Take This Cup (8 page)
It was the middle watch of the night. Raucous laughter still emanated from the adults in the dining room below, but the rabbi had gathered up his students by offering us an astronomy lesson. We all wore fleece coats and fleece-lined boots and were enfolded within closely woven woolen cloaks.
Facing east, the rabbi splayed his bony fingers to mimic a bowl-shaped object. He held his hand aloft and invited me to locate that shape in the stars.
It took awhile, but I succeeded. “There!” I said, pointing. “Over the mountain to the east.”
“Just so,” Rabbi Kagba said approvingly. “Its name is Kohs, the chalice. Many other nations see a drinking cup there as well. What might it remind us of?”
“The Purim feast?” one of the older boys ventured.
“Very good!” Kagba praised. “It is written: ‘As they were drinking wine on the second day, the king again asked, “Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given you . . . Even up to half the kingdom.”
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It was thus that the brave queen saved our people from evil Haman.”
So strongly was the Purim holiday habit engrained in us that at the mention of Haman’s name we all hissed and stomped our feet.
The rabbi smiled. “It was truly the cup of salvation for us that day. And Kohs always rises in the east on Purim in honor of that occasion. That’s enough for tonight, boys. Go about your business quietly tomorrow morning. Your elders will thank you for it later.”
That night I went to bed thinking about the cup in the heavens. I wondered if the image of the chalice was meant to remind us of other stories in Scripture. At first the only one I could recall involved Passover. There were four cups of wine drunk during the Seder feasts.
Then it came to me: there was a cup in the story of Joseph the Dreamer. And his story involved his brother Benjamin.
“Same name as my dog,” I said aloud for my own amusement.
Then I fell asleep.
Almost immediately I began to dream . . .
I was in a banqueting hall. It was night, judging from the flickering torches in wall sconces around the room. A young man, clean-shaven—Egyptian, I thought, from his appearance—was clothed as a prince in brightly colored silk. The eleven others in the room were all thickly bearded, except one. Each wore the drab homespun robes of shepherds like me.
Though the Egyptian seemed to be of higher rank than anyone else present, he acted as servant. I noticed something else: all the shepherds were seated in order of their ages, from
the eldest to the young man whose beard was just beginning to grow in. I sat beside him and saw the light reflecting in his eyes. I was close enough to hear his breath, yet he could not see me. I said aloud, “I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” but none of them heard me or looked at the place where I was seated.
This youngest fellow came in for more attentive service from the Egyptian. In fact, he received five times as much food and drink.
When the shepherds were filled to capacity, their host poured one more cup of wine for each, and then poured one for himself, using a shining silver cup. Hoisting the cup aloft, he saluted them. “Have a safe journey to your home in Canaan,” he said. “Salute your father, Jacob, for me. In fact, you, young Benjamin, carry my greeting to him.”
It was then I realized what story was unfolding in my dream. The Egyptian was Joseph, whom these same men, his brothers, had sold into slavery, but they didn’t recognize him.
Because of famine in their land, they had come to Egypt to buy grain.
When the meal was completed, the guests thanked their host and departed. Servants appeared to clear away the platters under the supervision of a steward.
Joseph called the steward to him and handed over the silver drinking vessel. “Tonight, go to where those men keep their provision sacks,” he said. “Fill each sack with as much food as you can stuff in. Also, I want you to take the money they used to pay for the grain and divide that among their sacks as well. Finally,” he said, indicating the chalice, “place my cup inside the sack belonging to the youngest brother.”
The scene I was watching shifted. It was morning. I was with the brothers as they drove a file of donkeys down a road not
many miles from the city. A cloud of dust swirling up behind us resolved itself into a host of Egyptian chariots in swift pursuit. Each chariot had a driver and a spearman. In the leading chariot was the steward I had noticed at the end of the banquet.
The warriors overtook the shepherds and surrounded us. The sons of Jacob surrendered without a fight. Their leader asked, “What is the trouble? What have we done?”
The steward said sternly, “Why have you repaid good with evil? You stole from my master.”
All of the brothers protested.
Benjamin said, “Why say such a thing? Tell him, Reuben! Tell him, Judah.”
And I said, “No! No! I know what really happened,” but no one paid any attention to me.
Reuben argued, “We would never do that. We even returned the silver we found in our sacks when we came to Egypt the last time. We still don’t know how it got there!”
Judah added, “Why would we steal silver or gold from your master’s house? If any of us has it, he will die, and the rest of us will be your slaves.”
When the sacks were opened, of course the cup was located in Benjamin’s possession.
“Isn’t this my master’s cup?” the steward said. “This is a wicked thing you did. Take them away.”
All the shepherds exclaimed and tore their clothing, but the steward was unmoved. The Hebrew brothers were escorted at spearpoint back to Joseph’s palace.
Once more the view in my dream changed. I was inside the palace, watching the confrontation between Joseph and his brothers. The silver cup sat on a mahogany table in the center of the room.
Stalking around it with his hands on his hips, Joseph confronted them. “Why did you do this? Don’t you know that a man like me learns things in dreams?”
Judah replied, “We have no way to prove our innocence. We are your slaves.”
“No, only the one with the cup shall be my slave. The rest of you, go home in peace.”
Judah approached Joseph and spoke quietly to him. In my dream I felt myself lean forward to hear better. “Even though you are the second in command to Pharaoh himself,” Judah said, “I must tell you something. Do you remember when, on the other trip to Egypt, you asked us if we had a father or a brother, and we answered that we had an aged father and a younger brother?”
Joseph admitted that he recalled the conversation.
“Even though we said Benjamin was the only surviving son of his mother, and our father’s favorite, and that it would kill our father to be parted from him, you insisted we bring him with us this trip . . . which we did.”
Joseph listened but said nothing. Judah continued, “If we go home without Benjamin, our father will die. The shock will kill him. Now I, myself, pledged to bring Benjamin back safely. Please, I beg you. Let me stay here as your slave in place of my brother, and let him go home.”
I saw Joseph trembling. His brothers may have mistaken it for anger, but I knew better.
The Prince of Egypt, unable to control himself any longer, burst out crying. “I am Joseph, your brother. Is my father still living?”
The brothers shouted in amazement, babbling questions and comments.
“Listen,” Joseph said, when he could speak again. “Don’t be
afraid because you sold me into slavery in Egypt. God used all of that to save our whole family from starvation. You must go home and bring my father back here with you. Bring all your families! There will be land for you in Goshen.”
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Something like mist swirled around my vision then, until all the people were obscured. Only the silver cup, shining like a brilliant star, remained in my view, before it too faded.
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n the frosty morning after the Purim celebration, remembering the warning, I tiptoed out of the house. Almost immediately I encountered Rabbi Kagba. He blew on his hands to warm them and greeted me.
I asked, “About the cup in the sky? I thought of another cup in Scripture. The one Joseph the Dreamer hid in Benjamin’s sack. What happened to it?”
“What a penetrating question,” the scholar murmured. “One I have never been asked in all these years. It is said that the cup remained with Joseph all his days, passing to his children and grandchildren, even down to the times when our fathers were slaves in Egypt.”
“What happened to it then?” I demanded.
Kagba spread his hands. “No one knows. It was hidden so it would not be stolen by the Egyptians. Some say it left Egypt with Joseph’s body in the time of the Deliverer and was later in the great Temple in Jerusalem. Then, still later, it was carried away from there to be saved from the Babylonian invaders.” The rabbi shrugged. “Who can say? What is also known is that it is said the cup will reappear in the Day of Messiah. So, perhaps soon, eh?”
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following night the rabbi and I were again on the roof of my home.
“Aren’t you cold?” Kagba asked.
“Yes, but I want to know more. Once you showed me a great hart in the sky. Where is it?”
Grasping my shoulders, Kagba turned me completely around to face west. “Just there. See it? The form the Greeks call Andromeda and we call the Hart is setting behind that peak. In fact,” he mused, “this is the only time of year when the Cup and the Hart can both be seen in the sky . . . and only a short while.”
“Does that mean something too?”
“You are full of questions again tonight, young son of Lamsa. Yes, I think it does. You see, we didn’t talk about it, but I believe the cup also represents the suffering that is required before redemption can take place. When the cup is full, it is as if the hart has laid down his life and so he departs for a season.” Then more cheerfully he added, “But he will rise again, when the cup of suffering is poured out.”
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hen the Passover before my eighth birthday came, I was out in the fields at night, tending the sheep with my father. Rabbi Kagba had joined us, as he often did when the starry host was on display.
“If we were shepherds in Bethlehem,” Father said, “this would be our busiest time of year. The herdsmen of Migdal Eder supply most of the lambs for the Passover pilgrims, except for families that have raised their own.”
“How many lambs?” I asked.
“One for every ten people.” The rabbi paused. “Half a million people in the Holy City for this holiday. Fifty thousand lambs.”
I shook my head and whistled softly. A night bird answered from the rushes by the pond. “I’ve never seen more than five hundred in one place, and only then when we bring all the flocks together for shearing.”
Rabbi Kagba squinted at the sky, judging the progress of the waxing moon, then setting in the west. “Nine days more till this year’s Passover. Look where Jupiter, the Righteous King, hangs beside the moon. I saw such a sight three decades and more ago now, when I met the shepherds of Bethlehem and the child in the manger.”
“What child?” I demanded.
My father shushed me. “Just listen,” he corrected.