by Shlomo Kalo
As they approached the settlement, three old men came forward to meet them, grim faced, with long white straggly beards. They greeted them with a silent bow.
The most distinguished looking of the old men began by apologising, in a grating, guttural voice:
“Our leaders and our chieftains perished in the earthquake and we are among the few who remain alive. We have come to greet you, and this on account of our advanced age, which enjoins upon us certain obligations in accordance with our holy Law. You are welcome to Bethlehem, in the name of the Lord our God!” – he concluded his speech without an excessive display of enthusiasm. In fact, every word that emerged from the old man’s mouth was spoken in a dull, apparently lifeless monotone.
His father approached the old man, clasped his hand and hugged him to his breast, with an encouraging pat on the back, repeating the process with his two companions, and with a calm, sincere smile on his face, intended to inspire trust and confidence, he began:
“The king is deeply grieved by the disaster that has befallen your settlement, as are his ministers and generals and advisers, and all the people of Judah! And he has instructed me to convey to you his condolences and his confident belief that Bethlehem will be restored to its former state soon and quickly, and will again flourish and prosper as it has flourished and prospered in the past, and he has also sent a modest consignment of supplies to ease your suffering, by the grace and the mercy of God!”
The old men thanked him with the same mute bow of reverence and then turned and joined the deputation, walking down the narrow road leading to Bethlehem.
He never would forget the icy fear that gripped his heart when the spectacle was revealed before his eyes: black pits in the ground, like bottomless chasms, and at the sides of them remains of buildings, a wall standing like a rotten tooth and close by a flat roof preserved entire, besides a narrow, twisting black fissure crossing it from side to side, shattered and distorted utensils and severed limbs, human limbs – a skull, crushed and flattened, eyes still intact but the brain squeezed out, fingers covered in dust and blood, arms, feet…
His body shaking, he ran to his father and hugged him tight, searched for his hand and clutched it feverishly. For perhaps the first time in his life, and to his great relief, he felt the answering warmth of his father’s hand, infusing his heart with solid confidence and easing the constricted blood vessels, and instead of vomiting or losing consciousness and collapsing there and then – he regained his composure and straightened his back, in control of himself.
They walked on slowly, towards the chaos and the destruction. The sound of sobbing and keening could be clearly heard in the distance. People with dishevelled hair and clothing, eyes flashing in feverish anger, and abysmal pain distorting their faces, dust in their hair and their beards, foreheads and cheeks pocked with brown markings, looking like corpses risen from their graves – watched the deputation approach without uttering so much as a whisper, like shadows, a swelling mass of morose humanity.
On reaching the central square of the settlement, his father halted the wagons and ordered the stern-faced officer of the guard to unload their contents at the end of the square and to station his men around the site.
And then someone emerged from among the shadowy figures and directed a stream of abuse at his father. The officer of the guard, hearing the abuse, immediately turned and with lightning speed grabbed the man by the neck and pulled him back roughly, evidently intent on beating him about the head. His father, the minister Naimel, forestalled him, ordering him to let the man alone.
“His grief has fuddled his mind,” his father explained to the officer, obliged, against his will, to free his prisoner. The man turned this way and that, stooped to pick up a clod of earth and rising to his full height, flung it at his father, resuming his tirade:
“You there, ministers living in comfortable houses in Jerusalem, with your wives and your children by your side! You are not wanted here! You cannot heal our wounds with your hypocritical charity! Be off with you! And don’t show your faces here again!”
The officer of the guard was about to punish this insolence, but before he could move he was set upon by other shadow-people, who knocked him to the ground, and his fate would have been sealed had his father not come running, tearing a pair of hands from the officer’s throat and crying:
“In God’s name, citizens and brothers, has it come to this?”
His voice was clear and calm, the voice of true authority, and the assailants withdrew, releasing the officer and retreating. The officer rose and shook the dust from his clothes and walked away in silence, in obedience to the minister’s command.
And then the minister went among the shadow-people and spoke gentle words to them, and he did not hear the words because he was excluded from the circle and two men of the escort flanked him on either side, but the outcome was an unexpected change among the shadow-people surrounding his father, and suddenly a chorus of wailing broke out, with the sound of desperate and feverish weeping. And the shadow-people knelt before Naimel the minister and kissed his hands and robes and some even kissed his feet.
This he would never forget.
He was watching the scene with eyes wide open, quivering with the intensity of feeling, until he realised that he was weeping himself, and this weeping was purifying something deep in his soul, opening the door to a light as yet unknown to him, a living light saying clearly: “Trust in me!”
His friends stood rooted to the spot, mesmerised by the enchantment of the spectacle. He picked out the broad silver ribbon of the Euphrates, flowing at the feet of the high walls to the west. His eyes roved again over the tall, dense buildings of the city, sparkling in the sunlight with their facings of gold and silver and marble, the greatest city of the universe. Over there is the famous tower, the Tower of Babel, its foundations broad and solid and its pinnacle, a pinnacle of gold – like an arrow shot into the gleaming vault of the heavens, taking in the light of the sun and reflecting it in a riot of vivid colours. This tower also has no equal anywhere in the universe. Further on, the Hanging Gardens, one of the wonders of the world, and at the northern extremity of the city, secluded, surrounded by a wall and lustrous in marble and gold and colourful gem-stones – the palatial complex of His Majesty the King…
The youths, and Gershon with them, were simply insatiable, incapable of shifting their gaze from the domes, the towers and the walls – glories unlike anything they had ever seen before. The Chaldean officer appointed to escort and protect them declared once again, with pride that he made no effort to conceal:
“The palace of King Nebuchadnezzar, conqueror of the world!” – and with outstretched arm he pointed to that cluster of ornate buildings set apart from the rest.
“These buildings are superior in their grandeur and the genius of their construction to the Temple in Jerusalem and the palace of King Solomon!” – Adoniah exclaimed with a strange air of satisfaction.
“There is no building in the world, however splendid it may be, that may be compared with the Temple in Jerusalem and the palace of King Solomon, peace be with him!” Hananiah retorted, and proceeded to explain: “Over the Temple in Jerusalem and over the palace of King Solomon – the Spirit of God presides, as it presides over all the houses and the walls of the Holy City, thus infinitely superior to any other building or buildings anywhere in the world!”
“But the king of Babylon assaulted the walls of the Holy City and breached them, shook the foundations of the Temple and the palace of King Solomon and destroyed many houses!” – Uziel spoke in a tone of absent sorrow, without any argumentative intent, but Matthew did not hesitate to fill in the words which Uziel had left unsaid:
“Where was the Lord your God then, Hananiah?”
“He hid His face from us!” Azariah chipped in, adding: “On account of our many sins and the grievous misdeeds of our people!”
“Didn’t Daniel tell us that God doesn’t punish, because He is love?” Gabriel d
emanded to know.
“Hiding His face isn’t the same as punishment,” – Daniel intervened, in a steady, firm voice, without a trace of pomposity – “Hiding His face means – God turning away from those who don’t want Him: I was there to be sought by a people who did not ask, to be found by men who did not seek me. I said ‘Here am I’ to a nation that did not call upon my name. With our arrogant tongue, wretched acts and contemptible thoughts we have banished God from our hearts, and drifted ever further from Him.”
“Banished God, you say, what’s that supposed to mean?” Gabriel persisted.
“We have demanded of Him that he leave us alone, let us manage our affairs as we see fit. The liar, the coveter, the adulterer – it’s as if they are saying to God ‘We don’t want you!’ and God who is love does not impose Himself in places where He is not welcome. And in a place where God is not welcome there is violence and destruction and ruin and disaster,” he concluded in that tone of flawless sincerity, penetrating deep into the hearts of his hearers.
“I was right, then!” Adoniah cried with an expression of triumph and derision: “It is definitely possible to compare buildings – those in Jerusalem and those at our feet, since divinity no longer presides over those in Jerusalem or gives them any protection, and hence these buildings that we see before us are all the more superior to those that we have left behind – both in their grandeur and the ingenuity of their construction!”
And he saw fit to answer him with no change to the tone of his voice:
“Buildings over which the Holy Spirit does not preside are worthless, and all their beauty and their grandeur and their majesty are meaningless, the invention of mankind’s concupiscent eye. Even the meanest hovel of the basest of beggars may be illumined with glorious light if he who dwells there is a man of faith. And he whose eyes are not blinded by concupiscence will see this light and rejoice in it, and for him, no building in the world, however majestic it may be, will be the equal of this hovel!”
A harassed Chaldean horseman appeared, and ordered them back into the wagon. The nine of them obeyed, reluctantly, but once in the wagon all of them, including Daniel, found suitable vantage points, and continued scanning the broad valley through the tattered flaps of the canopy. Some were still amazed by what they were seeing, while others curbed their amazement, and thereupon felt a quiet sense of satisfaction.
Gershon too was looking down at the valley and not shifting his gaze from it, but his thoughts were straying far away, to his homeland and his city, to members of his family, separated from him by vast distances, and he did not see what his eyes were perceiving but instead was filled with gloom and anxiety.
He too, like all the others, was still observing, but the beauty and the splendour revealed before him had lost all their vitality and looked like corpses, bereft of life and bereft of purpose, and he thought of what was beyond them, thought of the living light that is love, by whose grace the human race exists, and creation breathes, and there is hope.
“O my Father in Heaven, my God! You who stands behind all, and all is in You, You the creator of all whom no creature can touch, You, depending on nothing and all things depending on You, You standing above all and all things refreshed by You, exalted above the most exalted, raised higher than the highest. You are the infinite good and the absolute beauty that is the truth, and without You there is no truth, and all things tell of Your glory and sing to You anthems of praise.
“You, to whom all my longings are turned and in whom is all my hope. You, who are nothing but the fulfilment of my longings and my hopes, You, seeing Yourself in me. I shall not rest until I am absorbed in You utterly, with nothing left behind! O my Father in Heaven, my God – praise be to You, praise for all eternity!”
The winding road was broader now, paved with cobblestones of brown and grey, winding down steadily from the heights to the valley.
Travellers in the convoy seemed suddenly to come to life, revived and invigorated as they sensed the rigours of the journey were drawing to a close, fading away and vanishing as if they never were. Those on foot stepped out with redoubled vigour, horses were urged into a trot, and the creaking wagons lurched onward at a swifter pace.
Or-Nego tried to slow down the accelerated progress of the convoy, but realising this was impossible, abandoned the attempt and even allowed himself to be swept along with the general surge of enthusiasm, spurring on his horse. The horse too was well aware that the end of the tiresome journey was in sight, willingly responding to Or-Nego’s commands and carrying him forward to the head of the long column.
The youths decided they had been sitting cramped together in the wagon long enough, and one after another they began climbing down and mingling with their mounted escorts, feasting their eyes on the vista of the long valley with its fringes kissing the distant lines of the horizon.
Only he and Gershon were left in the wagon, in the forward section behind the back of the Jewish driver, who had no need of his whip to urge on his pair of horses, towing the wagon with every appearance of enjoyment, and uttering whinnies of enthusiasm and alacrity.
Gershon turned to him and asked him:
“Is that the Tower of Babel that’s mentioned in the Scriptures, where God confused the languages of the peoples who tried to reach Him?”
And he answered him:
“What is written there is only a parable. For those with open mind and pure heart, it is easy to see the moral.”
“Could you try to explain it to me?” he asked, adding apologetically: “I’ve never been much of an expert in interpreting the Scriptures, and they are a closed book to me!”
“I too am no scholar, nor a paragon of saintliness, and I don’t know to what degree my heart has been purged of the vanities of the world.”
“But nonetheless!” Gershon pressed him and he answered him calmly:
“People, in their anger at one another, jealousy against one another, and concupiscence, have stopped understanding one another, man is estranged from his brother and they drive God out of their hearts. And in their folly and the wretchedness that they have brought upon themselves with their own hands, they have consulted together and decided to reach out to God and bring Him back to them, not by way of the love that is in the heart, but by way of worldly pride of which the Tower is the symbol, in other words – by way of arrogant scholasticism and intellectual snobbery.”
“So that magnificent tower, rising to unbelievable height, and the handiwork of mankind, is nothing other than the fruit of human arrogance and pride?”
He nodded in assent.
“And the Temple in Jerusalem?”
“Was built for the sake of Heaven!” he declared, raising his eyes to the clearing, deepening vault of the sky.
The Gate Opens
As the sun rose to its full height, the convoy reached the fortified eastern wall, a menacing, haughty construction of dressed stone, and stopped there.
To their south, a broad gate opened, the Shamash Gate, and the convoy started streaming through it, a swollen river of people and animals, and the wagons rattling sturdily over the paving stones, the creaking of their wheels as rhythmic as a song, like the song of one who has been long absent from his home and roaming in foreign parts, and now he is back from his travels and is all relief and gratitude.
For a long time the convoy was making its way into the heart of the wondrous city, its fortresses not showing a friendly face and all of its buildings, to the very last of them, speaking of majesty and gloom. It was not until early in the afternoon that the wagon in which the young men were travelling reached the broad gate that stood wide open, the Shamash Gate, and came to Babylon. The wagon crossed a narrow alleyway and stopped before a squad of the royal guard, responsible for the inspections of customs. Or-Nego was standing there, and he explained something to the officer commanding the squad, who nodded his understanding and acquiescence.
Or-Nego stepped forward and asked Gershon to leave the wagon.
“This is where you must part company!” he declared with a rueful smile, and went on to explain: “The tanner must go to join the tanners, the boys – they’re going to meet the King!” Even before he had finished speaking, Gershon had been grabbed by soldiers of the guard and hustled from the wagon.
“Don’t forget me, boys!” he cried in a tone of pain and despair. “Daniel!” he called out as he was led away, “Don’t you forget me!”
And Gershon just had time to hear the young man’s voice ringing out clear and strong: “I won’t forget you!”
Their wagon, still escorted by six armed Chaldeans, continued on its way, trundling noisily, yet placidly, over the paving slabs of the long, narrow street. To their left rose the gaudy temples of the gods, Adad and Shamash, and on reaching the crossroads they made out in the distance the white marble walls of the lofty temple of “Beth Nina”, reflecting the rays of the setting sun.
“There’s real Hebrew for you!” whispered Hananiah in a tone of misplaced awe, evidently referring to Beth, a Hebrew word of impeccable pedigree.
“The Chaldeans are the descendants of Shem, as we are, and their language is similar to ours, having the same roots,” was Daniel’s reply and he added: “But language apart, there is nothing we have in common with them. Our father Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees at God’s command, never to return there: “Go from your country and your homeland and your father’s house to a land that I will show you!” – he quoted from the Scripture, and Mishael completed the prophecy: “And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and magnify your name, and you will be a blessing!”
Their wagon turned right, crossing a solid bridge of brown stonework and dressed masonry pillars, over the broad and normally turbid river, now flowing with strange serenity beneath their wheels, and then proceeded towards the inner wall, passing through another gate where the few soldiers on duty showed no inclination to stop them for inspection, contenting themselves with a glance of curiosity, and just a hint of bemusement.. When they entered the straight, broad streets of the inner city they noticed other wagons ahead of them, as well as the exiles who had made the entire journey on foot, and scores of Chaldean soldiers accompanying them. The Chaldean cavalry moved forward and took up their positions at the head of the column. And then they noticed that behind them too there were Chaldean horsemen, in closely packed and orderly ranks, and evidently enjoying themselves, smiling broadly and waving to the citizens starting to gather on both sides of the column of exiles.
