Daughter of Jerusalem

by Joan Wolf

  Ruth said, “Have you heard about what Daniel did?”

  I hadn’t heard his name spoken out loud for years. I took a slow breath and let it out. “I heard he went to the Essenes.”

  “Yes. It was a great shock to us all. I think it’s what finally killed his father.”

  “Has . . . has anyone heard from him?”

  “So far as I know, no one has heard anything from him since he left.”

  Jeremiah approached quietly and asked if he could get us anything else. Ruth shook her head, saying she had to leave. I said to Jeremiah, “You must make certain that in the future we get all our olives and oil from Ruth’s husband, Nathaniel bar Simon.”

  “I will remember, my lady,” Jeremiah said. He picked up the plate of fruit and went inside.

  Ruth said, “I think I should warn you, Mary, you have already made a dangerous enemy.”

  My eyes widened in surprise. “How can that be? I don’t know anyone.”

  “One of the Pharisees, Ezra bar Matthias, has taken against you. Apparently he saw you once when you came to check on your house. When he learned you’d lived in Sepphoris and had your own money, he decided you must be a walking embodiment of all seven of the deadly sins. He denigrates you every chance he gets.”

  “Pharisees think all women are unclean. He probably hates me because I have money and can do as I like.”

  Ruth looked thoughtful. “Your position is certainly unusual among Jews,” she said.

  I changed the subject. “I would love to see your children.”

  “We will all come and visit you. Nathaniel too. And you must come to us.”

  “Nothing would make me happier,” I said.

  She smiled. “Don’t worry about that Pharisee. I have plenty of friends in Capernaum who will be happy to make your acquaintance. You can meet them at the synagogue.”

  The synagogue. I knew it would come up sooner or later.

  Ruth saw the look on my face. “I know you haven’t been going to synagogue, Mary, and that is another mark against you with the people of the town. If you truly want to be one of us, you must go to synagogue.”

  I rubbed my eyes and wondered how to explain. “I haven’t been in years, Ruth. The kind of people who went in Sepphoris . . . I just couldn’t bear them. They were only interested in money, and the rabbi was the same. Just sitting under the same roof with them made me feel unclean.”

  “Did your husband go?”

  “Yes. He was one of the ones I couldn’t bear. Aaron was not a good man, Ruth.” I thought of how he had pushed me into Marcus’ arms. “Not a good man at all.”

  “Listen to me, Mary.” Ruth took my hand and spoke slowly and clearly, “If you wish to be accepted in Capernaum, you must go to synagogue. It’s different here from what you describe in Sepphoris. Our rabbi is a good man, a kind man. The people who attend are mostly fishermen and merchants from the city. Nathaniel and I always come into Capernaum because we like it better than the synagogue in our own small village.”

  I bit my lip. “I don’t know if I can.”

  Her hand on mine tightened. “If you don’t come, you will be isolated from the entire Jewish population of Capernaum. Do you want that?”

  “No!”

  “Then you must put Sepphoris and everything that happened there behind you. I’ll have Nathaniel take you to see the rabbi first, and he will welcome you and invite you to join us. You’ll see.”

  Perhaps he will, I thought cynically. I’m sure he knows all about my money. But I had to take Ruth’s words seriously. I hadn’t come to Capernaum to live in isolation. I missed Julia terribly, and I wanted to make friends with the local women.

  “Do you think Nathaniel would do that?” I asked.

  “Of course he will,” Ruth replied.

  The synagogue wasn’t the Temple, I told myself. The synagogue was for teaching, not for sacrifice. I suspected I would disagree with much of what I heard, but I didn’t have to listen, I just had to be present. I inhaled deeply and took a giant step.

  “All right. I’ll go to synagogue.”

  Ruth’s smile was radiant. “It will all be fine, Mary. I’m sure there won’t be trouble. The rabbi doesn’t like Ezra bar Matthias either.”

  I walked Ruth to the courtyard door, trying to resign myself to what I knew I had to do.

  “Make sure Nathaniel lets the rabbi know I have a lot of money,” I said as she walked through the gate.

  Our eyes met, and then Ruth nodded. She might be a good Jewish woman, but she wasn’t ignorant of the ways of the world.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ruth was as good as her word and produced her husband a few days after our conversation. Nathaniel bar Simon was a man of average height with steady, thoughtful brown eyes, a slightly crooked nose, and a quick smile. He looked around the atrium and said simply, “Very nice.”

  I liked him at once. “Thank you for doing this for me. I haven’t been to synagogue in a long time.”

  “So Ruth has told me. She has also told me what dear friends you once were and how pleased she is to have found you again.”

  Ruth said, “I hope you don’t mind, Mary, but I also told him all about Daniel and how dreadfully Lord Benjamin treated you both.”

  I inhaled sharply. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Yes, it was,” Nathaniel, said. “Now it’s time to concentrate on the future. I have asked the rabbi for an appointment, and he’s waiting for us. Shall we go?”

  I was ridiculously nervous as we walked along the narrow streets that led to the synagogue. I was afraid that this rabbi would be just like the one in Sepphoris.

  The synagogue itself looked like the synagogue in Magdala, not the grandiose one in Sepphoris. The rabbi was a small, gray-haired man with a wrinkled face and humorous eyes.

  He said, “Nathaniel has told me about you, Mary of Magdala, and I am happy to welcome you to our synagogue in Capernaum.”

  My smile was a mixture of pleasure and relief. I was Mary of Magdala again, and I liked that very much.

  I attended a Sabbath synagogue service three days later with Ruth and her family. Once inside, we separated, women and girls to one side of the central aisle, men and boys to the other. I felt the eyes of the congregation upon me as I followed Ruth, but I looked forward, my back as straight as a plank of wood.

  The interior of all synagogues followed a similar plan. The places of honor were in the front, facing the congregation. Local Pharisees, scribes, visiting dignitaries, officers of the synagogue, and the rabbi usually occupied these benches. On a high platform behind them was the table where the scrolls of the Torah reposed.

  The first part of the service consisted of prayer, which we began with the shema, the prayer that all Jewish men were required to recite twice a day:

  Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.

  Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever,

  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all

  your soul and with all your might.

  My lips moved, following the words I had known by heart since I was a child. When we had finished, I shivered a little. It felt so strange to be back in familiar surroundings with familiar sounds and smells. Ruth’s youngest daughter looked up at me and I smiled at her reassuringly. She smiled back.

  The second part of the service consisted of readings from the Torah. The words were first read in Hebrew and then translated by one of the synagogue officers into Aramaic so the congregation could understand.

  During the third part of the service the rabbi would invite a distinguished person to speak, and today he called upon a visiting scribe who talked about the time when our people were slaves in Egypt and the Canaanites occupied our land. He spoke of how Joshua had been led by the Lord to reclaim the Promised Land for His people. He spoke of David, our great warrior king. And he spoke about the present time, about how the Roman occupation was like those that had gone before. He said we mus
t be prepared to do as Joshua and David had done—go to battle for our country. A great commander-king was coming to lead us, he said, and we must pray for the Messiah to arrive soon. Once he showed himself, the Romans would be defeated just as surely as all the other pagan armies had been defeated all those years ago.

  I was stunned by the fiery words. I had become accustomed to a city where Romans and Jews lived together peacefully.

  The path to our marriage is clear because of the old Jew’s death.

  Marcus’ words leaped into my mind in all their callous indifference. Aaron’s murder had not caused a ripple of guilt to disturb his conscience. In Sepphoris, Jews and Romans might live without animosity, but the Romans believed themselves vastly superior. The Roman Empire ruled with an iron fist, and even if the iron was disguised, as it was in Sepphoris, it was still there.

  After the service was over, the men gathered in the synagogue courtyard, talking excitedly about what the visiting scribe had said. Most of the women were interested in meeting the exotic stranger in their midst—me. I smiled and talked about my girlhood in Magdala and how happy I was to be back on the lake among good Jewish people once again.

  A number of the older women held back, shooting baleful looks my way, but on the whole I was pleased with my reception. I gave the women around me a severely edited version of my life in Sepphoris, and they listened eagerly. I had been right to return to the lake, they told me, where the people followed the Law of God and of the elders who had gone before us.

  The women said nothing about the scribe’s speech, but it was in my mind the whole time I walked home. The Messiah, I thought. It is the hope of a messiah that sent Daniel to the desert. I saw his face in my mind as I turned down my street—not the Daniel who had come to me in Sepphoris but the Daniel I had known in Magdala. Happy. Young. Loving me.

  I missed him. I missed him so much.

  I hadn’t yet met my nearest neighbors. A high mud brick wall separated our houses so we couldn’t see each other, but I often heard the sound of children’s voices. Since they were Ruth’s friends, she volunteered to introduce us, and the day after the Sabbath we went together to knock on the door.

  The rambling house, made of the same mud brick as the wall, belonged to a man named Simon Peter bar Ezekiel. Ruth told me he was a fisherman in partnership with his brother and that they had their own boat. Owning your own boat was significant on the lake. It meant you made all the profit off your catch. The men who had to hire someone else’s boat made much less.

  A serving girl answered our knock and bade us come in. The front room was just large enough to accommodate a clean but scuffed wooden table with benches on either side.

  Footsteps sounded, and then Rebecca, Simon Peter’s wife, came in. She gave me a warm smile when Ruth introduced me. “I’m sorry I haven’t called on you, but the children have been sick one after the other. I couldn’t go to synagogue yesterday, so I missed seeing you there as well.”

  When a woman could not go to synagogue it was usually because she was having her period and was considered unclean. She had to remain at home until it was finished.

  The day was warm, and Rebecca invited us into her courtyard, which had the usual fig tree and outdoor oven. We sat on a circular stone bench and chatted while the serving girl went to fetch some juice.

  Rebecca was older than Ruth and I, but her hair was still a dark brown. For some reason, she reminded me of Julia. I couldn’t imagine why, since they didn’t look at all alike, but there was something similar about them.

  We sat in the sun and talked. I sipped my juice and thought how pleasant it was to be here, with these attractive, modestly dressed women who talked about their husbands and their children and their household problems. Rebecca had a wry sense of humor that set us laughing more than once.

  Rebecca’s youngest daughter toddled out into the courtyard, seeking her mother. She was a beautiful child, about three years of age, and she told me her name was Leah.

  “Leah,” I said softly. “I had an Aunt Leah once. It’s a lovely name.”

  “She missed you very much, Mary,” Ruth said, patting my hand.

  “And I her.” I turned to Rebecca. “She was my mother’s sister and so kind to me. I was very sorry I didn’t get to see her before she died.”

  Rebecca’s daughter had climbed into her mother’s lap and was looking at me out of big, solemn eyes. “Pretty lady,” she said.

  I replied just as solemnly, “Thank you. You’re pretty too, Leah.”

  She nodded, accepting the tribute as her due.

  Rebecca said ruefully, “Peter is always telling her how pretty she is. He spoils her dreadfully.”

  Leah rested her head against her mother’s shoulder and put her thumb in her mouth. Rebecca removed it and said to Ruth, “Did you know that Seth bar Nathan broke his leg and can’t work? Hannah is beside herself. The baby is due in a month. We’ll have to do something to help them.”

  I listened as the two women spoke about the unfortunate family, and an idea that had been germinating in my brain for some time suddenly blossomed. “Are there many people in Capernaum who need money to take good care of their families?” I asked.

  “Enough,” Rebecca said. “The fishermen who hire themselves out to work on other men’s boats have the most problems. If they get hurt and can’t work—as Seth has done—then the family is in trouble. My husband and his brother own their own boat and work as partners, so our situation isn’t quite so dire. There’s always someone to back the other one up. And if need be, we can hire help. But the poorer men don’t have that luxury.”

  “And these men for hire . . . they can’t afford their own boats?”

  “Not on the wages they earn. They barely manage to keep their families fed, and it doesn’t help having to pay such outrageous taxes to Rome.” Ruth nodded in agreement.

  I asked, “Can’t they get a loan?”

  Rebecca and Ruth looked at me, eyebrows raised. Ruth said, as if she was speaking to a child, “Only the rich can afford to give loans, Mary, and they would never take a chance on a man like Seth. His ability to pay back the money is virtually nonexistent.”

  “Hmmm,” I said, thinking hard.

  Leah sneaked her thumb back into her mouth, and once more Rebecca removed it.

  I said, “You may already know this, but my husband died with no male heirs, so I’ve inherited all his money. It’s far more than I will ever need for myself, and I want to use it to help people in need. Like Seth.”

  Ruth said gently, “Mary, that’s kind of you, but Ruth is right. Seth will never be able to pay back that kind of loan. If he used it to buy his own boat, he would be in a much better position to provide for his family, but how he would be able to save enough—”

  I interrupted, “You don’t understand. I don’t care if the loan never gets paid back. I would like to give the money free and clear, but”—here I raised my eyebrows—“I know how proud Jewish men can be.”

  Rebecca laughed. “You’re right about that. My husband would beggar us all before he’d take charity, but if we were in serious trouble, he would probably accept a loan.”

  Ruth agreed.

  Rebecca shifted Leah, who had gone to sleep, to her other shoulder. “Times are hard,” she said. “Taxation is draining money from us all. We pay taxes to the Romans, and then we have to pay more taxes for the upkeep of the Temple and the priests.” Her eyes flashed with indignation. “Almost half of what Peter makes goes to taxes!”

  I had heard Aaron complain enough about the double taxation of Jews to know how unfair my people thought it. There was nothing I could do about the taxes, but I hoped I could help in other ways.

  “Do either of you have an idea about how I should make these loans? I would rather people not know I was giving them.”

  “If I were you, I’d speak to the rabbi,” Ruth said.

  I nodded slowly. It was a good idea. If the rabbi would agree to authorize and distribute the loans, then I
could keep my name out of it.

  “I’ll do that,” I said.

  “The Lord will bless you for your kindness, Mary,” Rebecca said.

  I shook my head. “All this money is a burden to me. I will be delighted to find a way to get rid of some of it.”

  Leah woke up with a start, hitting Rebecca in the chin with her head. The little girl began to cry. Ruth and I stood up, ending the visit so Rebecca could see to her daughter. As we walked up the street toward my house, Ruth told me she would have Nathaniel make another appointment with the rabbi so I could discuss my idea of loans.

  I was happy as we parted and I went indoors. Thanks to Ruth I thought I could make friends in the community, and I felt very good about giving Aaron’s money away to deserving Jewish families. I was humming as I went in to see Elisabeth in the kitchen to ask what she was planning for supper.

  Chapter Twenty

  Over the next few months I met and became one of a circle of very nice Jewish women. Even though Ruth never said so, I was certain she had regaled them with the “tragedy” of my separation from Daniel and forced marriage to Aaron. I didn’t like my private life being spread around town, but I recognized the advantage my story gave me.

  Because they felt sorry for me, my new friends were able to overlook my years of living in Sepphoris. Deep in their hearts, most women adore a love story. Especially a sad one. All my Roman friends had grieved their hearts out for poor Dido when Aeneas deserted her.

  I had loved two men and lost them both, and I didn’t want to read about or live through a love story ever again.

  I had my enemies in the town, however. Some women wouldn’t speak to me and told their children loudly to “keep away from that shameless woman.” I tried not to show my hurt, but I felt it nonetheless. The fact that these women were right about me made their sneers even worse. I often thought that if my new friends knew the whole truth, they would snub me too.

  Ezra bar Matthias remained my worst enemy. He was a Pharisee, part of a group that devoted itself to the strictest interpretation of the Mosaic Law. Over the centuries men like Ezra had broken down the Ten Commandments into hundreds of minute rules that covered even the smallest aspect of Jewish life. They not only endeavored to live perfect lives themselves, but they thought everyone else should be just as strict.