Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

“And so the night passed and the Prophet slept under that vine …and who knows? Perhaps the desert winds weren’t too cold under that vine. What do you think?

“But before the morning came, the Lord made a worm, yes, an evil worm that ate the vine and the vine withered away.”

He paused. He lifted his finger. “And the sun rose, and the Lord did make a strong wind, yes, we know it, a strong wind to blow against Jonah, and the sun beat down on his head.

“He fainted!” Joseph slapped his legs and nodded. “The Prophet fainted in the heat and the wind. And what did he say?”

We laughed but we waited for Joseph to throw up his hands and cry out in the voice of Jonah, “I want to die, Lord. It is better for me to die than to live!”

We all laughed easily, and Joseph waited for a moment and then he grew solemn yet smiling still and he spoke in the gentle voice of the Lord. “ ‘Do you do well to be so angry over the death of a vine?’

“ ‘Yes, Lord, I do well to be angry, even unto death!’

“Then the Lord said, ‘So you had pity on a vine, did you, a vine which you did not plant, a vine which you did not labor over, a vine which came up in a night and was gone in a night. And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, sixty thousand people, and cattle without number, and all those people who don’t even know their left hand from their right!’ ”

We all smiled and we all nodded, and we all felt it as we always did, and the laughter warmed us as it always did.

After that, Cleopas read a little to us from The Book of Samuel in the story of David of which we never tired.

Some time late while the men were talking, disputing about the Law and about the Prophets, going back and forth over points I couldn’t follow, I went to sleep. We all slept there in our clothes by the lamp as the lamp burned on.

When morning came it was still the Sabbath and would be until sundown.

And after everyone had eaten of the bread prepared before by hand, Old Sarah spoke up.

She was pushed back against the wall on a nest of pillows, and we hadn’t heard a word from her all night.

Now she said,

“Is there no synagogue in this town now? Has it burned to the ground without my knowing it?”

No one spoke.

“Ah, so it’s fallen down, has it?” she said.

No one spoke. I had not seen a synagogue. Yes, there was a synagogue but I didn’t know where it was.

“Answer me, my nephew!” Old Sarah said. “Or have I lost my wits as well as my patience?”

“It’s there,” said Joseph.

“Then take these children to it,” she said. “And I will go as well.”

Joseph said nothing.

I had never heard a woman speak this way to a man before, but this was a woman with a great many gray hairs. This was Old Sarah.

Joseph looked at her. She looked at Joseph. She lifted her chin.

Joseph stood up and gestured for us to do the same.

The whole family, except for my mother, and Riba, and the littlest ones, who would be a nuisance in a House of Prayer, went up the hill, where I hadn’t gone before.

Now I had been around the edges of the town to peek at the spring, and thought it very beautiful, but I hadn’t walked up over the hill and down.

The houses at the top of the hill were the same from the outside, whitewashed mud plaster mostly, but the courtyards were even bigger than ours and the fig trees and olive trees were very old. In one open doorway, two beautiful women stood smiling at us, clothed in the finest linen I’d seen in Nazareth, very white with gold embroidery along the edges of their veils. I liked to look at them. I saw a horse tethered in a stable and I had not seen a horse before in Nazareth, and we passed also a man at a cross-legged writing desk, with a cross legged stool beneath him, reading his scrolls out in the fresh air. He waved a greeting to Joseph as we passed.

People were in the street, nodding to us, some passing us because we were slow, others moving behind us. There was not a sign of work being done. All were observant of the Sabbath, but they were moving slowly about.

When we reached the very top of the slope, I saw my cousin Levi coming out, and his father Jehiel, and for the first time I saw their great house with its well-fitted doors and windows and freshly painted lattices and remembered that they owned a great piece of the nearby land.

They fell in behind us as we walked down the street and it now twisted and turned more than it had on the other side, and more and more people were headed the same way.

I saw a great clump of trees spread out before us and we followed a path through the trees and there was the spring, filling its two rock-cut basins to overflowing as it gushed and tumbled down the cliff.

The biggest of the rock-cut basins was overflowing and it was to this overflow that many went to wash their hands.

We did the same now, washing our hands and as much of our arms as we could without getting our clothes wet. It was cold. Really cold. But I liked it. I looked this way and that. The stream twisted and turned as did the road behind us, and I could see much of it in either direction.

I stood up. I pinched and squeezed my hands to make them not be cold.

There stood the House of Prayer, or the synagogue, to the left of the stream and back from the road, it was plain enough to see. It was a large building with a wide-open door, and even rooms above with a stair going up on one side, all very well tended with green grass clipped beside it.

We went towards it, and had to wait our turn as others went inside.

Something happened with us. Cleopas, Alphaeus, and Joseph and Simon and Old Sarah all moved in back of me. The others went on ahead, the women first except for Old Sarah. Cleopas took Old Sarah by the arm, and Silas and Levi went inside. James stood behind me too, with all my uncles and Joseph.

Gently Joseph pushed me towards the open door.

The men came up around me on either side.

I stood on the wood threshold. The place was a great deal bigger than the small synagogue in which we’d gathered in Alexandria, a place for just our own neighbors, as there were so many synagogues. And it had benches built along the walls, rising in steps, so that people sat as they did in a theater or the Great Synagogue of Alexandria to which I’d gone once.

The benches on the left side were filled with women. I saw my aunts and Bruria, our refugee, take their places. There were children on the floor, lots of them, all over, and on the right side in front of the men.

There was a row of posts, and at the end there stood a place for a man to stand and read.

I looked up as it was time to go inside now. There were lots of people crowding behind me to come in. And no one was blocking my way.

But a tall man stood to the left, a man with a very long soft-looking black and gray beard and so much beard on his upper lip that I could hardly see his mouth. His eyes were dark, and his hair was long, to his shoulders, only a little gray, under his prayer shawl.

He put his hand out in front of me.

The man spoke in a very soft voice, looking at me as he did, but his words were for the others.

“I know James, yes, and Silas and Levi, I remember them, but this one? Who is this one?”

It was very quiet.

I saw that everyone in the synagogue was looking at us. I didn’t like it. I was begi

Then Joseph spoke:

“He is my son,” said Joseph. “Jesus bar Joseph bar Jacob.”

Right when the words left Joseph’s lips, I felt the men behind me draw in very close. Cleopas put his hand on my back, and so did my uncle Alphaeus. My uncle Simon stood close to me too and he put his hand on my shoulder too.

The bearded man kept his hand in my way, but his face was kind. He stared at me and then looked up at the others.

Then came the voice of Old Sarah, as clear as before. She stood behind all of us.