The Ironsmith

by Nicholas Guild

  Power was the one goal in life and, behind it, fear lurked as the only reality.

  32

  Never in his life had Noah been so impatient for a Sabbath. In the early afternoon of the preceding day, Abijah arrived to accompany him and Sarah to Nazareth. Noah closed the shop and they started out.

  As usual, his sister and her betrothed had no attention for anyone except each other, and Noah was content to be alone with his thoughts.

  Tomorrow, or possibly even today, he would see Deborah again. At the Sabbath dinner they would probably have a chance to speak to one another. Then, in another two days, the wedding would take place. He would not see his house again until he was able to lead her into it as his bride.

  He had not thought it possible to miss anyone the way he had missed her during these few days.

  Be patient, he told himself. Only three days.

  They found Grandfather sitting beside his doorway. He looked up and smiled. Then he put aside the latch lock he had been repairing, wiped his hands on a torn piece of cloth, and stood up to greet them. He kissed Sarah, who then went into the house. He put his hand on his grandson’s shoulder and then nodded to Abijah, who took the hint.

  “I have it in mind to call on my friend Abner,” Abijah said.

  When he was gone, Benjamin shook his head in mock dismay.

  “Given a chance, he’d hang about all day, waiting for Sarah to come back out. I’m surprised you let him accompany you and Sarah here. City ways, I imagine.”

  “He loves her, Grandfather. And he’s an upright man. There’s no harm in it.”

  “I suppose you think I’m old-fashioned.”

  “Yes.”

  The old man saw the amusement in his grandson’s eyes and smiled.

  “Still, Deborah comports herself with more modesty.”

  Noah, who felt no temptation to inform his grandfather of certain events which had taken place earlier in the week, offered only a vague agreement.

  “She’s a proper village girl,” Benjamin continued, patting Noah’s shoulder as if this were all his doing.

  “She’s also a widow,” Noah added helpfully.

  “That is true. So she knows what to expect.”

  “I imagine she does.”

  * * *

  The next morning Benjamin and his grandchildren went to the house of prayer. They were almost the first to arrive, so Noah excused himself from entering with his grandfather and sister by announcing that he would wait for Abijah. In fact, he was hoping for a glimpse of Deborah.

  But Abijah also came early, perhaps hoping to see Sarah, and thus the whole stratagem was on the verge of collapse when Noah had the happy thought that they should both wait outside a little longer so that Abijah could be introduced to Joshua.

  “Yes, I would like that,” Abijah replied. “My friend Abner, who will be along in a moment, has become one of his admirers. He says he is an interesting man.”

  “Oh, he is certainly that.”

  Their patience was soon rewarded by the sight of Joseph approaching, with his family clustered behind him. The father walked slowly, leaning on the arm of his second son, Jacob. His face was damp with sweat.

  “Peace be yours,” he said to Noah, and then his eyes turned with faintly hostile curiosity to Noah’s friend.

  “This is Sarah’s betrothed, my friend Abijah.”

  “From the city, then?” From Joseph, it sounded almost like an accusation.

  “Yes, I live in Sepphoris.”

  Joseph nodded and then, as if he had decided to overlook the matter, he put his hand on Abijah’s arm.

  “Welcome to the family,” he said, and turned to gesture toward his family behind him. “These are my sons—Jacob and Little Joseph, and my eldest, Joshua.”

  Each of these embraced Abijah in his turn, after which the introductions were over. The women, apparently, would have to wait until another time.

  Everyone began a slow movement toward the door of the prayer house and, while Abijah and Joshua fell into conversation, Noah was at last free to direct his attention elsewhere. He took a step forward and grasped the hand of Miriam, Joseph’s wife, stooping slightly that she might kiss him. Miriam had been a close friend of his mother.

  “I have been looking after her,” she murmured to him as their faces touched.

  He had merely to turn his eyes to see Deborah, surrounded by Miriam’s daughters and her son’s wives, smiling at him through her veil.

  He returned her smile, and that would have to do. There was now no time for anything else, and in the prayer house the women sat in the back.

  The prayer house, which was in almost the exact center of Nazareth, was the largest building there. The structure was probably two hundred years old, although no one knew for certain, and it was of a piece with its rural origins. It was made of mud brick and the floor was earth packed hard by generations of pious feet. The benches and stools seemed haphazardly scattered but in fact reflected the kinship patterns that were part of the unchanging design of village life. Everyone knew their places and what to expect.

  The moment came when the hum of voices and the shuffling of feet simply died away. Everyone was quiet, for they knew they were about to witness once more the eternal promise of God to His people, the reading of the Law.

  Abner, Abijah’s friend, who by rotation was this Sabbath’s reader, rose and took one of the scrolls from the high, heavily built chair that represented the throne of God. He unrolled the scroll until he found his place, and began to pronounce the words of the Law, which Moses had received from God on Mount Sinai. The reading might have been about clean and unclean foods, or the rights of the poor, or the proper sacrifices to be offered in the Temple, or the remission of debt on the seventh year, or any number of other subjects, for the Law covered the whole of life and thus made all of life holy.

  Today’s reading happened to deal with the Law governing divorce.

  “‘When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, and the latter husband dislikes her and writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring guilt upon the land, which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance.’”

  Abner, who was a heavily built, benign-looking man—a man of both wealth and scholarship, the owner of several vineyards in the area, known for his generosity to the poor—looked up from the scroll, raised his eyebrows, and allowed his gaze to wander over the congregation, seeming to invite comment. When no one immediately offered to speak, his eyes fell on Abijah.

  “Perhaps we can prevail upon our learned guest from the city to open his thoughts to us.”

  Joshua, who was sitting next to Abijah, glanced slyly at Noah and smiled, as if to say, “This should be interesting.”

  Abijah hesitated just long enough to give the impression that he did not wish to intrude himself, and then slowly rose to his feet.

  “I would only point out,” he began, “that the passage is concerned not with divorce itself but with certain restrictions on remarriage. That divorce is permissible is implied, and the grounds are at best implied. In the case of the first marriage, the stated grounds are ‘some indecency,’ and in the second merely a ‘dislike.’ Thus Shammai, arguing from the first instance, states that divorce is permitted only if the wife is guilty of adultery, and Hillel, arguing from the second, claims for the husband an absolute right of divorce, even if he is merely annoyed because his wife has burnt his dinner.”

  As Abijah sat down, a ripple of suppressed amusement made its way through the front row of benches. Noah found it irksome, and so he stood up
.

  He waited for silence, his hands at his breast as if he were holding his prayer shawl in place.

  “My friend the learned Abijah is correct in pointing out that the passage can and has been interpreted variously, but common sense and custom would seem to support the opinion of Shammai.”

  As Noah let his eyes wander over the faces of the congregation, he noticed that some were a trifle reluctant to meet his gaze.

  “It is understood among us,” he continued, “that if a man enters into a betrothal, he may not set aside his betrothed except if he finds that she is not a virgin or has been guilty of some other gross offense. Is it then reasonable to believe that, while the contract to marry is so binding, the marriage itself can be set aside on a mere whim?

  “Beyond this, as a practical matter, marriage is the ground of family life, and the family is the ground of our life as the nation of Israel. If marriage is a tie no more binding than a cobweb, how are we to prosper and people the land? How can children be expected to thrive if at any time their mother can be dismissed like a servant?”

  When Noah sat down, he was gratified to hear a murmur of approval, but it was cut short when Lot, an elderly farmer, sitting in the midst of his eight surviving sons, stood up. He was a small, frail-looking man, but he had the look of one accustomed to authority.

  “My father chose my wife,” he began. “He chose well and I have lived in happiness these fifty years. Still, Torah is clear. God said, ‘I shall make a helper fit for man.’ Woman was made to serve man. If a wife displeases her husband, he has the right to set her aside. He may be a fool to do it, but God has not forbidden us to be fools.”

  Lot resumed his seat, assisted by one of his sons, and to an approving undercurrent of voices. Here and there one could make out phrases like “the Law is the Law” and “master in his own house.” It was clear that Lot spoke for the majority.

  It was against this tide of concurrence that Joshua rose to speak.

  At once a hush fell over the assembly. Everyone there knew Joshua, and knew that he had followed the Baptist and now preached on his own. Some approved and many did not, but everyone knew that Joshua was a learned man who loved God, and as such was entitled to a respectful hearing.

  “Moses commanded that a man may put away his wife, that he may give her a certificate of divorce and put her out of his house.”

  He looked about him, and his eyes were full of contempt.

  “But Moses gave you this commandment for your hardness of heart. God made both man and woman, and Torah says that a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, that they become one flesh. They become one instead of two.”

  “Listen how he speaks on his own authority,” someone said, loud enough to be heard by everyone. “Is this not the carpenter’s son?”

  “And I say to you,” Joshua went on, brushing aside the interruption with a contemptuous gesture of his hand, “that when God has established His kingdom here on earth, no man shall put away his wife, for what God has joined, man shall not divide.”

  Even before Joshua had sat down, his father was struggling to his feet. Joseph’s face was almost black with anger.

  “You must excuse my son, for I think his wits are turned. He wanders here and there like a beggar, telling fantastic stories of things to come. He lives in his own world—”

  But he was cut short when Lot once more rose.

  “Joseph, when else have we heard your voice within these walls? I cannot remember another time. A man has the right to speak his mind in the prayer house, even if he is your son.”

  In the ensuing tumult of voices, Benjamin put his hand on his grandson’s shoulder and leaned toward him to whisper something in his ear.

  “There is an old saying: when a man puts aside his wife, God weeps.”

  * * *

  Joshua refused to leave the prayer house with his family. Instead, he went with Noah and Benjamin, and they sat outside Benjamin’s doorway eating dates and drinking wine watered eight parts to three.

  “At my age, I can’t tolerate anything stronger,” Benjamin said, shrugging his shoulders at the injustices of life.

  Then he reached out and patted his grandnephew on the knee.

  “You spoke well, Joshua. Both of you spoke well. I take pride in my two best students.”

  “My father took no pride in me,” Joshua answered, cutting into a date as if he hated it. He was so restless that his hands seemed to shake. “It was a mistake for me to come back.”

  “It was not a mistake. It was the performance of a duty.”

  “And you see how it has ended. The scenes at home have been bad enough, and now he tells the whole of Nazareth he thinks me demented.”

  “Your steps are guided by the voice of God. This is a hard destiny for a father to accept.”

  “Is it the voice of God, Uncle Benjamin?” It seemed a real question. “Or perhaps he is right and my mind is possessed by demons.”

  “Was the Baptist possessed by demons?”

  “No. The Baptist was a good man—a better servant of God than I ever hope to be.”

  “Ah, you doubt your own worthiness. The mad have no doubts.”

  Benjamin leaned back against the wall, and his eyes closed. He might have been asleep. They almost believed he was asleep, until he began to speak again.

  “When I was nine years old we all went to Jerusalem for the Passover, and I remained behind to be apprenticed to a cousin of my mother’s. He was an ironsmith. He taught me that, and he taught me to read and to love the Law and the Prophets. When I was sixteen I returned to Nazareth with nothing to show for my years in Jerusalem except a hammer and the scrolls of Torah. The hammer broke before either of you was born. The scrolls I still have, on a shelf in my bedroom.

  “My father thought I had wasted my time, that I would probably starve, that my head was stuffed with useless learning. He was a carpenter, and the son of a carpenter, and that was all he understood. He was offended that I rose an hour before prayers to read Scripture. I tried to tell him that to study the Law is a form of prayer, but that seemed strange to him, even arrogant. The prayer house was enough, he said. I should not put myself above my elders.

  “Yet he helped me gather the stone to build my first forge, and we collected old scraps of iron, which I cast into an anvil. In the end he lived to see me prosper.

  “Unfortunately—or fortunately, for I do not pretend to know which—Joseph will not live to see how it ends with you. And a prophet’s success or failure is harder to measure than an ironsmith’s or a carpenter’s. Yet ironsmiths and carpenters die and are forgotten. Prophets are remembered.”

  “And I may fail as a prophet,” Joshua announced gloomily. “I seem to have failed in my own family.”

  The old man smiled. “Some failures are more precious to God than any success.”

  * * *

  That evening, when the Sabbath was over, a party of friends collected at Abner’s house for dinner. The guest of honor was Joshua, but Abijah and Noah were both invited. Although everyone was careful to avoid any allusion to Joseph’s remarks about his son, the discussion over wine quite naturally gravitated back to the divorce question and what had been said in the prayer house.

  “My only point,” Abijah said, almost as if he were apologizing, “was that the text is ambiguous on the grounds for divorce. Grounds are implied, and they seem to be in conflict. I have always found it a puzzling text because it covers such a narrow point—how many men would put away a wife and then wish to remarry her after yet another man has divorced her?”

  Noah was hungry, and he disliked sitting about, drinking wine on an empty stomach. It made him feel light-headed. He wanted to ask when they were likely to be served dinner. Instead, he asked a related question.

  “Abner, would you divorce your wife if dinner was late?”

  “She’d never allow it.”

  The exchange was greeted with appreciative laughter, even by Joshua, who seemed in an
otherwise sulky mood.

  “Hillel was a great man, I believe—humble, kind, and wise,” Noah went on, once the laughter had died away. “But his decision on this question makes little sense to me. Nor does it, except as an assertion that a man is master in his own family, make sense to most people. Can anyone here remember the last time there was a divorce in Nazareth?”

  “Only the great divorce their wives,” someone said.

  “Precisely. Look at Antipas. And his father.”

  “Tobias, I am ashamed of the way you abuse our late king,” Noah replied, shaking his head at the speaker, who happened to be a cousin on his mother’s side. “Old Herod did not divorce his first wife. To do him justice, he had her murdered.”

  Everyone could laugh, knowing they were safe from spies, for, with the exception of Abijah, who was vouched for by their host, the men assembled for Abner’s banquet had all known each other since childhood.

  It was just then that Abner’s wife slipped quietly into the room and whispered something in her husband’s ear. He listened and then spoke to her, pointing to the opposite side of the circle of banqueting couches.

  The movement was sufficiently vague that at first Noah thought Abner was directing her attention to him, but she came around and, instead, spoke a few quiet words to Joshua, who was seated beside him.

  When she was gone, Joshua sat up and threw an arm across Noah’s shoulders, drawing him near.

  “My mother and brother are outside,” he said quietly. “I suspect I know what they want. Tell them to go home.”

  Noah went outside and found Miriam, attended by Little Joseph.

  “I am to tell you to go home,” he said, speaking to Miriam.

  “His father insists that he return with us,” Miriam answered, her gentle face filled with anguish. “He wants him to stay with us and work at his trade. He is sure that work will clear his mind.”

  Noah took her hand in his own. “Are you sure his mind needs clearing?”

  What could she say? Noah had always known that Joshua, her firstborn, was her favorite child, and this collision between him and his father was exquisitely painful to her. Probably the only reason she had come was to render it less painful to Joshua.