Take This Cup (32 page)

Avel filled in the rest. “Zadok fought the Herodian guards like they were wolves. But he was struck down, and his boys were slaughtered by the soldiers of Herod the Great. So Zadok lost his sons and his eye in the fight. He carried a deep scar across his face and in his heart until Jesus returned to Bethlehem many years later.”

Ha-or Tov added, “We three were lost sheep, see? Homeless. No family. Then Jesus healed us—my eyes.”

“My broken heart,” Avel added.

“My ears, my mouth,” Emet said.

Ha-or Tov picked up the story. “And then Jesus brought us to the house of Zadok in Bethlehem and entreated Zadok to accept us as true sons.”

So it was that Avel, Emet, and Ha-or Tov had filled the places and hearts of the family that had been lost.

Now old Zadok and his boys were among the circle of about a hundred close followers who had left every worldly possession to be with Jesus.

Breakfast nearly finished, Emet rested his chin in his hand and tilted his head slightly like a puppy waiting to be fed. “All right, then. Now you know everything about us. We know nothing about you. Except that you talk funny. You’re not from around here, for sure. What’s your story?”

I thought of the hart. The cup. My great journey. The purpose of my life and the meaning of my name. Surely they would not believe me. I summed up everything: “I am also the son of a shepherd. His name is Lamsa. And my mother, Sarah, is a weaver of prayer shawls in the land where Eden once was on earth. Very far from here.”

The little bird flitted from Emet’s shoulder to Avel’s right index finger when he pointed at me. “There’s got to be more to it than that.”

I stuck out my finger, and the sparrow hopped onto my hand. I laughed and then spoke the horrible words as if they were nothing. “I was separated from my family when bandits attacked our camp. My grandparents are in Joppa, and I am an apprentice to Joseph of Arimathea.”

“A very rich fellow.” Ha-or Tov narrowed his eyes. “So why did he leave you here?”

The question was so straightforward I could not think of any answer but the truth. I passed the sparrow back to Avel, who kissed it on the beak, then handed it to Emet.

“My true master—Joseph of great reputation—has given me a task. I’m to polish his family’s old
Kiddush
cup for Passover. I’ll bring it to Jerusalem.”

Emet asked, “That’s it?”

I replied, “That’s it.”

Avel’s head bobbed thoughtfully. “Have you got it? The cup, I mean?”

I reached into the pouch and produced the tarnished vessel. Holding it out to my new friends, I said, “That’s it. Clean it. That’s my task.”

The three were unimpressed. Avel shrugged. “Joseph is so rich he could buy all the
Kiddush
cups in Jerusalem. Brand-new. Gold, even. But he’s got to have this old thing, eh?”

“It goes way back.” I rubbed it with the fabric of my tunic. “Tradition.”

Avel agreed. “Well then. Good luck, Nehemiah. That’s all I have to say. Fellows like your master think tradition is everything. If Joseph wants an old beat-up cup for Passover, I guess you’re stuck with it. It’ll take you all the way till Passover to get it shined, I think.”

Ha-or Tov stuck out his lower lip. “Suppose it’s just all that color. Black. You scrub and scrub and . . . nothing.”

I turned the thing over in my hand, hoping for even a glimmer of light, but the tarnish of ages was thick and unforgiving of my task. From across the courtyard I heard Mary laughing with two other women and a small girl. I remembered what my rabbi had taught me: for his safety, the birth of the King of Israel, Messiah, Redeemer, was hidden from all the world in a stable. But above the earth the stars of the heavens proclaimed his coming.

“One day, in God’s timing, the curtain will be pulled back and the glory of the Holy of Holies will shine forth.”

I frowned at the dark cup in my hand and knew that the dark layer would somehow be stripped away to reveal its secret.

Chapter 28

M
ary and other women labored in preparation for the
Shabbat
celebration, which would begin at sunset. Only a handful of Pharisees remained at the inn. The rest had returned to Jerusalem. The gates of the caravansary were closed and locked, preventing crowds from mobbing the place where Jesus stayed.

Within the earshot of everyone Jesus took his place in the portico and told stories no one had ever heard before.

In the courtyard of the inn was a large mulberry tree. Climbing up, cup in hand, I shared a thick lower branch with the sparrow, Yediyd. As I drank in Jesus’ tales, I rubbed at the blackened silver with a soft scrap of fleece. I worked until my fingers ached. My efforts to polish Joseph’s cup seemed hopeless. Only a slight gleam of silver shone through at the rim and on a raised, rounded shape on the side. Perhaps a cluster of grapes? I wondered. I wished now I had begun to shine it long before.

Others in the camp labored so they could rest with the Master during
Shabbat
. I would not complete my task before
Shabbat
began at sunset, when I would be forced to lay it aside. And when I resumed? Perhaps I would not even have it cleaned before Passover!

Could I have come so far and suffered so much, only to
end my journey in abject failure? The cup was so unworthy of presenting to anyone, let alone the Messiah. Hopping up to a smaller branch near my head, Yediyd bobbed and flicked his tail, sensing my anxiety.

Jesus unfolded a lesson that seemed directed at me. “Suppose one of you had a servant plowing, or looking after the sheep.”

My head rose at the mention of shepherd’s work. I was familiar with the nature of a herdsman’s labor. There was never a day of rest for a shepherd. The task of caring for the flock was endless.

Jesus continued, “Would you say to the servant when you came in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat?’ Would you not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready, and wait on me while I eat and drink. After that, you may eat and drink’? Would you thank the servant because he did what he was told to do?”

How many times had my family eaten a
Shabbat
meal prepared by hireling shepherds around the watch fire? And when my father and brothers had finished their
Shabbat
meals, they took their turn watching the flocks. Only then did the hireling shepherds eat.

I scrubbed at the stubborn tarnish and pictured the scene Jesus described. It seemed to me he glanced at me in the tree. Yediyd bowed and preened. “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ”

Jesus’ words confirmed I had not done my duty until my assignment was complete. Only I did not know how to accomplish the task given me.

A barrage of questions erupted from the disciples as I clambered down from the mulberry tree. Bypassing them, I hastened
over to where Mary laid out and smoothed the wrinkles from prayer shawls that had recently been cleaned.

Some of the knotted corners were tangled and messy. Unhurriedly, Mary prized out the snarls so the fringes hung properly. She was chatting pleasantly with Martha, the sister of Lazarus.

Noticing me looking on, Martha observed, “Mary is the best at untying knots there is. No one else has the patience or the skill.”

I held the cup out to Jesus’ mother, confident she did not know what it was, but that perhaps she could tell me how to make it bright and suitable to present.

“Nehemiah?” A smile lit the crinkled lines of her face. She turned her brown-gold eyes on me. Stepping around the corner of the building, she wiped the flour from her hands on a blue-and-white apron. “So you are here at last, cupbearer.”

Suddenly my words were not my own. “Hail, Mary . . . highly favored of the Most High. Favored among all women!”

She answered, “Blessed be the one who sent you. I have been looking for you. Not at all as I expected.”

I thought she was speaking of my rabbi. “My teacher, Rabbi Kagba, whom you knew from early days, sends his greetings to the mother of the Lord. He told me you are a gracious and righteous woman, and that you would help me.”

She smiled again. “Ah. The student of Rabbi Kagba, among the Magi from beyond the two rivers.”

“He sent me in his place. Told me to bring your son this final gift from distant kings who knelt to him and recognized him first among all men, except for us shepherds.”

She took the cup from me and peered into the dark well of it. Her pleasant eyes grew sad, and I thought for a moment she must have seen something terrible and tragic in it.

Mary whispered, “Your burden is a very old one, Nehemiah. To know something wonderful . . . that what men intend for evil, God intends for good. Yes. A sword to pierce a mother’s heart. To know and yet never to speak of it.”

“Joseph’s cup. The ancient son of Jacob, who saved all his people after his brothers meant him evil.”

“Only a few would recognize the glory of this cup.”

“Unless I clean it, it won’t be worthy.” I showed her my chapped fingers.

Once again I became just a boy, and she became a woman of practical household knowledge.

She instructed, “You’ll never get it clean only by scrubbing. The tarnish is too deep.”

“Then how?”

“Come with me.”

First, Mary immersed the cup in a pot of boiling water and left it there. She led me to a stack of baggage that traveled with the camp. Rummaging through wooden boxes, she produced a plain container crusted with white powder. “Natron,” she said. “From the shore of the Dead Sea.”

I knew it well. Natron was a common substance carried for trade among the caravans that crossed my father’s lands. It was a form of salt, a preservative. First found at the springs of Wadi al Natron in Egypt, the ancients used the mineral to embalm royalty. It was a chief ingredient in the preservation of fresh fish. Mixed with olive oil, it made a fine soap.

With a long metal spoon, Mary fished out the vessel and wrapped it in a towel. The cup seemed unchanged to me, yet she assured me the boiling water had loosened the grime. Then she measured out a small amount of the pale mineral and mixed it with olive oil and lemon juice. Placing the substance in a wooden
bowl, she instructed, “Rub this on when the metal cools a bit. With time and effort the cup will reveal what lies beneath the crust of ages.”

Jesus, Lazarus, and the other disciples left the caravansary in the afternoon to teach and to heal among the multitude of pilgrims who gathered outside the gates. My new friends, Peniel the scribe, Ha-or Tov, Avel, Emet, and the old shepherd, Zadok, accompanied them. Even the little sparrow, Yediyd, chirped once, ruffled his feathers, then flitted away and swooped over the wall of the inn to pursue them.

Only the women remained behind to prepare for our
Shabbat
supper. I wanted to fly away with all my heart. But the morning lessons of Jesus about a servant sticking to his task kept me rooted beside the mulberry tree.

Mary examined my progress on the cup and frowned. “Perhaps it’s more than tarnish. It seems . . . yes . . . as though it may have been in a fire. Scorched. Smoke.” She presented me with a second batch of cleanser. “You’ll conquer it. You wouldn’t have been given the task if it was impossible.”

With the second application the black crust began to transfer from the cup to the fleece cloth. I held it up to the light. The faint image of a cluster of grapes and leaves on a vine had begun to emerge. I shared the joy of my progress with Mary. She held the object tenderly, in both hands, as if it were a bird with a broken wing. With a tone of awe she remarked, “Look here. Scorch marks. Yes. You can see the scar. The silver passed through the fire.
Tish
b’Av
. . . It must have been.”

“Tish b’Av?”

She traced the outline of the vines as though she had seen them
before. “You know of it, Nehemiah. The day the Babylonians destroyed Solomon’s Temple.” She kissed the chalice. “Joseph’s cup had a place of honor in Solomon’s Temple. And then, when Jerusalem burned, the cup and all the other treasures disappeared.”

I answered, knowing the story well. “Our people were exiled and made slaves. And when the captivity ended, many Jews returned with Nehemiah. But my father’s family never returned to Eretz-Israel.”

Mary touched my forehead. “Until now, this moment. Until you returned, bringing it with you, Nehemiah, cupbearer to the King. Blessed be God forever.” She pressed it into my hands and returned to her preparation.

The caravansary was filled with the delicious aromas of cooking food. Fresh bread. Lamb roasting in a deep pit. Everything was ready when Jesus and the company returned.

But still the cup was not finished as the sun sank lower to the horizon. My friends gushed about the events and miracles of the day.

Avel grimaced. “There were ten of them. Lepers!”

Emet pantomimed missing limbs and shuffling gaits.

Ha-or Tov held his nose and said, “We smelled them coming!”

Yediyd the sparrow riding his shoulder, Avel exclaimed, “And then . . . all ten! Jesus says to them, ‘Go show yourselves to the priests.’ Ten of them at once. And they left and all were healed as they went! But only one bothered to come back and say thank you.”
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