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I did as he told me.
In Hebrew he asked,
“Why did the Phoenicians cut the hair of Samson?” he asked.
“I beg the Rabbi to forgive me, but it was not the Phoenicians,” I answered in Hebrew. “It was the Philistines. And they cut his hair to make Samson weak.”
He spoke to me in Aramaic,
“Where is Elisha who was taken up in the chariot?”
“I beg the Rabbi to forgive me,” I said in Aramaic. “It was Elijah who was taken up, and Elijah is with the Lord.”
In Greek he asked,
“Who is it that resides in the Garden of Eden, writing down all that takes place in this world?”
I didn’t answer for a moment. Then I said in Greek:
“No one. There is no one in Eden.”
The Rabbi sat back and looked to one side and then the other. The other Rabbis looked at him and all looked at me.
“No one is in Eden writing down the deeds of the world?” he asked.
I thought for a moment. I knew I had to say what I knew. But how I knew it, I couldn’t tell. Was I remembering it? I answered in Greek,
“Men say it is Enoch, but Eden is empty until the Lord should say that all the world will be Eden once again.”
The Rabbi spoke in Aramaic,
“Why did the Lord break his covenant with King David?”
“The Lord never broke it,” I said. This I had always known as long as I knew any answer. I didn’t even have to think about it. “The Lord does not break his covenants. The throne of David is there…”
The Rabbi was quiet and so were the others. The old men didn’t even look at each other.
“Why is there no King from the House of David on that throne?” the Rabbi asked, his voice getting louder. “Where is the King?”
“He will come,” I said. “And his House will last forever.”
His face was even more kind than before. He spoke softly.
“Will a carpenter build it?” he asked.
Laughter. The old men laughed first and then the boys who were seated on the floor. But the Old Rabbi didn’t laugh. Just for a moment I saw sadness in his face, and then it was gone and he was waiting for me to answer, his eyes soft and wide.
My face burned.
“Yes, Rabbi,” I said, “a carpenter will build the House of the King. There is always a carpenter. Even the Lord Himself is now and then a carpenter.”
The Old Rabbi drew back in surprise. I could hear noises all around me. They didn’t like this answer.
“Tell me how the Lord is a carpenter,” said the Old Rabbi in Aramaic.
I thought of words Joseph had spoken to me many times:
“Did not the Lord Himself say to Noah how many cubits the ark was to be, and of what sort of wood? And that the wood should be pitched, and did the Lord not say how many stories the ark must be, and did the Lord not say that it should have a window finished to a cubit, and did the Lord not tell Noah where he was to build the door?” I stopped.
A smile came slowly to the face of the oldest man. I didn’t look at anyone else. There was quiet again.
“And was it not so,” I went on in our tongue, “that the Lord Himself brought the Prophet Ezekial to the vision of the new Temple, setting forth the measurement of the galleries and the pillars, and the gates, and the altar, saying how all things should be done?”
“Yes, it was,” said the Old Rabbi, smiling.
“And my lord,” I went on. “Was it not Wisdom who said that when the Lord made the world, Wisdom was there like a master craftsman, and if Wisdom is not the Lord, what is Wisdom?”
I stopped. I didn’t know where I’d learned that part. But then I went on.
“My lord Rabbi,” I said. “It was the carpenters that Nebuchadrezzar took to Babylon, instead of slaying them, because they knew how to build, and when Cyrus the Persian decreed that we could return, the carpenters came home to build the Temple as the Lord had said it should be built.”
Quiet.
The Rabbi drew back. I couldn’t read the meaning of his face. I looked down. What had I said?
I looked up again.
“Lord Rabbi,” I said, “from the time of Sinai, where there is Israel there is a carpenter—a carpenter to build the tabernacle, and it was the Lord Himself who told out the measurements of the tabernacle, and—.”
The Rabbi stopped me. He laughed and put up his hand for quiet.
“This is a good child,” he said, looking at Joseph above me. “I like this child.”
The other men nodded as the old one nodded. Again there was the laughter, not a loud laughter but a gentle laughter moving through the room.
He pointed to the floor right in front of him.
I sat down there on the mat.
There was more talk, friendly and easy, as the Rabbi received James and the other boys, but I didn’t really hear it. I knew only that the worst was over. I felt my heart was beating so loud others could hear it. I still didn’t wipe my tears, but they’d stopped.
At last, the men were gone. The school began.
The Old Rabbi recited the questions and the answers, and the boys repeated, and as the doors were closed the room grew warm.
No more was said to me that morning, and I didn’t speak up, but I recited, and I sang with the others, and I looked at the Rabbi, and the Rabbi looked at me.
When we went home at last, there was the family meal, with no chance to ask anything, but I could tell by their faces that they would never tell me why the Old Rabbi had asked so much. It was their eyes when they looked at me, the way that they were trying to make me think that there was nothing wrong.
And my mother, my mother was very happy, and I knew she didn’t know what had been said. She looked like a girl as she tended to the dishes and told us to eat more than we could.
I was as tired as if we’d laid marble pavers all day. I went into the women’s room because I didn’t know I was doing it, and I lay down on my mother’s mat and slept.
When I woke, I could hear everyone talking and I smelled the porridge and the good smell of the baked bread. All the afternoon had passed and I’d slept like a baby, and it was time to eat again.
I went to the bath and washed my face and my hands in the cold water of the basin, and then I knelt and washed my hands in the mikvah. I came back to sit down and eat.
A bowl was given to me. In it were delicious curds with honey.
“What is this?” I asked.
“You eat it,” said Cleopas. “Don’t you know what it is?”
Then Joseph gave a little laugh and then my uncles all caught the laugh as if it were a breeze moving through the trees.
My mother looked at the bowl.
“You should eat it if your uncle gave it to you,” she said.
Cleopas said under his breath for all to hear, “ ‘Butter and honey will he eat, so that he knows to refuse the evil, and choose the good.’ ”
“Do you know who spoke those words?” my mother asked.
I was eating the butter and the honey. I’d had enough and gave the bowl to James but he didn’t want any. I gave it to Joseph who passed it on.
“I know it’s Isaiah,” I answered my mother, “but I don’t remember any more than that.”
That made them all laugh. And I laughed too.
And I didn’t remember. Or think about it much again.
I wished for a little time, just a little, to ask a question of Cleopas alone, but the time never came. It was already evening. I’d slept too much. I hadn’t done my work after school. I couldn’t let that happen again.