by Woods, Karen
“Not a cloud in the sky and it’s thundering,” Lydia said.
“Is that all you heard, thunder?” Miriam demanded.
Hadassah shook her head, “I’m not sure what I heard. It was more than thunder. It sounded like words. I just couldn’t quite make it out.”
“’This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased’, that’s what the voice from heaven said,” Yehuda was clearly shaken as he spoke.
Miriam watched as her son left the water on the other bank, as he pulled on his sandals and mantle, and walked away.
Chapter Twenty
Yehoshua arrived home midafternoon on the day before they all were to leave for Cana, for Leah’s nissuin. Yet, he didn’t come alone. With him were a group of men. She recognized some of his companions as men who had been with Yoni.
She saw him, them, come through the backdoor into the common courtyard as she sat at her loom, finishing the weaving of the final piece of a burial shroud.
Yehoshua sat down near her. The men with him did likewise. Miriam kept working.
“You look thinner, Son. Have you been well?” she asked.
“I spent forty days in the desert, Emma, fasting and praying,” he said.
“And your visions during this fast?” she asked. “What were they?”
“Enlightening. I will tell you of them sometime.”
She began binding off the hem of the head wrap for the shroud.
“Beautiful work, Emma,” he said. “Your hands are truly skilled.”
“No one will ever really look at it. These things are merely functional. Yet, there is always a need for them. I try to keep several sets made up because burial cannot wait until the weaving is done,” she replied with a shrug, not stopping working. “Yoses is in the shop working with his father. I know they would both like to see you.”
“In a bit. Just let me talk with you, first.”
She felt herself smile at her son. It was good to have him home. She sighed, not wanting to tell him the news that had come only the day before, “Did you hear about Yoni? Herod Antipas has imprisoned him.”
Yehoshua nodded. “So, we have heard.”
Leah, Shimon’s youngest daughter, came through the courtyard from the carpenter’s shop.
“Yehoshua!” the young woman exclaimed, her joy evident.
“Leah,” he answered, with a smile on his face. “How are you?”
“Busy. Trying to get all my things together to take to Cana when I go tomorrow. Yoses is loading my furniture on the cart right now…”
Yehoshua laughed, joyously. “You love every moment of being at the center of attention.”
Leah’s eyes sparkled. “You know me too well, Yehoshua. Who are these men with you?”
“My disciples.”
It was Leah’s turn to laugh. “So now you are important enough of a teacher to have ‘disciples’, are you?”
“Only at home, among my own people, no concern for my dignity is shown,” he teased his niece.
“Well, if they are your disciples, you must bring them to my nissuin. I’m certain we can find food and drink for more people.” Then Leah turned to Miriam. “I’ve come for my wedding clothes.”
Miriam smiled. “They’re in the house, in a bundle on the table. Go fetch them.”
Leah smiled. “Thank you, Miriam.”
“You are welcome, Leah, my dear.”
The girl sighed and smiled. “I’m frazzled. So much to do. I’m a little frightened of this change, being so far from my parents, my home, from everything I’ve known.”
“You’re going to be less than a day’s walk away, Leah. After my kiddushin, Yosef and I, in the company of his children and his brother’s family, walked north from Yerushalayim. Your Mahir is a very fine young man from a good family. You will be well. Your father wouldn’t have made these arrangements for you if he didn’t put your happiness first,” Miriam said. “You are his baby girl, and he loves you as much as any man has ever loved a daughter.”
Leah nodded. “Most brides feel a bit uneasy going into their husband’s homes, I suppose.”
“Indeed they do,” Miriam replied. “Now, go get your bridal clothes. They are quite beautiful, even if I do say so myself.”
“The clothes you make are always beautiful,” Leah said. “I hope someday I will be as skilled as you are with the loom and needle.”
“You will, with practice,” Miriam said, feeling herself smile at the young woman. “Now, go get your bundle.”
Leah nodded and walked away without a further word.
Yehoshua chuckled as Shimon’s youngest child walked away. “Emma, what had happened here while I’ve been absent?”
“Village life is much as it always is. People are born, live, and die. Five babies have been born, including a set of twins. I’ve been to two marriage feasts. And Avidan, the cobbler, fell down dead on the first day of the week, while working. Otherwise, life goes on much as it always has; days stretch into weeks from one Shabbat to the next. There is always more work to do than time to do it in.”
“You look well,” he said.
“I’m better now that you are home, even for a short visit,” Miriam said.
Yehoshua nodded. “I will be leaving Leah’s celebration to go to K’far Nahum and then to Yerushalayim for the feast.”
“Yes. This is your life. You must do as you feel is right,” she said as she finished binding off the weaving. Removing it from the loom, she folded the shroud. Placing the finished piece with the bundle on the common work table, she turned to her son, “Are you hungry? Thirsty? What can I give you while I busy myself cooking you a hot meal?”
“I can draw water from the cistern myself, Emma,” he offered.
“As though I would make a man draw his own water!” she replied, totally aghast at the thought. “I have some wine, if you would prefer. And, Hadassah brought me a vat of her honey mead, yesterday, as payment for some work I’d done for her. What would you have to drink?”
Leah, carrying her bundle of bridal finery, stopped beside Miriam. “My gratitude is beyond words. These are so beautiful, they make me want to cry.”
“How could I make less than beautiful clothes for my beloved granddaughter?” Miriam dismissed, smiling.
With a small “Oh Miriam, I love you!” Leah embraced Miriam before the girl hurried off.
“Within the year, Emma, you will once again be a great grandmother,” Yehoshua observed.
She sighed and nodded. “Likely. Marrying a widower with grown children does this for a woman.”
Later that evening, after dinner, Yehoshua read to them from the scroll of Bereishit, Genesis. They sat up late into the night listening to him read, and yet, he was not reading the text as much as reciting it from memory. Then, putting away the scroll, he and his disciples left her small house to go sleep in the courtyard.
The whole family, all of Yosef’s children, their children who were in the area, and Yosef’s great grandchildren who were old enough to make the trip, along with Miriam, Yehoshua, Yehoshua’s disciples, and many of the family’s neighbors and friends set out for Cana the next morning, after morning prayers.
Mehir’s, Leah’s husband’s, family had set up tents for the visiting guests. The wedding feast, itself, was to be held in the threshing barn, which had been scrubbed, decorated festively, and made comfortable for the large number of guests who were expected for the celebration, on the following evening.
Mehir and the male guests would assemble there during the day to discuss the scriptures, pray, and to drink, not necessarily in that order, while Leah, with some of the women, would spend the day preparing the young woman for her marriage by elaborate beauty treatments while reciting the entire tehillim, the book of psalms.
Just before sunset on the day of the wedding feast, Miriam stood outside of the door to what would shortly be Leah’s house. A canopy had been erected and a table sat there, beneath the canopy, holding the kiddush cup filled with wine. Along with Leah’
s mother and aunts, she had walked the girl to the canopy, in procession. Mehir’s family had hired musicians to lead the procession, as well as to play at the dinner.
The sheva bracchos, seven blessings, were recited, with Yehoshua stepping up to recite the final blessing of the ceremony, as had been arranged.
Then the young couple, Mehir and Leah, went alone into the house to begin their marriage.
The men, and most of the women, gathered in the threshing barn to pray the afternoon and evening prayers before dinner.
As usual, the men sat on one side of the room, the women at the other. The only man and woman sitting beside one another were the bride and the groom, with Leah sitting on the women’s side of the room and Mahir sitting on the men’s side, yet sharing a table.
The marriage feast was every bit the meat lovers’ delight as Miriam had expected. Roast calf, roast lamb, roast duck, stewed chicken and vegetables, leafy greens, onions, radishes, olives, cucumber slices, fine wheaten flat breads, melon slices, grapes, dates, pomegranates, figs, nuts; the abundance of the food made Miriam nearly dizzy. A village could have eaten for a week from this amount of food. The wine also flowed freely.
During a pause in the conversation about midway through the evening, Miriam heard from behind her two of the servant girls exchanging panicked whispers about there being no more wine, apart from what was in the serving pitchers. Knowing how embarrassed Leah would be about the lack of hospitality implied by running out of wine so early in the evening, Miriam rose from the table, went to one of the servants who had been talking. “Come with me,” she instructed. Then she went to her son.
He stopped his conversation with the men around him and rose, walking outside of the barn with his mother. Several of his disciples followed them.
“They’re out of wine,” Miriam said.
Yehoshua sighed, and said, “Woman! Why are you involving me in this? My time has not yet come.”
She just looked at him for a long moment. Then she turned to the servant girl, “Whatever he tells you to do, do it.”
Miriam watched her son look around. A small smile went over his face, and she knew he would help.
He said to the servant, “Fill those six large water jars; the ones that had held water for the washing of hands.”
The servant girl looked puzzled, but hastened to get the help of several others to accomplish the task.
It was only a matter of minutes until the water was replenished and the jars were filled, nearly to overflowing.
The expression on the face of the servants was priceless. They simply couldn’t believe their eyes. Miriam felt herself smile. Leah would be spared the embarrassment.
Yehoshua said, “Now, draw out and take that wine to the governor of the feast.”
While the servants did that, Yehoshua and his men returned to the feast. Miriam returned just in time to watch the governor of the feast go to Mehir, Leah’s husband. Mehir clearly had no idea what the man was talking about. Miriam smiled as she saw Mehir regain his composure. The servant girl brought around a fresh pitcher of wine and refilled everyone’s cups.
In the tent, late that night, the family sat up with Yehoshua.
“You changed water into wine?” Yaacov, Yosef’s son, demanded, his voice both shocked and amused. “Really?”
Yehoshua nodded.
Yehuda shook his head in clear dismay. “How did you do that, Brother?”
Yehoshua smiled at Yosef’s son. “Which is more difficult, Brother? To change water into wine or to change the hearts of men, leading them to repent of their sins and to walk in the ways of Avinu Malkeinu?”
Yehuda sighed. “After Abba died, and you made that announcement of yours of where you saw your future, I didn’t know what to think. Now, I know even less what to think. I am frightened for you.”
Hadassah nodded, “Especially frightened after hearing that Herod has thrown Yochanan into prison.”
Andreas, formerly a disciple of the baptizer, now a follower of Yehoshua, spoke, "My former master told me that he knew it was time for him to decrease and for Yehoshua to increase.”
Hadassah looked at the fisherman turned disciple and said, “And what else did he say to you?”
Andreas answered, “Seeing Yehoshua walking on the bank of the river, Yochanan turned to us and told us and said, I will never forget his words to me, ‘Look, there is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This is the one whom I meant when I said, “A man will come after me who has surpassed me because he has come before me.”’ My former master continued, ‘I, myself, did not know him, yet he is the reason I have come baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Yisra’el. I saw the Spirit come down from heaven in the form of a dove and remain on him. I wouldn’t have known him except the One who sent me to baptize with water had told me, “The one on whom you see the Spirit come down upon and remain upon is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.”’ Then Yochanan said, ‘I have seen and testify that this is the Son of Elohim.’”
Everyone was silent for a long moment.
Simon, the one Yehoshua called Cephas, the brother of Andreas, spoke, “I never heard Yochanan say this, but I came with them because my brother is convinced Yehoshua is the Moshiach. Everything I have seen has convinced me of this. I believe more strongly today after seeing the water being turned to wine. None but a man anointed by El Elohe Yisra’el could have done this.”
Yehoshua sighed. “You will see many greater wonders than this. Yet, it has been a long day. We should rest now. I will walk to K’far Nahum, tomorrow. Then to Yerushalayim for the Feast.”
“I will come with you, Son. We’ve made arrangements for the haburah, to stay in Adlai’s house, as usual,” Miriam said. “I will pay the extra shares for your people.”
“Thank you, Emma,” Yehoshua said. “I do have the money to do this.”
“Save your funds, Son. You may need them for other purposes.”
Chapter Twenty-One
After Pesach, Miriam returned to Natsarat in the company of Yosef’s family. Yehoshua left Yerushalayim to go teach around the countryside; taking both Halphai’s Yaacov and Yosef’s Yaacov with him.
As the months passed, every once in a while, she’d hear rumors about him, of a miracle he’d worked here or there. There were the stories of how he’d healed many people; men and women, children. He’d caused the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, the demon possessed to come back into their right senses, even the dead to rise again. The account she’d heard of her son raising to life the only son of a widow, that tale touched her deeply and filled her with pride for the kindness he showed to the woman when he’d restored her son to her. She heard of his feeding five thousand men with just five loaves and two small dried fish, with twelve basketsful left over. That story had created more discussion around the village than anything else had done, because it had been told firsthand by a kinsman of Levi, the merchant, who had been present when it happened. All of the stories told of her son were amazing.
Word also came that his group of followers included women whom Yehoshua had healed, some of them quite wealthy and well placed, like Yoanna the wife of Chuza, the steward of Herod’s households. Apparently, those women were paying the expenses of Yehoshua’s group.
The neighbors marveled at the news told of her son.
Miriam constantly reminded herself that he was doing what he was called to do, what he was born to do. Still, she worried about him, about his safety. Not only was he doing these miracles, he was also confronting the parushim; making them, the scribes, the tzedukim and the priests profoundly uneasy. However, it seemed to her, by all accounts, that he merely spoke the truth to all.
Her life largely continued to move with the rhythm of the village, much as it always had. Except that instead of cooking for her son, she now made dinner every day for three of the older widows in the village, frail elderly women who had no family of their own to care for them because they had outlived all of thei
r families. The old women each ate very little, but Miriam knew that what she fed them, and what she sent home with them, was all the food the women had to live on.
Frequently, over dinner with the other women, she would look around and wonder if she, too, one day, would have outlived all those who she’d loved, be old and frail, with gnarled hands, dim vision, low hearing, and a humped back. Her son had said he would see she had someone to take care of her. He had promised. She’d have to rely on that. But it was a sobering prospect; more sobering because of what it would mean for her son. She’d live. He wouldn’t. No mother should outlive her only son. And yet, women did so often, or else she wouldn’t now be caring for these elderly women. They had all outlived their brothers and sisters, children, and grandchildren.
The prophecies were clear. The more she studied them, the clearer, and more frightening, they became to her now, because these events were no longer remote, they were in unfolding right before her eyes. Then again, they had been unfolding since the day Gavriel had first come to her, announcing the impeding life of her son. That angelic visitation felt like both a lifetime ago and as if it had happened only yesterday.
And yet, others didn’t see these things in the scriptures. Even though the prophecies were clear to her, other people didn’t see the mesh of prophecy in the same way.
Miriam sat at her flax wheel, working outside in the courtyard to take advantage of both the light and the breeze. Spinning flax into fine thread wasn’t hard work. The harder work with flax involved harvesting, drying, rippling, retting, breaking, and scutching it to prepare the fibers for spinning. What she now spun was the last of this year’s crop of flax. Once she knew for certain how much thread she would have, she’d know how much linen she could weave and how much income she’d have this year.