opened the door in the fence.
Ben Nesher looked at both young men. “You have helped me. That is still not one tenth of the work. You may depend upon it that I will not leave here alone. He who is not with us is unclean.”
“So also says Yochanan the Baptist who washes away sins in the Jordan,” observed Menachem. “There is too much talking in Israel. Each one has his own surety. But where is the real certainty when there are so many?”
“In faith,” replied Yeshua.
“There are too many beliefs, people must be careful. Each heart has its own niche,” remarked Menachem.
Yeshua turned away from them and Menachem shrugged his shoulders in a melancholy way. Yet Yeshua turned back, walked over to Ben Nesher—who had made himself a nest between the boards of a low shed—to tell him that he would bring him some blankets.
4
Menachem returned to his mother’s house no more for he knew that only a few servants and his father’s agent had remained behind. His father travelled much and Menachem feared that he did good business with the Tetrarch of Galilee, the sly fox Herod Antipas.
Marcus Mercator had taken a new wife unto himself, the daughter of a Greek Jew and an Edomite, and found joy therein. His father lived with the times, he had left those who grieve and proved in advance that one can escape the affliction of one’s people, albeit only for a time. His mother had returned to Jerusalem out of longing for the world of her childhood.
Absorbed in thoughts of Ben Nesher and his destiny, he headed in the direction of the Sea of Kinnereth, Then he turned back to Nazareth in order to meet Ben Nesher whom he had resolved to accompany. The Romans offended Israel greatly. The time for prudence had passed. In the book of Koheleth5 it was recommended how one ought to divide one’s time. Menachem remembered the line “There is a time for saving and a time for giving.”
Satisfied with his decision, Menachem re-ascended the street of the carpenters until he reached the alley of the jackals. He entered the enclosure and looked in the dry shed. Ben Nesher has vanished. And now there came a strange feeling over Menachem, for not only was Ben Nesher gone, but he likewise missed Yeshua’s presence. He ran into the house. In the only room which served as their dwelling sat Joseph the carpenter with his head in his hands. Miriam stood before the fire with tear-stained eyes.
“Where is Ben Nesher, the captain of Yehuda the Galilean?”
Joseph raised his arms and let them fall again.
Menachem looked around the low room. Never had he seen an enclosed space so empty or barren.
“He is gone,” replied Joseph and Miriam at the same time in an anxious tone.
“With Ben Nesher?”
“Are there still parallel roads then in Israel?” asked Miriam with a sob in her throat.
“Nay, not with Ben Nesher,” replied Joseph.
“He could not be otherwise,” groaned Miriam, and Joseph agreed with a sigh: “He could not be otherwise.”
“But it falls heavy on us. Yeshua was our light,” said Miriam.
“Let’s go outside, mother,” suggested Menachem. “It is too dark in here.”
Miriam understood Menachem; she bent under the low door and sat down on a bench in front of the hut. The young man sat down beside her, reaching out his hand which Miriam took and held in her lap while softly muttering: “Ben ami” which means “son of my people.”
Then she began to speak in a mournful voice. “He could not be otherwise but why not?” We know not why he has quit his father’s house without saying goodbye to us and waiting for our blessing.”
“It must have been hard for him also, Miriam.”
“It is hard for him but God knows where he must go. He was our light. Why did it have to be extinguished now?”
Then Miriam fell into the lamentations and recollections of a mother who stores the daily life of her child in the treasure-house of her soul. For a mother is nourished by her weaned children.
“Yeshua was ever a strange child, Menachem. Perhaps that was bound up with the dream I had when I carried him. Once many years ago his father and I went with him to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover feast. There were many with us from Nazareth and surrounds. We celebrated the festival joyously, ate the matzos in the field outside the city and each day we went together to the Beit HaMikdash.”6
“During the first days of the festival I never saw Yeshua happier than in the Temple. He looked around all over as though he wanted to carry everything away with him. But toward the end of the festival he said: ‘I will not return there for the present.’”
“‘Why?’ his father and I asked.
‘Because I can see nothing in front of me but the ground and I wish to look up.’ Thus the last days he did not go with us to the Holy Temple.”
“Then came the time when the festival was over and we began to count the summer days. Our people from Nazareth went back with other groups from the neighborhood and we remained together. For we had to pass through the land of Samaria. After the Passover feast the Samaritans are not to be trusted because they are jealous of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Yeshua walked with us and from time to time I set him on top of Sirach the farmer’s donkey. The second morning I wished to comb his hair. He was gone. And he had not slept beside me that night. His father and I were greatly disturbed. We ran from one group to the other.
But Yeshua was not there and no one had seen him. Should we mourn over him? I could not do it. I prayed to God: ‘Take my life. But let me not mourn over Yeshua and let me not live if my child does not live. You spared Isaac for the sake of Sarah and Samuel for the sake of Hannah. You have not taken him away, that cannot be.’ Then I found peace. A whole morning I had peace but his father still wandered around seeking him with eyes cast down. At midday I became uneasy again. One’s confidence does not last long when something dear to you is lost. It is a sin; one should have faith but so much had happened. At midday I became sorely uneasy once more so I sought him in the multitudes again. God heard me calling and imploring ‘Yeshua, Yeshua, my child!’
He did not come. Had the bears caught him? I covered my eyes with my hands. Could it be that the Samaritans had carried him off for service on top of Mount Gerizim because he was a Jew?
‘We may not mourn yet, wife,’ said my husband.
‘We may not mourn yet,’ I said to him.
Then God gave me peace. We went on. We gave ourselves additional respite. And when we arrived in Nazareth, the child stood at the door. I fell upon the ground and I called out: ‘Blessed be God. Praised be the Lord, for He gives children to a mother and He does not take them away before He has taken the mother!’”
“Amen!” said Joseph. “May His Name be praised forever and ever.”
“But Yeshua did not understand; he stared at us with eyes wide.
