shall still have much to lament before I die, isn’t that so, Menachem? But when I think of you, Yeshua, I will not cry anymore and I will remember that small stars also shine at night.”
Then Yeshua quit the room before Menachem as though he knew the way better.
“The land of Galilee rises in the hills,” said a man at the city gates who acted as spokesman for the others. “But we descend the high mountains to Sheol.”1 Menachem thought of these words as he ran down the streets inside the town, seeking the blind alley where Joseph ben Yaacov the carpenter lived.
He found the dwelling of Yeshua’s father quickly. A man in grey work clothes stood in front of an open door sawing wood, which projected from a bench. That was surely Joseph.
“Peace be with you!” said Menachem.
“With you also peace!” replied Yeshua’s father.
“Where is your son Yeshua?”
Hardly had he spoken when Menachem saw Yeshua standing before him. He did not know whether Yeshua had appeared from a side passage beside the house, from the open doorway or from a street which ran into the carpenter’s alley like a small gulley.
“I came to speak to you,” said Menachem.
“You came to see our house and to compare it with your own. Afterwards you will say to yourself: “Blessed is Yeshua, for he has it better than I.”
“May I come in?” asked Menachem.
“Surely. All the boys from Nazareth are welcome here.”
Menachem stepped into a shabby room which was used for sleeping, cooking and baking.
“Good day, Menachem, peace be with you,” said a woman.
He saw a young woman of about twenty-eight, Yeshua’s mother.
Yeshua must have spoken of me then, thought the boy.
“Your son is the strongest boy in 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
