Premonition

by R. S. Ingermanson

  Ari shook his head. Honor was meshugah. He turned a corner and saw the burning-pits. People brought their garbage here and threw it into pits. There were always fires burning in this valley, always the stench of rotting food, of refuse. Half-wild pariah dogs raced among the pits, scavenging. It amused him that in another place and time, dogs would be considered pets. Here they were feral beasts, reviled, hated, mangy, pitiful, disgusting. To call a man a dog was the greatest insult you could make.

  Ari rounded a bend in the road. A pile of ash stood mounded near a burning-pit. At its foot sat Baruch, throwing ashes over his hair, his clothes. Tears streaked his face.

  Ari slowed as he approached his friend. This was meshugah. An empty gesture, signifying nothing. It meant something only because Baruch thought it meant something. Just as kosher and Shabbat and sacrifice meant something to those who thought they meant something.

  But Shabbat was part of this city, part of this people. Likewise kosher. Likewise the blood of bulls and goats.

  Likewise honor.

  Ari slowed as he approached Baruch. He took off his sandals. Knelt beside his friend. Took a handful of ashes.

  And poured them over his head, letting the bitter taste of Baruch’s dishonor fill his soul.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ari

  * * *

  A WEEK PASSED AND BARUCH remained hostile on the matter of the boy. On the eighth day, a dark and wet winter morning, Ari nervously decided to break their tradition of silence on the way to the morning prayers. They would be holding a circumcision ceremony that afternoon, and a name was required. Baruch refused to name the boy after himself.

  Ari locked the door of his house and turned to Baruch. “My friend, have you decided what to name the boy?”

  Baruch shook his head and slogged through a puddle.

  Ari stepped over it. “What about Shmuel? It is an excellent name. Brother Shmuel the prophet would be much pleased.”

  Baruch said nothing.

  “What about Yonatan? Gift of HaShem? You could call him Yoni for short. Or Yaakov. You could name him after the tsaddik.”

  Stony silence.

  “Or Dov! It is a common name in my country. My own cousin—”

  “It is not done in Jerusalem, to name a child Dov.”

  “So start a tradition. In my country, we name boys often for animals. Ari the lion. Zev the wolf. Dov the bear.” Caleb the dog. Ari held his breath. He would not suggest Caleb.

  “It is not done here.”

  Ari felt frustration welling up. Baruch must come out of his ill mood. Today was a day of rejoicing. For the boy’s sake, he had to shake off this evil spirit.

  Evil spirit? Ari wondered what was happening to him. Since when did he believe in evil spirits? Slowly, slowly, he was becoming a man of this time. It was not a matter of intellectual capitulation. It was a matter of ... adopting the language. One must use the prevailing words of the place.

  They reached the synagogue of The Way of Rabban Yeshua and went in.

  Ari took out his tefillin and strapped them to his forehead and left arm. He draped himself in his tallit and closed his eyes, waiting for Brother Shmuel the prophet to begin the prayers. Then he remembered that Shmuel had gone to the desert two days ago, the better to hear from HaShem. Ari did not know when he would return.

  Another man raised up his voice to pray, but it was not the same as Shmuel.

  Ari felt dislocated. The ritual had been changed, and it would take time to come to a new equilibrium.

  Just so with Baruch. He too needed only time, and he would find the balance he had lost.

  Only time.

  Hana

  * * *

  As the hour approached for the circumcision, Hana held her son tight to her chest and prayed to HaShem that Baruch would not do something terrible. She had suffered much in the last week. Baruch also had suffered. He was a good man. She did not deserve such a good man, and yet he loved her and treated her with respect and tenderness. She must give him many sons.

  Baruch did not blame her in this matter. He had once fought the wicked man and found him to have the strength of ten. No woman could be expected to fight off such a man. Hana had done no wrong, and Baruch still loved her.

  But he did not love this child, this seed of the wicked man. He had not said so, but Hana knew it, as surely as she knew when a cloud hid the sun, whether she looked with her eyes or not. One could not mistake the heat of the sun or its lack. Just so, one could not mistake the heat of a man’s love or its lack.

  Baruch did not love his son, and yet he must name the boy. And Hana felt a great fear. Baruch was a good man, but he had a will forged of iron. He would do whatever he would do. She could not stop loving Baruch, but she could not stop loving her son either. If she must choose one or the other, she would choose ...

  Both.

  Ari the Kazan might smile at that, might say that she should study a matter he called logic. Hana had no confidence in logic. In matters of the heart, she had nothing to learn from Ari the Kazan.

  A knock at the door. Hana turned but made no move.

  Baruch went to answer. Outside stood Ari the Kazan with Sister Rivka. Baruch kissed Ari and greeted Rivka with affection. Behind them waited Yaakov the tsaddik.

  Hana felt her heart surge with joy. No better man lived in Jerusalem than Yaakov, except perhaps Baruch. Yaakov was the brother of Rabban Yeshua, and some said that to see Yaakov was to see Yeshua. Others said that Yaakov was but a pale shadow of Rabban Yeshua. Hana did not care. She could see and touch Yaakov. She could not see or touch the Rabban. Therefore, she loved Yaakov, and hoped for the return of the Rabban.

  Yaakov crossed the room quickly, and his eyes warmed Hana’s heart. “The child.” He reached out with eager hands.

  Hana gave him her bundle.

  Yaakov drew back the swaddling that covered the boy’s head. His eyes gleamed with delight. “Such a beautiful child. Blessed are you, Hana, my daughter.” He kissed the boy’s head, then turned to Baruch. “Baruch, my son, you are a man favored by HaShem.”

  Baruch lowered his eyes. “Thank you, my father.” He did not look like a man favored by HaShem.

  Yaakov looked around the room and his face shone with joy. “If we are all gathered, we may begin. Rivka, my daughter, you will be the child’s sandakit, yes?”

  “Yes, my father.” Rivka took the boy.

  Hana felt happy. A boy could have no better godmother than Rivka.

  Rivka kissed the child’s head and said the traditional words to begin the ceremony. “Baruch haba b’shem Adonai.” Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

  Hana and the others repeated these words.

  A silver cup filled with sweet wine sat on the stone table. Rivka dipped her finger in the cup and placed a drop in the boy’s mouth.

  He sucked on it, not knowing the pain that would soon follow.

  Rivka handed him next to Ari the Kazan, the sandak. He was a good man, and he loved Baruch and Rivka. Therefore, Hana loved him, though she found him a man of hard words.

  Ari the Kazan took the child and placed him with loving care in the empty chair by the table, the chair of Eliyahu the prophet. He said a blessing over the boy and then sang a song from his far country about Eliyahu the prophet. Ari the Kazan had no skill in singing, but what matter? A baby knew nothing of music.

  The child’s wide solemn eyes studied Ari the Kazan.

  Hana wished he would smile, but Rivka had told her it was not usual for an infant to do so.

  When Ari the Kazan finished his song, he lifted the child and carried him to Baruch.

  Baruch also did not smile, and this was not usual.

  Hana found that she could not breathe.

  Ari the Kazan raised the child. “What name has been chosen for the son of Baruch?”

  Baruch had said nothing since the others arrived. His eyes looked with sorrow on the boy, and Hana felt her heart pierced. Better that the evil man should have killed h
er than that Baruch should know such sorrow.

  “His name ...” Baruch’s voice sounded strangled. “His name shall be called ... Dov.”

  Hana did not know what to say. Such a name—who had ever heard of such a name?

  Rivka laughed out loud. “Ari, he is named after your cousin!”

  Yaakov the tsaddik beamed. “A wonderful name! Dov ben Baruch.”

  But Baruch had said nothing about whose son Dov might be.

  Ari the Kazan took the child and placed him on the table. As sandak, it would be his duty to hold the child during the cutting. He unwrapped the swaddling.

  Yaakov the tsaddik stepped up beside him. He took from his belt a flint knife and examined its edge in the light from the window slits above. “Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has made us holy in your commandments, and given us the commandment of circumcision.” His hands moved quickly, swift, sure strokes.

  A burning ring of blood.

  Hana gasped.

  Dov ben Baruch, son of the covenant, screamed.

  Baruch

  * * *

  Days passed, and then weeks, and Baruch’s heart was wood within him. He did not understand why HaShem did not put love for the boy into his heart. If Baruch could have made love grow, he would have done so, whatever the cost. Hana pled with him. Brother Ari gave him logic. Sister Rivka said little, but her eyes showed her anger.

  All of them were right, of course. He could not reject a defenseless child, set him loose in the world as a fatherless mamzer. This was the son of his woman, his beloved Hana.

  But it was not his son, and he could not love what he could not love.

  The first month of Dov’s life came to completion, and now came the day of Dov’s redemption, the ceremony of pidyon ha’ben. Redemption of the firstborn son. A simple thing, commemorating the redemption of Yisrael by HaShem from Egypt. We were slaves in Egypt, and HaShem bought us back, slaying the firstborn of Egypt and sparing ours.

  The ceremony required a righteous priest. Baruch had chosen Brother Ari. Baruch and Hana walked carefully down the hill toward the Temple with Brother Ari and Sister Rivka. And the boy.

  Baruch knew his duty before HaShem. He felt for the lump tied up in his belt. Five silver shekels of the Temple. The redemption price for his son. The son of the wicked man. A reminder forever of the wound to Baruch’s honor. He had failed to protect his woman.

  They crossed the bridge to the western side of the Temple Mount. The outer courts buzzed with the voices of many thousand men.

  Brother Ari led the way, his steps eager. Today, he would have the chief honor in the ceremony. Even an issah priest could receive the redemption money for pidyon ha’ben. He could not offer the sacrifice, but that was a minor thing. He would accept the redemption money with gladness.

  Brother Ari and Sister Rivka loved the boy, and it burned Baruch’s heart that he himself did not. Rabban Yeshua had commanded him to love, but Baruch could not find it in himself to obey.

  Hana’s face glowed with love for her son. Her son, not his.

  They passed through the barrier into the second level of purity, then slowly ascended the steps and came into the Court of Women.

  It was noon, a good time for a private ceremony in the large court. Torah did not specify where the ceremony must occur. Ari led the way to a quiet corner where they could look up through the gleaming bronze gates and see the splendor of the altar of the living God. They could not see the pump Ari had built, the monument to his dishonor.

  The others waited now for Baruch.

  He took the boy carefully from Hana and looked into his sleeping face. He did not hate the boy. The father, yes, but not the boy. He hated the father with an everlasting hate, with the very wrath of HaShem, with the holy rage of a man dishonored. If the father still walked beneath the sun, Baruch would have pursued him to the farthest corner of the earth and avenged his dishonor. But the father had gone down to Sheol, and no man had power over those who wandered in that dark land. Baruch had only rage. Only rage.

  He turned to Ari and began the ceremony. “This is the firstborn son of his mother, and HaShem has commanded us to redeem him, as it is written in the Torah.” He then handed the boy to Ari the righteous priest.

  Baruch knew the Torah passage by heart. He had learned it long ago, in preparation for his son. “When HaShem brings you into the land of the Canaanite as he swore to you and your fathers, then you must give every firstborn male animal to HaShem. You will redeem every firstborn donkey with a lamb, or else you will break its neck, and every firstborn son, you will redeem. And when your son shall ask, you will tell him that with a mighty hand HaShem brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And when Pharaoh opposed him, HaShem killed every firstborn son and animal in the land of Egypt. Therefore, I sacrifice every firstborn animal and redeem every firstborn son.”

  Ari smiled. “And now do you choose to give me your son for service to HaShem, or do you choose to redeem him?”

  It was a ritual question of course, requiring a ritual answer. Nobody ever left a son to the Temple. Not since the time of Shmuel the prophet, many hundred years ago, had a man left his son to HaShem.

  Baruch reached into his belt. Pulled out the linen cloth. Unbound the five shining silver shekels. Looked at the son of his woman. What do you choose, Baruch?

  His heart clawed at his throat.

  Hana’s eyes gleamed with sudden fear.

  Baruch closed his eyes, because he knew he must not act merely from love of Hana nor from a sense of duty. To do so would be to lie. To redeem this child was to accept him as his own son forever, to declare him Dov ben Baruch.

  Baruch wavered, his soul balanced on the point of a knife.

  Rage whispered through him.

  Hana’s shining eyes tore at his heart.

  He waited, hoping to hear the voice of HaShem. But HaShem held silent and Baruch’s heart remained cold. Baruch opened his eyes, knowing that he had only one choice.

  He wrapped the shekels in the cloth and put them back in his belt.

  Hana gasped.

  Ari said, “Brother Baruch ...”

  Sister Rivka made a furious clucking sound. “Ari, stop him!”

  Baruch turned around and walked away. Despair filled his heart. This thing HaShem asked was too much. He was only a man. If he could not love the boy as his own, he would not redeem him.

  HaShem had no right to ask him to redeem a child he could not love.

  Rivka

  * * *

  Months passed. Despite Hanan ben Hanan’s victory in the Temple, Ari’s career skyrocketed—to his own amazement. Yes, Hanan had beaten Kazan in the matter of the pump, but he had not destroyed him. Everyone knew that Ari the Kazan was a man who did not fear the mighty House of Hanan. Furthermore, Hanan had won on a technicality. By losing, Ari the Kazan gained much honor.

  Soon every builder in the city came to Ari with requests for solutions to difficult problems. Ari had more work than he could handle, more money than he could possibly want. He funneled the excess to Yaakov the tsaddik, who took delight in distributing alms to the neediest.

  Rivka’s reputation soared also. Partly because she was the woman of Ari the Kazan. Partly because she had become an excellent midwife who rarely lost a child or a woman. And partly because Midwife Marta told her vast personal network that Rivka the Kazan was a seer woman, given by HaShem to know the future.

  When Rivka went to the market, women stopped their gossip to watch her walk by. Men nudged each other and whispered behind their hands. Sometimes a bold child would approach her and shyly ask Rivka to tell his or her fortune.

  All of which drove Rivka nuts. What had she ever predicted? Nothing! But when she pointed this out, she saw only knowing smiles. The seer woman was modest, yes. A fitting thing in a woman.

  Baruch continued to refuse to touch his son Dov, would not even look at the boy. Of course he had not abandoned Dov to the Temple. But neither would he pay th
e five shekels for the boy’s redemption. Dov was in limbo. When Ari or Rivka tried to discuss it with Baruch, he retreated into icy silence. Hana came to Rivka often in tears over the matter. Rosh HaShanah came in with the blast of the shofar. Then the Ten Days of Awe, ending on Yom Kippur.

  The next afternoon, Rivka went out shopping with Hana. Now past eight months pregnant, she felt like a moose, so they walked slowly. By the time they returned home, Rivka realized she was in labor. Preterm labor. Three weeks early, which meant the baby would be small but probably healthy.

  The delivery took barely twelve hours. It was the sort of labor men called “an easy birth.” No woman would ever say anything so foolish. The whole time, Hana hovered over Rivka, singing softly, rubbing her back, swabbing her forehead with cool water, and encouraging her. Midwife Marta sat on the floor, a rock of calm.

  Rivka waited while her body labored through the night.

  Rivka

  * * *

  Now you may push, child.” Marta said.

  From a zone beyond all pain, Rivka pushed. It was the hardest thing she had done in her life.

  Hana caught the baby.

  Rivka waited, afraid to breathe.

  “You have a beautiful little girl,” Marta said.

  “She is ... wonderful!” Hana cried. “Rivkaleh, you are a mother in Yisrael now!”

  Rivka closed her eyes and smiled. Rachel. I’ll name her for my cousin Rachel.

  Hana helped Rivka off of the birthstool and into bed. Marta laid the baby on Rivka’s bare belly and covered them both with a blanket that Hana had warmed on the stove downstairs.