THAT NIGHT IT WAS DECIDED that I would stay and work with Joseph on the house, and Alphaeus and his sons, Levi and Silas, and also Cleopas, and perhaps Simon would go into Sepphoris, and there get up a team of laborers from the marketplace. The money was good. The weather was good.
It was further decided that no matter who worked where, we boys would go up to the synagogue where the school was taught, and we’d study with the three Rabbis. Only when they released us would we join the men, probably about mid-morning.
I didn’t want to go up to the school. And when I realized that, once again, all the men of the family were walking up the hill with us, I felt afraid.
But then Cleopas had Little Symeon by the hand. And Uncle Alphaeus had Little Joses, and Uncle Simon had Silas and Levi. Maybe it was the way.
When we reached the school, there were three men whom I had seen in the synagogue, and we stood before the very oldest of the men who beckoned for us to come inside. This man hadn’t spoken or taught on the Sabbath.
Now he was a very old man and I had not really looked at him before because I was too afraid to do it in the synagogue. But he was the teacher here.
Joseph said,
“These are our sons to be taught, Rabbi. What is it that we can do for you?”
He offered the Rabbi a purse with his hand folded over it, but the Rabbi didn’t take it.
When I saw this, I felt sick.
Never had I seen a man refuse a purse. I looked up and saw that the old man was looking directly at me. And at once I looked down. I wanted to cry. I couldn’t remember a single word that my mother had said to me that night in Jerusalem. I could remember only her face, and the way that she’d whispered to me. And the way Cleopas had looked on his sickbed there, when he’d spoken and we all thought he was going to die.
This old man had hair and beard that were pure white. I could see even as I stared at the hem of his robes that they were fine wool with their tassels sewn with the proper blue thread.
Now he spoke in a soft and gentle voice.
“Yes, Joseph,” he said. “James and Silas and Levi, I know, but Jesus bar Joseph?”
Not a word came from the men behind me.
“Rabbi, you saw my son on the Sabbath,” said Joseph. “You know that he’s my son.”
I didn’t have to look up at Joseph to know that he was not himself.
I gathered all my strength. I looked at the old man. The old man looked at Joseph.
I started to cry without making a sound. I couldn’t help it. No matter how steady my eyes were, the tears came. I swallowed hard and quietly.
The old man said nothing. No one said a word.
Then Joseph spoke as if he was saying a prayer:
“Jesus bar Joseph bar Jacob bar Matthan bar Eleazar bar Eliud of the House of David of the Tribe of Judah who came to Nazareth with a grant for land from the King to settle Galilee of the Gentiles. And son of Mary daughter of Anna daughter of Mattathias and Joachim bar Samuel bar Zakkai bar Eleazar bar Eliud of the House of David of the Tribe of Judah—Mary of Anna and Joachim, one of those sent up to Jerusalem to be among the chosen of eighty-four maidens under the age of twelve and one month, to weave the two veils each year for the Temple which she did until she came of age and returned home. And so it’s recorded in the Temple, her years of service, and this lineage, and was recorded on the day of the child’s circumcision.”
I closed my eyes and opened them. The Rabbi looked pleased and gentle and when he saw my eyes on him, he even smiled. Then he looked back to Joseph, above me.
“There’s no one here who doesn’t remember your betrothal,” he said. “And there are other things which everyone remembers. Surely you understand.”
Again there was a silence.
“I remember,” said the Rabbi, his voice just as gentle as before, “the morning that your young betrothed came out of the house and made a cry in the village—.”
“Rabbi, these are little children,” said Joseph. “Is it not for the fathers of the children to tell them these things in time?”
“The fathers?” asked the Rabbi.
“I am the child’s father by the Law,” said Joseph.
“But where were you married to your betrothed and where was your son born?”
“What city of Judea?”
“Close to Jerusalem.”
“But not in Jerusalem?”
“Married in Bethany,” said Joseph, “at the home of my wife’s kinsmen there, priests of the Temple, her cousin Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah.”
“Ah, yes, and there the child was born?”
Joseph didn’t want to say it. But why?
“No,” he said. “Not there.”
“Then where?”
“In Bethlehem of Judea,” he said at last.
The Rabbi stopped and looked to one side and the other, and the heads of those two Rabbis beside him turned towards him. But nothing was said.
“Bethlehem,” said the Old Rabbi. “The city of David.”
Joseph didn’t answer.
“Why did you leave Nazareth and go there,” asked the Rabbi, “when the parents of your bride, Joachim and Anna, were failing in age?”
“Because of the census,” Joseph answered. “I had to go. I had still a piece of land left to me there in Bethlehem, to which our people returned after the Exile, and I had to claim that land or lose it. I went to register where my ancestors were born.”
“Hmmm …” said the Rabbi. “And you claimed it.”
“Yes. Claimed it and sold it. And the child was circumcised and his name was inscribed in the records of the Temple, as I’ve said, and such as they are.”
“Such as they are, indeed,” said the Rabbi, “until another King of the Jews chooses to burn them to hide his heritage.”
At that the other men laughed softly and nodded, and some of the older boys in the room laughed and I saw them for the first time.
I didn’t know what it meant. It seemed the bad doings of Old Herod, of which there were no end.
“And after that you went on to Egypt,” said the Rabbi.
“We worked in Alexandria, my brothers, and my wife’s brother and I,” said Joseph.
“And you, Cleopas, you left your mother and father and took your sister to Bethany?”
“Our mother and father had servants,” said Cleopas. “And Old Sarah daughter of Elias was with them, and Old Justus was not infirm.”
“Ah, so I remember,” said the Rabbi, “and you are so right. But how your parents wept for their son and their daughter.”
“And we wept for them,” said Cleopas.
“And you married an Egyptian woman.”
“A Jewish woman,” said Cleopas, “born and raised in the Jewish community in Alexandria. And of a good family who has sent you this.”
Here came a surprise.
He stretched out his hand with two small scrolls in it, both of them in fine cases with bronze trimming on them.
“What is this?” asked the Old Rabbi.
“You’re afraid to touch them, Rabbi?” asked Cleopas as he held out the gift. “Two short treatises from Philo of Alexandria, a scholar, a philosopher if you will, much admired by the Rabbis of Alexandria, and these purchased from published books in the market, and brought to you as a gift?”
The Rabbi stretched out his hand.
I took a deep breath as he took the scrolls.
I hadn’t known my uncle had such scrolls. Philo’s writings. I hadn’t dreamt of such a thing. And to see the Rabbi receive them made me feel so glad that the tears came again but I was as quiet as before.
“And how many gray hairs has Philo of Alexandria?” asked the Rabbi.
Everyone laughed at that in their secret way.
But I was much better because they were not talking about me.
“If he had you for an accuser, he’d have gray hairs aplenty!” Cleopas said.
I heard Joseph rebuking him in a whisper, but the boys were laughing, and a great bright smile spread over the Rabbi’s face.
Cleopas couldn’t stop himself.
“We should take up a collection,” he said, gesturing to the whole room, “and send the Rabbi to Alexandria. They are in dire need of Pharisees to straighten them out.”
More laughter.
The old Rabbi laughed. Then the other two Rabbis laughed. They all laughed.
“I thank you for your gift,” said the Old Rabbi. “Nothing’s changed with you. And now that you are here, skilled craftsmen that you are, all of you, you can see there is work to be done in this synagogue, which the old carpenter, may God rest him, was unable to do while you were gone.”
“I do see it,” said Joseph, “and we are your servants, and will repair everything as you wish. A fresh coat of paint for this place, and lintels, that much I can see is needed, and we’ll plaster the outside and see to the benches as you allow.”
Silence.
I looked up. The three old men were again looking at me.
Why? What more could be asked? What more could be said? I felt my face on fire again. I blushed but I didn’t know for what I was blushing. I blushed for all the eyes turned to me. The tears were wet on my face.
“Look at me, Jesus bar Joseph,” said the Rabbi.
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.