I, Saul (31 page)

It was not easy to compete for her affections while suppressing that part of me that wanted to argue that I was the better man. Could she not see it? Ezra was nice enough, but he was not accomplished. Did Naomi not want the attention that would come from a relationship with the man everyone knew and talked about—especially now that I was not talking about myself?

Eventually I prevailed. It was not easy, becoming more active and obvious in my pursuit of her while still stifling my ego to remain obedient to the Law. Perhaps Ezra saw he was
unable to compete and stepped aside. For whatever reason, Naomi gradually found more time for me.

Within a year, as I neared graduation, we were in love and everyone knew it. Many said she was good for me, made me quieter, less arrogant. Only I knew the truth. Inside I was a cauldron of frustration, battling my true nature to remain obedient to the Law and to keep Naomi's heart. She had a calming influence on me only to the extent that I would do anything to keep us together.

Gamaliel himself allowed that the “obvious infatuation with my daughter has not seemed to negatively impact your scholarship. Do you see a future together?”

“I would be honored to become a member of your family,” I told him.

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Saul.”

But I longed to make Naomi my wife. She was not only beautiful, but she was also a woman of deep character— kind and humble and eager to serve others, not because the Law required her to, but because that was her nature. She was an obedient woman of God for motives I did not possess.

I burned to consummate our love, and the only hindrance to formally pursuing her upon my graduation from Hillel was my focus on establishing myself among the Pharisees of Jerusalem. By now the puppet high priest, Annas' son, had been replaced by Annas' son-in-law, Joseph Caiaphas. Annas himself remained the real power behind closed doors.

With Gamaliel and Nathanael cordially competing for my services, I enjoyed allowing them to try to outdo each other
in securing me for their staffs. While it might have been more advantageous to my climb to a station of influence to immediately begin working for the man I assumed would become my father-in-law, eventually he and I both thought better of it. “We will have plenty of time together if you accept a position with Nathanael,” Gamaliel said, “and we will avoid any suspicions of nepotism.”

Naomi was too genteel to press me toward marriage, though often on our long solitary walks we discussed our future home and children, as well as my plan to become the rabbi of a large, influential synagogue. I think she liked the idea of our settling in one place eventually, because my role for Nathanael took me all over Israel on various assignments. I could not bring myself to tell her that from almost the first week of my new job I realized I would never be content staying in one synagogue.

I loved everything about the Great Sanhedrin, from the sound my sandals made as I strode through the long dark corridors, to the beautiful harmonies of the all-male choirs whose chants and songs greeted the sunrise and announced the sunset. They practiced throughout the day, so the ancient temple and the Sanhedrin's meeting place, the Hall of Hewn Stones, reverberated always with rich, deep melodies of praise to the one true God.

The haunting strains should have prodded me to a deep sense of private worship, but I had by now given up on knowing God. My father and my rabbi from Tarsus had been right. I could not hope to have the same standing with the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that those patriarchs enjoyed. We would not converse. He was unknowable, and the best I could do was, in essence, to worship His words, His Law.

If I had been exacting on orthodoxy as an obnoxious teenage scholar, now I was entrenched. There was no middle ground with my doctrine and theology. I took every word of the Holy Scriptures literally and demanded that even the most tolerant disciples of Gamaliel try to prove me wrong. Not only were they unable, but almost daily I succeeded in exposing their arguments as soft and self-centered. Even Gamaliel wearied of my fundamentalism and warned that marrying myself to such a rigid standard might threaten any future I hoped for as a member of the Sanhedrin.

And this was no Lesser Sanhedrin of twenty-three members who sat in judgment over every other city. No, this was the Great Sanhedrin, in which sixty-nine members sat under Gamaliel and his lieutenant, Nathanael. To even dream of becoming a member of such an august body, I had to be diligent, resourceful, hardworking, and impress all the council members. Plus I would have to be married. My educational credentials were a given, known to all.

The council of seventy-one met when matters of national import arose, like war or political insurgence or an appeal from a lower court, or when the Lesser Sanhedrin could not come to a verdict. Such meetings convened in the hall that had been built into the north wall of the Temple Mount, half inside and half outside the sanctuary, giving access to both the temple and the outdoors. I had learned at Hillel that it was the only part of the temple complex not
used for ritual purposes, and thus it was constructed with stones hewn by iron implements.

Both Gamaliel and Nathanael occupied offices within the complex, and I was assigned a tiny alcove near the vice chief justice. I spent little time there as I did his bidding. Nathanael sent me scurrying all over the Temple Mount and the city, as well as to other cities, researching, interviewing, fetching documents, whatever he needed.

I was busy, excited, fulfilled in my role, especially when Nathanael, and at times even Gamaliel, used me as a confidant and sought my opinions. While both continued to counsel me against rigidity, they still sought my input and often used it. When either the Lesser or the Great Sanhedrin met, I stationed myself out of sight but within earshot and smiled when I heard either of them quote me without acknowledging their source. That was all right. My day would come.

Naomi grew more distant the busier I became. When we were together, often at the end of a very long day, all I could talk about was what I was doing. I sensed sadness in her when months flew by with no change in our status. My own sister had long since married and had begun a family. But what could I do? I was special assistant to Nathanael, and his needs and wishes became my priority.

I served in this role for years, establishing myself as the person to go to when a member of the Sanhedrin wanted to influence either of the top two men. I was the most accessible, and the most knowledgeable, and I developed a reputation as one who was ever present, hardworking, and dependable. No one questioned my devotion to the Law.

But everyone, including her father, questioned my devotion to Naomi—something of which my former rival would take advantage.