Judah
We must not linger in Modein,” Father told the villagers at his hastily arranged meeting. “We cannot go about our work and wait for the king’s authorities to come.”
“Perhaps we should send someone to Jerusalem to listen for rumors,” Simon suggested. “The story will probably reach that city before nightfall tomorrow. All it will take is one traveler to stop here for water.”
“We could hide the bodies,” Johanan suggested. “Bury them in the sand. That would grant us time.”
“Not much,” I pointed out. “Those three men have friends who will wonder what happened to them. They will come here and ask questions.”
“What about those who remain in the village?” Eleazar asked. “What of our wives and our livestock?”
“Our children are young,” Simon said. “They cannot travel far, and they cannot travel quickly.”
Mattathias lifted his hand, silencing the debate. “We will leave Modein at sunrise tomorrow,” he said. “All of us. We will drive our livestock before us and travel across the watershed to the Desert of Beth-haven. There we can hide our women and children in the caves. We can hunt for meat and eat wild herbs.”
I glanced at Leah, who met my gaze with a tight look around her eyes. She had been expecting this news, but the expectation had not made it easier to hear.
“How long?” Simon asked, looking at his pregnant wife. “How long must we remain in the wilderness?”
Mattathias shook his head. “As long as the Lord wills. Until the king relents.”
My mind vibrated with a thousand thoughts, none of them terribly clear. “If we go to the wilderness,” I said, thinking of our forefathers who spent forty years in the desert, “we must not behave like victims. We will put our women and children out of harm’s way, but we men must fight for freedom. We can hasten the end of our exile by harassing the king’s representatives wherever and whenever we can. We can sabotage the work of the governor’s men. We can raid apostate villages and pull down heathen altars.”
A smile gathered up the wrinkles by Father’s lined mouth. “We will not remain a small group,” he said, tenting his hands. “Others will certainly join us. Most of the Hasidim still revere Adonai’s laws. They will join us in the struggle, and HaShem will give us the strength and wisdom we need. And He will provide the men.”
“No matter what, we will firmly adhere to the Law of the Lord,” I added. “We will not eat swine. We will circumcise our sons on the eighth day. And we will honor and observe the Sabbath.”
“Wait.” Father shot me a warning glance. “We cannot forget that Jerusalem was attacked on the Sabbath. Neither can we forget the other group who was pursued by the king’s soldiers because they refused to sacrifice to him in their village. When the Sabbath came, they hid in a cave, and when they were discovered, they refused to come out, for that would have violated the Sabbath laws.”
Emotions moved beneath the surface of Father’s face, like a hidden spring struggling to break through. “Though over a thousand men, women, and children sheltered in the cavern, the king’s men built a fire at the entrance and killed them all.”
After a collective gasp, the debates began once more.
“How can we violate the Law?”
“How can we lie down to die?”
Protestations and angry buzzing rose from the assembly until my father lifted his hand again.
“Consider this, my brothers—HaShem did not tell us to rest on the Sabbath for His sake, for He does not need to rest. He created a day of rest for our sakes, but a man cannot rest when his family is under attack. In a time like this, we must make an exception to the Law regarding the Sabbath, or the Gentiles will take advantage of our obedience and our people will be utterly destroyed.”
“So,” Simon said, staring thoughtfully at Father, “we will allow for self-defense on the Sabbath. We will not attack on the seventh day, but if they come for us, we will be free to defend our people.”
We fell silent, most of us recognizing the irony in the words. We were fighting for the right to observe the Law of Moses, but in order to do that we would have to make an exception where none had been granted before. We would have to bear arms on the day of rest, knowing that hundreds of our people had died rather than do what we were planning to do.
But Father was right. If we did not deviate from the Law in this situation, the Gentiles would simply attack on the seventh day, knowing we would meet them like meek and defenseless sheep.
“So be it,” I said, meeting Father’s gaze. “We will modify the Law in order to preserve the Law . . . and our people along with it.”