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The dirt floors were no different than those in Alexandria except that they were beaten harder and there wasn’t so much dust. And the rugs here were much better, thicker and softer. When we lay down for the evening meal, with rugs and cushions, we felt good.
Finally, the Sabbath was upon us. It came so quick. But the women were ready, with all the food prepared ahead of time, and it was a feast of dried fish that had been plumped in wine and then roasted, together with dates, nuts I’d never tasted before, and fresh fruit from the farmland around us, as well as plenty of olives and other splendid things.
All this was set out, and then the Sabbath lamp was lighted to welcome the Sabbath into the house. This was the duty of my mother, and she spoke the prayer in a soft voice as she put the wick to the lamp.
We said our prayers of thanksgiving for our safe homecoming, and began our study, all together, singing, and talking and happy that it was our first Sabbath in our home.
I thought of what Joseph had said to Philo, as we studied. The Sabbath makes scholars of us all. It made philosophers of us all. I didn’t know for sure what a philosopher was, but I’d heard the word before—and I co
And now we were all scholars and philosophers—in this big room, all dusted and clean, with everyone fresh from washing, going deep into the mikvah and putting on fresh clean clothes afterwards, all this before the sunset, and Joseph reading by the lamplight, and the smell of the pure beaten olive oil of the lamp so sweet.
Why, we even had scrolls, like Philo did, though not as many, no, not as many. But some, and how many I didn’t know for sure, because they came from chests in the house for which Joseph and Old Sarah kept the keys.
And even some scrolls were hidden, buried down in the tu
Understand, I wanted to see the tu
Now, Joseph had taken out and laid down some scrolls before the Sabbath began. Some of these were very old and cracking at the edges. But all were good.
“And now, we don’t read from the Greek anymore,” Joseph said, looking all around him, taking us all in. “We read only the Hebrew here in the Holy Land, and do I have to tell anyone why?”
We all laughed.
“But what shall I do with the book we love so much, which is in the Greek?” He held up the scroll. We knew it was The Book of Jonah. We clapped, and begged for him to read it.
He laughed. He loved nothing better than to have us gathered around him to listen, and we hadn’t had a chance for this for so long.
“Tell me what I should do,” he said. “Read it to you in the Greek, or tell it to you in our tongue.”
Again we clapped our hands, all of us so happy. We loved the way Joseph told the story of Jonah. And he had never really read it in the Greek without putting down the book and telling most of it because he loved it so much.
At once, he went into the story with spirit—the Lord called the Prophet Jonah, the Lord told him to preach to Nineveh, “that great city!” said Joseph, and we all said it with him. But what did Jonah do? He tried to run from the Lord. Can anyone run from the Lord?
Down to the sea, he went and onto a ship to a foreign land. But a great storm overtook the little vessel. And all the Gentiles prayed to their gods to save them, but on raged the rain and the thunder and the dark clouds.
Then came the storm at sea, and the men cast lots to see the one who was the cause of it and the lot fell on Jonah, and where was Jonah? Fast asleep in the bottom of the ship. “ ‘What are you doing, Stranger, snoring in the bottom of this ship?’ ” Joseph said as he put on the face of the angry Captain. We laughed and clapped as he went on.
“And what did Jonah? Why, he told them he feared the Lord God of All Creation, and that they should cast him into the sea because he had run from the Lord and the Lord was angry, but did they do it, no. They rowed hard to bring the ship to land and—?”
We all cried, “The great storm went on.”
“And they prayed unto the Lord, in fear of him, but what did they do?”
“They threw Jonah into the sea!”
Joseph grew grave, and narrowed his eyes.
“And the men feared the Lord and they sacrificed to him, and down in the depths of the sea, the Lord had made a great fish to—”
“Swallow up Jonah!” we cried.
“And he was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale!”
We grew quiet. And all together, as Joseph led us, we repeated Jonah’s prayer to the Lord to save him, as we all knew it, in our tongue, as well as we knew it in Greek, and even the men were saying it with us and the women,
“…I went down deep to the very bottoms of the mountains; the earth like a prison enclosed me. Yet you have brought up my life from corruption. O Lord my God.”
I closed my eyes as we said it,
“When my soul was weak I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy Temple…”
I thought of the Temple. I thought not of the crowds inside it and the man dying on the spear, but of the great mass of shining limestone in the sun, with all its gold, and the songs of the faithful rising as if they were waves lapping as I’d seen the waves of the sea lapping over over and over as our ship drifted at anchor, waves without end…
I was so deep in my thoughts, so deep in remembering the water lapping at the boat, and remembering the singing rising and falling, that when I looked up they had all gone on with the tale.
Jonah did now as the Lord commanded him. He went to “that great city of Nineveh,” and he cried out: “Forty days and the city of Nineveh shall be destroyed!”
“All the people believed in the Lord!” said Joseph, raising his eyebrows. “They fasted, they put on sackcloth from the greatest among them to the least. Even the King stood up from his throne and covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in ashes!”
He put out his hands as if to say: Behold.
“The King!” he repeated and we nodded. “And a proclamation went out that no one, not man nor beast, herd or flock, must even taste a morsel, or drink a drop of water. And all of them, man and beast, were to be covered in sackcloth, and cry out to the Lord.”
He stopped. He drew himself up. “Who can know if the Lord will turn and repent of his anger?”
He opened his hands for us to answer:
“And the Lord did repent of his anger,” we said all together, “and Nineveh found grace with the Lord!”
Joseph waited, then he asked:
“But who was unhappy? Who was angry? Who stomped out of the city gates in a fit of temper!”
“Jonah!” we cried.
“ ‘Was this not the very thing I knew would happen?’ ” cried Jonah. “ ‘When I was in my own country! Was this not why I ran away on a ship to Tarshish?’ ”
As we laughed, Joseph held up his finger as he always did for patience, and softly he went on in the voice of the Prophet. “ ‘I knew that you were a gracious God, merciful, and slow to anger, of great kindness, and repenting of anger, did I not?’ ”
We all nodded.
“ ‘Now!’ ” Joseph went on as Jonah drawing himself up with great pride, “ ‘take my life, take it from me!’ ” He threw up his hands. “ ‘For it’s better that I die than to live!’ ”
Laughter all around.
“Right by the gates of Nineveh, Jonah sat down. He was so tired and so angry that he sat right there. And made himself a booth with what he could and sat under it in the shade, just thinking, what may happen, what may happen yet…
“And the Lord had a design. The Lord made a great vine to grow up out of the ground and over Jonah so that it sheltered him as he sat there with his lip jutting out, and the shade of that vine made him very content.