It felt odd to be back in Natsarat again, Miriam thought as she walked into the sleepy little village. But she wouldn’t be here long, just along enough to pack several of her things she had left in the house, make sure the widows were truly being cared for, to sell her fields, and dispose of her house. It felt odd to finally cut the ties to this village where she had spent so much of her life, where she had been visited by an angel and raised her son, where Yosef and she had lived, where Yosef had died. She’d been a stranger here, once. And now, walking through the village, she felt a stranger here, once again.
Yehuda, Yaacov, Lucas, the physician, Yochanan bar Zebedee, Halphai, along with Halphai’s Miriam, Miriamne, Shoshonah, and several of the other women, had accompanied her on the long walk from Yerushalayim. It was good to have with her people who had loved her son. That made her feel a little less lonely.
Lucas, Yochanan, and several of the women came inside her little house with her. She was glad for their support when she saw the utter mess inside her house. Everywhere, there was destruction. Her serving dishes and clay cooking pots lay in shards. The table had been tipped over with one of the legs broken. The chairs were gone. The fine cabinet that Yosef and Yehoshua had made to hold Zechariah’s scrolls was gone. The scrolls were gone.
“What kind of person could steal the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings?” she asked on a whisper, her voice breaking. “Maybe, just maybe, the scrolls will lead whoever stole them to repentance.”
“We can only pray that they do,” Miriamne answered. “But they’ve probably been taken to a city and sold. Such things are immensely valuable.”
Miriam sighed heavily. “I know.” She forced herself to continue to take inventory of the room. The couch on which Yosef had died was gone. Her flax wheel and all her tools were gone. There was nothing of her life left here. Nothing, except memories.
“Well, we can’t stay here,” she said, blinking back tears. “Not like this.”
Lucas touched the wrecked table. “Did your husband make this table for you?”
Miriam nodded. “He made it. It was here when I came to this place after Yosef and I had our kiddushin in Yerushalayim.”
“And you and the Master ate all of your meals from here?” Lucas asked.
“Most of them.”
“People will want to know what you look like and what the Master looked. I’d like to paint an image of the two of you, using a board from the table top as the base."
She sighed. “Well, the table’s not good for much more than kindling now, so I suppose there would be no harm in taking a board from it.”
“Let us help clear away this mess,” Miriamne said. “We can still stay here. The roof is sound. The walls are sound. Clearing this won’t take more than an hour or so, if we all work at it. Better to stay inside than outside, particularly with the smell of rain in the air.”
“Always wise,” Miriam said. “Very well. Yes, let us clear away this destruction.”
The room, when they finished working, was nearly as empty as it had been on that day Miriam had returned from her visit to Elisheva and Zechariah. She stood there looking at the empty room and thinking that this was very much what life was; bringing nothing but one’s soul at birth and taking nothing but one’s soul at death.
So much of her life had been lived within these four walls, although there was no hint, now, that anyone had ever occupied this house. Perhaps that’s how it should be.
She sighed.
Miriamne touched her shoulder. “This too will pass, Miriam. You were planning to sell the place anyway. And the things here were just things.”
“They the last things I had of my Yosef. I suppose whoever did this was looking for gold and silver. At least, I’d taken the coinage with me, so that was one thing they couldn’t get. I truly hope Zechariah’s scrolls ended up in good hands. I hope my flax tools have gone to someone who will use them skillfully.”
“Those were probably sold,” Miriamne said.
“I know,” Miriam replied on a sigh. “I’d promised Yoni I would keep those scrolls for the rest of my life then I would see that they went to someone who educated children.”
“They still might have gone to that purpose,” Miriamne offered.
“Perhaps,” she allowed.
“We could ask around and find out if anyone heard or saw anything,” Lucas said. “Perhaps we can discover who did this.”
Miriam looked around for a moment or two, then she sighed, “No. This could have happened at any time. It really doesn’t matter. I’ll do what I came here to do, dispose of the property. I would have liked to have kept the scrolls. But they’re in my mind. So, I’ll always have them. At least, the only things they broke were the table and the dishes. I assume the rest of the pieces are being used by someone. Yosef would have liked knowing that his work is still being used. He would have liked that, very much. I can afford to replace my tools. I would have liked to have my flax wheel and tools, because Yosef made those for me. But I should be able to replace those.”
“Yes. A competent carpenter can make them for you,” Lucas replied. “Halphai can do that for you.”
“Or Yoses,” Miriam allowed. “Right now, I need to lay in supplies so I can feed all of you. Unless I can borrow a cooking pot, we’ll be eating cold meals.”
“Cold meals won’t kill any of us.”
“No. They won’t. I need to go see about laying in some food.”
Miriamne nodded. “I will walk with you.”
Miriam walked first to the workshop of her stepson, Shimon.
“Shalom, Shimon,” she greeted him as he sat at his potters wheel.
“Are you back to stay now?” he asked her, not looking up from the work he was doing.
“No. Just long enough to sell everything.”
“I see,” Shimon replied after a moment. He finished the bowl he had been making and removed it from the wheel. “Where will you live?” he asked as he took the bowl over to a rack.
“In Yerushalayim, for now. Shimon, I came home to find my house vandalized and virtually empty. I need a cooking pot and some serving dishes. Do you have any in stock that you could sell or loan to me?”
“Of course. They are a gift, Miriam.”
“I will return them to you when I leave Natsarat.”
“As you wish. I’ll send one of my grandsons over to your house with a cooking pot, a mortar and pessle, several bowls, and a couple of serving dishes. And a few other things you’ll need, including some flour and salt, dried fish, and cheese. I’ll send over some onions and some yeast. As well as a skin of wine.”
“I appreciate that, Shimon. Shalom.”
“We still are family, Miriam. You said you intend to sell everything?”
“My house, my fields.”
“Abba’s workshop and the bigger house?”
“No. The workshop belongs to Halphai. And the house to Yehuda. Those things aren’t mine to sell.”
“I would buy your fields and the smaller house. Leah’s Mahir died last month after an illness that also took their son and twin daughters. She has come back home to live, as her husband’s family made it clear they had no intention of supporting her. She could use both the fields to support herself and your house as a place to live. Would you sell those to me for her?”
“The fields and house are Leah’s. A gift from me. Yosef would have wanted them to stay in the family.”
“I will take the house as a gift. Abba built that. And it would have made him happy for it to go to one of his grandchildren. The fields, however, I’ll buy from you. You bought them. You worked hard to buy them. You should have your money back.”
She told him what she had paid for the fields.
Her stepson nodded. “That’s less than what they are worth. I can have the full value to you by the first day of the week.”
“Very well. I’ll have Yehuda draw up the deed. Shall I make it to Leah or to you?”
“To Leah. I need to get back to work now, Miriam. I have to deliver a set of dishes for a new bride in ten days, and I haven’t even finished making them yet, let alone glazing and firing them.”
“Of course. I don’t want to keep you. Shalom, Shimon.”
Without a table, they ate their dinner while seated on the floor of her house. It wasn’t much of a meal, just unleavened bread and dried fish, washed down with water from the village well, but many people had less to eat than they had.
They sang their praises to God. Having no lamps and only a few candles, they went to sleep early in order to save the candles. It was good to sleep under a roof, for a change, especially when she awoke to hear the rain hitting the roof during the night.
Over the next few days, Miriam spent much time with Leah, who wore her sorrow as if it were a second skin.
“So much death,” Leah remarked on Preparation Day as the two of them worked on kneading bread.
“Everyone who is born will die,” Miriam said. “But this life is not all of life. Yehoshua taught that we can have eternal life.”
“That won’t help my Mahir, Rakhel, Anna, and little Yaacov,” Leah said.
“Mahir was a righteous man. Do you not believe the souls of the righteous are in the hands of Elohim?”
For the first time that day, Leah smiled. “I love you, Miriam.”
“You have been precious to me Leah, since the morning you were born. People say you shouldn’t have favorites among your grandchildren. But I have had a favorite, and that’s been, will always be, you.”
Leah was quiet for a long time. “Savta,” grandmother, she said, then her voice broke and tears began to fall.
Miriam was somewhat taken aback. Leah hadn’t called her savta since she was a very small child. “There, there,” Miriam said, then she tried to jolly Leah out of this sadness. “If you cry on the bread, you’ll just make it sticky and salty.”
Leah laughed much to Miriam’s relief.
“Life isn’t easy, my dearest granddaughter. Sometimes, it can be beyond difficult to get through the bad times. Yet, nothing, no pain, no joy, no good times, no bad times, last forever. ‘Weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning.’ Your joy will return. You are strong. You will come through this.”
“If I’m strong, it’s only because I have your example to pattern myself on.”
“My dear, I have no strength of my own. My only strength is in Avinu Malkeinu. If you follow in my footsteps, you will spend your life seeking always to be his servant, seeking to remain always close to him.”
Leah sighed as she formed a loaf out of the lump of dough she’d been kneading.
Miriam placed her loaf on a tray then began working on another lump of dough.
Leah asked, her voice low, “Do you really believe that Yehoshua is the Moshiach?”
“I do. All of his life was a fulfillment of prophecy.”
“Did he really rise up to heaven?”
“He did.”
“I would have liked to see that.”
“I’ll never forget that sight.”
“No,” Leah said lowly, “I’d imagine not. Abba wants me to stay in Natsarat, work the fields for flax and weave. I know he’s spoken to you about buying your fields for me.”
“He wants you to be able to support yourself.”
“Yes. But I don’t want to be here. Could I come back to Yerushalayim with you, Savta?”
“You are a grown woman, Leah. I am not going to tell you what to do with your life. You need to think seriously about what you want in your life. The life of a childless widow is not easy. At least, if you stayed in Natsarat, you would have your family nearby to help, if you need it. Yochanan bar Zebedee has agreed for the love of my son to take me into his home as if I were his mother.”
“And there is no room for me, is that what you are saying?” Leah asked, her voice pained.
“Nothing of the kind. I’m certain that Yochanan would welcome you, if I asked him.”
“I could spend my time in the Temple. It is an honorable life.”
“Yes. To serve in the Temple is a worthy way to spend one’s life. Normally, that service is kept for older widows who are past the years of childbearing.”
“You served.”
“Until I was of a marriageable age.”
“Do you still miss my Saba?”
“Yosef was dear to me. I will miss him deeply until we are reunited in the resurrection.”
“You really believe that we will live again after we are dead?”
“I believe my son when he said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.’ This he said just before he raised Eleazaros from the tomb. I was there with him, then. But, we need to keep working, while we talk. We still have bread to knead and form into loaves.”
Shabbat dinner was like all Shabbat dinners. It was good to have her family, even if they were only relatives by marriage and not by blood, around her. Conversation was lively, but not about anything in particular. Miriam wasn’t paying close attention to the flow of conversation. It was just so nice to have a semblance of normalcy, even for just a brief time. These moments were rare and precious. She just wanted to savor the feeling.
Leah spoke to her, “You look like you are a day’s walk away.”
Miriam shook her head. “Just lost in thought.”
“I was saying that I’ve decided to stay in Natsarat. This is home,” Leah said.
“I think that’s very wise, Leah, my dear,” Miriam said.
“You could stay here and live with me, Miriam,” Leah offered, her voice hopeful. “Just two widows living together, spinning, and weaving. We could be company for one another.”
“Yehoshua arranged for me to live with Yochanan bar Zebedee. This is what he wanted. I feel closer to him when I follow the plans he made for me.”
Leah’s expression became thoughtful. “I suppose that’s important to you. But always know that you can come home and I’ll have a place for you.”
“By the time that I’ll be needing help, Leah, you’ll be busy caring for your parents,” Miriam said. “For now, I’m fine.”
“If you’re sure?” Leah asked. “I’d really like to have you with me.”
“I’d love to stay with you. But, I have my son’s work to carry on. I can help his people better, if I’m in Yerushalayim.”
Leah nodded.
Shimon said, “Do you think that’s wise, Miriam? The authorities didn’t spare him. What makes you think that they won’t come for you and his people, too?”
Halphai replied, “They might. But they’ve seen the signs of the prophecies. That’s given them pause. And we’re not a small group anymore.”
“Are you going back to Yerushalayim, too, Halphai?” Shimon asked.
“Yoses is doing well running the shop by himself. I haven’t been much good to him, since he won’t let me do my share of the heavy work.”
“I don’t want you hurt again, Abba,” Yoses interjected.
Halphai nodded. “I can be of use in Yerushalayim. There is much work to be done.”
“You actually intend to carry on Yehoshua’s work,” Shimon stated, as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Yes, we actually intend to carry on his work, beginning at Yerushalayim and taking his message to all the world, as he asked us to just before he ascended into heaven,” Halphai replied, with a smile.
Shimon shook his head. “You ask us to believe impossible things. First, that my brother was the Mosiach. Second, that he rose from the dead after being crucified. Third, that he walked among you for forty days after his resurrection and that he ascended into heaven in your sight. This all is difficult to believe.”
“Have you ever known us to be untruthful?” Halphai asked, without either heat or offense in his voice.
“No,” Shimon allowed. “I have never known any of you to lie.”
“Then the only reason you don’t believe us is because you don’t want to do so,” Miriam offered.
Shimon, taking offense, stood. “I don’t believe this because it would mean stopping being a son of the covenant!”
“Sit down, Shimon,” Halphai said. “Let me explain to you the prophecies.”
Shimon sat. Halphai systemically went through the prophecies one by one and showed how Yehoshua had fulfilled them. “And so, you see, believing in Yehoshua is nothing more than being faithful to the covenant.”
Yosef’s son, Shimon, took a drink of wine. “You present a compelling case.”
“The truth is always compelling,” Halphai replied.
“Did Yehoshua say what was required to have the eternal life he so often spoke of?” Shimon asked.
“To repent and be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” Halphai replied.
“Are you equating Yehoshua with Avinu Malkeinu?” Shimon demanded, clearly shocked.
Miriam said, “My son taught that those who had seen him had seen the Father, that he and the Father are one.”
“It is blasphemy for any man to make himself equal with Avinu Malkeinu,” Shimon said, his voice flat, too controlled. It was obvious to her that he was angry almost beyond words.
“It is not blasphemy to make that statement if it is the act of Avinu Malkeinu, himself. With my son, it is so,” Miriam said. “Before the world was, Yehoshua existed. Did you never wonder who Elohim spoke to when in the beginning he said ‘Let us make man in our own image’?”
There was silence at the table. She watched everyone look at one another, some in joy, others in dawning acceptance, at Shimon wearing a questioning look.
Miriam continued, “The Holy Spirit moved upon the waters at the beginning of time. He is the author of life. Yet, it is Elohim, who is the author of life. The Holy Spirit is one with Avinu Malkeinu. They are one. And yet, Avinu Malkeinu is not the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is not Avinu. It is a matter of revelation and great mystery that Elohim is both one and three, consisting of Avinu, Yehoshua, and the Holy Spirit, and yet the persons we see in Elohim do not change the long established revelation that Elohim is one. It is a great truth and beyond our ability to understand.”
“I certainly don’t understand this,” Shimon said, unbending a bit.
“Have you ever thought about the fact that even our name for him, the word Elohim, is plural?” Miriam asked, her voice quiet.
“But the Sh’ma says that he is one,” Shimon replied.
Miriam nodded. “It does. Do you believe that the human mind is able to fully understand Elohim?”
“No more than a bucket can hold the sea,” Shimon replied on a sigh.
Miriam nodded. “Is it not possible, Shimon, that Elohim has been slowly revealing himself to us? First, He made a covenant with Adam. That contract, Adam and Cheva broke through disobedience. Later, He made a contract with Noach. And even later still, He made a contract with Father Avraham. Elohim protected and gave great wisdom to Yosef in Egypt. Still later, Elohim showed himself in the burning bush to Moshe. He made the covenant with the people at Sinai. And later, he spoke through David, Shlomo, and all the prophets through the ages. Gradually, our understanding of Elohim has grown as He has given the light for us to see Him more clearly. That revelation of Himself has continued through my son’s life, a life that the prophets foretold. And what Yehoshua has taught us about the nature of Elohim, that He and Avinu are one, yet are different, that Elohim consists of three persons in unity, all of this must be taken profoundly seriously.”
Shimon sipped from his glass of wine again. “Yes. I see that. Yet, if this is so, then I have done my brother a gross injustice.”
“He loved and forgave you,” Miriam said.
“I did love him. But, I was unkind to him,” Shimon said, his voice holding sorrow. “He made me quite angry more than once. I thought he was acting in a way that would endanger his life and the family, as well. I was frightened for him.”
“Have you considered that your anger might have been more your fault than His?” Halphai asked, his voice quiet, in a way that reminded her so much of Yosef when angry.
Miriam watched Halphai and Shimon exchange looks.
Shimon looked away and sighed. “Perhaps.” He was quiet for a moment before he added, “Probably. Yehoshua wasn’t the type to hold a grudge. I am.”
And that was as close to an acknowledgement as they were likely to get, Miriam knew.
Then Shimon surprised her by saying, seemingly withsincerity, “And is this baptism all that I must do to have the eternal life promised by my brother?”
Miriam smiled at him. “When a young rich man came to my son with that question about what he must do to inherit eternal life, Yehoshua told him to keep the commandments. Then before He was arrested, Yehoshua gave us a new commandment, to love one another as he has loved us. He said, ‘By this shall all people know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’ And just before He ascended into heaven, he commanded us to go into all the world to tell the good news and to baptize all in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I know that you have kept halakhah all your life, Shimon. Will you be baptized into the name of the three persons of Elohim and accept this mystery of new birth?”
“My brother always had more of an ability to love than I have had,” Shimon said, his voice tight.
“Naturally,” Halphai said, “he was Elohim come to us in flesh. Elohim is love.”
“How can any person love the way that Elohim does?” Shimon asked, not dismissing the thought, but honestly asking.
“Only by allowing Elohim to love through us. Of our own strength, we cannot do this thing. We must depend fully upon Elohim for strength,” Miriam said. “We must be His hands in the world because He has chosen to work through us.”
Shimon replied, “He took my breath away when, after Abba died, he said his mission was to call the children of Yisra’el to repentance and bring the Goyim to Elohim. But that is precisely what he has put into play, is it not?”
“It is,” Miriam said.
Shimon sat there for the longest time. “Halphai, I see that you are right. To follow my brother is to be faithful to El Ele Yisra’el. I would be baptized into His baptism.”