent and dropped to the ground in full prostration so that Temima, standing alone in the rear, had an unobstructed view when she laid eyes on Abba Kadosh for the first time. He appeared as if he had descended, like one of the Nephilim, a giant son of the gods who had fallen to earth to cohabit with the daughters of men. He was a glowing apparition in white, long white linen tunic with fringes at its four corners each cluster coiled in azure string, loose white linen breeches, a white linen sash and a regal white turban, like the vestments of the high priest when he entered the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur day. Sunglasses concealed his eyes. He was holding an African walking stick carved out of ebony wood crowned with the coiled figure of a serpent for a handle. From his shoulders and upward he stood taller than all the people, and, despite what must have been his sixty-plus years, he was still vigorous and manly, a hint of cushioning around the middle inviting a place to rest your head, full lips, wide flaring nostrils, rich black beard with no streaks of gray or fading, skin like dark chocolate so smooth, none of its ripeness fled, eyes almost silver, like mirrored glass, with no signs of
dimming, which he took off his dark glasses to reveal, fixing them unblinking straight ahead directly upon Temima, sending out beams to pierce her soul. When he judged that he had taken in enough of this bold antagonist, the only other person not counting Melekh Sinai still left standing in the ring, he put his shades back on, turned to his right, and passed his walking stick to his jittery sidekick in position behind the lectern.

With an upward gesture of his arms, his large hands outspread palms up, he sang out in a voice that seemed to come from fathoms deep within him, “Rise up, holy brothers and sisters, rise up, Bnei HaElohim! Lift up your voices—El-More, More-El, we cannot have enough of El, Elohim, Adonai, Shaddai, Yah, Yahweh, more and more and more El!” This incantation levitated the entire congregation as one and transported it once again into its rapturous refrain of El-more, El-more, El-more, Elmore Elmore, until with his massive right hand Abba Kadosh, prophet and messiah, made a slicing motion and pronounced, Cut!—and instantly there was complete silence broken only by a steady rhythmic beat, as of a donkey swatting its fly-infested tail against the trunk of a tree.

“My holy, holy brothers and sisters,” Abba Kadosh boomed out. “For thousands of years we of the ten tribes of Israel were lost in the uttermost West, but our hearts—our hearts have always been here in the East, the Middle East. We have suffered countless woes and vexations, my holy, holy brothers and sisters, descendants of the black tribes of Reuven, Shimon, Yisashar, Zevulun, Gad, Dan, Asher, Naftali, Menashe, and Ephraim—six hundred million holocausts, slavery and torture, maiming and mutilation, beatings and blows, death and disease, disgrace and humiliation, but now our wandering days are over, we have crossed the mighty river Sambatyon roiling with stones, we have crossed over the sweet rolling Jordan and come home at last to the heaven of the Promised Land, we black Jews of the ten lost tribes. Even if the rabbis reject us, even if the Mishna despots and the Gemara oppressors—the Talmud tyrants—in their arrogant certitude spurn our claims as authentic Jews, we have the holy Torah on our side, and the God of the original Hebrew Bible says to us, Truly Ephraim is a dear son to me.” Abba Kadosh turned to Melekh Sinai at the podium at his right and commanded, “Jeremiah, chapter thirty-one, verse twenty—Read!” Melekh Sinai jumped as if sprung out of a far-off realm in which he had been marinating in daydreams, fumbled to find the place and read out loud in Hebrew, stumbling in his confusion.
“Ephraim is surely the son who is so precious to Me, the little boy I used to delight in dandling. Even as I speak of him I remember him as a child and My innermost self longs for him. Therefore I shall truly truly pity him still. These are the words of the Lord.”

Cries of Say it, Brother Abba! and Read it, Brother Melekh! and Amen Selah! and El-More, El-More! and Mashiakh, Mashiakh, Mashiakh, ayyay-yay-yay-yay! and Hallelujah! rang out from the men's section of the congregation. Women closed their eyes and pumped both arms feverishly upward toward the heavens, many wept and there were some who even collapsed in a faint. Abba Kadosh nodded his head, a beneficent half smile on his lips, then pushed his hands forward palms out as if against a headwind to put a stop to this passionate outpouring. “And He
has
taken pity on Ephraim, which, as you know, is my true ancestral tribe, my holy, holy brothers and sisters, He has taken pity on all of us. He has brought us home—home to the East. The Lord says to us, Welcome home Ephraim, welcome home y'all to the Middle East where you belong, my children. The Lord is on our side, and that's good enough for us. What do we care about the dried-out, meat-eating, neutered old chopped-liver gefilte-fish rabbis when we have the Lord on our side? The Torah is on our side—what more do we need?—and we are on the the side of the Torah. And that, my dear friends, is why I have called upon you to gather here today, to fulfill as best we can the Lord's commandment in His Torah concerning a prodigal son.” He turned to Melekh Sinai. “Deuteronomy, chapter twenty-one, verses eighteen through twenty-one—Read!” There was a bookmark already in place; Melekh Sinai found it instantly and read an abbreviated version: “If a man has a disobedient and rebellious son who doesn't listen to his father . . . they should seize him and take him before the elders of the town . . . and all the men of his city should stone him to death and thus you will root out the evil from your midst and all Israel will hear and fear.”

“Unfortunately, my children,” Abba Kadosh continued, “because of the difficult circumstances we face in relation to the racist rabbinical bosses who still refuse to recognize and welcome us as fellow Jews here in the East, the Middle East, as much as we might feel obliged to obey to the letter the Lord's command in His Torah with regard to the matter of a disobedient and rebellious son, we cannot at this time risk provoking the powers-that-be by going all the way with the stoning. For this, we must
await the blessed hour that the Messiah ben David can shed his incognito and reveal himself to one and all. Nevertheless, my holy, holy brothers and sisters, we do the best we can. Forty lashes we administer to my disobedient and rebellious son, my
ben sorer u'moreh
—‘forty lashes but not more,' Deuteronomy chapter twenty-five, verse three,” Abba Kadosh said, this time not even troubling to order Melekh Sinai to read—“and, I might add, not less than forty, none of this namby-pamby thirty-nine business of the hypocrite rabbis pretending to be nice guys, we go strictly by the book and our book is the Torah. So join me, my holy, holy brothers and sisters—join me as we complete the required punishment of a
ben sorer u'moreh
, which, I tell you as his father, hurts me more than it hurts him. Count along with me so that you too may partake of this great mitzvah. Sing it out, loud and strong—Thirty-seven, Thirty-eight, Thirty-nine, Forty!”

As the crowd counted down the last numbers in unison with rising fervor punctuated by the whip's lash, a cry of horror sprang from Temima's throat like a demonic creature with a life of its own. How had it happened that she had not noticed what everyone else present recognized as the main event, the occasion for the gathering, unfolding before her very eyes? Perhaps it was because what she now was witnessing was to her mind a primitive relic from an archaic age that her rational self dismissed, rejected, refused to absorb or believe could still happen, perhaps it was because the young boy stripped to the waist, his arms wrapped around one of the pillars that held up the trellised roof of the pavilion with his hands bound did not let out a single sound as the whip scourged his naked back in rhythmic lashes. But now she was screaming, “Savages, savages!” as Abba Kadosh took off his sunglasses and fixed her with his metallic gaze.

“I take it that the holy lady is not aware that in our community women do not raise their voices to be heard in public,” he said coolly. “It is most immodest. However, we shall make allowance for you this time—it is an understandable lapse due to your ignorance. The boy—yes, I admit it, this wicked boy is my son—he has been caught prowling around our village. I have forbidden him to enter our camp even from the days when he was a mere infant for I perceived his true nature from the moment of his birth and named him accordingly, the only one of our sons not called Zephania. Yishmael I called him, like Father Abraham's son by Hagar
who even that great lady Mother Sarah had to kick out of the house for fooling with little Isaac, same like Father Isaac when he was a grown man fooled around with Mother Rebekah. But boy messing with boy? That's abomination, plain and simple. This here Yishmael, no way I was going to take any chances with him, a defiant and wayward son from the very beginning, I could see that with my inner vision. Now you see his reward. He is a wild donkey of a boy, this Yishmael—and this is what you do to a wild donkey. You flog him until you break his spirit and he learns his lesson.”

By now the boy's hands had been untied and he was turned around to face the crowd, held in place by two enforcers, one on each side. Temima recognized Ibn Kadosh, startling in his resemblance to his father she now saw, even more so now as they were positioned within the same frame—the same insolent translucent eyes, a younger, slenderer, lighter-skinned cinnamon-colored version. But it was not just the physical likeness that was so remarkable. The kinship was above all evident in the force of his bearing and pride, in the sensuous connection.

She began to move forward, plowing through the women's section, over the spiky barrier of plants, cutting through the men who moved to prevent her progress, but Abba Kadosh, prophet and messiah, forestalled them. “That's okay my holy, holy brothers, let her come, let her come, bring her on, I can handle her.” And as she advanced she was declaiming, “Do you really know your Torah? Did you follow the procedure to the letter? Are you aware that there never has been a
ben sorer u'moreh
and there never will be? And do you know why? Because no true parent would ever bring his own child before the elders of the city to be stoned.”

“Watch it, sister—you already crossed one line in approaching me, don't try crossing another.” Abba Kadosh took Temima in fully with his wolf eyes. “Know before whom you are standing, sister: Abba Kadosh, the holy father—as you are the holy mother. You above all should know that there are times when it is necessary for those in our position to sacrifice one of our children to save all the others.”

Chilled by memory, Temima nevertheless plunged ahead. “Let him go this instant,” she cried.

Smiling intimately as if he knew all there was to know about her, Abba Kadosh nodded to the two men restraining the boy who immediately released him.

“Come with me, Ibn Kadosh,” Temima said. “I will clean you up and bandage you, and give you some water to drink.”

With eyes pale gray like ash smoking with contempt, Ibn Kadosh implicated them all; only the corner of his lower lip trembled almost imperceptibly. “I am looking for my mother,” he said, aiming his words solely at Temima. “I am thinking maybe she is here with you. My mother she is lost. I must to find my mother.” And in a flash he turned, ran off and vanished, swift of foot, the fastest runner in the land, like Asa'el the doomed brother of Yoav ben Zeruya in pursuit of Abner ben Ner, setting in motion a cycle of violence and revenge.