The Silence of Gethsemane

by Michel Benoît

  With those around me rarely speaking to me, and my Pharisee friends preoccupied with their endless disputes, the fact that I was still a bachelor ceased to be an issue. Perhaps people thought I was delaying getting married until I was older, because of my family responsibilities? After all, that was for me to decide.

  So why, and as a matter of urgency, didn’t I ask myself this same question, which is at once intensely private and of public interest (a Jew without issue betrays his people)?

  I don’t know. Perhaps – although it’s only now that this occurs to me – I was already tormented by the sense of disquiet that would eventually drive me into the wilderness?

  Neither the constant antipathy expressed by the nationalists towards the Romans and the Jewish aristocracy, nor the loathing I shared with them and many other people for the form of worship used in the Temple, nor the cloud that hangs permanently over the esplanade of Solomon, that stench of burnt animal fat which catches you in the throat as soon as you walk through the Sheep Gate, nor the discontent at the woeful state of decay in Jewish society, nothing could justify suddenly severing my ties with a way of life that was as firmly established as the statues in the Roman amphitheatre in Jerusalem, which no Jew could bear to look at because it reminded him of the act of sacrilege that their presence represented.

  Nothing, except the voice of one man.

  A voice that rang out all over Israel, even beyond its borders.

  The voice of John the Baptist, the prophet of the Jordan.

  7

  It is many years since the voice of the prophets has been heard in Israel. The prophetic tradition, which acts as a necessary counterbalance to the all-pervading Law, has always provided an unconventional way into the Invisible. But nowadays the prophets are merely great men from the past, authorities to whom we are expected to defer. Yet a nation cannot survive on its past alone: the goad that kept us going for so many years is no longer there. In its stead are the beginnings of a radical apocalyptic movement, moralizers who predict the end of the world and mesmerize people, strike terror into their hearts.

  For several years, one of these voices had come from the Judaean desert. Its fiery breath reached as far as the remotest towns and villages, like the dust storms that whip up in the rocky, wide-open expanses before blowing themselves out in our farmyards. The power of it drew Jews from all directions and backgrounds.

  Little was known about John the Baptist. Was he from a priestly family? Or had he been brought up from an early age by the Essenes at Qumran, trained in the strict discipline of the Baptist ways? Yet unlike them he only baptized a person once, after a process of inner conversion of which immersion in the River Jordan was the outward sign. His unconcealed opposition to the moral standards of Herod and his court made him immensely popular with the ordinary people, who were appalled that the son of an Idumean should be sitting on a throne that he sullied by committing incest.

  Attracted, as were so many others, by his charisma, I used a journey to the south as an excuse to go to Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan, where John was baptizing. The fact that I didn’t tell anyone where I was going shows how uncertain I was in my mind at the time, unwittingly prey to that typically Jewish disquiet, although the extent of its hold over me was something I refused to admit to myself.

  So eventually, among a crowd of many different people, I went to hear this voice.

  Close to its mouth on the Dead Sea, the Jordan flowed through the surrounding sand dunes. Standing in bright sunlight in the deep part of the river, a man was leaning forward, taking those who came to him and plunging them under the living water one by one. Sometimes he stood up, and harangued the crowd of spellbound onlookers:

  “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire!”

  What I saw was a man ranting and raving, declaring that the world was about to sink into a fiery furnace; the hurricane was almost upon us, an apocalypse that would uproot everything – even Israel, who thought she was protected by her Covenant with God. A false sense of security! A terrible judgement was about to sweep down upon us, the end of the world was nigh and no one would be spared.

  Dazzled by this fervent flame that was reflected in the surface of the flowing water, I looked round at the crowd. There were artisans, small farmers, fisherman who could be recognized by the patched smocks that barely covered their emaciated bodies. Among them were plump men with glowing complexions, a few Pharisees from Jerusalem identifiable by the long fringes on their robes, Sadducees proudly wearing their traditional tall hats. Guards from the Temple, who looked astonished to find themselves in such a place, and who were no doubt sent to protect all these dignitaries – who if they hadn’t been here would never have had a chance to rub shoulders with the populace and inhale their smells.

  Everyone appeared to be terrified by this prophet of doom, and from the water there came a chorus of groans: “What then should we do to escape the coming wrath?” Since the day of doom was unavoidable, said John, they should try and escape the worst of it: they must be converted, stop stealing, ill-treating people, extorting money. In a word, share all they had with the poor.

  John the Baptist’s grim, ominous tone made a deep and lasting impression on me. Once I got home and reimmersed myself in the humdrum routine of the workshop, the voice I had heard by the Jordan kept on echoing in my mind incessantly. I knew that my life had changed for ever. John had held up the blazing inferno of the apocalypse before my eyes; dazzled by it, everything about the life I had led up till then suddenly struck me as prosaic, occupations and people alike. On the shores of the lake nothing had changed, yet to me it was now flat and colourless. This world of ours was doomed, the end was upon us: the axe had already fallen on the tree of Israel.

  I began going to the synagogue outside of normal services more often. I would unroll the scroll containing the books of the prophets and come across passages in Isaiah such as this: “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth.” So was this the conversion that the Baptist had spoken of? It also said: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Was John claiming that he had cleared the debris that had blocked the path for years, all the detritus left behind by Israel’s slow, inevitable decline? Imprisoned within the walls of their all-too-subtle reasoning, weren’t the Pharisees who had taught me just going round in circles in a locked room to which they didn’t have the key? How could we escape the wrath to come?

  All of a sudden my life seemed insipid, restricted, shrivelled up. If there was a vital thread, a way that would give meaning to the different things I had done, I was now certain – although I couldn’t explain why – that it would appear as a result of answering John the Baptist’s call. Perhaps he was now Elijah’s heir? Through him, on the banks of the Jordan, would there be the long-awaited revival of the prophetic tradition which we had lost hope of ever seeing? I simply had to go to this window that had opened on the edge of the wilderness.

  It was quite normal for a devout Jew, particularly a Nazirite, to spend some time with a spiritual father, to sit at the feet of a well-known rabbi or one of the hermits in the desert – such as Bannus, who not long after John the Baptist led a life similar to his. I told my mother and my brothers that I was going to be away for a few weeks; James would be in charge of the workshop in my absence. I made no attempt to hide, either from them or my friends, the fact that I was going to see the hermit on the Jordan. They were pleased at the decision, which would only increase my standing as a young Pharisee. My colleagues had already asked me to read from the Law in the synagogue in Capernaum on the Sabbath. Once I got back, they suggested I might also like to give a homily, the official commentary that follows the reading. Filled with pride at the prospect of seeing her eldest son formally established as a rabbi, it was with a gratifie
d expression that my mother watched me set off.

  Exhausted by the walk, I dropped my bundle of belongings at the top of a sand dune and sat down. On the riverbank and in the deepest part of the water, towards which people were thronging to be cleansed of their sins, nothing had changed. How far away the Temple and its atoning sacrifices seemed! There was no blood here, no fatty burnt offerings on the sacrificial altar; just people going down to the bank, bowing to the Baptist who then submerged them in the river.

  I didn’t realize that it was at this moment that my life would take a completely different turn, and one that would be permanent. Or that by some inexorable process, the path on which I was about to set foot would lead me to this empty garden on a moonlit paschal night.

  As alone here as I was in the wilderness.

  8

  I found that there were three different types of people who converged on John the Baptist.

  There were those who came to see the performance, usually from Jerusalem. According to John, his baptism was both the end result and the completion of the journey of conversion of which he spoke, by which those who were baptized would escape the flames. But as far as anyone could see, plunging converts into the water didn’t seem to bring about any outward change. They resurfaced with water streaming off them, and then walked away, to all appearances no different, and were then followed by others. What was there to show that they weren’t the same as before? That they had experienced an inner conversion? By the time evening came these onlookers decided there wasn’t anything worth seeing, so they left, with a faint feeling of unease that only lasted for as long as it took to return to their everyday lives.

  Others settled themselves in the huts made of branches that had sprung up everywhere on the dunes, some way from the riverbank.

  Still others had pitched camp permanently near to where John was baptizing. More than well-wishers, these were the Baptist’s most fervent supporters, in some cases of long standing, in fact (or so they said) for life. With a certain pretentiousness, surprising for such uncultured men, they referred to themselves as Talmîdā – the Aramaic translation of the Greek word mathètès, a name that pagan philosophers give to their disciples, and which is foreign to Judaism.

  I wasn’t one of the Baptist’s disciples, and I wasn’t intending to stay longer than a few days. One of the huts made of branches was empty, so I made myself at home, strengthened the roof, then lit a fire in the middle of three stones. After that I went and sat on a sand dune, isolated from John by a small crowd that had gathered on the slope below.

  It was some time before I dared to bridge this gap, which was a sign of my lack of self-knowledge. Come evening, I finally felt able to go and sit by the fire, where, now most of the crowd had left, John was eating locusts that he had toasted and dipped in wild honey. Despite his rough, unsociable manner we soon struck up an understanding.

  He probed me for information about myself. I gave brief answers. His questions were like a surgical blade, slicing through the suture-like reticence that kept my lips tightly sealed. He seemed to go deeper than I or anyone else had gone before – except perhaps God.

  Then he stopped talking. And in the dancing firelight, his silence was like another voice.

  I have always been unforthcoming, or at least that’s what people used to say about me in Capernaum. Yet when I encountered John’s silence, I realized that thoughts, ideas, the fruitless answers to my questions were fluttering around inside my head like a constantly twittering bird in a cage created by my reticence. Thoughts scrolled past one after another in an endless stream, transforming my outward silence into a great clamouring inside me.

  As I opened my heart to the Baptist, he stopped poking the fire and looked at me for a long time. From that moment on he was glad to find an opportunity for us to talk privately now and then, to the amazement of his disciples, who were furious to see such a close rapport growing between their master and myself, something they longed for but could never hope to achieve.

  So what exactly did he say? All I can remember is his deep voice. But when I left him and went back to my hut, where I lay staring up through the branches of the roof, watching stars race across the endless night sky, I was suddenly seized with a burning desire for the wilderness.

  Only if you are utterly naked will you find what you seek. A whole nation comes here to bathe and cleanse itself. But you need more, you need the crucible that will melt the fat from your soul. From me you have heard the call and a promise: the wilderness will carve out the inner man, turn you into someone else and yet the same person. Go out into the wilderness, then come and see me again. For then you will understand. I think these are the words he used, this man who seemed to have seen deeper into my soul than I had.

  “I recall your youthful grace when you went out to me in an unfertile land,” is what God once said to one of the prophets. Forgetting Capernaum, the sound of the water lapping on the shores of the lake, my mother and my brothers, unable to resist the call of the wilderness, I left my belongings beside the fire in my hut, which by now had gone out. To avoid being seen, at dawn I set off along the stony path that runs along the western side of the Dead Sea.

  When the sun came up, before it kissed the deep, still waters of the Dead Sea, it washed an ochre tint across the vast expanse that stretched away to my right: the Judaean desert in all its bleakness.

  It was the very reflection of what I saw in myself. Now I was going to have to cultivate this infertile land.

  9

  I kept walking until I saw the green smudge of an oasis in the distance. The Essenes from Qumran have settled in the north, in an area of level, arid ground in the shadow of tall cliffs. I sat in the mouth of a cave and waited.

  Walking past below I saw a member of the sect, identifiable by his brilliant white smock. He looked up at me, and then he was gone.

  That evening, another man in white came to speak to me. No one can survive on his own in the desert, he said. You seek the solitude that cleanses? This is where you will find it. Behind you lies utter destitution. Travel far into its depths, far enough to forget about us but not too far, so you can come and drink regularly from our springs. Sometimes you will find a few dates on this rock. They will help keep you alive without breaking your fast. You are not one of us, but simply being here proves that you are a man after our own heart.

  The next minute he was gone.

  I travelled far, far out across this anvil upon which the sun beat down constantly like a hammer. When all I could see was a vastness that was indistinguishable from the sky, I stopped. There was a rocky outcrop, which, although not offering complete shade, provided enough cover for me to survive. I settled down at the base, where it seemed to grow from the ground: something else was going to grow here too.

  If needs be I would wait for forty days, like the Prophet Elijah.

  Minute by minute, a mere frail bundle of humanity lost between the sand and the sky, I pushed my body to breaking point. If time were to pass slowly, all that would be left to me was the light gradually following its course round the sky, until night fell and it faded to deep blue. I wanted to listen, to let a voice well up inside me. The words it speaks are not those of men. I shall try to hear what lies beyond the words, the words I learnt to say as a devout Jewish boy.

  John the Baptist had created a longing in me that could only be satisfied by silence.

  I would wait.

  The silence of the wilderness is deafening; not a bird flying past, not even one of the crickets whose shrill chirruping makes the nights in Galilee so bewitching. Perhaps I would have to go beyond the silence, or perhaps, once it ceased to be something outside of me, when it had filled me to my depths, I would no longer be able to hear it.

  The one I am waiting for is in that silence, yet he is beyond it.

  At night, stretched out on the ground staring up at the sky, I heard the song of the stars. And I realized that it was the origin of the prophets’ words, bearing witness to the
existence of the One God of Israel. They rocked me to sleep with their cradle-like glow.

  I untied the plaits worn by Nazirites and let my hair hang loose over my shoulders. The breeze would sometimes blow it across my face; whenever I didn’t unconsciously brush it back, I knew the silence wasn’t far away.

  And then strange apparitions started surging up inside my head. Let loose by the lack of thoughts, a fearsome opponent was attacking me, harrying me until my inner life began to ebb away. I knew it was the Evil One, whom Israel traditionally portrays as Satan or the Devil, he who divides. He danced round and round inside me, as if mocking me in that ironic, fiendish way of his, knowing that I was in his clutches, that my attempt to escape was just the result of my pride.

  All men are made to serve me – this is what he whispered in my ear. Wealth, power, worldly delights in all their different forms are what I use to enslave you. Neither God nor his angels can loose your chains, for I too am one of God’s creatures.

  I faced up to him with all my might and cried out:

  “Get thee behind me, Satan!”

  Eventually, exhausted by the struggle, I wept. The tears that trickled down my weather-beaten cheeks gave me life, even more than the springs I dragged myself to every evening in order to drink.

  I will never be able to describe the days and nights that came in the wake of those tears, for they have been wiped from my mind, leaving only the memory of a vortex of pain. I thought I was going to die, and in fact I did. The death I died in the crucible of the desert cannot be put in words, or compared with anything experienced by mankind. The wilderness – that magnificent landscape whose praises Jewish and Arab poets have sung through the ages – was no longer around me: it had now filled me to my depths, a place at once shimmering and filled with desolation.