Return to Me

by Lynn Austin

  By now Iddo and Zechariah had missed morning prayers. “The high priest will be waiting for news about the shepherds,” he told Zechariah. “Come with me.” They walked up to the temple mount together and found Jeshua conferring with several others about the stolen sheep.

  “We don’t have the manpower or the authority to find the thieves,” he was saying. “Our stolen sheep are likely grazing in the Negev by now. We’ll simply have to purchase more if we want to have enough for the Feast of Tabernacles. And this time we’ll guard them well.”

  The injustice angered Iddo. So did his helplessness. “Listen, we owe it to those two shepherds to help them and their families. It’s the least we can do. The rainy season is coming, and the very poorest of our people are still living in tents in the valley.”

  “I share your concern,” Jeshua replied, “but what can we do? We barely have enough time or workers to finish everything at the temple.”

  “I know, and I’ve been thinking about that problem on the way up here. My grandson, here, helped me build our house. He knows the basics and how to use a plumb line.”

  “I thought you were against taking them from their studies,” the high priest said.

  “Learning compassion is also part of their studies. Yes, the altar and the sacrifices are our top priority. But it’s also important to take care of the people in our community.”

  Chapter

  21

  Zechariah couldn’t understand it. He stood on the temple mount on the tenth day of Tishri, jammed among thousands of pilgrims who had gathered for the Day of Atonement, his mind whirling with questions. Last night the young shepherd, Hanan, had died of his injuries. Why had the Almighty One allowed it? Why bring Hanan and his family hundreds of miles from their home in Babylon to have his life end in violence? Wasn’t the Holy One supposed to save His people from their enemies? And why wouldn’t their leaders, Sheshbazzar or Zerubbabel, go after the murderers and punish them? Hanan’s killers would go free, just as the boys who attacked him had. It didn’t make sense.

  The courtyard was too crowded, Zechariah too far away from the altar to see the high priest conducting the ritual in his embroidered robes. He could only catch glimpses of movement and smell the occasional aroma of the sacrifices as they blew toward him on the breeze. But he knew from his studies that on this holy day, the Almighty One would forgive his sins and the sins of his nation if they repented. The sacrificial animals would die in his place. After nearly seventy years without an altar, without a way to cancel their sins, he and all of God’s people would finally find forgiveness.

  Had Hanan failed to repent? Had a terrible sin in his life led to his death? Or maybe they had all sinned by failing to build the temple right away. Or by compromising with pagans at the village festival. Maybe it was because Yael—and who knew how many others—still practiced sorcery.

  If that was true, then Zechariah deserved to die, too. He was guilty of attending the village festival. He had broken the Sabbath by walking down to the tombs. The psalmist’s words had echoed in his mind as he had fasted and prayed in preparation for this somber day: “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.” Zechariah had made all of those mistakes. “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” He confessed that he hadn’t delighted in his Torah studies in the past, craving adventure instead. And now his studies had halted. The elders had closed the yeshiva as Zechariah worked alongside the other Torah students in a dreary, gray rain, helping to build sturdier housing in the City of David for all of the people still camped in the valley. He and Saba added a room onto their own house for Hanan’s widow and her two children, and another room for the surviving shepherd, Besai, and his family. But Zechariah now vowed to return to his studies with a different attitude when the week-long feast ended. Today’s sacrifices would restore his standing with God.

  He watched and waited throughout the lengthy ceremony, but nothing miraculous happened. No blinding light appeared to him, no sense of the Holy One’s nearness overwhelmed him. Had he really heard God speaking to him back in Babylon? Why couldn’t he feel His presence now that the altar had been consecrated and the sacrifices restored? The high priest was supposed to take the blood of the sacrifice into the holiest place on the Day of Atonement and sprinkle it on God’s mercy seat, but there was no temple, no mercy seat.

  The long ceremony dragged on and on, and Zechariah grew tired of standing. When it finally ended, his disappointment felt like a dull ache in his stomach, the same ache he’d felt after being punched and kicked. Their long journey from Babylon to Jerusalem, their hard work and anticipation, had ended with a crowded square, the sound of distant music, and the aroma of smoke and roasting meat. That’s all. God’s presence hadn’t returned in a pillar of fire or a cloud of glory. If Zechariah’s sins were truly forgiven, he felt no reassurance. He wondered if the other worshipers felt differently or if it was just him, if his sin still stood between him and the Almighty One like the huge stone blocks that littered the temple site. But who could he ask about it? Certainly not Saba.

  The morning after the sacrifice, a nightmare jolted Zechariah from sleep. He sat up in bed, his heart racing. It had been the same dream he’d had in Babylon, the one that had come true. The Babylonian woman with her long, black robes and dangling jewelry had been pushing Yael into a large storage basket so she could hide. But in this dream, Zechariah had been helping them. The images had been so vivid that it took him a moment to realize that he was in his room in Jerusalem. There was no basket, no Babylonian woman.

  He knew what the dream meant. By keeping Yael’s secret he was helping her continue to sin. But what if he told on her and the elders stoned her to death? He didn’t want Yael to die. Every time Mattaniah went down to the valley to work his land, Yael went to the Samaritan village to see her friend. And each evening when she returned she brought home gifts—a bag of pistachios, fresh goat cheese wrapped in grape leaves, a bouquet of rosemary—payment for predicting people’s futures in the stars. He had to stop her, but how?

  The sun had dawned. He heard voices outside in the courtyard and the sound of the women grinding grain. Zechariah tossed the covers aside and quickly dressed to join them. He glanced anxiously around the courtyard but didn’t see Yael. Safta and the other women were baking bread and feeding the little children. Mattaniah sat on the rug finishing his breakfast. Zechariah hurried over to sit down beside him, keeping his voice low. “Are you taking Yael down to the village again today?”

  “Yes, she asked to go. Why?”

  How could he reply without telling a lie or betraying a secret? “Um . . . maybe Safta could use her help.”

  “She hasn’t said anything to me about it.”

  “Well . . . but . . . Yael is gone so much of the time. She’s hardly ever home.”

  “Her friend is the chieftan’s daughter, Zaki. The villagers have asked her to come, and we need good relations with these people.” He rose from his place, and a moment later Zechariah heard him calling to Yael, asking if she was ready.

  He scrambled to his feet and went to the hearth where his grandmother baked flatbread on the hot stone. “Safta . . . I think Yael should stay home today and help you.”

  Safta made a huffing sound. “Yael does more complaining and sighing than she ever does helping. And she’s not much help with the little ones, either.”

  “Well . . . I don’t think you should let her go down to the village so often. They’re not nice people. Remember how they beat me up?”

  “If it was up to me, I wouldn’t let her go,” Safta said. “But it isn’t up to me.”

  Zaki turned to his grandfather next. Iddo had just retrieved his prayer shawl from his room and was preparing to leave. “Saba, don’t you think it’s dangerous for Yael to keep going down to that village all the time? What if that gang of boys—”

  “Mattaniah assured me that
she’s safe. She’s his daughter.”

  Dinah rose from her place by the hearth and said, “Mattaniah doesn’t have sense enough to realize how beautiful his daughter is. Or the foresight to see what a village full of heathen boys might do to her.”

  “Dinah, please . . .” Saba murmured. “Don’t talk of such things.” He glanced at Zaki with a worried look. But Zechariah knew what his grandmother meant. He had read the story in the Torah of how a Gentile man had raped Jacob’s daughter when she visited the local village. “Mattaniah wants to keep Zabad happy so he can plow and plant his land without worrying,” Saba said.

  “Is his land more important to him than his daughter?” Safta asked.

  “Of course not. But it’s none of our business, Dinah. Let the matter go. You have other women to help you now. You don’t need Yael.”

  Zechariah could only watch helplessly as once again, Yael left with her father for the day.

  On the fifteenth day of Tishri, Zechariah and his new extended family sat beneath the sukkah he had helped Saba build out of leafy branches for the Feast of Tabernacles. They would eat their meals and sleep outside in this booth throughout the week to remember their ancestors’ long desert wanderings. “It’s a blessing to eat and sleep outside,” Saba said as he raised his cup of wine in a toast the first evening.

  “How is it a blessing?” Safta asked. “Didn’t we live in tents all the way here? Was that a blessing?” Everyone at the table seemed to freeze at her unexpected question. Every day, Safta’s unhappiness became more apparent to Zechariah and tonight her demanding tone highlighted it. “Why eat in this flimsy sukkah when we just worked so hard to get out of our tents and build a proper house?”

  “The booths remind us of how temporary our lives are,” Saba replied. “How we are strangers and sojourners in this world. And they remind us how very much we depend on the Almighty One for all of our needs. It was too easy to forget Him when we were settled in Babylon living comfortable lives.”

  “Can’t we be reminded some other way?” she argued, “without having to wave branches in the air and sleep outside?”

  Zaki waited for his grandfather’s reaction. Safta had never argued with him or questioned the Torah’s commands when they’d lived in Babylon. His grandfather replied patiently. “Our rituals are what bind us together and sustain us as a people. They aren’t meaningless, Dinah. They give hope to everyone in the community. And the sacrifices reconcile us with God. Each step we take brings us closer to the day that all the prophets saw, the day when we will have a restored kingdom with a son of David on the throne who will give us victory over all our enemies.”

  At the mention of enemies, Zechariah could no longer keep quiet. He glanced at Hanan’s widow, still in mourning, and asked, “Do we have to wait until the Messiah comes before we fight back? Didn’t the Almighty One tell our ancestors to fight against our enemies and drive them from our land?”

  He thought it was a valid question, but Saba studied him for a long moment before asking, “Are you still thinking about the boys who attacked you? That happened weeks ago. You must let it go, Zechariah.”

  “But it isn’t fair! They should be punished for what they did! And what about the men who attacked Hanan and Besai? Why can’t we demand justice?”

  Saba closed his eyes for a moment as if the memory pained him. “We’ve been over this, Zechariah. That attack took place at night. If Besai can’t identify the men who did it, how can we get justice?”

  “Won’t there be more attacks if these evil men keep getting away with it?”

  “The prophet Isaiah wrote, ‘The Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of retribution to uphold Zion’s cause.’ We need to leave revenge in the Almighty One’s hands.”

  Zechariah had been told to let it go. He was causing pain to his grandfather and to Hanan’s widow, seated beside Safta. But he couldn’t drop it. “Why can’t we ask the Persians to send their soldiers back to keep us safe? I’ll bet they could find our stolen sheep.”

  “The Persian soldiers are not ours to command. Prince Sheshbazzar sent a report to Persia, but it will take many weeks to get a reply.”

  Saba’s patience only fueled Zechariah’s anger. “Then we need to form our own army in the meantime and defend ourselves.”

  “We’re priests and farmers and shepherds, not warriors.”

  “King David was a shepherd, and he fought God’s enemies.”

  “Let it go, Zechariah,” Saba said again. “Didn’t the Almighty One avenge the destruction of Jerusalem for us? He judged the Babylonians for what they did and sent the Persians to conquer them. And now He has brought us back to our land. We’re going to rebuild His temple when spring comes. Let’s just do the work He has given us, and in His good time our enemies will be avenged.”

  Zechariah was too angry to let it go. And he knew that the real source of his frustration was his failure to stop Yael from sinning and worshiping idols. The fresh figs on the platter in front of him were one of the many “gifts” she had brought home with her. If only he and the others could conquer that stupid village and raze it to the ground in revenge, then she couldn’t go there anymore. He excused himself and went to sit alone outside the sukkah where he could see the night sky. The clouds had blown away and thousands of stars had taken their place. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” King David had written. “The skies proclaim the work of his hands.” King David had talked to the Holy One beneath these same heavens and written his psalms of praise. He had worshipped the one true God, not the moon and the stars.

  Zaki heard someone approaching and was afraid to look up, worried that it was Saba. It was Yael. She sat down on a stone beside him. “I heard what you and your grandfather were arguing about, and I don’t blame you for wanting justice. See those stars up there?” She pointed to the sky. “The constellation Libra—the balance scales—is above us during the month of Tishri. If you want to see the scales of justice balanced, this is the time to do it, while Libra is high in the sky.”

  “Please, Yael, you’ve got to stop worshiping the stars,” he said with a groan. “You’re going to get into terrible trouble with all that nonsense.”

  “It isn’t nonsense. The heavens can tell us the best times to do things, like when to plant our crops or choose a wife or get revenge on our enemies. And everyone wants to know the future, don’t they? It gives us hope to see what’s ahead.”

  “It’s idolatry, Yael. And it’s wrong. There’s only one God—the God of our father Abraham. Only He knows the future.”

  She made a sound of contempt. “The moon goddess had a beautiful temple in Babylon. Why is your God’s temple a pile of ruins?”

  Her questions stirred his fear for her the way a stick stirs coals into flames. “It’s in ruins because our ancestors stopped worshiping God and turned to idols, just like you’re doing. The prophet Ezekiel watched the Holy One’s presence leave the temple before it was destroyed. But all of God’s promises about returning from exile and rebuilding the temple are coming true. That’s why we’re here.”

  “There. You said it. Your prophets are able to foretell the future, too. How do you know they didn’t see it in the stars? Leyla’s grandmother said that King David knew how to read the stars.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “He wrote in one of his songs that the heavens give us knowledge at night.”

  Zechariah felt a chill run through him. Hadn’t he just been thinking of that psalm? “‘The heavens declare the glory of God . . . ’” he quoted. “‘Night after night they display knowledge.’”

  “Yes! That’s the one! King David wrote those words, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, but he must have meant something else because the Torah clearly says that sorcery and astrology are wrong.”

  “You can believe whatever you want,” she said with a shrug, “but I can see things in the heavens, and what I see always comes true.”

  “Shh! Don’t say things like that where people can hear
you!” He sat very still, waiting to see if Saba or Joel or one of the other men had overheard. But the soft murmur of laughter and voices from inside the sukkah reassured him that they hadn’t.

  He struggled to think of a way to convince Yael that she was wrong, and he remembered that the prophet Ezekiel had also seen the Almighty One’s glory and presence returning to the temple. The temple was still a pile of ruins of course, where no one was allowed to go. But what if Zechariah could sneak up there some night and find the place among the ruins where the Holy of Holies had been? Yael could go with him to help him avoid the guards and maybe they both would feel His presence. If only she could experience what he had on the day of his bar mitzvah, maybe she would finally give up her idolatry and sorcery. His heart raced as he made up his mind.

  “Do you want to go exploring with me in secret?” He leaned close to ask.

  “You’re not going down to Leyla’s village for revenge, are you?”

  “No. Not there.” His cheeks grew warm at the memory of how he had been beaten and humiliated in front of Yael. “I should warn you that it’s dangerous to go where I want to go. We’ll be in trouble if we get caught.”

  A wide grin spread across Yael’s face. “I don’t care. I’ll go with you.”

  He shook his head at her daring. The threat of danger or trouble didn’t faze her in the least. She had smiled! “You have to promise not to tell anyone,” he warned.

  “I can keep a secret,” she said, emphasizing her words. “When do you want to go?”

  His heart thumped faster. “How about tonight? After everyone is asleep.” Before he lost his nerve.

  “Sure. Where are we going?”

  “Up to the temple mount.”

  She had been alert with excitement at the prospect of adventure but her shoulders sagged at his words. “That’s not dangerous. You go there all the time for the sacrifices.”

  “The altar is on the eastern side of the mount. I want to explore the middle part, where the temple used to be. We’re not supposed to go there, and they have guards who patrol all night. . . . You don’t have to come if you’re afraid,” he challenged.