by Woods, Karen
The younger children were gathered around their own table in the east room of the house. Happy laughter came from that room. The adults were more reserved. But it was good to hear the children laugh.
Over a luscious Shabbat dinner of a roast lamb, braided loaves of fine wheaten bread, onions, radishes, olives, leafy greens, two kinds of melons, and many other foods, Yehuda raised the issue of Yehoshua’s future. “We, his brothers and sisters, are united in this, Miriam. Yehoshua needs to go to Yerushalayim to study. We’re willing to pay for his expenses. He has too much talent for him to stay here. He could be someone important for Yisra’el instead of just another carpenter. Besides, you will probably want to remarry within a few years. You’re still a lovely woman. Men will be interested in you.”
“I have no desire to remarry,” Miriam stated.
“Well, of course you don’t. Not yet. But you probably will in a year or so,” Shimon allowed. “It is the way of women.”
“I will not remarry,” Miriam said, more strongly.
“We’ll see,” Yehuda answered, his tone both indulgent and disbelieving.
“Did any of you think to ask me, or for that matter to ask Emma, what either of us wanted, instead of making your plans for us?” Yehoshua asked, his voice firm.
“You are still a young man and you will obey your elders,” Shimon stated, his voice sharp.
“Abba already dealt with this issue. We spoke about it, at length. He wanted, and I agree it is the best thing, for me to remain in Natsarat and work as a carpenter, for now,” Yehoshua said. “That was his decision. For the present time, I believe this to be the best thing.”
“For the present time?” Yehuda questioned.
“Abba knew, as I do, eventually I will leave Natsarat. We spoke of it several times over the past few years. My heart is in teaching people to love Avinu Malkeinu and to live righteously before Him. That much is obvious to everyone who knows me.”
“Your knowledge of the scriptures, Brother, has already far surpassed mine. I can teach you nothing more than I have,” Yehuda replied. “I have been unable to teach you anything for years now. I’ve been begging Father to send you to Yerushalayim to study since you were ten years old. You need to be among the leading teachers of Yisra’el in order to reach your full potential. You must have the formal education and contacts among the significant teachers in order to be able to be influential in your teaching of Torah. You have a great gift. You must be given the opportunity to develop your knowledge and skills.”
“I have the scrolls of Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings in my father’s, er…mother’s, home. I always pray and ask for the gift of wisdom before I read the scriptures. I need no other instructor on a daily basis than my own guardian angel,” Yehoshua said. “I will study on my own until I’m ready to leave here to teach. Three weeks a year, I can study with the priests and scribes of the Temple when we go up to Yerushalayim for the pilgrim festivals, learning the oral Torah from them, as I have been doing for the past few years. It will be at least a dozen years from now until I’m old enough for anyone to take me seriously as a teacher, anyway.”
Yehuda nodded. “This much is quite likely true.”
“When it comes my time to leave Emma, I’ll know it. Until then, I’ll work as much as I can as a carpenter, put back money to support Emma in her old age, and I shall study at night and on the Shabbat, and work daily on living out halakhah as fully as I know how,” Yehoshua said. “Little more can be asked of me.”
“And when you marry?” Hadassah, Yosef’s daughter, asked. “Surely this will change your plans.”
Yehoshua shook his head in denial. “I shall not marry.”
Miriam saw the shocked expressions on all of his brothers’ and sisters’ faces. That flat denial of her son’s took her aback as well. But, after her initial surprise, she saw the wisdom of it.
Her son continued, his gentle voice full of acceptance, “Right now, my work and study leaves no time for a wife. It is acceptable, even praiseworthy, to delay marriage in order to study Torah. The life I will live as an itinerant teacher will be one of great personal sacrifice in the service of the children of Yisra’el. That will be no life for a wife and children. Further, as Yerushalayim tends to kill the prophets sent to her, I am not willing to leave orphans and a widow behind to mourn, or, worse, to be harmed.”
Everyone was silent for a long moment.
Lydia, Yosef’s daughter, demanded in a mocking voice, “And now, young man, you consider yourself a prophet of El Elohe Yisra’el?”
“Avinu Malkeinu calls me to be His voice to His people. Further, His call is to bring the Goyim to Him.”
There was dead silence around the table. Miriam watched her stepsons and stepdaughters and their spouses exchange bewildered glances.
Yehoshua continued, “I must obey that call when the time is right. Yet, it is not yet my time to live publicly. So, I will wait, work, and continue to study, until my time comes.”
“To live out halakhah, one must marry and have children,” Shimon said, his voice clearly upset. “This is among the first of the commandments El Elohe Yisra’el gave after Eden’s closure.”
“Shlomo, son of David, wrote, ‘Better is it to have no children and to have virtue, for the memorial thereof is immortal.’ Furthermore, the Essenoi live quite well as single men,” Yehoshua replied.
“Are you then going to join them, Brother?” Hadassah replied, the disbelief strong in her tone.
Miriam saw her son smile before he answered, “No. Many would find their manner of living to be praiseworthy. They keep the Shabbat rigorously, not even answering the call of nature on the Shabbat. Their concern is with studying the Law and the Prophets. They take missing the mark so seriously that they go to the mikveh each morning to be purified of whatever sin they may have inadvertently committed the day before. They avoid anything that would take their minds from Avinu Malkeinu. There are praiseworthy actions there, on the surface. However, their manner of life relies on themselves, on their own strength. It’s a work that they do in and of themselves, and not one that Avinu Malkeinu does in them. That’s going about life the wrong way. The only power any of us have for righteousness comes from Avinu Malkeinu. There is a vast difference between knowing about El Elyon and actually knowing Him as Avinu. The Prophet Yisayahu speaks His words saying, ‘There is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none except Me. Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other… They will say of Me, “Only in HaShem are righteousness and strength.”’ So speaks the prophet Yisayahu for Adonai. We have no righteousness apart from Avinu Malkeinu. Only by relying entirely upon Him can we be strong and righteous.”
Dinah, Yosef’s youngest daughter, said, “I don’t know how to rely entirely upon Him for strength.”
Yehoshua said, his voice both kind and impassioned, “Sister, you do. Abba taught us how. We begin with the greatest of the commandments, by loving Avinu Malkeinu with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength. We continue by loving our neighbors as though they were ourselves. The rest of halakhah is commentary, assistance towards keeping Him ever before our eyes.”
“All of it is commentary?” Dinah echoed in clear disbelief. “You see kashruth,” the dietary regulations, “or taharat ha-mishpachah,” the laws of family purity, “as mere commentary?”
“Kashruth and taharat ha-mishpachah are aids towards keeping our minds on Avinu Malkeinu. People are physical beings. Food and sex are each major parts of people’s lives, sources of both pleasure and comfort. To have rules about what we can eat and how that must be prepared, as well as about the physical aspects of marriage keeps our minds and bodies disciplined and centered on Him,” Yehoshua replied, patiently, kindness in his voice. “It is a good thing. But yes, it’s commentary, like everything else that governs our lives. The essential message of Avinu Malkeinu is that He is to be loved with our whole hearts, minds, souls, and st
rength, and we are to love our neighbors as though they were ourselves.”
Lydia observed, her voice tight, “You seem to have an answer for everything, Brother.”
“The only answer to anything is Avinu Malkeinu,” Yehoshua said. “He is the source of all wisdom and strength. Anyone who believes he has anything important to say that isn’t grounded in the goodness of Avinu Malkeinu, that person is deluded.”
Yaacov, Yosef’s son, cleared his throat. “Personally, I’ve always seen Yehoshua not so much as a prophet, but as the Moshiach.”
Lydia laughed, nervously. “The Moshiach? Somehow, I don’t think so, Brother. He’s a boy and a carpenter, not a great military leader who will free us from Roma.”
Yaacov countered, “Don’t underestimate the power of boys. Was not Yosef a boy when he interpreted the dreams of Pharoah? Was not Daniel a mere boy when he saved Shoshonah from the lies of the lecherous elders? Were not the three who were saved from the firey furnace merely boys? David was a boy and a shepherd when he killed Goliath, armed with nothing but a slingshot and five smooth stones. Is the Moshiach not great David’s greater son?”
Yoses, Halphai’s son, said, “I remember just after Yehoshua’s pidyon ha-ben those Magi came to Sarah’s house that Shabbat evening, bringing their expensive gifts, the gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They came all the way from Persia to worship Yehoshua as the one who was born King of the Jews. They followed the star which came to rest over Sarah’s house and led them directly to us. One of their turbans came off when he prostrated himself before the baby who was Yehoshua. It was all I could do not to laugh. That image has stayed with me all these years.”
There were questioning looks all around the table. Then almost every eye rested, in accusing glances, on Miriam.
“We hadn’t told anyone that story, Yoses,” Miriam said, quietly.
“How could you not tell the tale?” Halphai asked. “It’s why you, Yosef, Yehoshua, and Yaacov fled to Egypt; to protect Yehoshua from Herod’s wrath.”
“Yehoshua was the child Herod sought, the one that Herod ordered the deaths of all the children in Bethlehem and the area surrounding there in an effort to kill?” Shimon asked, horror in his voice. Then he added quietly, “Even this far north, we heard the tales.”
“Our duty, your Father’s and mine, was to protect Yehoshua,” Miriam, Yehoshua’s mother, replied. “My heart hurts to this day because of the deaths of those innocent children slaughtered by Herod. My duty was to protect my son, which I did, to the best of my ability, even though that meant fleeing to Egypt, where we were beyond Herod’s reach.”
“If you had all that money, the gold, and the value of those expensive resins, where did it all go?” Shoshonah, Yehuda’s wife, demanded.
Miriam sighed, “Actually, we still have most of the gold. The resins were left with Yosef’s cousin, Sarah, as she had a use for them. Last year, after her death, her son sent a messenger to us with a box containing several alabaster jars holding ointments of myrrh, most of which were used recently on Yosef before his burial.”
“You have never lived like you were rich,” Shoshonah said, practically accused.
“I’m not rich. That money is held in trust for Yehoshua. I’ve never thought of it as mine, in the least. What little we’ve spent of it was in keeping him safe and in returning to Galilee after our time in Egypt. I did borrow enough from the purse to buy the fields where I grow flax for my weaving. But I paid that back. From time to time, I spent a little of it, during the odd weeks that we hadn’t earned enough money ourselves, Yosef and I, to buy meat for the Shabbat. But I always tried to pay that back to the fund. Most of the time, we could manage the cost of our Shabbat meals from our own earnings.”
“As far as I’m concerned, Emma, that money is for your old age, to make sure you can live comfortably for the rest of your life, particularly after I’m no longer in Natsarat working to support you,” her son said.
“It will not be cheap to move around, teaching. You will need support, my Son,” Miriam said.
Yehoshua shrugged. “We’ll handle that when it comes. I suspect there will be money from my followers. For the immediate future, I’m still here, working. I’ll be going to Sepphoris to deliver that table and couch set after our shiva ends.”
Halphai said, “That’s a two man job. I’ll come with you.”
“Nonsense, Abba,” Yoses said. “I’ll help him with it. You don’t need to be hurting your back, again. You can stay in the shop and work on smaller things, like those commissions we have for bowls and wooden spoons, so you don’t hurt yourself. But Yehoshua and I will do the delivery.”
Halphai shook his head and smiled. “You’re a good son, Yoses.”
“I hope I’m a good son. I do try. Sometimes, I think I’ve been a better son than other times,” Yoses replied.
Yehuda replied, “We all have felt that way. We’ve been good sons, and not so good sons, at various points in our lives. Abba was really sad I did not become carpenter.”
“Your father knew your path was different,” Miriam told him. “He was always proud of the good men you, Shimon, and Yaacov became. Just as he was always proud of his daughters and of Yehoshua, as well.”
“There are times,” Shimon reflected, “I have wondered if Abba forced Yehoshua into the shop, just so he would have one son who followed in his footsteps.”
“No one forced me to do anything,” Yehoshua denied. “I enjoy working in wood. I will miss working with Abba. We had such good conversations as we worked.”
“We all shall miss Abba,” Dinah said. “More than words can say.”
Hadassah and Lydia agreed with that.
Lydia said, “I didn’t tell you, Yeshoshua, how much your words at the tomb meant to me; how well you put all of our feelings into words. It is a gift, Brother, to speak eloquently, especially during times of great stress. I believe you shall be a great teacher, my Brother.”
“I will be only what Avinu Malkeinu would have me be,” Yehoshua dismissed.
“No one can be anything else, really,” Hadassah said.
“Of course, nothing we’ve talked about tonight is any of anyone else’s business, and should not be talked about to others,” Yehoshua said. “While you love me, I’m not so sure the neighbors feel the same.”
“None of us would be rakheel,” a tale bearer, Yehuda stated, clearly offended. “We all take halakhah more seriously than that.”
“Besides,” Lydia said, “who would believe any of this? I’m still not certain that I do.”
“It took me a while, myself,” Miriam, the mother of Yehoshua, allowed. “I don’t think I really believed it until Elisheva greeted me when I went to see her. When she said that her son leapt in her womb at the sound of my greeting and she obviously knew of the visitation I had had from an angel before I left here to go to her, then I was able to fully believe any of this.”
“I believed from the day of his birth,” Miriam, the wife of Halphai, said. “It was rather hard not to, given the way he was born, particularly as those shepherds came that night with their tale about the angels sending them to see the Moshiach, newly born and lying in the manger.”
Hadassah drew a sharp breath. “These too are tales we haven’t been told. Why would an angel have come to you, Miriam? What was so special about the way Yehoshua was born? Why would my newborn brother have been lying in a feeding trough, of all places?”
“The stable, that cave, was the only place available in Bethlehem for us to shelter when we got there,” Miriam, the mother of Yehoshua, explained. “People were sleeping on the streets, so we were happy to have a roof over our heads, even such that it was.”
“Anything else we should know, Miriam?” Dinah asked.
“There are an assortment of tales, none of which you necessarily need to know, right now,” Miriam acknowledged, on a sigh. “Some memories are private treasures; things I’ve pondered in my heart for a long time.”
“Do you believe Yehoshua
is the Moshiach, Miriam, and more importantly, did my father believe this?” Yehuda demanded.
“Yes, I do believe he is the Moshiach, and Yosef did as well, having been shown many things in dreams,” Miriam said. “I, further, know the path my son walks is not the one that people are going to expect the Moshiach to walk.”
“Nevertheless, it is my path. The prophets are clear about it,” Yehoshua said.
“This is all a bit much to take in,” Yehuda said.
“Indeed it is,” Miriam said. “I wouldn’t have burdened you with it, especially now. Neither will I deny the truth, once it has been spoken.”
Chapter Eighteen
One day followed another, one Shabbat followed another, one festival followed another, and the years simply passed, with Miriam and Yehoshua living in the little house, both of them working by day and studying the scriptures each evening and on the Shabbat.
Word came that there was a teacher along the Yardin river, preaching repentance and then washing those who repented in the river, for the cleansing of their sins. The man’s name was Yochanan. Miriam knew in her heart that he was Zechariah and Elisheva’s son, Yoni. She decided to go see him.
The next evening, over Shabbat dinner, with all the family gathered in Yehuda’s house, Miriam announced that she was doing down to the Yardin at the place where the Prophets Eliyahu and Elisha crossed the river and near the spot where Eliyahu had been taken up to heaven in a firey chariot, to see this Yochanan who was preaching there.
“That’s quite a walk, Emma,” Yehoshua said.
“Yes, it is. Will you go with me?”
“I would like to see this man, to hear what he is saying,” Yehuda replied.
Yosef’s son, Shimon, and Yosef’s daughter, Hadassah, agreed that they would very much like to hear this Yochanan. Most of the rest of the family agreed that this would be something they would like to do as well.
“Very well, Emma. We shall go. I believe it is my time to leave Natsarat. This is as good of an excuse to leave as any other. Yoses, Halphai, and Yoses’ sons can handle the volume of work in the shop.”