The roots of the Israeli-Judean holiday of ‘Shavuot’– Pentecost, could be found also in the Knaanite holiday for the final spring festival, after Passover. The ancient Hebrews or Israelis- made of it also a Celebration Day for memorizing that the Torah Laws had been received by the people in that day, thru Moses – from God.
(The Christians called that day ‘Pentecost’– ‘the holy Spirit of God’ having appeared in the reception of Moses Commandnets, the Torah ).
Many of the first Israelis living in the country were shepherds like Abraham. They blessed God -or Baal- for the fertility of their fields, orchards and vineyards. The curse imposed by God on Adam to work with sweat in order to produce food - had become a blessing bestowed by God on those who would fulfill this order.
People in ancient times loved that holiday, as it took place at the end of the spring, after the rains had ceased. The festivities of bringing the farmers’, planters and grains raisers, bring their presents or Offerings to the priests. That would take place under the sky, with group dances and music of joy. Nice views of pilgrims, men and women, would be seen at the Temple’s courtyard and its sourroundings: In North Israel it was the Calf Temple in Beth-El, owned by Ahab’s kingdom, and that place was very close to Judea, a distance of some twenty km from Jerusalem. Jerusalem had its own Temple, built by king Solomon, King David’s son. Except this great deed he was famous in his wisdom , and in his thousand women. How that fact had coexisted with wisdom, only he himself could explain…
The historical paragraph you have just read- may have been shortly taught by Prophet Elisha to his assistant, fifteen years old Gehazi, while their donkeys were approaching Beth-El. They came with their offerings to the priests of God there. Gehazi’s body was suffering already from leprosy. It was a result of his master’s curse on him,( see details on the Bible Book of KINGS2). Despite that - Elisha pitied the youth and still permitted him to remain his assistant.
On the previous day - Gehazi received first fruits and vegetables from Elisha’s woman-friend in Shunem village. Before getting those presents form her hands, the Prophet blessed her kid, remembering that a few years earlier he had seen her swelling belly - after she had seduced him to do something that would make her become pregnant. Then she bore that son, and when he became six years old the prophet had rescued him from death, and so on…But now the woman had become already an official widow. In the past she had her ‘No Use’ old man, who would be snoring under his tree - whenever Elisha and Gehazi would visit her…Only Gehazi knew what had been the real kind of relationship of his master and Lady Shunamit. He wrote about that, together with other Elisha’s adventures - in a thick book. That happened later on, after his leprosy sickness had become severe, and he could hardly move his broken crumbled limbs. He was asylumed in Samaria’s Lepers’ House. All that will be told more extensively in one of the coming chapters…(Years after Gehazy and Elisha had died- the Bible editors had just copied the tales from Gehazi’s remarkable book. However, they hided Elisha’s true love story with Shunamit, and only hinted ut. They had avoided publishing the fascinating tale about Elisha’s relationship with another woman -Bat Gad, that we will soon discover).
So, the prophet and his young servant’s voyage to the south began along the Jezre-el Valley. Then there they turned to the valley of Dotan (near Palestinian town Jenin of today) and then - to Shekhem(Nablus- today) and to Beth-El (near Ramallah- today). A very warm sun sent its beams on the ‘royal highway’. Along it were seen various people, trying to reach Beth-El with their agricultural presents, which were filled in their bags and baskets. They had just gathered the first fruits, as well as the first harvest of their barley and wheat. They put those into sacks, which they loaded on donkeys or oxen backs – and led their pilgrimage together. The offerings were not loaded on horsebacks- because the army had mobilized all of these nice and quick gallop animals for its needs.
Some shepherds, leading sheep or goats, were walking on the way to Beth El, too. They just wanted to sacrifice the animals on the Temple’s altar, and then eat them together with the respectable ‘priests of the Calf’. (so they were called mockingly by the Jerusalem Temple’s priests and prophets). We would not mention here the Calf, if the flashing golden head of its statue would not be seen from far. That statue had been erected over the Beth El Temple, about hundred years before Elisha and young Gehazi were on their way to it. The calf’s head stone sculpture was smeared by a gold color, and the other limbs (legs and body)were colored in black asphalt or whitewash. It had been carved in the time of Jerovaam, the first Northern Israeli king. He installed that sculpture in that particular place - due to its historical sanctification: It was the place where Jacob had set his statue for God, after he had laid his head on some stones for a good nightly sleep. In his dream God showed him a ladder reaching the sky: Angels were climbing and descending its steps. By that they had symbolized the Israeli nation’s history: It will rise up and then descend down, depending on God’s wish. The most Orthodox Jews said: If Israel will obey God- they will climb up, and so on… To me it seems, that the simple and explicit tale in the Bible just described a nation’s life along its history: No nation had led its historical life without ups and downs, and so the Israeli(then Jewish) nation.
Soon the ‘pretty pair’ Elisha and Gehazi, riding their donkies – arrived the Beth-El Temple’s hill. The Prophet turned his eyes and saw the Calf Statue on the Temple’s roof, or second floor. He cursed Jezebel, her son -king Joram, and the priests –who were faithful to the Calf’s shape. He ordered young Gehazi to bind the donkeys’ reins to a low tree, and let them chew grass - that had still existed in that month, but soon, in summertime, all the fields would grow only dry thornbushes, that even foolish donkeys or oxen would not eat.
(Have you paid attention to the scene of a knight and his servant riding, then taking a rest and then continue to stride over the country – 2500 years afterward? I hint at Don Kichote. The spaniard genius author Cervantes had not been the original writer of a tale of a hallucinator, who sees reality according to his erroneous perception and conception. His servant, a poor fellow,(Quichote’s Sanco Pansa was older than Gehazi, and married.) was so stupid, that his master could impose on him all his frustrations from the hard- cruel- beguile reality. Gehazi had suffered from his master’s similar fury assaults …Prophet Elisha saw the Calf and Kichote saw the Windmill, symbols used all along world literature. Is all our cognizance just imagination and fascination? – Yes, like the presentation of the first fruits before the Calf Priests. But Elisha had brought something with him – in order to try to refute the belief of the simple people in all the commercial advertisement of the ‘half believing Calf Priests in the true God of Israel’. That God, which no symbol should be his mask, nor he has any shape, nor face, nor voice, nor anything material or energetical (which are the same, in the science of physics of today) nor space, that shape and construct our consciousness and way of thinking…)
Elisha looked again and again at the statue, and cursed it repeatedly in his heart: It looked shining far away – to the many people moving like dots in the valleys and mountains of the land. It was huge in its measures, twice or thrice than a real grown up calf or ox. Its head was flashing from the gold lighted by the sun beams, and it had been called the Golden Calf. The ancient Israelis had known that the brain is inside the head, and the head is the most ‘worthy limb’—and if it would stop functioning, death would come.
Elisha bent a little, and only he himself and his servant had heard his murmur:
“Have you seen something?” he asked Gehazi, “The rascal priest and the silly crowd go hand in hand. They had repaired the Calf’s ears. The king’s Mom has allowed us and all the prophets’ sons - to reach this place. I think she is plotting to trap us somehow. I heard that she had provided this year also a ten thousand Ksitah golden coins for repairing the Temple itself. We are in a war with Aram - and for that she has found funds? - I wonder. She wants to delude the God
believers here, that she had repented to God, at least to the God symbolized by the Calf…Let’s get in, with our first fruits and vegetables baskets – and wheats’ sack.”
They passed a wide gate and came along an avenue of high palm trees. They soon arrived to the broad temple’s courtyard. Before the temple’s doors there was set up a very long table, covered with white sheets. The presents-offerings of first fruits would be rendered on it to the priests, who were standing thereby, facing the people who were waiting on line, bearing their baskets or sacks –whatever they contained - on their shoulders. They would also ‘wave up the Omer’,( sheaf) of the wheat or barley harvest that they had brought.
The sun was burning, and some women got out of the line. They shouted to the priests:
“Olease, take the offering more promptly. The fruits have already begun to rotten. What will remain for the Holiday’s common feast?”
There were other people, who saw our prophets and recognized him. They requested the crowd to make a way for him and shorten his stay there.
“No, I will wait patiently with all the others,” told them Elisha, “…Really, I have to wait till king Joram arrives. He should see how many God Believers want to fulfill Moses’ commandment of First Fruits Offerings. Much more than he has expected.”
“What are you talking about?” asked him a Flower Priest who was standing aside, “the king won’t come, because of Aram’s attacks.”
“So, he has broken his promise the High Priest Azriel,” said Elisha loudly.
“Here is the high priest, please ask him,” said the Flower Priest. Azriel had heard the debate and said: “The king has spologized, that he would not come. I’m sorry that I have not hanged a note about that on the Temple’s pillars.”
“That’s a sign,” protested Rlisha, “dear brethern. If the king had really wished to be fair to us and respectful of God- he should not only have arrived here today- but destroy that Calf over there!…Why don’t you all detest it? Is it a God for you? If you agree with me- shout with me: “Away -detestable golden calf! Let’s break it down!”
Only few pilgrims joined the Prophet’s call in a second unilateral scream. He turned to Gehazi in frustration, but had not left the line of first fruits’ carriers. He and Gehazi approached the priests, who were getting the baskets of offerings.
“God of Israel, curse the calf!” shouted Gehazi again. He waited for some men to follow his call by their voices, and like his teacher he was disappointed too, that no one had reacted to his call.
Elisha arrived the long table of priests who would receive the offerings. He saw a young Flower priest, whose eyes rested on his, and his gaze became fixed, like they were trying to hypnotize him. He moved his face frustratingly from him, and screamed again with Gehazi:
“Curse the calf! A shame on Israel!” - and again nobody echoed.
At that moment the High Priest Azriel began re-singing the priestly Biblical hymn: “You are blessed in your town, blessed in your field,” and so on. Elisha was outrageous, that nobody repeated his shout against the Calf. He threw his basket toward the handsome young priest, who was still staring strangely but interestingly at him.
“Dear prophet,” he said very warmly and politely, “Please don’t be angry. If you listen to me, the smallest and meekest of flower priests, I will be thankful.”
“Well, but speak shortly,” Elisha said impatiently and turned aside, not to disturb others from submitting their offerings. The young priest left his place at the table and stepped aside toward Elisha, who indicated Gehazi - by a hand turn- to go away.
“Won’t you see, sir? Most of God Believers like the Calf!” challenged him the good looking priest, “Either a man or a woman, no difference. So, why sould you incite against it? I think: Why shouldn’t God understand and sympathize with the peoples’ wishes.”
“And if ten thousands fools would like the idols’ worship, and their prophane sexual orgies- would you also say: Let them do it? You, scandalous young pr….”
Elisha paid attention that the priest‘s eyelids were smeared by coal. Around his eye- balls there was a blue color, and his nose was short, not as the common male’s nose of an Israeli - or even a Knaanite…He was wearing a white turban on his head, covering curled dark hairs, which look like womanish. His white robe was suddenly split out for a second, and one of his bare smooth legs peeped out…
Elisha looked back at the priest’s face, and saw that some soft red color had flowered his cheeks. Was it from excitement or faked shyness? –Elisha wondered.
“I would like to tell you,” said the flower priest, “that we, here in the Temple- don’t worship the calf, nor do we call him god. This calf is just a potential ox, and is used by our religion as a symbol…of God’s strength and ability of creation and fertility!.”
“But Jerobaam,” shouted irritated Elisha, “the first king of northern Irael, said to the people: Look at the Calf, he is your God that had rescued you from Egypt, and brought you to the promised land. It’s all in all an Egyptian idol, you don’t tell me lies!”
“I don’t agree to your saying,” giggled the priest, “We- Neth El priests- don’t worship the calf nor bow to him - like Ashera believers shake at her naked body, and dance up to unconsciousness for her sake. No. We Believe in God’s spirit, and in Him alone, and …”
“That’s very nice of you,” said the prophet. He felt uneasy to debate with that priest.
“Come on - priest Benjamin!” shouted suddenly the chief priest to the youth, “stop discussing with the mad prophet. Continue to gather the baskets. Return to your duty. Quickly!”
“Please, excuse me, I’ve to leave,” said the young flower priest to Elisha. He pointed toward the place in center of the table, at which he was previously standing. Elish nodded to him. Then he looked again at his pretty face, and at his lightly moving figure, and sighed to himself. He called loudly: “Gehazi, where have ye’ gone?”
His young servant-adjutant- assistant-porter rose from his rest place on the stair near the Temple’s entry. He walked back to the prophet, gazing at the nice white dressed people, who were still coming and humming there like an endless stream. He stood already near Elisha, and heard his question:
“Had you discerned something strange about the priest who had just talked with me? Look there, he’s there,” he pointed toward the offerings’ table, “standing two steps on the left of Chief Priest Azriel.”.
“I see nothing special,” said Gehazi.
“I feel an internal fire, burning in me to continue talking with him. Please, sneak yourself between the visitors, go straight to him and tell him: ‘my master Elisha is eager to see you again, to tell you great, mysterious, amazing things. He will wait you in the evening dusk there, under the olive tree, behind the fence that you see on your right.”
“You mean, master,” said grown up boy Gehazi, “that in this meeting only both of you will be present?…” Eliash nodded and warned his assistant:
“You - don’t follow me there. God has told me something important about this youth. I’ve to clarify that. The celebration would be over - at the time that we’ll meet, so tell him.”
Gehazi got to the head of the line. A a man scorned him why he should push him. But discerning his leprosy- he retreated in disgust, so opening his way to see the young priest and whisper to him: “Priest Benjamin, I am Elisha’s disciple.” Gehazi reapeated to him the exact words that Elisha had put in his mouth.
“Tell the prophet that I’ll come,” whispered flower priest Benjamin, who was the disguised Bat-El. His/her boss Gera had arranged his/her participation in the ceremony with Chief priest Azriel.
In the evening Elisha went to behind the Calf Temple’s courtyard. There was an olives’ orchard there. Young priest Benjamin presumed he would be waiting under the thickest and oldest of them. As he arrived there was heard a loud laughter. The prophet was not used to hear somebody playing
on his nerves.
‘It seems that this guy or girl,’ he reflected, ‘would wish to mock at me, or show me his or her wild spirit, or just get out of his mind.’
But when they had gazed at each other and greeted ‘good eve,’ the priest like became serious, and dropped his eyes.
“were it you, who have just laughed?” asked the prophet.
“Yes. But it was not my laughter at you, God forbid,” said ‘priest Benjamin.
“At who did you laugh?”
“At your young pupil, who was hiding around.”
“God will curse Gehazi again,” said Elisha angrily,“I thought that you just laughed naughtily. It would happen to teenagers…they giggle even unwillingly, stupidly, sillyly.. “ Now he smiled. “But you are grown up, aren’t you?”
“I have arrived here, with a hunger to listen to your flashing diamond or pearl words, dear prophet.”
“I wish I had known better, why I have become eager to see you,” said Elisha, “I have a strange feeling while you are not looking at me. It’s not like a regular person would gaze at his friend, nor at a renowned prophet like me. Your look is shrap, like a tiger’s glimpse following its hunt. I was once in the forest of Ephraim, and saw such a scaring stare at me…It was a flash of a hunter. My life was in its paws, that in a minute they would grip on me and tear me down…”
“Oh,” the flower priest just said, “Sorry, if you have really such a feeling…”
“But maybe – the tiger’s paws will let me down… who knows. It will retreat with a folded tail, like a dog who’d barked and calmed.”
“Do you fear from becoming friendly with a priest, who believes that there is nothing wrong with that Ox - Calf Statue?”
“Yes, I fear that. But I must admit that I’m attracted to talk with you, sir. Despit my feeling that your stare at me - would try to conquer my heart. I can’t explain that exactly…You have marvellous green blue eyes, that flicker like the precious stones in the High Priest’s Efod(priestly holy vest) in Jerusalem. They would remind me the eyes of my great teacher Elija, that God had taken.”
“Can you tell me about the marvellous deeds, that you have learned from him?…how to make them come? What prayer to say, how to request God to create them?” – saying that, Bat Gad approached the prophet very closely. Elisha had a strange sensation of a delicate bliss, together with a hard impetus to disconnect, derived from his mind. He was frightened to the thought that in himself would nestle a demonic impetus to have an intercourse with a male, would he be a sacred priest or a monk or a peddlar.
“Do you feel a different man, prophet Elisha - while I stand so close to you?” the priest dared to ask.
“I feel that I can learn from you a lot. To fascinate people. Because when I face the public and harangue- I have a great fear that my words won’t be effective. That the mob will not understand the exact meaning of my preach. That they would be like an arrow which missed its target.”
“Even if your listeners hear only an echo of what you’d say,” said the priest, “you have fulfilled your mission, imposed on you by God. Isn’t it so? That’s my point of view.”
“I have become powerless to impress the multitudes by my words. And sometime I am sick of my mission. But God won’t let me resign.”
“So, you suffer from a severe malady,” said the flower priest and again stared at Elisha, checking his bald, round and big head. It was hardly flashing in the weak moonlight, which was dimming the sky and the earth at that time of “quarter month of the Hebrew date.,” (That is the time of Pentecost holiday, 50 days after Jewish Passover). The priest was feeling that Elisha’s eyes were burning from a spiritual hunger, from a solitary way of life, from fasting for the sake of the people’s redmption. From a clear knowledge that the future will surely be grim, and God is not a spendthrift, even to his extreme worshippers and ardent lovers.
“You seem to me quite innocent and … almost childish,” said the young priest, “Excuse me for saying a phrase like that. God has created Goodness together with Vileness. They are mixed, and He demands us to separate them from each other. Many times our hands are too short.”
“Wonderfully right,” said the Prophet.
“I have never befriended men - zealous to God and to his great name,” said the youth, “because I am a priest. Ha ha. A priest would compromise with real life. Ha!”
“Why do you laugh? It seems that you are frivolous, wanton, light minded. You seek flesh pleasures, I recognize men like you. You are too young to understand the way of God. But when you grow up- you will tackle with God’s strong hand. It might educate you a little, before it will shake you, like a town in an earthquake.”
“Shake me, and maybe break me. So what?” He laughed again.
“I like slight laughter, only when it would calm frustration and melt hard grief.”
“I like smiling – in whatever circumstances. Like many other things, that cause me pleasure!” The priest almost howled and grimaced his face.
“Ýou like perfumes, too!” shouted the Prophet, who suddenly was smelling the delicate body ointment of olive liquid mixed with roses water, that the priest had surely smeared his body with. He just realized what had bothered him in the nice looking youth, flattering his inner intimate limbs and rolling his testicles balls in an intrinsic sound. He was feeling like close to swoon.
“You know?” He told the youth, “Once I came to visit Ashera celebrations, for curiosity sake. I danced under the oak trees on Mount Carmel. It was under the order of my teacher Elija, who wanted to let me learn why the youths would be so attracted by those games of the flesh…’
Elisha became sad. He almost cried from pain, while he told that. He reflected that now would be torn the slight thread that still connected both of them.
“Your boy-servant told me,” said the Priest, “that you’d like to talk to me on God’s religion. I thank you for what you have taught me in these precious moments. Oh, I don’t pretend to believe in God, I don’t. I’ve smeared myself in perfumes and in Myrr ointment - for your sake, too. Now you’ll know my truth!” Saying that, Bat Gad opened her white cotton robe and showed her naked apple breasts to Elisha. He was not completely surprised. He had expected that cautious talk, and the gradual exposure of her flesh, just like it had happened. But he bolted on her, quickly gathered her two robe’s wings back, and covered her face with kisses.
“You … you release me from my self-arrest, maid. I am sinful like you, and I don’t care that you mock at me. I …am frustrated by God and perplexed by you, daughter of Gad. You are my luck now. So tells me God.”
“If you know more about me,” she said, “maybe you’ll think otherwise.”
“No,” he was so excited about his success with this charming maid, that he could not yet think about her seducing him.
“Yes, that’s my name,” she said, “Bat Gad, Idol of luck. It’s mentioned as one that had been worshipped in the time of Jacob, our forefather.”
“Had I known,” he suddenly was reflecting loudly, “had I known if the Lady inside me…the Satanic woman, who appeared outside of me in the shape of Jezebel - will collide –and crash together, I wouldn’t mind. All will happen by God…” He breathed heavily.
“Why d’you mix me with Jezebel?” asked Bat Gad.
“You both - are one. God has whispered that to me.”
“If you trully think so, then we will depart, dear prophet.”
“No. I have never felt happy like now. I am ready that he‘ll kill me at the end of our love affair. I can’t explain that even to myself…I became to be ardently in love with the twists of your body, with the curves and roundness of any of your limbs, I am hungry to bite your flesh, your sweet liquids that stream into my soul. Don’t forsake me, please.” He almost cried, and she said:
“Even if you sin to him…with me, there had been far more heavy sinners than you in Israel. You have read about King David…So, cheer up, man.”
&nbs
p; “Does the Chief Priest know…about your pretentious manhood.?”
“No. I would say that he has no notion about my disguised femininity.”
They both laughed and kissed again and again. He was trembling from joy and she tried to play the sobbing too:
“You should know, dear Prophet, that only a month ago I have been widowed. My husband was killed by Aram. “
“God will have mercy on his soul,” he said. “Now I see, that you don’t seem so happy…You have felt and seen much sadness in life.”
“Perhaps,” she said, and he saw her weep. “Though I am filled now with a feeling of felicity, that I have not felt for long…But you have to know, that my man has to prove constantly – that he adores me, and really loves me…”
“Of course…Now tell me how have you joind the group of priests?” asked Elisha, “Haven’t the Chief priest inquired about you, before he let you join his group of flower priests? Have you bribed somebody, to buy that status of a priest?”
She nodded, and he kissed her.
“I understand,” he said, “ that you have decided to become a priest, in order to be closer to God?”
“Of course,” she said and they kissed again, “what would have been my alternative? To be a homeless tramp? Become a whore? I could not bear that idea. God hates women, who sell their bodies. Not me, ever!”
They were already walking toward her house. Gehazi followed them like a shadow. He became jealous, that his ugly master had fascinated such a beautiful and mysterious young woman.
Bat Gad turned to her hut, provided to her by Gera, Jezebel’s chief secret police. Elisha thought she had lived there with her deceased husband, and did not inquire.
As stated previously in this novel - Gehazi wrote this story about Elisha and Bat Gad after his leprosy had worsened. Then he became isolated in the lepers’ asylum in Samaria, and had met there the four lepers who had told him about their rescue from the famine while Samaria was besieged by Aram. But King Joram soon saw that a miracle had happened: Aram suddenly stopped the siege and left north Israel’s capital…
Gehazi added the tale about Elisha’s love to Bat Gad - to the other tales he had written. The Bible’s editors refused to include that in their holy scriptures.
‘If the famous miracles’ maker Elisha was such a sinner,’ they thought, ‘then he had been a liar-prophet, like most of the prophets at ancient time. Their words were refuted not long after propehsizing. Elisha, however, had been a truth teller: Israel’s people suffered much in his own era, and after about seventy years- all were sent into exile by the Asyrians, and only Judea had remained…So, we should omit the doubtful description of that marvellous prophet as an ugly sinner. Because no truthful prophet of God could behave like that, having a whore as his wife.
That was not true at all! The Bible’s editors had caused a mischief to poor Gehazi’s script: Prophet Hosheaa, who lived fifty years afterward, closer to north Israel devastation, was ordered by God to take a whore as a wife, and she had born children to him. He was not sure who had actually been their father, but gave their symbolic names, to promote his prophecies. He was like an advertiser nowdadays, who would sell his soul to Satan for the sake of a sensational promotion…For that reason, we have permitted ourselves to move on and publish Gehazi’s original story. It had been thought abominable, but was as realistic as true as his other stories about his wonderous guide and master, prophet Elisha.
CHAPTER 7
Athaliah, Daughter Of Jezebel Page 7