Jesus and Menachem. Siegfried E. van Praag
Nazareth, he saved my life,” he said, wanting to please her.
A smile appeared on Miriam’s face.
“I have much joy of Yeshua. I am glad when I hear something good of him. Three months before he was born I saw an angel at night. He predicted to me that Yeshua would become a great man in Israel, and he likened me to Sarah and Hannah. It is all very bewildering for a simple woman from Nazareth.”
Menachem looked at Yeshua’s mother. She had a friendly face.
Over her head she wore a red cloth with yellow ringlets. His eyes surveyed the room. On the east wall which faced Jerusalem somebody had scratched a candlestick in the white plaster. A crude bench stood in a corner. On the long side lay the mats where Yeshua and his parents slept. On a wooden block was a stone beaker which leaked at one end. Into this, oil was poured at night to provide illumination.
“The times are bad,” observed Menachem.
Miriam sighed. “The idolators have come again purposely. I heard a man say that with one leap, we . . .”
Menachem was about to retort that violence would only lead Galilee straight to hell but he felt that it did not become him and he did not wish to spoil the good humor of his friend’s mother.
“The Romans can do nothing to us!” rang out Yeshua’s voice.
“That cannot be said, Yeshua,” interrupted Menachem, “they have done us so much evil already. They tortured Ezekiel to death and now they seek his son Yehuda.”
“The Romans can only harm us if we permit them!”
And although Menachem was not of the same mind as Yeshua, still he remained silent for he loved the certainty with which his friend spoke.
1. Hell.
2
The days undulated once and forever in their appointed time. The days galloped over time like the horses of mounted legions and never returned. Who sat on the days and rode through time? Only the living and in the midst of these, Yeshua and Menachem. And sometimes the riders met other legions on the backs of days, the events which tore past them. So Yeshua and Menachem rode on the backs of their days. And in the light of the visible days they frequently walked, it chanced, quietly without looking at each other, up the mountainous road to the village of Kefar-Nachum.2
Both were now already grown men who were no longer ashamed of their gravity. The times were hard. From Judea to Galilee the fate of Israel reeled from the blows and God’s interests suffered. From Judea, where Valerius Gratus oppressed the people and profaned the Invisible Name, came somber tidings. In Galilee men clinched the fist of revolt.
If as Jews they could not live as they wished, they could at least die in their own manner. For they were not afraid of death. The idolators had sucked out the last possession of the Israelites, they had taken away their last earthly joy, but they had also removed their last smoldering vestige of fear and terror.
Yeshua and Menachem brooded over the terrible idolators, while walking, each in his own fashion, and asked themselves fearfully whether a seed of the future still lay in the hard stony ground.
All at once they heard a swelling, buzzing clamor, and a troop of Roman horsemen thundered by. Romans? There were mercenaries there from all the unknown parts of the world—Gauls, Scythians, Germans.
The youths slipped down along the steep slope of the road, under which the valley lay waiting like a loving deathbed. Their fingers clung tightly to the edge of a rock. Their feet found a slight projection in the face of the precipice. If they had not chosen the spot overhanging the abyss, the horsemen would have ridden them underfoot, for the death of the enemy was their business, and the death of the innocent their diversion.
“I want to see what they are up to,” whispered Menachem. “They are taking the road to Nazareth. Let’s climb up the path and follow them.”
“Nay,” said Yeshua. “I have naught to do with idolators.”
Menachem pressed his feet against the precipice, braced his knees and elbows and stood up on the road again. He had a light step and great endurance. He ran after the troop of horsemen but by now the riders were hidden from view by a wagon and its driver. Menachem trotted still harder and shot over the road like a leopard. One jump and he grabbed the high back wall of the wagon firmly while letting his feet trail over the wheels.
“If the driver sees he has a traveler, I will grab him by the shoulders and strangle him. I will slay him like Moses slew the Egyptian.”
The soldiers were commanded by an officer with the high overbearing type of Roman face. They rode into the town of Nazareth where the command “Halt!” resounded. When the men sprang from their horses Menachem slid under the wagon. The commander assigned some soldiers to find shelter for the animals; three of them took the reins and immediately marched away.
Menachem crawled to the back of the wagon, stole to the edge of the road and slowly stood erect. He was just about to step out as an ordinary pedestrian when the captain espied him and ordered one of his men to bring him the young Jew.
“Galilean?”
“Nay, Judean.”
“Do you live here?”
“Aye.”
“Are there many strong youths in his place?”
“Nay, Nazareth is poor. The men have gone away. The authorities have taken away the farmers” ploughs and confiscated the tools of the tradesmen. They cannot earn a living here anymore. Therefore they have gone to Tiberias and Caesarea where money can be found.”
“We can use you, boy. We have need of men—for the slave mart. They ought to bring the money you have hidden from Caesar’s treasury. Show me and my men the way. If we catch ten of them we will set you free and your father will not need to redeem you from slavery. Now show us the way.”
At that instant Menachem uttered a piercing scream and struck the Roman commander’s chin with his skull. The soldiers set out in pursuit but Menachem had already disappeared in the running maze of streets which were traversed by small blind alleys where it was impossible to tell one house from another in the public road—unless the idolators set fire to the buildings.
In those days all the people of Nazareth knew the Jerusalemite and looked upon him as a familiar stranger in their midst. As a child he had been a dreamer, a refined son of the capital. Who knew what he had in his mind? As a young man he made it a point of honor to be a helper to the townspeople of Nazareth, a simple friend of everyone in the village, one who enters everywhere and to whom each one said: “Shalom Aleichem.”3
He helped the women carry water or thresh grain and an old man to chop wood. Why he did this he did not know. Probably out of compassion. Menachem was like a tree which must stretch its branches downward in order to protect something from rotting and falling asunder.
Despite his gauntness the Jerusalemite had developed into a handsome youth. Even in this land of black-haired people, the glint of his smooth, luxurious hair was striking. His swift gliding movements, his almost dancing gait had a certain charm. Precisely because Menachem loved the daily life of the earth was he noticed by all the young women and maidens of Nazareth. He was thinking of one of them, of Yocheved, the daughter of Abba ben Alexander when he fled from the Romans. Her house was a large one in front of the village and he knew of a hole in the ground there through which he could enter. The Romans, most likely, would not search for him there, for old Abba—who was somewhat domineering—possessed no sons.
Thus Menachem raced up the streets southwards from which Mount Tabor now appeared, now vanished in the panorama. Finally he reached a road of which only one side was occupied by houses. From this