***

The night is almost over, and Pinchas, an old man with rheumy eyes, tips his head toward the ceiling of the cave and lifts his hands in supplication. Yannai stands up. He has a new piyut to teach them. “Shimu lev el haneshamah…”

Pay attention, hearken to the soul.

He sings the song once, twice, and then, before they have fully learned it, begins to speak.

“If we were to listen to the soul, not of you or me, but of this time, these months and days, what would we hear?” he asks.

The question shakes Eliyahu. He sits with his back against the stone wall, feeling the protrusions in the rock, the swells and bulges and then how it gives way into nothingness. He does not know of times and seasons. All he knows is his little life, the gibbousness, the rise and fall and rise again of hope.

And now, dawn is about to break. They have been there all night, daring to touch the darkness, wrestling with the night, wresting song out of destruction.

Yannai continues. “Some say that the fragrance of Redemption is in the air.”

Quiet. A stillness blankets the men. The only thing to be heard is their breathing and, outside, the snuffle of a fox and the call of an owl.

“We have been asked to travel to Jerusalem and there to lift our voices in prayer.”

There is a long silence, and then the cave fills with the echo and thrum of ten voices.

“Yerushalayim.”

“Travel?”

“For what purpose?”

“Do we not pray here? And is the Almighty not everywhere we call to Him?”

“Yerushalayim.”

“Who is behind this?”

“How long? Is the journey not dangerous? And who will care for our families when we are gone?” This from Pinchas.

They all know that his wife is nearing her time, and his last child possessed a soul that could not bear to be separated from its Maker, and returned just a few days after it was sent on its earthly journey. Pinchas is spending long hours in prayer and has been fasting each day until noon, so that now his face is gaunt and even if he could travel, he is probably too weak to do so.

Yannai drums his hands against the wall of the cave. “Let us speak calmly.” No one listens. He lifts his voice and begins once more to sing the new piyut: “Odeh L’Kel, levav choker.”

Quiet.

“What are we talking of here?” Yannai asks, spreading his arms in a question. “Nothing too arduous. Nothing too difficult. A journey to Jerusalem, that is all. Most of us have travelled, are used to the ache of the road through worn-out soles.”

“Yes, but that was years ago.”

“Still, with a steady mount, how long will it take? Three days each way, a little more or less, depending. A donkey, of course, would take longer, but I have requested horses.

“And there are caravanserai, waystations, set up on the road at half-day distances from each other, so we will never be too far away from shelter. We will not have to sleep under the stars, but in beds, of more or less comfort, and the horses will be stabled.

“Not that we are used to beds, of course, around here. Or sleeping too much at all.”

One man looks down. “Our families….” He blushes as he speaks.

Yannai adds firmness to his voice, so it becomes less of a suggestion and more of a command. Eliyahu stiffens. “We will leave immediately after Shabbat, to arrive on Yom Sheini, before nightfall. We will say our tefillot, and I am considering circling the wall, actually, circling the perimeter that will become the wall, the outskirts of the city, like in the days of Yehoshua.”

Pinchas asks, “Like on Hoshana Rabbah? The removal of the klipot?”

“We shall remove the iron wall that is in our hearts, that separates us from our Maker, and in this way, we will allow a wall of stone to be erected. A wall that does not separate, threaten, or drive us away. A wall that becomes the walls of a home, within which we live in peace and harmony and love.”

Pinchas again, “With a shofar?”

Yannai bangs his chest. “With a shofar blowing in here.”

Again, the men erupt into speech. Eliyahu is the only one who sits quietly, contemplating. Something about this plan fills him with dread but he does not know what.

Yannai claps his hands. “Come, my friends, it is almost light. We must disperse for a day of good deeds and humility before we meet again.”

“But what will we do in Yerushalayim?” Pinchas calls out.

“We will find a hospitable Jew who will give us a bowl of soup and a slab of bread, and we will start for home on the morning of Yom Shelishi. That way we will be home before the Shabbat.”

Yannai’s face is alight with excitement. Eliyahu studies it. He has become paler over the last few weeks, so that his skin is almost translucent. It may be the ascendency of his soul, the influence of his spiritual journey. But it also may be ill health. If he thinks that he can make the journey back and forth to Jerusalem in the space of a week, he is under the delusion that he is still a young man.

He speaks up, finally. “Donkeys are easier to ride.”

A slower pace will be easier for an old man. And as for Pinchas, let him stay behind. Surely they will find another man to pray.

Yannai claps him on the back. “True enough. A donkey will simply take you where you need to go. But it will plod. A horse needs to be directed, reined, steered, commanded. But it will take half the time to arrive. Half the time! And do we not wait every day? Today! If you listen to His voice.”

Eliyahu frowns.

“Eliyahu, my son, you have an objection.”

Eliyahu hangs his head. He does not know why exactly his heart is churning. He does not know what to say. So he reaches for what is more certain — the sheep. Though he is ashamed, for no one will understand, they are worrying about their wives and their children, their talmidim and their jobs. He sounds ridiculous, but he forces the words out anyway. “And who will care for the sheep if I am away?”

Yannai frowns, but it does not reach his forehead, it is just a jerk of the lips. “And do they take much caring for? Are they not creatures of the world?”

“Indeed, but not of the wild. And there are mountain lions in the hills, and wolves, too.”

Yannai gives a laugh. “We will find a strong, fearless gibor who will chase away the lion and the bear.”

“Not the bear, the wolf,” Eliyahu speaks quietly. Yannai is making fun of him, using Dovid Hamelech’s words against him. Even Dovid Hamelech could leave his flock, at times.

How can he explain what it is to care for an animal  — a creature that is vulnerable to the world, that needs you for protection? The sick ewes — there is little he can do for them but allow them to rest and hope that the spirit of healing will rise within them, for the body knows itself and heals itself when it can, unless the Angel of Death lies in wait.

He feels eyes on him and looks up to see all the chaburah staring.

The question hangs in the air: How hard is it to care for a few hundred sheep?

Maybe more: Why is it that you spend your time on this?

They do not realize that a sheep will give you everything. Milk and creamy, salty cheese. Wool to warm you in the winter. And for him, something more — see how they huddle together, protecting each other. Each day reminds him, stay. Stay with the Almighty’s flock. Even if it is half-hearted, even if it feels like a strain.

In that way, the flock is a gift. He lives in Tzefat, pays the water-carrier and is jostled in the beit knesset and hears the shofar announce the Shabbat. But he also has the privilege of escaping: to be alone with his thoughts and his memories. For each time he thinks back, he notices something different. Just now he is thinking of Tziporah’s quiet.

She was never a taker and at times he wondered if there was something wrong, for he had grown by the marketplace and there the women had squawked and bantered and haggled with each other — you think you know hardship? Let me tell you an even sorrier story! Or… a tale of a bad husband, or a salve for a rotten tooth, or a description of an ungrateful daughter-in-law.

Tziporah was never like that. Perhaps because she grew up with her aunt and uncle rather than a mother and father, and she learned to dip into herself, write her words on the parchment of her mind, without simply flinging them to the wind. All this he thinks about when he is with the sheep each day.

Yannai puts an arm around him. “Come, Eliyahu, surely you can pull down your own chomat habarzel, your wall of iron, and join us?”

Eliyahu stares dumbly at the entrance of the cave, where the sun is beginning to rise and pull him outward, to insist that he start the new day. With whatever it may bring.

***

Yishai brings Leonora the news that the chaburah she supports has agreed to make the journey to Jerusalem. She looks up from her desk, and gives him a large smile. “This is news to lift a tired and weary heart,” she says.

She has been tired before, but what is new is the quiet desperation of an aching head, a nausea that lingers in your throat, the deep ache of despair as you think of what needs to be done and realize that it is impossible.

She drops her pen onto her desk and stands up. “We must send them off correctly, Yishai, should we not?”

“What did you have in mind, Honorable Mama?”

“A feast.”

She can see the surprise on his face, but let him wonder. She is tired of the naysayers and the failures. Let them celebrate as if the Redeemer is coming tomorrow, as if he will be here now, today.

“We shall make a feast of Redemption. You shall invite all the notables in the town, and we shall send them off as our emissaries.” She walks out of the counting room and into the large dining room, Yishai following behind her. “We shall have red damask tablecloths, like the red woolen thread on Yom Kippur that was transformed to white. For we have suffered through our sins and hope is here, on the threshold.”

She spins around and looks up at him. “What do you imagine, Yishai, when you think of the Redemption?” He does not answer. She knew that he would not, and she speaks instead.

“I always thought it was the cleansing of a chatat, a sin offering. Place your hands on the young bull — a goat, maybe, or a ram — and acknowledge that you have a spirit which could gore and destroy, or stubbornly hold on to guilt.”

He nods, face a mask.

“But now when I think of it, it is more than the expiation of sin. It is the light. The radiance of the Mikdash. I want to step into it.”

She does not continue her thought, not to her son. How she wants to close her eyes, feel the light seeping through her skin and into her blood, so that it can be carried even to the darkness interred in her heart.

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 822)