by Tova Reich
“Unfortunately, my children,” Abba Kadosh continued, “because of the difficult circumstances we face in relation to the racist rabbinical bosses who still refuse to recognize and welcome us as fellow Jews here in the East, the Middle East, as much as we might feel obliged to obey to the letter the Lord’s command in His Torah with regard to the matter of a disobedient and rebellious son, we cannot at this time risk provoking the powers-that-be by going all the way with the stoning. For this, we must await the blessed hour that the Messiah ben David can shed his incognito and reveal himself to one and all. Nevertheless, my holy, holy brothers and sisters, we do the best we can. Forty lashes we administer to my disobedient and rebellious son, my ben sorer u’moreh—‘forty lashes but not more,’ Deuteronomy chapter twenty-five, verse three,” Abba Kadosh said, this time not even troubling to order Melekh Sinai to read—“and, I might add, not less than forty, none of this namby-pamby thirty-nine business of the hypocrite rabbis pretending to be nice guys, we go strictly by the book and our book is the Torah. So join me, my holy, holy brothers and sisters—join me as we complete the required punishment of a ben sorer u’moreh, which, I tell you as his father, hurts me more than it hurts him. Count along with me so that you too may partake of this great mitzvah. Sing it out, loud and strong—Thirty-seven, Thirty-eight, Thirty-nine, Forty!”
As the crowd counted down the last numbers in unison with rising fervor punctuated by the whip’s lash, a cry of horror sprang from Temima’s throat like a demonic creature with a life of its own. How had it happened that she had not noticed what everyone else present recognized as the main event, the occasion for the gathering, unfolding before her very eyes? Perhaps it was because what she now was witnessing was to her mind a primitive relic from an archaic age that her rational self dismissed, rejected, refused to absorb or believe could still happen, perhaps it was because the young boy stripped to the waist, his arms wrapped around one of the pillars that held up the trellised roof of the pavilion with his hands bound did not let out a single sound as the whip scourged his naked back in rhythmic lashes. But now she was screaming, “Savages, savages!” as Abba Kadosh took off his sunglasses and fixed her with his metallic gaze.
“I take it that the holy lady is not aware that in our community women do not raise their voices to be heard in public,” he said coolly. “It is most immodest. However, we shall make allowance for you this time—it is an understandable lapse due to your ignorance. The boy—yes, I admit it, this wicked boy is my son—he has been caught prowling around our village. I have forbidden him to enter our camp even from the days when he was a mere infant for I perceived his true nature from the moment of his birth and named him accordingly, the only one of our sons not called Zephania. Yishmael I called him, like Father Abraham’s son by Hagar who even that great lady Mother Sarah had to kick out of the house for fooling with little Isaac, same like Father Isaac when he was a grown man fooled around with Mother Rebekah. But boy messing with boy? That’s abomination, plain and simple. This here Yishmael, no way I was going to take any chances with him, a defiant and wayward son from the very beginning, I could see that with my inner vision. Now you see his reward. He is a wild donkey of a boy, this Yishmael—and this is what you do to a wild donkey. You flog him until you break his spirit and he learns his lesson.”
By now the boy’s hands had been untied and he was turned around to face the crowd, held in place by two enforcers, one on each side. Temima recognized Ibn Kadosh, startling in his resemblance to his father she now saw, even more so now as they were positioned within the same frame—the same insolent translucent eyes, a younger, slenderer, lighter-skinned cinnamon-colored version. But it was not just the physical likeness that was so remarkable. The kinship was above all evident in the force of his bearing and pride, in the sensuous connection.
She began to move forward, plowing through the women’s section, over the spiky barrier of plants, cutting through the men who moved to prevent her progress, but Abba Kadosh, prophet and messiah, forestalled them. “That’s okay my holy, holy brothers, let her come, let her come, bring her on, I can handle her.” And as she advanced she was declaiming, “Do you really know your Torah? Did you follow the procedure to the letter? Are you aware that there never has been a ben sorer u’moreh and there never will be? And do you know why? Because no true parent would ever bring his own child before the elders of the city to be stoned.”
“Watch it, sister—you already crossed one line in approaching me, don’t try crossing another.” Abba Kadosh took Temima in fully with his wolf eyes. “Know before whom you are standing, sister: Abba Kadosh, the holy father—as you are the holy mother. You above all should know that there are times when it is necessary for those in our position to sacrifice one of our children to save all the others.”
Chilled by memory, Temima nevertheless plunged ahead. “Let him go this instant,” she cried.
Smiling intimately as if he knew all there was to know about her, Abba Kadosh nodded to the two men restraining the boy who immediately released him.
“Come with me, Ibn Kadosh,” Temima said. “I will clean you up and bandage you, and give you some water to drink.”
With eyes pale gray like ash smoking with contempt, Ibn Kadosh implicated them all; only the corner of his lower lip trembled almost imperceptibly. “I am looking for my mother,” he said, aiming his words solely at Temima. “I am thinking maybe she is here with you. My mother she is lost. I must to find my mother.” And in a flash he turned, ran off and vanished, swift of foot, the fastest runner in the land, like Asa’el the doomed brother of Yoav ben Zeruya in pursuit of Abner ben Ner, setting in motion a cycle of violence and revenge.
Toward evening of that day the matriarch Em-Kol-Hai Kedosha appeared at the opening of the cave and called to Temima to come out for a moment; there was something of importance that she had been delegated to give to her. Out of respect for this older, enduring woman, Temima rose and stepped forth. Without a word, Em-Kol-Hai handed her a sheet of paper rolled up like a telescope along with a number two pencil. As Temima unfurled it Em-Kol-Hai commented, “Just in case you’re concerned, I’m one-hundred-percent okay with this. No problem, honey.”
The document was decorated with an ornate border depicting the emblems on the banners of the ten lost tribes of Israel—mandrake, scale, ass, ship, tent, olive tree, and so on, with the bull, the standard of Abba Kadosh’s tribe Ephraim, the largest and most dominant, mounted on top. Within this frame was a brief message in exquisite calligraphy: “Abba Kadosh has the pleasure to invite you to join his household.” Below that were the words “Check One,” followed by three blank boxes, with a single choice next to each—Wife, Concubine, Other. That explains the pencil, Temima figured; another scribe for my sins. Shaking her head in disbelief, she stared with wide open eyes at Em-Kol-Hai while her hands acting independently as if they were not fully attached to her tore the paper into smaller and smaller bits, letting them swirl slowly to the ground, and then she let the pencil drop too. Em-Kol-Hai, heaving a weary sigh, like someone who had lived through this before, a tiresome rerun demanding all the necessary motions once again, squatted down. With the stump of her left arm she pushed the fragments and the pencil together to gather them up more efficiently, then her right hand closed around the entire heap to grasp it. As she performed this chore she said, “I want to remind you that Bnei HaElohim is part of the Holy Land. We do not desecrate the ground of the Holy Land by littering.” She rose with a groan, her stump massaging her hip, and stuffed the shredded pieces into a pocket of her kaftan. “He will prevail, sweetie,” she said, “he always does. You will find in yourself the correct answer and then you will consent.”
Temima remained standing there watching until the heavy figure of Em-Kol-Hai Kedosha receded into the heart of the village before turning and going back into her cave where Shira Silver Kedaisha was still sitting at the table with a notebook open before her, exactly as Temima had left her when the matriarch paid her call. Shi
ra had arrived soon after the events of the morning to plead with Temima not to leave in the wake of her shock at what she had witnessed in the pavilion. As Temima reentered the cave, Shira said, “You don’t have to tell me, I know everything. I’m begging you, Temima, please don’t go. It will be the end of me. And we have only just started our work.” The work was a commentary on the Tanakh beginning at the beginning with Genesis, Bereishit, which Temima was dictating and Shira was taking down. They had reached the first two words of the third verse, VaYomer Elohim, And God said—God’s first recorded words. It had been just after Temima recounted to Shira how the Toiter had told her that merely taking in those two words—the Lord speaking!—left him so overwhelmed he could go no further that the matriarch Em-Kol-Hai appeared at the opening of the cave. Now Shira said to Temima, “Maybe those two words VaYomer Elohim were too much for the Toiter, but they’re not too much for us. We women move on. Forgive me, but the Toiter is a dead end. We are life. I don’t say this to hurt you, Temima. I know you loved him.”
Temima closed her eyes. “So. In the beginning there was chaos and emptiness and darkness over the face of the deep and the spirit of the Lord sweeping over the face of the water. And God said, Let there be light. Creation through words. Take words along with you, and return to HaShem.”
Over the course of the next week, at unpredictable times during the day, the entire Bnei HaElohim gospel chorus Kol-Koreh-BaMidbar under the baton of Melekh Sinai would materialize outside the entrance to Temima’s cave to woo her in the name of Abba Kadosh, prophet and messiah, with verses set to music by Shira Silver Kedaisha from the Song of Songs. Behold you are beautiful, my love, your eyes like doves; Like a rose among thorns, this is my beloved among the maidens; You are completely beautiful, my love, without a blemish; With me, from Lebanon, with me my bride, come; You are beautiful my love like Tirza, lovely like Jerusalem.
Temima was in spite of herself amused, in spite of herself flattered, but as it continued day after day with no end in sight she grew more and more drained and defeated, it availed her nothing to call out from inside her cave Shoo, shoo—go away, scram, scoot, get lost. Melekh Sinai was a well-trained soldier and he was just obeying orders handed directly down from Abba Kadosh, prophet and messiah. Finally, in full awareness that what she was doing might be interpreted as a softening on her part, the first hint of yielding, she handed him a note to pass along to his master in which she parried with a citation also from the Song of Songs—Do not awaken and do not stir up love until it please.
This move earned her a brief respite, but when nothing more was forthcoming, Melkh Sinai appeared one day minus his backup singers at the entrance to the cave to inquire if there was any further message to be delivered to Abba Kadosh. “The message is,” Temima replied without hesitation, “And the Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command conveyed by his eunuch.”
The next morning when Temima stepped out of her cave she found gathered there all of Abba Kadosh’s wives and concubines, a small crowd, she did not have the heart to count how many, standing in complete silence. Each had her left breast bared over her heart, from the sagging breast of Em-Kol-Hai Kedosha to the small, still-ripe breast of Shira Silver Kedaisha to the promise of a breast flagged only by the bulletpoint of a dark nipple of a little girl four years old at most. The vigil continued for several mornings until Temima could bear it no longer, especially painful to her was the sight of Shira’s humiliation. She slipped a note into the pocket of Em-Kol-Hai’s kaftan pivoting on a reference to the words of the matriarch Naomi in the book of Ruth. “Shaddai the God of breasts has dealt very bitterly with me.”
Two days later, Abba Kadosh himself ascended the slope to Temima’s cave trailed a short distance behind by Melekh Sinai leading an ass laden with gifts—baskets overflowing with fruit and bread and olives, dates and figs and nuts, garments and cloths in brilliant colors and intricate embroideries, pottery and jewelry. He stood at the entrance and called to Temima. When she emerged reluctantly he slowly and very frankly looked her over up and down, his silver eyes coming to rest at last on her eyes, not taking them off of her for a moment.
“You have been flirting with me, my holy sister Temima,” he said in a playfully chiding tone, his deep voice so soft and intimate she was obliged to move her head subtly forward to absorb his words. “I have heard the true message in your messages, and therefore I have taken the unprecedented step of coming to you instead of you coming to me as by right you ought to have done, as the Queen of Sheba came to King Solomon bearing gifts. I knew the Queen of Sheba in my time, and you are no Queen of Sheba. You’re more of an Avigail, the very clever and very handsome wife of Naval the Carmelite with an excellent figure like yours I might add, but even Avigail had the good sense to come to David instead of obliging him to lower himself by coming to her because she foresaw that he was the chosen one and from him would come the anointed line. That was one smart lady, Avigail. She knew what was good for her, sister Temima—learn a lesson from Avigail. For your sake, my holy sister, I am abasing myself and reversing the roles. I have turned myself into a woman for you, sister, I have come to you as a supplicant bearing gifts like Avigail, and I say to you, Leave that worthless, wretched husband of yours, your lowlife Naval, a vile man, a boor, his name tells it all. I am entrusting my fate to you, I am putting myself in your hands.”
He continued in this fashion without pause, opening no space for Temima to insert herself. He was placing himself in her hands, he said, by inviting her on a short excursion; he was offering to take her out of the country for a few days, a very risky step for a man in his position who was regarded as a lethal alien by the rabbis and might not be allowed back in again to the Jewish State. But to show his commitment to her he was prepared to take this risk, to trust in her good will and her connections to protect him from the Who-Is-A-Jew cops. He would take her to Amsterdam, to Holland, to the holy grave of the former Marrano, Rabbi Menashe ben Israel, who believed without a taint of doubt the traveler’s report that the Indians of America who had welcomed him over the mountains with the Shema Yisrael, Hear-O-Israel, were the descendants of a lost tribe of Israel. Thereafter, Abba Kadosh said to Temima, the holy former Marrano Rabbi Menashe ben Israel devoted his writing and all of his diplomatic efforts to hasten the dispersal of the Jews throughout the world, which must precede the ingathering of the exiles and the messianic age, in accordance with Scripture, Even if your outcasts are at the far ends of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather you and from there He will fetch you.
“I will await your response to my invitation, my holy sister Temima—no pressure,” Abba Kadosh said, concluding his case. “Search within yourself, go to the very depths of your being, go down to the lowest place on this earth, go to the Dead Sea below, there your true course will be revealed to you.” He turned, took a few paces away from her, mounted the ass that had been unloaded while he was petitioning Temima, and, with Melekh Sinai walking ahead clutching the rope attached to the halter, rode back to the village.
Down at the Dead Sea, Temima walked all day among the seekers after youth and beauty, bathing in the salt waters, soaking under the sun, the ailing and sick desperate for a cure for their mortal bodies, stricken with consumption, fever, and inflammation, with the boils and hemorrhoids and itch of Egypt, with madness, blindness, and confusion of the heart, with infection at the knees and the thighs, pustules from the soles of the feet to the crown of the head, terrible and lasting plagues, malignant and chronic disease. As the sun was setting over the hills of Judea and Jerusalem she heard nearby a song the Toiter used to sing—The pangs of the Messiah, Here they come, Here they come, Today. She saw a small figure in a wheelchair, agonizingly contorted, covered entirely with black mud, taking the cure, surrounded by men dressed in immaculate white, his attendants. She drew closer; his eyes were focused on the void, as if he were blind. “Elisha?” she asked, but he did not acknowledge her, addressing instead the darkening skies beyond.
On the only night they spent in Amsterdam, Abba Kadosh took Temima along the canals to the old section of the city near the train station where the prostitutes were on display. They strolled past the narrow buildings packed together as if propping each other up like war casualties, the glass storefronts on the lower levels backlit in visceral red showcasing for sale women for every taste, all sizes and shapes, every color, practically every age. As they window-shopped, he challenged her to put her finger on the G-spot in the Tanakh where prostitution is explicitly prohibited. It cannot be found because it doesn’t exist, he declaimed. The harlot was an accepted fact of life, fulfilling a recognized male need. Judah stops off for some necessary recreational relief with a whore by the roadside in Timna, and only later discovers that she happens to be his daughter-in-law, Tamar, who had already buried two of his sons—Er whom the good Lord just didn’t much care for, and Onan, whose name has become synonymous with the nasty stuff he thought he was doing in secret. And then there’s Rahab the zona. The two spies sent by Joshua to check out the land take a little earned break, some R & R on their first stop in Jericho with this ho in the wall, Rahab, completely routine—and the rest is history. And while we’re on the subject, how about a round of applause for Gomer daughter of Divlayim, who gets honorable mention by name—the hooker God Himself commanded Hosea to take for a wife as a visual aid to how our people had prostituted themselves.