Take This Cup (18 page)
By the time we were a few days’ journey out of Zakho, I had learned a great deal more about Raheb’s family. They were loving, pious, close-knit, and diligent. Raheb was a hard worker, his advice sought as frequently as his muscular strength, and he made both available in a cheerful, modest way. Reena was a good cook, caring and unflustered by life amid dirt and sweaty camels, never shirking her labor but always finding time to hug Beryl or tell Michael a story.
They were both a comfort and a grief to me. My guardians represented a place of plenty and safety after all my running and hiding . . . and also a constant reminder of how much I missed my own parents.
I learned more about my temporary family than just their
character. I came to understand their motives as well, much to my surprise.
Going on pilgrimage to the Holy City was something all pious Jews aspired to accomplish.
Torah
enjoined three pilgrim festivals each year: Tabernacles, Passover, and the Festival of Weeks that culminated in Pentecost. Among devout Jews living far from Jerusalem, it was a custom to pay a substitute to appear at the Temple. This allowed distant believers to participate in the sacrifices by proxy in those years in which they could not travel. Ever since my mother moved to Amadiya when she married Father, my Jerusalem grandparents had performed those ceremonies for us.
This year I would be going myself.
But the circumstances that took Raheb and his children to Jerusalem involved more than fulfilling a religious obligation. Raheb’s son, Tobit, father of my friends Michael and Beryl, had an eye disease that was robbing him of his sight. His eyes watered constantly and were often glued shut in the morning when he awoke. He was so sensitive to the glare of the desert sun that he kept a headscarf wrapped about his face by day, peering out at the world through narrow slits.
Raheb’s other son, Yacov, was wed six years earlier, but he and Dinah had no children. She was barren. She doted on her niece and nephew, but a lurking sadness never fully left her face.
What shocked me was learning the cause of their deciding to make
aliyah
this year: the presence of Jesus of Nazareth.
Stories were swapped around a community campfire. It seemed that everyone had an opinion about the rabbi from Galilee. “I heard once there was a crowd so great it was impossible to get near him,” one traveler reported. “So four companions tore off the roof of the house where Jesus was and lowered their
crippled friend down to him. This Jesus told him to get up and walk . . . and he did.”
“That’s all?” a scoffer challenged. “No magic words? No special prayers?”
“No, but he did say the man’s sins were forgiven.”
Mutters of “Blasphemy!” and “Who does he think he is?” swirled around the leaping flames.
“Perhaps he’s a madman, deluded,” another remarked.
The original reporter continued, “Jesus asked them if it was harder to forgive sins or to heal a paralyzed man. He said making the man walk was the proof he could forgive sin too.”
I did not know what to make of that tale. How could I understand a man who claimed to be able to forgive sins? Didn’t that authority belong to God alone? Wasn’t Messiah supposed to be a leader who would be like Moses? Or like Joshua? A man who would free us Jews from the power of Rome and restore David’s kingdom?
My doubts were echoed by the next speaker. “He’s a charlatan! Mark my words: he’s just another swindler, claiming to be a messiah . . . right up until he and all his followers get themselves crucified. We don’t need a healer, or a smooth-talking liar, or a philosopher! We need a strong military leader. We need another Judah Maccabee.”
There were murmurs of agreement at these words. We were hoping to arrive in Jerusalem by Hanukkah, celebrating the rededication of the Temple after the famous Judah the Hammer defeated our foes two hundred years earlier.
Tobit stepped forward into the firelight. Since it was night, his eyes were unbound, but they were red and inflamed all around them. He squinted painfully in the flaring brilliance and wiped away tears that coursed down his cheeks. “I have
heard he gave sight to a man born blind. Born . . . blind! No one has ever heard of such a thing. Perhaps it isn’t true. But if it is, if he will touch me and keep me from losing my sight, I will follow him, warrior or not.”
“I heard,” Hosea rumbled, “that he even raised the dead.”
“Now you’ve gone too far,” someone sneered. “Is he supposed to be Elijah or Elisha?”
Hosea said, “I have a cousin in the synagogue in Capernaum. He’s the one who told me the cantor’s daughter was dead and Jesus brought her back to life.” Then, speaking very carefully and deliberately, the caravan leader pronounced each of these words: “Or are you calling
me
a liar?”
The one who issued the objection retreated immediately. “Spoke hastily . . . please forgive me . . . some misunderstanding.”
When we went to bed that night, I found the Cup of Joseph to be more uncomfortable than usual as my pillow. How would I know whether Jesus was worthy to receive it or not? If he was not who Rabbi Kagba hoped, what would I do with it? Why was I carrying it across a thousand-mile journey away from home, if it turned out to be all wrong?
Then I thought about Tobit’s eyes and Dinah’s weary sadness. “Almighty, for all their sakes, make the stories be true,” I prayed. “And let me know the truth without mistake.” I remembered the White Hart and my vision of Joseph the Dreamer. I was sent to Jerusalem for a purpose. The cup had come to me, out of all those who had carried it or who might have found it over the centuries. I was the one appointed for this reason, even if I did not yet understand it.
W
e journeyed across the Land between the Rivers—Mesopotamia, as the Greek-speakers called it. Despite the promise of abundant water in its name, the area was in the grip of a prolonged drought. Dry, dusty plains stretched for miles, punctuated by all-too-rare clumps of trees and occasional muddy pools. Wells, some of them dug back in the days of Father Abraham, still furnished the life blood of the trade routes.
Hosea urged us to use our water sparingly. “I plan each day’s journey to take us from watering hole to watering hole,” he lectured the group. “But there are no guarantees. A sandstorm or a greedy caravan that gets there first . . . either of these can upset the plan. If we are forced to go a second or a third day on just what we can carry, then so be it, we will.”
“And what happens if it’s four days?” someone asked.
“Then those who have not been careful will either beg or begin to die,” Hosea said.
The very next morning we rehearsed Hosea’s warning. Raheb made certain every waterskin for our group was completely filled before we left the well. It was my duty to haul the bulging, dripping bags out of the water source. Tobit and Yacov saw to it that they were secured to the packsaddles of the camels.
During the very first week of our journey, we experienced the truth of Hosea’s words.
Before dawn the camels began bawling as if jackals ran amid their lines. Raheb and Yacov dashed about with drawn swords but found nothing.
Just as they returned to the remains of the previous night’s campfire, the tremor struck. The earth rolled and pitched beneath my feet. A tent collapsed on Reena and her daughters-in-law, but they were not hurt.
We sorted ourselves out and resumed our travel.
When it was almost evening, we arrived at a place Hosea called Beth Mah-buwah, the House of the Spring. What we expected to find was a sheltered spot with water seeping out of a rock face. Our leader said the spring filled a pool to overflowing.
Instead, we found the cliffside fractured, the spring dried up, and the pool split, drained and empty.
“The earthquake,” Hosea muttered. “In ages past one tremor broke the rock and started the fountain. Now another has closed it again.”
“Could another reopen it?” Raheb asked.
“Not soon enough to help us,” the caravan leader responded. “Nor would you want to be close by when it did.” He gestured to a heap of boulders that had fallen from the top of the precipice. “That would have crushed anyone too close. Still, we camp here tonight anyway,” he ordered. “Well away from the cliff, in case the earth is still not comfortable. Use your water carefully. With the blessing, we should reach another well by tomorrow night . . . but we cannot know until we reach it.”
On the next day’s march Raheb’s family was at the front of the caravan. Michael trotted along beside me. My new young companion kept up a constant chatter about whatever popped into his head: what he named each of the goats we herded, what he would see in Jerusalem, the earthquakes he had felt when home in Ecbatana . . . and water. Often he talked about water.
“My father has been on caravan before,” he said. “They weren’t careful with water like we are. Once they got lost and went a week without finding a well. Two men were driven crazy, Papa says.”
Michael’s list of the horrors of being without water increased my own anxiety. I was relieved when we reached the edge of the barren tableland and spotted a cluster of trees near its base. I saw bronze sunlight glinting off a pool. The oasis was anchored in place by a large hawthorn tree, but palms and junipers were dotted around it too.
“We’re there, and the water is there.” I shaded my eyes against the glare. Then renewed worry struck me. “But another caravan is already there,” I said, noticing human forms in the grove.
Raheb, leading a camel, arrived alongside me. “It’s all right, Nehi. This is the best water for a week, Hosea says. There’ll be plenty. Besides, I don’t even see any animals.”
He was right. As we descended the slope and drew nearer to the camping place, there were no camels, no horses, no donkeys anywhere in sight. I saw people resting against the trunks of trees or reclining beside the water, but no beasts of burden.
Suddenly Raheb stopped me. “Nehemiah,” he said tersely, “stay here with Michael. Reena,” he called to his wife, “go no farther. Keep together. Yacov, stay with them.”
“Grandfather,” Michael said, “why are we stopping? There’s the water. Why can’t we—”
Raheb sounded angry when he repeated, “Stay here!”
Raheb, Hosea, and a party of men, spread out in a line like scouts approaching enemy territory, moved cautiously toward the grove. They advanced among the nodding palms, swords or spears in hand. Hosea called them together for a brief conference, then they trudged back up the hill toward us.
Raheb reported to our family, “Bandit attack. That’s why there are no animals.”
Reena whispered a question I could not hear, but Raheb answered by saying, “All of them. None escaped. You stay here. We’ll get done as quickly as we can.”
Raheb told me to stay with the children, but I had been struck by a burning question. “I’m a shepherd’s son,” I said. “I’ve seen dead men, and I’ve seen bandits. Please let me come.”
There were fifteen bodies scattered among the trees. All were men. All had been stripped of their clothing.
The caravan had defended itself, but bodies tangled in blankets near campfire ashes told the tale: they had been attacked while they slept. Their guards had failed them.
Or betrayed them.
I found Jehu locked in the embrace of death with his assailant. He had plunged a knife into the heart of his opponent even as a curved dagger slashed his throat.
The dagger had been wielded by the bandit I saw on the trail with his arm in a sling when the rabbi and I were hiding.
One
of
Zimri’s men.
I trembled. I had almost joined Jehu’s company. I would have been in the camp when Zimri’s men attacked.
Wielding shovels or using our hands, we buried the bodies well away from the oasis. We dug a trench beneath a sandy knoll, loaded it with the dead, then collapsed the overhanging brow of earth onto them.
Then we brought our caravan into camp.
There was little conversation that night. We realized that crossing the desert exposed us to many dangers besides being short of water. I was glad the Almighty had led me to Hosea and Raheb. I prayed fervently that as we kept the Sabbath, so the Almighty would keep us.