by Woods, Karen
Yosef’s sister-in-law, the other Miriam, gasped.
“It is the work of Avinu Malkeinu,” Miriam, the new mother, replied. “All of this is marvelous in my eyes.”
“Marvelous indeed! Yes, I would say that was an understatement,” the midwife said in a low voice. “I will leave you now.”
“I beg you, do not discuss this with anyone else, apart from this family. It is not anyone else’s concern,” Miriam, the mother of Yehoshua, pleaded. “For the safety of the child, keep this to yourself.”
The midwife sighed. “This is a remarkable event. People will want to know.”
A voice came, as though from heaven, “Tell not these strange things you have seen until the child enters Yerushalayim.”
Then the midwife, obviously shaken by the heavenly voice, left the cave without another word.
Halphai and his sons returned to the cave with supplies for the celebration of Shabbat just as the midwife left. The innkeeper had been only too happy to sell them wine, freshly baked bread, smoked fish, cheese, onions, dill, radishes, and garden greens. They still had brined olives, dates, and figs among the food they’d brought with them. This Shabbat dinner would be cold. It was the best they could do in the circumstances.
The meal proved to be a joyous time. Like most Shabbat dinners, this was a leisurely meal, with much conversation, song, and laughter, lasting many hours.
Halphai spoke, “I spoke with our kinswoman Sarah. By noon on the first day of the week, she says she’ll have room for us in her house. But right now, until some of the relatives who have come for the census leave after Shabbat, she’s wall to wall with people without room to even walk through her own home. Your Miriam will not be able to travel easily for a while, and you really should stay close to Yerushalayim until this, her firstborn, child is redeemed in the Temple after your Miriam’s purification. It would be physically difficult for Miriam and the baby, to go home and then to have to make the long walk back to the Temple within a period of a few weeks. We’re only two hour’s walk from the Temple. It would be better to stay here.”
“Forty days in Bethlehem. I don’t have the money to be this long from home,” Yosef said.
“Sarah said she can find work for us, Abba,” Yaacov said. “There is plenty of carpentry work here for you and Halphai. Sarah says she can loan you both tools and a workshop that belonged to her father-in-law, of blessed memory. And she says she can find work for us boys, too.”
Miriam saw Yosef look at her before he asked, “Wife, what do you think?”
“It is probably for the best,” she allowed.
“Then we’ll stay in Bethlehem until after Miriam makes her thanksgiving and I redeem our boy in the Temple,” Yosef said.
They had just sang the birkat ha-mazon, at the end of the meal, when a group of men came, unannounced, into the cave.
Miriam felt a frisson of fear dance along her spine. These were rough, dirty, men, perhaps capable of anything. They were shepherds, clearly, by the look, and the strong smell, of them. People tended to mistrust shepherds as those who tended sheep as hirelings often only did so as they were too young, too dull of sense, or simply too untrustworthy to do other work.
“Shabbat Shalom, brothers,” Yosef said, his voice kind, as he rose to his feet. “I’m afraid you’re late to share our Shabbat dinner. But you’re welcome to whatever food we have, if you’re hungry. We have only cold food, tonight, I’m afraid. But we will gladly share what we have with you.”
The first shepherd nodded, dismissing the offer. “Shabbat Shalom. Sorry to intrude on you, good people. This is going to sound exceedingly strange. But, we’ve come to see the baby. The angels appeared to us and told us the Moshiach has been born and that we would find him here lying in a manger. We’ve come to see this wondrous thing.”
“He’s asleep right now, but you can certainly see him,” Miriam said, rising from the cloth that served as a table.
“Then there is a baby here, asleep in a manger?” one of the shepherds asked, beginning to speak as soon as Miriam said the child was asleep, awe and wonder warring with disbelief in his voice.
“The Moshiach?” Halphai’s Yaacov asked, at the same time Miriam and the shepherd spoke, the boy’s voice both hopeful and confused. “Abba, Emma, could Miriam and Yosef’s son be the promised Moshiach, the one who will free our people?”
Miriam saw Halphai’s wife take her husband’s hand in hers and squeeze it tightly. Yosef’s brother nodded once tightly. “Stranger things have happened, my son. All great men were innocent babes at one time.”
“I’d say this was quite likely, even, that this child will do great things,” Halphai’s wife, Miriam, told her son. “We are seeing HaShem at work in the world as the children of Yisra’el have never before seen Him work. It is an amazing time to be alive.”
Yosef questioned the shepherds, “Tell me exactly what the angel said to you.”
“There were many angels who appeared to us,” another of the shepherds answered.
The rest of the group of shepherds nodded. Another said, “I’d always heard about the heavenly host. But now, having seen them, I believe. I will never get their music out of my head. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”
The rest of the group of shepherds nodded again, in agreement.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” Yosef said.
The first shepherd said, “An angel appeared to us in a bright light. The light at night terrified us, but the angel said we should not be afraid, that he brought to us good news of great joy that should be to us and to all people, that today there was born the Moshiach, Adonai, in Bethlehem. He said that we should find the child, swaddled and laying in a manger.”
“Which we have now done,” another said.
“Proving what the angel said to be true,” a third shepherd said.
A fourth shepherd said, “There were hundreds, maybe thousands, or more, angels with the first one, all of them singing praises to HaShem.”
“What was their song?” Yosef asked.
“I cannot sing it,” the first shepherd said. “It’s beyond my ability. But the words were, ‘Glory to El Elyon, and on earth peace, the good will of Elohim, among men.’”
“It was something like that,” another shepherd said. “I’m still trying to make sense of all of it. All we knew was that we had to come to seek you out and see if this is true. Your Shabbat singing brought us to you.”
Miriam went to the manger and picked up the child who was awake. She brought her son over to show him to the shepherds.
“Blessed be HaShem!” one of the shepherds exclaimed as he fell to his knees before the child.
“Glory to El Elyon!” the first said.
All of the shepherds knelt before the infant and His mother.
“He’s smiling at us!” one of the shepherds said in awe, after he’d risen.
Miriam was overwhelmed with happiness. She filed away all these things the shepherds had said to think about later.
Shortly afterwards, the shepherds left, praises of God on their lips as they made their way back to their herds they had left in the care of others.
Late that night, Miriam lay beside her son. Yosef lay on the other side of the manger/improvised crib. Given the level of snoring, everyone else seemed to be soundly asleep.
The baby loudly moved his bowels. Both she and Yosef rose at the same time to clean him.
“Go to sleep, Yosef. I’ll clean him up and feed him.”
“Can’t sleep. Keep thinking about everything that’s happened today.”
“You want to tell me who you were talking to outside the cave earlier today, when you went to get the midwife?”
Yosef sighed. “You heard that?”
“Enough to know you needed the support of my prayers. So I prayed.”
“Thank you. Do you think Halphai’s Miriam could hear any of that?”
“No, she was singing as she worked. Why? Who were you talking to?”
He sighed again. “As odd as it sounds, I suspect it was ha-satan,” the adversary, “sent to tempt me. He came in the form of an old man clothed in goatskin and leaning on a gnarled walking staff.”
“What did he say?”
“You heard him.”
“Only partially.”
“I won’t forget his words. He said, ‘You don’t really believe any of this nonsense, do you? A virgin with child? It’s not possible. Why don’t you do the sensible thing and just walk away from this disaster? No one would blame you for totally walking away from this. Divorce her. Have her stoned for her adultery. Kill her and that mamzer she bears, before it is too late for you to do anything about her. After all, you’d be within your rights as the child is not yours. Do you really want to raise another man’s child as your own? You have enough sons of your own.’”
Yosef continued, pain in his voice, “His words were quite familiar to me, similar thoughts having passed through my mind.”
Miriam continued to clean her son, trying not to let Yosef know how much that admission disturbed her. “And what did you say?”
“I told him I chose to believe the angel Gavriel who told me this child was holy and that I was to protect Miriam and the boy,” Yosef said. “And I told him to go away and not to bother me again. An ugly, wrathful, expression passed over his face. ‘Holy, indeed!’ he practically spat at me. ‘How can a mamzer be in any way holy?’ he demanded. ‘You know better than this. Use the brain you’ve been given, Man! Don’t rely on a dream and the lies of an adulterous woman-child. Are you a man who can look at things rationally or a child who can be lead by wishful, magical, thinking? You don’t really believe Elohim reveals His will through dreams, do you? That’s simply mad. It is not the way He works.’”
Miriam finished cleaning the boy and began nursing him back to sleep.
“And I answered, ‘On the contrary, He has revealed His will consistently through the years in the forms of dreams. In Egypt, Yosef, son of Yaacov, was positioned to save the Hebrew nation because of his interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams. Many prophets throughout time have been spoken to through dreams. It is not that unusual for the Holy One to speak through dreams.’”
“’So now, you hold yourself to be a prophet?’ ha-satan demanded, scorn in his voice. ‘Deluded and prideful, aren’t you? I don’t know which of you are more mad, your Miriam who claims to be a virgin even though she now is almost ready to deliver a child or you who believe that you have received a private revelation from an angel. The two of you are quite a pair.’”
“I answered him, ‘Go away, Deceiver. I will not hear you. I chose to trust the messenger of the Holy One.’”
“Then ha-satan said, ‘Do you really think that if this child was truly divine, he would be born in the way of humans? Why would the Holy One of Yisra’el want to limit Himself by becoming human? It makes no sense.’”
“I told him, ‘We often don’t know what makes sense or not until we look backwards on it and see the Holy One’s hand in it.’”
“He said to me, ‘You are a fool, Yosef of Natsarat.’”
Yosef yawned. “I retorted, ‘Better a fool than a devil. Go away. I must now find a midwife for Miriam.’ And then he was gone, vanished, as though he had never been there. Strange.”
“Sleep now, Husband. It has been a long day. You need your rest,” Miriam said.
“I’m not the one who just brought this amazing boy into the world. You need to rest more than I do.”
“We both need our sleep.”
Chapter Nine
What a difference a week has made, Miriam thought as she looked around the room in Sarah’s house where she and Yosef, his son, and her baby, as well as Yosef’s brother, sister-in-law and their sons, slept. This was immensely better than the stables in which the child had been born.
The mad crush of the census had finished. The Roman soldiers had left town. And soon, within the hour, her son would be brought fully into the Covenant and given his name. The men had gone to morning prayers. When they returned, they planned to bring with them a minyan, a quorum, even though that wasn’t required.
After the circumcision, this morning, there would be a meal. Sarah and Halphai’s Miriam had been working since dawn on this and on the Shabbat dinner for this evening; so many festive meals in one day. They would all grow fat!
Sarah and Halphai’s Miriam had worked most of the day yesterday on the preparations for the Brit Milah and for Shabbat. Neither of them had allowed her to do much in the way of preparing for this. Both of them had insisted she simply concern herself with caring for her child.
“But there is work to be done,” Miriam had protested early that morning when neither of the other women would let her help.
“I remember as a young wife not being able to spend the time I wanted to with my firstborn because I had too much to do in running the house,” Sarah had answered. “I always felt cheated of the time just to sit and hold him. Enjoy this time. Soon enough, all the responsibilities of running a home and caring for the child will be on you. Take your rest and recover while you can.”
Yosef, Halphai, and the boys, Yosef’s Yaacov, and Halphai’s boys, Yaacov and Yoses, came into the house, followed quickly by the rest of the guests.
As mothers were usually not present at this event, Miriam stayed in this side room. Someone would come, soon, for her son, to take him to Yosef for this ceremony.
O my God, the God of Channah and Rakhel, protect my son as he enters your Covenant. Not, my Lord, that he needs to enter your Covenant as you have been with him, and he with you, since before he was conceived, but we are doing this that he may be seen by the world as a child of the Covenant, that he may be seen as observant of all your commandments.
That wasn’t the traditional prayer she was expected to recite at this time, but it said what she needed to say.
Sarah came to her. “It’s time, Miriam.”
“I know.”
“The knife is sharp, and Yosef has done this before for his grown sons when they were infants. The actual cutting off of the foreskin will take much less than a minute. But there are prayers and such which means it should take a short time to do this. Then I’ll bring your son back to you,” Sarah said kindly. “I remember when my oldest son had his Brit Milah. It was nerve wracking for me to sit and wait. No mother wants her son to be hurt.”
“But we have to obey Avinu Malkeinu’s commands. Take him to Yosef,” Miriam said, offering the baby to Sarah. “This must be done.”
Then Miriam watched as Sarah took him to the main room of her house.
Hugging herself, pacing the floor, Miriam softly chanted this psalm, “Shir lamaalos, eso el he-horim, mayayim yovo ezri. Ezri mayim adonoy, osay shomayim vo-oretz. Al yi-tayn la-mot rag-lecho, al yonum shom’recho. Hinay lo yonum v’lo yishon shomayr yisro-ayl. Adonoy shom-recho, adonoy tzil’cho al yad y’inecho. Yomom ha-shemesh lo ya-kekoh, v’yorayach ba-loyloh. Adonoy yishmor tzays’cho uvoecho mayatoh v’ad olom.” A song of ascents. I lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence shall my help come? My help will come from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and earth. He will not let your foot falter; your guardian does not slumber. Indeed, the Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. The Lord is your guardian; the Lord is your protective shade at your right hand. The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will guard you from all evil; He will guard your soul. The Lord will guard your going and your coming from now and for all time.
No sooner than she had finished chanting this for the third time through than Sarah came into the room holding a very cranky baby.
“He did well,” Sarah said. “But he needs the comfort of his Emma, now.”
Miriam sat and offered her breast to her son. A few minutes later, with a full belly, he fell asleep.
She laid him down, straightened her clothes, and went in to the party.
Yosef rose from the table and came over to her. “How is he?”
“Asleep for now.”
“I named him ‘Yehoshua’ as you wanted.”
“This is good. Thank you.”
“Come, eat something. All his nourishment comes from you. Above all things, you need to eat well.”
“You are so good to me,” Miriam said.
“That’s what I’m supposed to do; be good to you and to the boy,” he answered lowly. “Now, come eat.”
It was a simple dairy meal; barley flat bread made fresh this morning, smoked fish chunks in a dill and cream sauce, sliced boiled eggs, goat cheese, onions, radishes, leafy garden greens, chopped black olives, salt, oil, small cakes formed from chopped dates, almonds, and honey, all of this with Sarah’s own homebrewed dark beer. But there would be roast duck, leavened braided bread, herbs, fruit, and wine for Shabbat dinner.
Yosef and Halphai were both working as carpenters on a project that was expected to last another five weeks or so. That job would last until after Miriam’s purification from childbirth and Yehoshua’s pidyon ha-ben. Then they’d return to Natsarat to get back to normal life. What exactly what ‘normal’ would now be was beyond Miriam.
One of the men gathered around the table said, “You would not believe the tale I heard from a shepherd. He told me he was out in the fields watching the sheep last Shabbat eve when angels appeared to him with the improbable tale of the Moshiach having been born in a cave near here.”
Another said, “I heard the same story from someone else who said a shepherd had told him this tale.”
“You can hear anything from such men,” Sarah said. “It’s best not to repeat such reports. If it is true, and Herod hears of it, there will be much pain inflicted on at least the family of the child, if not the entire city. Even if it’s false, and the tale carries to Herod, he’ll have to send people here to determine what truth might be in it. And if he becomes convinced it’s true, even if it’s not, I shudder to think about what could happen to all the male children in this town. Do you think Herod will tolerate any threat to his rule, even one that could arise from an innocent child?”