Birthright

by Alan Gold

  “Thank you, Comrade Chairman.”

  It was Beria’s plan, one born of a keen intellect for strategy and covert operations. A plan that he had brought to Stalin those many months ago. But he played the part that must be played.

  “The world will come to recognize your genius once our glorious Soviet fleet has sailed out of Sevastopol and is moored safely in the warm and welcoming waters of Haifa and Jaffa in a new country that will be called Israel.”

  Stalin nodded again and then added, “You said something about a girl. What girl?”

  Beria was somewhat surprised by the question but quickly responded, “We acquired her from her religious school. She speaks the Jews’ language of Hebrew well, and she’s intelligent. Very intelligent. And she is”—Beria looked for the right word—“she’s receptive and will be totally, unquestioningly loyal to the state and the Soviet socialist cause. Once her training is finished, she’ll be my thing.”

  At this, Stalin raised a thick eyebrow. Beria continued. “We’re about to begin training her with the other young men and women in weaponry, spycraft, urban warfare, geopolitics, and Marxist ideology. Once her training is complete, she’ll be deployed into greater Palestine.”

  Stalin looked back at the map, then at Beria. He nodded. “Yes. Good.” He turned his attention back to the map. “Remind me of the location of Jerusalem.”

  Central Israel

  161 C.E.

  ABRAM WAS EXHAUSTED and starving.

  The road south from Yavne had taken the lad across the coastal plain that led down to the Mediterranean Sea. Living in the mountainous Galilee, he had never been to the seaside, though from a high hilltop, he’d once spotted the ocean.

  Now he was fascinated by its vastness, its constantly changing moods and smells. At daybreak, it filled the air with the fresh and perfumed tang of a mountain forest. At the height of day, it was salty and rancid, smelling more like the carcass of a dead animal. As the night fell and the stars flooded the firmament, it smelled like a freshly washed blanket.

  For the first few days, he had enjoyed these sensations. Through his journey south, he had skirted settlements and villages, frightened as much by meeting local villagers as he was of encountering a troop of Roman soldiers. His mind remained fixed on the seal inside his shirt and the city of Jerusalem where he must deliver it. It was a goal that had sustained him on little food, water, or sleep. It was what had caused him to become a thief, cause a fire in the high priest’s home, and steal away in the night. It was what had made him feel ashamed of who he was.

  But after three days of walking, the food he’d stolen from the priest’s home was gone. This meant stealing again, this time from an orchard of fruit trees or a field of growing vegetables or gathering God’s bounty of free wild berries, mushrooms, and other edible produce of a forest. But unlike the Galilee, where Abram knew how to gather supplies and could live for days without meeting another person, the vegetation and bounty of the seashore was strange to him.

  So he headed inland and the air grew drier and hotter and his water ran out. Abram lost direction and could not focus his thoughts. His instincts and distrust had him hiding when he saw strangers ahead instead of pleading for help.

  And now Abram was near breaking down. He just needed to rest. Only a morning or two to regain his strength. Simply to lie down in the welcoming grasses and close his eyes and feel God’s sun on his face; to sink into sleep and dream about the cool air of the Galilee, the breezes of the mountaintops, the sparkling water, and the joy of hearing his parents’ voices.

  The sky ahead was bleached white like the bones of a large fish washed up on the shores of the sea. Now his head spun and he smiled, because he was swimming in warm water, refreshing water. He lay down and closed his eyes as his body was swept away by the warmth of the tide washing over him. He tried to turn his body, but he felt himself sinking further and further into the warm water. He knew he was smiling. He didn’t know that he’d collapsed face-first into the dirt at the side of the road.

  • • •

  Had he not been delirious, Abram would have seen that he was within sight of a village sheltered in the lee of a high hill. Soon one, then two, then before long half a dozen people came toward him and silently surrounded his semiconscious body, covered in the dirt of the ditch.

  Abram struggled to open his eyes as the people around him shaded his face from the sun.

  “Brother,” said a tall and bearded man. “Who are you?”

  And then darkness.

  • • •

  When Abram awoke, it took him a few moments to realize that he had been laid under the shaded protection of an olive tree. His face was wet and he felt his skin itching. His head pounded. The nozzle of a water skin was pushed to his lips and he drank deeply. Around him were seven people, all looking at him with questions and concern in their eyes.

  “Why have you come to our village?” asked one of the men.

  Abram could feel an unease in the villagers who stood before him. There was suspicion in their faces, and in these days of Roman control, suspicion could quickly turn to hostility.

  He tried to speak, but his voice rasped. He coughed and whispered, “I’m traveling to Be’er Sheva.”

  Despite his headache, the boy knew he had to be cautious. That was all Abram could, should, say, knowing that he had to keep from everybody the reason he was journeying to Jerusalem.

  His answer didn’t satisfy anybody. “Then why come along this road? Why did you come here? Why to us?” asked the man.

  He had no answer.

  A woman pushed through the crowd and said harshly, “Abimelech, stop this nonsense. He is just a boy. He’s exhausted and hungry. The poor child has collapsed. Look at him; he’s suffering from the heat of the sun and thirst. How can you treat him like this?” She reached over and held Abram by the arm. “I am Elisheva of the House of David. What is your name?”

  “Abram,” he said softly, his throat still hurting despite the water he had swallowed.

  “Come with me, brother Abram, and have some food. And a wash. You look as though you need both.”

  As Elisheva helped him to his unsteady feet, supporting him to the house where she and her husband lived with their three children, the rest of the village stared after them. But then Abimelech, the episcopus of the community and the one to whom others deferred, shrugged.

  “Let us hope that young Abram isn’t a spy for the Romans. And let us pray, my brothers and sisters, in Jesus Christ our Lord’s name, that he might see the light of our Lord, and become one of us . . .”

  Inside the modest home, Elisheva sat Abram at a roughly hewn table and put a bowl of stew in front of him, fresh from the fire. She handed him a goblet of water, which he drank greedily.

  “Not too quickly, my child,” said Elisheva. “When you’re so thirsty, you must drink slowly at first, or you’ll become sick.”

  Abram ate the stew ravenously. It was full of chunks of lamb and vegetables, of lentils and herbs. The smells of the food caused Abram to remember the meals his mother had prepared for Rabbi Shimon, which he’d taken to the cave in the hills. And from that memory a great sadness descended on him, which Elisheva recognized.

  “What are you doing, Abram, wandering these roads alone? In these troubled times, my son, it’s not safe.”

  Abram looked at her, wondering whether to trust her. She had shown him kindness, and Abram was aware of how easily he might have been left by the side of the road to die. Yet she was still a stranger, and he could not ignore the instructions of the rabbi.

  “I’m going to visit my uncle in Be’er Sheva,” he lied.

  She smiled and reached over to hold his hand. “If that’s your mission, then you’ll need to eat and put on weight, because it’s a long way from here into the Negev Desert. The roads, what roads there are, teem with bandits and men you really don’t want to meet.”

  Abram frowned. “But I was told that the people in the desert were friendly an
d welcomed strangers.” It was a lie. He’d never discussed the people who lived in the desert. He hated lying. He hated stealing. Look what he’d become since he’d left his parents’ home.

  Elisheva shook her head. “Some of the desert people are friendly, others are dangerous. Those from ancient times who plied the caravan routes in their tents were hospitable. But for a long time now, another people—who call themselves A’raab, inhabit the desert with their camels and goats and sheep, and they are tribal and fierce. They have a saying: I against my brother, my brothers and I against my cousin, and then my cousins and I against strangers. We hear stories about travelers who disappear when they come across these tribes who wander the sand dunes of the desert.

  “No, Abram, the desert is not a safe place, especially not for a young man like you, alone and far from his home.”

  Abram looked down at his plate, his appetite sated. But Elisheva hadn’t finished. “And there’s always danger from the Romans. The Roman emperor has just died, and we don’t know what the new rulers in Rome will do to us. We hear stories that involve very terrible persecution against our people.”

  “But haven’t the Romans always hated us Jews?” asked Abram.

  Elisheva smiled and shook her head. “No, in the time of King Herod, we were friendly with the Romans. But now they are against the Jews, as well as against us, the Christians, the followers of Jesus of Nazareth.”

  “Who’s Jesus of Nazareth?”

  “He’s our Lord. The son of our God.”

  Abram could not hold back a brash laugh. “God has a son?”

  Elisheva nodded patiently, but the look she gave Abram unsettled him. “Yes, the Lord God sent His son to earth to create the Kingdom of Heaven. He was crucified and he rose from the dead. He is our Messiah.”

  Abram ate another spoonful of the stew while he considered what Elisheva had said. “My rabbi said there are many men who say they are sent by God. They all call themselves messiahs, from our word ‘to be sent.’ My rabbi said I should ignore them as madmen. Was your Jesus one of them?”

  Again, Elisheva remained patient and smiled. “Jesus is the only true Messiah, Abram. He is truly the son of God, and we know this from the miracles he performed. You see, Jesus has done what no man before him has done. He rose from the dead and came back to us alive, three days after he was crucified.”

  Abram shook his head. He didn’t understand. “How can a dead man come alive again?”

  “He is not a man, my dear. He is our God, and we worship him.”

  Abram pushed the empty bowl of stew away as if pushing away the bizarre logic.

  Elisheva then poured Abram a cup of goat’s milk and slid it toward him. Abram looked at the cup as if it were a foreign object, not to be trusted. Jewish law forbade the drinking of milk after a person had eaten meat.

  Elisheva saw Abram’s reaction. Softly, she told him, “My son, Jesus told us, his followers, that we need no longer obey the rules about food that are written in the Book of Levi and the Book of Deuteronomy. Jesus, our teacher and master, told the apostle Mark that we need no longer follow the old ways. We are free of the restrictions of the priests of the temple now that there is no longer a temple. This is a new world, Abram. Yes, it is controlled by the Romans, but as we grow, we will ascend and sweep away the old and replace it with the gift of Jesus and his teachings.”

  “You’ll fight the Romans,” Abram said in astonishment.

  Elisheva smiled. “Dear boy, we Christians don’t fight. We are a peaceable people. Our weapons are those of love and fellowship. This is what Jesus and his apostles taught us.”

  “What’s an apostle?” asked Abram.

  She reached over again and held his arm. “Oh, Abram, we have so much to teach you.”

  Abram wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that and stood up from the table without drinking the milk. But as he did, his head swam and his knees buckled, causing him to stumble backward. He caught himself by grabbing at the shoulder of Elisheva, who had stood quickly to assist him. But then his stomach pitched and yawed and he doubled to vomit all over the floor, his partially digested stew spilling out in a liquid pool at his feet.

  Then Abram passed out.

  Every day since then, with the seal tucked inside his shirt, Abram had felt compelled to be on his way, to fulfill the task he had been set, and find his way to Jerusalem. But for some time he was too weak and too ill to leave the home of Elisheva and her husband, Abimelech.

  They fed him and washed his clothes and gave him a corner of a room in their small house with straw for a bed. They were generous and kind, but Abram did not trust them. It wasn’t just the warning of the rabbi to trust no one until the seal is returned but something else about the people caring for him that made Abram ill at ease.

  For two weeks, as Abram recovered, Abimelech, who was the episcopus of the local community, told him stories about the man called Jesus of Nazareth.

  Abimelech was a leather maker with a workshop next to the house. But he seemed to have endless time to spend with Abram and talk. The young man learned many things about this Jesus, who the whole village seemed to believe was the son of God. For his part, Abram asked many questions and felt gratified that in the answers he sought, he was treated like an adult.

  Back in his village of Peki’in, the rabbis had treated him with love and friendship but never respected the questions he asked. Instead, intent on exploring the depths of their own mysticism, they treated his questions with bemusement, telling him that when he was older, he would understand.

  Abimelech appreciated every inquiry and often took great pains to fully consider the question and answer. The answers were nonetheless often difficult to comprehend and seemed to conform to a logic that the pragmatic Abram found hard to grasp.

  Abimelech told Abram of the crucifixion of Jesus. It surprised the boy, who said, “I thought that only slaves and traitors were crucified by the Romans.”

  Abimelech smiled and nodded. “That’s how much they hated the son of God . . . that they would treat him like the greatest threat to themselves.”

  He then told Abram how the Jewish priests had tried Jesus for heresy and taken him before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, who condemned him to death. After death, Jesus had risen from the grave.

  To the cautious and pragmatic Abram, the idea that God letting His son die should somehow change the fortunes for the Jewish people and make their lot better seemed strangely unconvincing. He had been around the whole village during his recovery and saw nothing of a life of ease. The people were still afraid of the Romans and eked out a bare living with brutally hard work that would never see them emerge from poverty.

  Surely, if God had sent a messiah, He would be able to do more to help His chosen people than simply offering up a sacrifice that, as far as Abram could tell, hadn’t achieved very much. But he said nothing of his doubts to Abimelech.

  The couple caring for him seemed intent on his well-being but equally intent upon his believing what they believed, and this was a puzzling idea for Abram.

  More confusing still was the anger that Abimelech felt toward the priests, the rabbis, and even his fellow Jews. It seemed he hated them more than the Romans. He even singled out the high priest from whom Abram had retrieved the seal many weeks ago.

  “Tzadik bar Caiaphas hates us and has sworn to destroy us, to destroy all Jews who follow the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. He says that we’re Jewish heretics, no better than the Zealots, and that we should be convicted by the Sanhedrin. He says all of us should be put to death. Thank Jesus there is no longer a Sanhedrin, no Jewish court. Tzadik has become powerless as more and more Jews leave this land of Israel because of the Romans, to live in other places, and more and more Jews are converting to the new Judaism, the Judaism of Jesus of Nazareth.”

  The more Abimelech spoke of Tzadik, the angrier he became, until Abram asked cautiously, “You hate him?”

  “I do.”

  “But didn’t you say Jesus
teaches us to love our neighbor?”

  Abimelech’s eyes narrowed and he didn’t answer the question. Abram noticed a sudden twinkle in Elisheva’s eyes.

  • • •

  Later that night Abram sat eating the evening meal at the table. They ate largely in silence, and despite his hosts’ abandonment of the usual rules about what food could be consumed, Abram tried to keep to what the rabbi would approve of and hoped his hosts wouldn’t notice.

  Abram’s strength was returning daily, and he often found himself at night thinking about when he would be able to leave and continue his journey. As he entertained these thoughts at the table, he absently fingered the stone seal through his shirt. When he stood to clear the table, the seal came loose from the inside pocket and dropped to the floor with a thump. The sound caught Abimelech’s attention, and he quickly leaned down and scooped up the talisman before Abram was able to.

  Seeing the ancient seal in the hands of another made Abram nervous. He reached out to take back the seal, but Abimelech continued to finger the object and turn it over in his hands, ignoring Abram’s outstretched hand.

  “What is this, my boy?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” said Abram without emotion.

  “It doesn’t look like nothing. It seems to be very old.” Abimelech read the inscription on the seal, but his expression remained impassive, and he looked up at Abram. “Where did you get this?”

  “I found it,” Abram lied.

  “It is from the old time and belongs to the old ways . . .” He held it up. “Jesus has shown us we can move beyond the priests and the temple and the trinkets of ancient rituals. We are no longer in the days of Moses, who gave the ancient laws, but in the kingdom of tomorrow, and we obey Jesus’ new laws. Our Lord said that it is not stones and bricks but He who is the Kingdom of Heaven. Adornment or veneration of such things will not let you enter our kingdom, Abram, which is the only kingdom.”

  With the same dexterous movement by which Abimelech had snatched the seal from the floor, he snatched Abram by the arm. The grip was so hard that the boy let out a small yelp.