by Lynn Austin
Yael bent to pick up the fringes that the boys had ripped off his garment and handed them to him. They were supposed to remind Zechariah of God’s laws—and he surely must have broken several of them to deserve this. “That’s why David cut the fringes off King Saul’s garment,” he said. “To remind Saul that he was sinning.”
“What are you talking about? Are you sure you’re okay, Zaki?”
He was too old to cry so he let his emotions spill over in anger. “I shouldn’t have listened to you! This is all your fault!”
She took her usual, brassy stance. “That’s a fine way to thank me for saving you!” She turned around and strode away.
“Yael, wait!” He took a few feeble steps, limping in pain. The bruises to his stomach and ribs made him double over. He would never make it home without her help. “Yael, I’m sorry. . . . Thank you for saving me. I’m sorry!”
She stopped and waited for him, and he saw her pity. “You can barely walk. Come on, lean on me and I’ll help you.” They wrapped one arm around each other and headed toward home. It seemed a hundred miles away.
“I thought they were going to kill you,” Yael said, and for the first time, her voice trembled with tears.
“Well, Saba is going to kill me when he finds out what happened.”
“I can help you make up a story.”
“No, don’t. Lying will make everything worse.” He remembered how one of the boys had called her the seer, and he felt sick inside. What if his fellow Jews found out? He was scared for her and for himself because he loved her—and he knew that he shouldn’t love a sorceress. He should have nothing to do with her.
“Are you sure you’re fine?” she asked. “They punched you so hard.”
Zechariah suddenly felt nauseated. The pain was so excruciating that he had to bend over and vomit. It was one more humiliation in front of Yael. When he was finished, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, leaving a streak of blood from his cut lip.
“Come on, we’d better walk faster,” Yael said, “in case the boys decide to come back without Rafi.” He draped his arm around her shoulder again and limped home as quickly as he could manage. “Maybe everyone will still be napping,” she said as they neared the spring, “and I can help you clean the blood and dirt off your clothes before they wake up. I can sew your fringes back on, too.” But Zechariah knew it was hopeless. Safta was certain to notice his cut lip and the gash above his eye. He couldn’t even stand up straight.
His grandmother was awake and sitting outside in their courtyard when Zechariah hobbled home. She covered her mouth in shock when she saw him. “Zaki! What happened?”
“He fell,” Yael said. “We were climbing on some rocks, and they shifted and—”
“Don’t,” he said, silencing her. Saba came out of the house as Safta was looking him over, examining the cuts on his lip and his head, the bruises on his arms.
“I’ll get some water and bandages,” Safta said.
“What happened?” Saba asked.
“I know you’re going to be angry with me,” Zechariah said, “and you have every right to be. I shouldn’t have gone there, and I’ll never, ever do it again.”
Safta returned before he could finish explaining, and she made him sit down on the low stone wall. She fussed over him, washing the blood off his face, holding a compress against the gash on his forehead. “Can you move your arms and legs?” she asked. “Are any bones broken?”
“I don’t think so.” His eye was swelling shut, but he could still see the tears in his grandmother’s eyes as she worked. When she finished, she helped him lift his torn robe over his head. His grandfather stood watching with a sad expression, waiting for Zechariah to finish explaining.
“Yael and I went down to the valley for a walk,” he said. “A gang of boys from the village attacked us. . . . They attacked me, I should say. Yael is fine.”
“One of the boys was Leyla’s brother,” Yael added. “He wouldn’t let them touch me. And he told the others to stop hitting Zaki.”
Zechariah looked up at his grandfather, waiting for the scolding that was certain to come. Instead, Saba beckoned to him and said, “Come. It’s time for prayers.”
“He can’t go like this!” Safta said. “He’s hurt. He needs to lie down!”
“And my kippah and fringes are gone,” he said, reaching up to feel his bare head. It required a great effort not to cry.
“I have a kippah you may borrow,” Saba said.
“Iddo, no!” Safta said. “Can’t you see that he’s injured?”
“You can wear your old robe until Safta repairs that one. Go get changed, Zechariah. We don’t want to be late for prayers.”
“How can you be so cruel?” Safta said. She threw Zaki’s tattered robe on the ground and strode across their courtyard, hurrying through the opening where the gate would be. She kept going, walking faster and faster, weaving between the half-finished houses in their neighborhood until Zaki lost sight of her.
Saba didn’t call to her or chase after her. “Change your clothes,” he said. “Quickly.”
Every movement caused him pain as Zechariah ducked inside his room and put on one of his old robes. He couldn’t stand upright as they walked uphill to the house of assembly. The pain in his belly and ribs made him feel nauseated again. “I’m so sorry, Saba,” he mumbled. “I never should have gone down there.” The Day of Atonement when he would have to confess his sins was still a few weeks away, but he knew that his guilt would easily last until then.
“I planned to start teaching you how to blow the shofar tomorrow, remember?” Saba asked. “Now we’ll have to wait until your lip is no longer swollen.”
Zechariah walked with his head lowered, wiping the tears that slipped down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” he said again.
“Yes. I can see that you’re sorry. And the Holy One sees it, too. But true repentance, true teshuvah, means that we turn around and walk in a different direction from now on.”
“I know, Saba. And I will.”
His grandfather halted for a moment and said, “Let me ask you something. Do you believe that the Almighty One called you to follow Him? To return to Jerusalem and become a man of God?”
“Yes . . . I believe it.”
“You know that following God means all or nothing, don’t you? A man of God does the right thing whether it’s popular with the rest of the crowd or not. He speaks the truth and isn’t afraid to challenge others when they’re doing wrong. Men of God don’t look for power or riches or man’s approval but for God’s approval. Each day in a hundred different ways you must choose all over again whether you still want to follow Him or not.”
“Yes, Saba . . . I understand.” And that meant he couldn’t listen to Yael or anyone else who enticed him to do wrong. He should have nothing more to do with her.
But that was impossible. They’d been friends forever, and he loved her . . . and he needed to find a way to win her back to God before he lost her forever. Because if the other men in their community ever discovered what Yael was doing, they would stone her to death.
Chapter
19
The stench hit Iddo before he and Zechariah reached the house of assembly for morning prayers. They both covered their mouths and noses with the sleeves of their robes. “What’s that terrible smell, Saba?” Zechariah’s face was mottled with purplish bruises, and the cuts on his lip and eye were still healing from the attack three days ago.
“Something dead. But what is it doing so close to the sacred temple area?” Iddo hurried toward the ritual baths, where a group of his fellow priests stood talking, their faces shielded, as well.
“Vandals dumped rotting animal carcasses into the mikveh last night,” one of the men told him. “We just finished repairing and refilling it, and now it will have to be drained and purified before we can use it for our ordination.”
“Another delay,” Iddo said, his jaw clenched. Anger, along with the stink, nearly suffocated him. He c
ould barely breathe.
“We sent for volunteers who aren’t priests to clean it out.” But the nauseating smell contaminated the nearby house of assembly as well, invading the half-finished building like an invisible enemy and making everyone’s eyes water. Their prayers and the yeshiva classes would have to be cancelled for the day.
“Can I go to work with you, instead?” Zechariah asked.
“You haven’t been back to the temple mount since we first arrived, have you?” The boy shook his head. Iddo knew that Zechariah’s decisions to attend the festival and to explore the tombs were symptoms of a restlessness that needed to be satisfied. “All right. Come on, son. Let’s hope the air is fresher up there.”
They climbed the stairs to the temple mount together and thankfully the stench wasn’t as strong higher up where a fresh breeze blew. Iddo paused to let Zechariah see the progress they’d made in the past few months. The site resembled a beehive of activity with hired workers lifting and moving stones. “We’ve finally cleared away the place where the bronze altar once stood,” Iddo said. “And we’ll build the new altar on the same foundations. When it’s finished, it will measure thirty feet square and be fifteen feet high with a ramp leading to the top.”
“Will it be ready in time for the Feast of Trumpets?”
“I pray that it will be, but the feast is barely a week away. We should have begun much sooner, but we allowed enemy opposition to delay us. Now we’re running out of time.”
“Have they started rebuilding the temple, Saba?”
“Not yet. We haven’t even cleared away the rubble or the trees and scrub bushes. It’s a much bigger job than we ever imagined.” Iddo closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the façade of Solomon’s temple adorned with gold; the tall bronze pillars that supported the portico; the huge Bronze Sea, fifteen feet across, where the priests would wash in living water. Looking around now, a ferocious sense of urgency gripped him. They had to complete the task God had given them. The sabotaged mikveh was the latest reminder that the Holy One’s enemies didn’t want them to succeed.
“If that’s going to be the new altar,” Zechariah said, interrupting his thoughts, “what’s that other platform for?” He pointed to a stone structure near the eastern edge of the temple mount, not far from the stairs.
“That’s for the musicians. When the month of Tishri begins, we’ll sound the silver trumpets for the first time to announce the Feast of Trumpets.”
Zechariah looked at him and smiled. “Everyone in the City of David will be able to hear you, Saba. They’ll probably hear you down in the valley, too, and in all the local villages.”
“Yes, that’s what we’re hoping.” He rested his hand on Zaki’s shoulder for a moment, aware that not too long ago he would have rested his hand on his head. The boy was taller than his grandmother now, nearly as tall as Iddo.
They made their way across the recently cleared plaza where the worshipers would soon stand. Every morning Iddo and his fellow priests met where Solomon’s porch once stood to discuss the day’s tasks with Jeshua the high priest. The chief priests and Levites used to hold meetings there before the destruction, and Iddo remembered it as an open portico supported by pillars. Of course the roof was gone, and shattered sections of carved pillars and columns lay strewn across the weedy ground. He and Zechariah sat with the others on the remnants of broken pillars.
“We must concentrate on finishing the altar in time for the fall feasts,” Jeshua began. He looked weary and worried, as if required to carry one of the huge pillars on his back.
“Won’t the altar have to be sanctified?” someone asked. “Will there be enough time for that?”
“Yes, it must be made holy before it can be used to atone for sin. But I assure you that we’ll be ready for the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement if we have to work day and night to do it. This is the beginning of our service to the Holy One. It’s what we came here to do. After the feast, the daily morning and evening sacrifices will continue from now on. The altar fire will never be allowed to go out again.”
“Is there any chance that the vandals who desecrated our mikveh will be caught and punished?” a voice called out.
“That’s probably impossible,” Jeshua said, shaking his head. “Nor can we be certain that there won’t be more acts like it. I’m posting guards on the mount day and night to make sure no one desecrates the new altar.”
“I thought when the local villagers invited us to their festival they were making peace with us. What happened?”
The high priest lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness, then let them drop. “I don’t know what happened.”
“It was a ruse,” Iddo said. “They let us think we were at peace so we’d lower our guard. And it worked. Now we have to start all over again with the mikveh.”
“I’d like to think such an act couldn’t happen again,” Jeshua said, “but the walls around the city and the temple mount have too many breaches. And we have only 139 gatekeepers who must be divided into shifts. They can’t possibly guard the hundreds of places where vandals could sneak in. And you know all too well that there are no city gates to close. We must post more guards from now on, so I’ll need everyone to volunteer for a shift.”
“I can’t possibly spare any of the men under my supervision,” Joel said. “They still need more training before they’re ready to slay the sacrifices correctly. And we’re all exhausted. Every priest has been assigned at least two jobs already.”
“What about your musicians, Iddo?”
“I have 128 temple musicians,” Iddo said. “Most of them are already doing more than one job, but I’ll ask for volunteers.”
“We could ask the yeshiva students to help us,” one of the priests said, gesturing to Zechariah.
Iddo jumped in before anyone else could. “It’s much more important for our young men to study. Weren’t our ancestors punished because they didn’t know the Torah or follow it?”
“But the students are eager to help,” the other priest insisted. “We should let our young men be part of this. We won’t ask them to do anything as dangerous as standing watch in the night. Besides, they’ll have all winter to resume their studies.”
“I disagree,” Iddo said firmly. “We would be sending the wrong message. There is nothing more important than knowing the Torah. Besides, if these vandals are anything like the gang that attacked my grandson . . .” He didn’t finish.
“I heard about that incident,” Jeshua said. “It was near one of the local villages, wasn’t it? You have recovered, I hope?” he asked Zechariah.
“Yes, sir. I’m fine.”
No broken bones, thankfully. That’s what had frightened Iddo the most. Any lasting damage such as a limp or a broken arm that failed to heal straight would have made Zechariah a cripple and ineligible to be a priest.
“Have you received justice from those who were responsible?” Jeshua asked.
Iddo shook his head. “The only witness was Mattaniah’s daughter, and the Samaritans would never accept the testimony of such a young girl.”
“We need the yeshiva students’ help,” the other priest argued. “These acts of terrorism emphasize the importance of celebrating the feast on time and starting the schedule of daily sacrifices. God’s enemies will do anything to try to stop us.”
The high priest looked from Iddo to the other priest, as if trying to make up his mind. “I’m sorry, Iddo,” he finally decided, “but we need the students’ help. We’ll only recruit young men like your grandson who have come of age.”
The decision upset Iddo. He could tell that Zechariah and some of the others were losing interest in their studies, and taking them out of the classroom now would only fuel that disinterest. But the decision had been made, and Jeshua was moving on to the next topic.
“We won’t give in to fear,” he said. “There’s work to be done, and we’ll divide it among the four divisions of priests. This altar must be finished in time for our national day of
repentance.”
“What about building the storehouses?” someone asked. “The Jewish families who returned with us and settled in hometowns such as Tekoa and Bethlehem will be coming to Jerusalem with their offerings. We need a place to store the tithes that belong to us and to the Levites.”
“Wait,” another priest interrupted. “We have to build pens for the sacrificial animals first. We’ll be sacrificing a goodly number of animals throughout the eight days of the festival—bulls and rams and lambs. We need pens for these animals and—”
“And the men who’ll perform these sacrifices need to be fully trained,” Joel added.
“And there’s another reason why we must be finished on time,” Iddo said. “The feast includes a ceremony to pray for rain. The early rains should begin next month, and we need the Holy One’s blessing.”
“We must explain all these needs to every able-bodied man in the community,” Jeshua said. “Ask for additional volunteers and recruit the yeshiva students. One last thing before you start: I’m pleased to report that the workers have moved enough debris for us to see where the temple foundations once were. Unfortunately, we won’t have a chance to begin laying the new foundation until next spring when—”
“What?” Iddo interrupted. “Why not?”
“We have to wait until after the winter rains end.”
“Why? Why can’t we work through the winter?”
“The ground will be too muddy for one thing, and the hired laborers will never agree to work in the rain and the cold.”
“How can we expect the Holy One to protect us from our enemies if we aren’t doing what He sent us here to do?”
“The delay can’t be helped, Iddo. We’ll start rebuilding the temple next spring. That’s all for today. We have work to do.”