by Angela Hunt
“Barely. Your marriage took you away, and the Seleucids who killed your father saved me from death at his hands. But now our lives are at risk again. Mattathias may not see it, but I do. Like an obstinate wife, he will rail against a domineering king until that king is forced to deal him a fatal blow. And then, daughter, it will be too late—for all of us.”
Her eyes traveled to the flat expanse of my belly. “Rejoice that you have no child, for when the enemy comes, you will be able to run. Your young legs will carry you safely away and perhaps you will survive the desert. I am old and I cannot run.” She glanced at the long line of wagons and the village families who had joined Mattathias’s caravan. “So I march with all of you toward death.”
“Would you have Mattathias bow to a king who denies HaShem?” I asked, speaking as my husband would. “Surely . . . surely HaShem will honor those who honor Him.”
“Do you truly think so?” The thin line of her mouth compressed even further. “What good does honor do a dead woman?”
I took her arm and led her to the wagon where I cleared a place for her in the back. She and Rosana would ride together while Mattathias rode next to Simon, who would drive the mules. I would walk by my husband’s side.
This family was not united in belief or zeal, but we were one in purpose: we wanted to survive.
So we left Modein in the first hour of the day and traveled toward the sheltering caves of the Gophna Hills.
For a girl who had never left Jerusalem until her marriage, the next few days offered me a window to the world. I might have enjoyed seeing the wonders of the changing landscape if I were not so anxious. Mother had filled me with trepidation, and not even a look at Judah’s confident face could banish my anxiety.
What would we do if a company of Seleucid soldiers appeared on the horizon? We had only a handful of weapons to defend ourselves, and at least half of our company were women and children.
We traveled through the green Jordan Valley, then crossed the watershed to enter the Desert of Beth-haven, a rocky area where neither clouds nor trees provided shade from the relentless sun. After living in Jerusalem and Modein, where a journey of a few steps could always bring you to a friendly door, the desolate landscape seemed alien and isolated.
When Mattathias lifted his hand and halted our caravan, I glanced around and saw nothing that looked like shelter—no buildings, no huts, not even a tree. “Why are we stopping here?” I asked Judah.
He gave me a grim smile as he wiped perspiration from his forehead. “We will shelter in caves tonight.” He pointed to a line of hills not far away. “Once we unload a few supplies in this spot, we will take you over there. You women and children will be safe in the caves.”
I frowned at the barren spot where we had stopped. “But why are you unloading supplies here? There is no shelter at all—”
“Men do not need shelter.” His somber look melted into a wry grin. “My brothers and I have camped in the desert many times. We will build a fire and string up a tent if necessary. But this is where we will establish our base camp.”
“Camp—for what?”
“For the army of Israel.” He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “We have taken a stand against the king, and others will join us. We will remain out here for training. But don’t worry—we will send someone to check on you every day. If you need anything, you only have to ask.”
He was planning to leave me . . . in a cave.
I stared at him for a moment, then gritted my teeth as he jumped down from the wagon and hailed his brothers.
That was it, then. No discussion, no debate. I would not be working alongside my husband, but would be trapped in a cave with the other women. And we would probably be trapped there for a long time.
Sighing, I climbed into the back of the wagon with Rosana, Mother, Morit, and little Johanan. Ona and Neta joined us, then Simon came over, grinning at us as he climbed into the driver’s seat. Without speaking, he picked up the reins and turned the mules toward the mountains.
After another hour of riding in the blazing heat, the wagon halted. Upon closer examination, the hills of Gophna appeared to be huge slabs of stone thrown together in a string of heaps. The haphazard piling of the flat stones left fissures between them, creating dark, cool caves. After entering the first one, I had to agree that they would make decent accommodations.
“Spread out your supplies,” Simon told us. “Don’t keep everything in one place. Hide yourselves and explore the caves so you will know where to run in case of an attack. Make sure a passing stranger would see no sign of habitation if he looked in this direction.”
Morit frowned. “Does that mean we cannot light a fire?”
“Not in daylight.” Simon’s face softened as he regarded his pregnant wife. “Do your cooking after dark, if you must. But do not light anything if there are strangers in the area.”
“Where,” Rosana asked, “do we draw water? I see no spring.”
“The residents of Gophna,” Simon answered, “will allow us to draw from their well. We will send a wagon for water every morning.”
I swallowed hard, my throat already beginning to feel parched. Something in Simon’s voice warned that the residents of Gophna were not thrilled at the thought of sharing their water. How could we be sure they would not take offense at some trifle and bar their gates to our wagons?
We could not. So we would rise each morning and pray that we would not be bitten by poisonous snakes, die of thirst, or be killed by the enemy. We were about to embark on a venture requiring courage, good fortune, and faith, yet none of us women had volunteered for it.
What can I say of the days that followed? They were difficult and so similar that I lost all track of time. Were it not for Shabbat, which we carefully observed, we would have no idea what day it was.
We women created sleeping areas deep in the caves and kept our small stores of food in various caverns. At night we lit fires for cooking and for warmth, and as the flames died down we sat in a circle and told stories. Rosana told stories about each of her sons, and my sisters-in-law talked of growing up in their distinctive families, most of whom were from Jerusalem. I listened, mostly, because I had no interesting stories to tell.
Every morning we rose, put our empty water jugs into the wagon, and waited for them to return from Gophna with water for drinking and washing. We spent most of the afternoon napping, playing with Morit’s little boy, or skinning animals the men brought us. I learned to skin a deer and fox, and Ona taught me how to stretch the skins for sewing.
At dusk, after we had built our fire and prepared the clean animals for cooking, I would go to the entrance of the cave and stare into the purple plain of evening where I could sometimes see the distant glow of the men’s campfires. Did Judah miss me? Did he reach for me in the night? Were they truly training an army, or was all this an excuse to go into the woods and live like unmarried nomads?
Neta had first presented that disloyal notion. One night she declared that our husbands were only exercising their right to do as they pleased, and soon they would grow tired of hunting and camping. “Then they’ll come back for us,” she said, pushing stray hair out of her eyes. “And we will no longer have to live like animals.”
I blinked at her statement, then glanced around the circle to see if any of the others were taking her seriously. Rosana’s face had paled, and Morit’s lower lip had edged forward in a pout.
But my mother put Neta in her place. “You cannot be serious,” she said, her voice edged with iron. “Would Mattathias have killed four people if he only wanted to play hunter for a few weeks? Only a vain and silly woman would even imagine such a thing.” She looked around the circle, shaking her head. “I cannot say I agree with the man’s decision to put us in this position,” she said and shifted to sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor, “but he was right to bring us out here. If we had remained in Modein, we would already be dead.”
“We have entered a war,” Rosan
a added while staring at her foolish daughter-in-law. “And perhaps one day you will understand that by coming out here, my sons have surrendered their very lives to fight for Israel’s freedom.”
“They cannot win a war alone!” Neta glared at Rosana. “My husband will die because he has only his father and his brothers to fight with him. I am not the fool—I think they are foolish because they have been blinded by family loyalty. They will be slaughtered as soon as the king’s men learn where they are hiding.”
“They are not hiding.” Ona’s calm voice filled the stone chamber. “They are waiting for others to join them. Others will come soon, and Adonai will give our men the victory.”
My mother looked as if she expected me to add something to the conversation, but I had nothing to say. I did not know whether the men were heroes or fools, selfish or selfless. I felt like a flower petal caught in a swift-flowing gutter, pushed one way and then another, and about to go under at any moment.
I had believed that marriage to Judah would mean peace, safety, and an end to strife. I could not have been more wrong.
Time proved Ona right. Other sons of Israel did join our men, most following hastily whispered directions from kinsmen in outlying villages and Jerusalem. From our home in the caves, we watched tents sprout like mushrooms on the plain—first there were two, then five, then twelve, then fifty, then two hundred.
On one of his visits to the caves, Jonathan explained that Mattathias and one or two of his sons went out nearly every day, visiting towns and villages to rally others in the fight for freedom. They would go to the village well, and while they refreshed their thirsty bodies they would tell the residents about their fight to preserve Israel’s freedom and follow the Law of Moses. Most of the residents had already heard about the priest’s action in Modein, and reactions ranged from enthusiastic approval to boisterous condemnation.
“Love us or loathe us,” Mattathias would tell his listeners, “but if you wish to worship the God of our fathers, come join us.”
They came—devout men and their families formed a living stream leading into the desert. The women and children joined us in the hills, often bringing their flocks and fresh supplies. The men met our warriors in the desert, where the harsh elements strengthened their endurance and military training forged nerves of steel.
Among the newcomers were large groups of Hasidim, a conservative sect that strongly opposed the Hellenes and the edicts against religious freedom. Jonathan reported that the Hasidim were more given to prayer and study than fighting, so they did not always make good soldiers. But they were eager to do what they could, even if it meant sharpening swords or fashioning shields.
In the evenings, Jonathan told us, Mattathias led the men in prayer for wisdom and strength. The newcomers found hope in Mattathias’s zeal, and we women found encouragement in the camp’s increasing numbers.
Every day, it seemed to me, one of the new women mentioned that we Jews should be accustomed to living in temporary quarters. “Abraham and Sarah lived in tents,” some recent arrival would say, “and so did Jacob and Rachel. Moses had spent the remaining years of his life sleeping in the desert, and if he could survive the sand, sun, and scorpions, so can we.”
Every time I heard that refrain, I stopped working and looked at Neta, who returned my glance with a twisted smile. She had also lived in Jerusalem before her marriage, and except for the flimsy temporary structures we erected for Sukkot, we city dwellers had rarely even seen tents, much less lived in them.
“If Adonai had meant for me to live outdoors,” she once whispered to me, “He would have made my skin far less delicate.”
When Mattathias’s fledgling camp housed more than a thousand men, he decided he was ready to send out raiding parties. Under cover of darkness, small bands of his warriors crept into villages where his message had been spurned. Shouting the name of Adonai, the warriors of Israel tore down the heathen altars, smashed statues of Greek gods, and awakened the sleeping residents. When they discovered families with uncircumcised sons, Mattathias’s men immediately performed the rite. When they encountered Hellenes who openly blasphemed the sacred Law of God, the army of Israel struck them down, knowing they could not allow such men to betray their cause to the enemy.
I must admit, I was horrified to hear that my father-in-law’s men were killing people they pulled from their beds. That news touched something in me, a thread of fear I had tried desperately to tuck away. In my youth, violence had often awakened me in the middle of the night, and the memory of my father’s ranting, mingling with the recollection of his violence against my mother, sent ghost spiders scrambling down my spine.
One day when Judah brought water to the caves, I pulled him away from the others and drew him into a shallow cavern.
“What’s this?” he asked, his hands circling my waist. “I have missed you, too.”
“Wait.” I pressed my fingertips to his lips. “I have heard about the raids on the villages. About the killing and the circumcisions.” I began to shiver. “Judah, tell me this is not true. Such violence cannot be a good thing—”
He drew me closer, his hand pressing my head against his chest. “Hush, dear one. You are too young to understand.”
“I am not!” I lifted my head and met his gaze. “A woman does not have to be old to realize that violence is terrible.”
“That is why you are here and not in the army.” All traces of softness disappeared from Judah’s face as he looked at me. “HaShem does not tolerate sin, Leah. He is holy, and Israel must be holy, too.”
“But to kill so many people!”
“There is a time for mercy, but this is not that time. This is a time to purify Israel. If we tolerate heathen ideas, we are lost. These ungodly practices are like leprosy—they eat away at a man’s flesh little by little until the entire body is diseased.”
A tear trickled down my cheek, and gentleness returned to my husband’s eyes as he wiped it away. “Do not think about these things if they bother you. But have faith in my father. He knows what must be done to ensure Israel’s freedom.”
I was not sure I could ever put such thoughts out of my mind, but what else could I do? I wrapped my arms around my husband and told myself to trust him.
With every victory over blasphemy, my father-in-law’s followers grew more numerous. “Clearly, HaShem is with him,” the newcomers remarked as we served the midday meal. “He will not let sinners gain the upper hand in Israel.”
No, he would not.
In those first few months of Mattathias’s crusade against the Hellenes, I do not think King Antiochus was greatly concerned about my father-in-law’s private war. The local governor had undoubtedly relayed the news, but Antiochus, safe in his capital city, did not seem greatly troubled by Mattathias’s refusal to follow his edicts.
But the tide was about to turn.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Judah
Living as a devout Jew in Jerusalem, a city filled with Hellenes, I frequently fought with those who were determined to prove the strength of their convictions with their fists. The Hellene youths who regularly participated in games, exercises, and wrestling matches at the gymnasium seemed especially eager to prove their superiority to those of us who followed the Law, so I came home with busted knuckles two or three times a week.
But those fights were child’s play compared to our desert training. The persistent afternoon sun glared down on us like an enemy, and the dry air knifed at my starved lungs and throat. At sunset, when men gathered around campfires and ate what little food was available, I sat in my tent and stared out at the barren landscape, studying the rocky hills and searching for signs of movement. The air seemed lifeless at that hour, the light melancholy and filled with shadows of things invisible.
How was Leah faring without me?
Thoughts of her leapt into my mind like an unruly puppy, distracting me from what I should be doing and causing me to worry about her.
I also worried abo
ut my father. His strength had always been centered in his mind and soul; his slim body and thin bones had begun to weaken with age. Since leading us into the wilderness, he had begun to skip meals so that others could eat. More than once I saw him give his food to a boy who had joined our camp, or to Jonathan who was still young and growing. I gently rebuked Father, but he only smiled and replied that Adonai would supply the strength he needed.
“One day, when Adonai is finished with me,” he said, grinning as he took my arm, “then, my son, you will understand what David meant when he said, ‘Adonai is the strength of my life.’”
I blinked in dazed exasperation. “Father, what are you talking about?”
“Go see your wife, Judah,” he said and pushed me toward the wagon. “Give me another grandson.”
I did not see Leah as often as I wanted because I did not want to spark jealousy in the other men, many of whom had left their wives and families unprotected at home. I did not want those men to worry or fret, lest their responsibilities as fathers pull them from their duties as men of Israel.
Leah seemed happy to see me when I did go to the women’s settlement, but she no longer resembled the young bride who welcomed me home after a long day in the fields. Lines of anxiety marked her youthful face, and she had begun to wear her hair tied back in a severe knot. She had lost weight since leaving Modein, and ever since my explanation of the nighttime raids, something in her spirit had dimmed.
When I halted the wagon in front of the caves, the other women would call her, usually with sly smiles and affectionate teasing. Leah would come out, wiping her hands or smoothing her hair, and after giving me a quick hug, she seemed content to sit outside and look at the stars in quiet contemplation. Occasionally she would ask how we fared with the training, and I always gave the same answer: “It goes well.”
After a while she stopped asking.
I would try to spark a conversation by telling her about the villages we had cleansed and the victories we had won, yet I soon learned that she did not want to hear about vanquished Hellenes and demolished altars. Once, when I showed her a deep cut on my arm, she flinched and turned away.