Jesus and Menachem. Siegfried E. van Praag
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“I shall bring you to my mother,” said Menachem. “If you wish to make her happy, pretend you’re my friend.”
Entering the atrium they came to a large oblong room where a broad stone table stood on curved ebony legs. On the shelves on the walls stood a row of brightly colored plates and dishes. Against the wall of the great room a seven-branched candelabrum blazed on top of an ivory table. The stone floor was richly overlaid with dark carpets. It was a room which seemed to absorb the light in waves, and to give it back only here and there on the edge of some gaudy metal leaf.
“Here we eat,” said Menachem. “Come.” He lifted a hanging carpet in the corner of the oblong room, and he and Yeshua entered a dark corridor. Only by feeling one’s way could one ascertain that this small space was sealed here by walls and there by yielding tapestries. But before they could push one of the carpets aside they heard groans, followed a moment later by a sob.
“That is my mother,” said Menachem. “She is unhappy because my father is not good to her. Now you know all about our house. If you wish to go back, I will take you out again.”
“Why should I do that?” said Yeshua. “I would rather go on.”
Menachem turned his head towards him in the darkness. There was something enigmatic in Yeshua’s voice.
“I must warn you,” he said, “it is not cheerful.” He shoved the tapestry aside and immediately the two of them stood in a luxurious woman’s apartment.
A slightly decaying and perfumed impression of flowers and tropical plants, budding and dying simultaneously, prevailed there in the room.
Menachem’s mother leaned against the pillows of the couch but her hands refused to lie still. Now they caressed her hair, now her bosom, and now they locked together spasmodically again upon her lap. Menachem ran swiftly to his mother and threw himself on his knees like a young camel.
“Is it you, Menachem? Come to me.”
His shoulders fell back, and his mother caught his head in her lap again as though it were a sacrifice.
“Menachem, my comforter,” crooned the woman.
“Is there bad news, mother? I heard you weeping.”
“Ask rather if there is good news. Does one ask the night whether the heavens are black? Nay, one asks if there are stars in the sky, Menachem. God has closed his doors to our people and myself,” the woman groaned again. “What must we do, my son? Go to Jerusalem, go to the rabbis, to Gamaliel who was my father’s friend, to Sirach the Hillelite. Perhaps they will teach you what a person must do. Your mother does not know any more. I begged heaven for a child, I, who was barren, I prayed for you but I was already afraid you would be born. I implored you for my sake and already before your birth I feared for your peace. I asked God for a child and I hoped for the child’s sake that my wish would be denied. Is there still a man in Israel then who knows which way one must go? A messenger came to tell me that a troop of Roman soldiers seized my brother Azaria near the village of Hebron. They slew him. God knows it is time for Him to fight, isn’t that so, Menachem?”
“And father?” asked the boy.
“It goes well with your father. This week he is being welcomed by Antipas in Tiberias and receives a commission” she sighed again. “I have heard it said that your father will not return home alone. He has fallen in love with a young woman. A new wife stands above a forgotten wife, Menachem. New children will come. I fear greatly that your father will forget you completely. The son of Rachel, who is nothing more to him now. It cannot be otherwise. I am growing old.”
“It could be otherwise,” interrupted Yeshua, who from a distance had taken in the conversation. He was still standing directly in front of the doorway. Behind him on the wall, blue fountains were interwoven in the tapestry.
Menachem knew that it could not be otherwise and he wanted to say so but Yeshua looked handsome in front of the wall curtains and he had spoken without hesitation.
It was only now that his mother saw there was someone else present in her room. She looked up, her eyes fascinated by the figure of the boy, for there was something very detached in Yeshua’s demeanor, and yet his body was vigorous as though rooted to the spot where he accidentally stood. The image of a young palm tree flashed instantly through her mind. His eyes wore an expression of strange certainty. The words lay ready in his mouth, his lips parted as though he wished to close them, immediately after he had uttered his words. She had no desire to look at his hair, for she had already seen it.
“Who is this boy?” she asked Menachem.
“He is my friend,” answered her son, springing up and standing beside Yeshua. Did he wish to hinder Yeshua from saying he was not Menachem’s friend? Was it because Menachem suddenly knew that he and Yeshua formed a pair?
“Come here, boy,” said the mother and she gave him a hand, which was not the custom of women in Israel. Yeshua, also against his wont, took her hand.
“I am glad Menachem has a friend,” she said. “He has so much to give and to receive! Who are you? But no matter. I’ve seen you. I know more about you than if I knew your name and origin. I thank you for wanting to be Menachem’s friend.”
Menachem thought that Yeshua would surely say now: “I am not his friend.” For although he was still a child, his sharp powers of discrimination had perceived that for Yeshua uprightness came before compassion. Yet Yeshua remained silent; perhaps he was really Menachem’s friend then.
“We are going away now, mother,” said Menachem. “We wish to play and talk together. Yeshua is a carpenter’s son. His father is Joseph ben Yaacov of Nazareth. He did not want his companions to throw stones at me just because I’m a rich man’s son.”
“No one is guilty for his birth,” remarked Yeshua.
“Nay,” said the woman, “no one is responsible for his birth but some people must throw off their birth while others adhere to it firmly. Then if they do no good their guilt begins. But what kind of talk is this for a child? I am a Jerusalemite, Yeshua. And Jerusalem has seen too many things. My father was a pupil of the great Hillel.”
“Mother also knows Greek and Latin.”
“Oh, I know many languages, too many languages. But what does it avail to know languages in order to read how people slander our folk?”
“In order to bless,” said Yeshua.
“In order to bless,” repeated the woman. “We always wanted to bless,” she continued. “The people take our blessings and give us curses in return. A friend of my father said that a long time ago.”
“Still we must bless,” insisted Yeshua.
“Yes, still we must bless,” agreed the woman, “but it is difficult to bless when they strike us on the hands. You are wise for a boy of your years, Yeshua but I am used to that. Menachem is wise also.”
Menachem laid a hand on Yeshua’s arm to pull him away from his house which