The old rabbi looked at him with surprise. “Jesus, how can you speak with such love and sureness about death? It’s been a long time since I’ve heard your voice so tender.”
“Tell us about the prophet Isaiah’s death, and you’ll see that I am right.”
The old rabbi shifted his position to avoid touching Lazarus.
“Iniquitous King Manasseh forgot the commands of his father, God-fearing Hezekiah; Satan entered and took possession of him. Manasseh could no longer bear to hear Isaiah, the voice of God. He therefore sent assassins all over Judea to find him and cut his throat so that he would speak no more. But Isaiah was in Bethlehem. Hidden inside a huge cedar, he prayed and fasted in order to make God take pity on Israel and save her. One day a Samaritan, a man outside the Law, passed by as the hand of the prophet, who was praying, emerged from the tree. The lawless Samaritan saw it and straightway ran to the king and informed him. The prophet was seized and led to the king. ‘Bring the saw used to cut down trees, and saw him in two!’ the accursed man ordered. They laid him down. Two men took hold of the two handles and began to saw. ‘Disown your prophecies,’ shouted the king, ‘and I’ll grant you your life!’ But Isaiah had already entered Paradise, and no longer heard the voices of this earth. ‘Deny God,’ the king shouted again, ‘and I’ll have my subjects fall at your feet and adore you.’
“ ‘You have no power,’ the prophet then answered him, ‘except to kill my body. You cannot touch my soul, nor can you smother my voice. Both are immortal. The one goes up to God; the other, my voice, shall remain evermore on the earth and preach.’ When he had spoken Death came in a chariot of fire, with a crown of gilded cedar in his hair, and took him.”
Jesus got up, his eyes shining. A chariot of fire hung over him.
“Friends,” he said, looking at the disciples one by one, “beloved fellow voyagers: if you love me, listen to the words I shall speak to you tonight. You must always be tightly girded and ready-those who have sandals, with sandals, those who have staffs, with staffs-ready for the great journey. What is the body? The tent of the soul. ‘We are taking up our tents and leaving!’ you should say at every instant. ‘We are leaving, returning to our homeland.’ What homeland? Heaven!
“Friends, here is the final word I wish to say to you tonight. When you find yourselves in front of a beloved tomb, do not begin to weep. Keep ever in your minds this great consolation: Death is the door to immortality; there is no other door. Your beloved did not die-he became immortal.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ALL DAY LONG, starting at the heavenly daybreak, but even more so during the night when no one observed, spring had been gradually pushing aside rocks and soil and rising from the land of Israel. In one night the plains of Sharon in Samaria and Esdrelon in Galilee filled with yellow daisies and wild lilies; and short-lived anemones-large drops of blood-sprouted among the sullen rocks of Judea. Protruding, crablike eyes appeared on the vines. In each of these rose-green buds the unripe clusters, the mature grapes and the new wine gathered momentum to burst forth; and still deeper, in the heart of each bud, were the songs of men. A guardian angel stood by each tiny leaf and helped it grow. You thought the first days of creation were returning, when each word of God which fell upon the freshly turned soil was full of trees, wildflowers and greenery.
This morning at the foot of holy Mount Gerizim, the Samaritan woman was again filling her pitcher at Jacob’s well and looking down the road to Galilee, as though she still longed to see the pale youth who had once spoken to her about immortal water. And now that it was spring, this pleasure-loving widow had revealed even more of the two mounds of her sweaty bosom.
This springtime night the immortal soul of Israel metamorphosed, became a nightingale which perched in the open window of each young unmarried Jewess and kept her awake until dawn with its singing. Why do you go to bed all alone? it twittered, scolding her. Why do you think I gave you long hair and two breasts and round wide hips? Arise, put on your jewelry, lean out of your window. Place yourself on your threshold at the break of dawn, take your pitcher and go to the well, flirt with the unmarried Jews you meet on your way and, with them, make children for me. We Hebrews have many enemies, but as long as my daughters give me children, I am immortal. I hate the unplowed fields and ungrafted trees of the land of Israel -and the virgins.
In the desert of Idumea, at God-protected Hebron, around the all-holy tomb of Abraham, the Hebrew children awoke early in the morning and played at being the Messiah. They constructed bows out of osiers and shot arrows made of cane into the sky, shouting for the Messiah-the king of Israel -to descend at last with a long sword and helmet of gold. They made a throne for him to sit on by spreading a lambskin over the sacred tomb. They composed a special song for him; they clapped their hands for him to appear-and suddenly, from behind the tomb, there were cheers and the sound of drums and out came the strutting, bellowing Messiah with beard and mustache of corn tassels, and a ferocious painted face. He held a long sword made of a date branch and struck the children one by one on the neck. They all fell down, massacred.
Day was also breaking at Lazarus’s house in Bethany, but Jesus had not yet closed his eyes. His anguish had refused to subside; no road opened before him except one: death. The prophecies speak about me, he was thinking. I am the lamb who shall take upon himself the sins of the world and be slaughtered at this Passover. Well, then, let the lamb be slaughtered one hour sooner. The flesh is weak; I have no faith in it. At the last minute it may turn coward. Let death come now while I still feel my soul to be standing erect… Oh, when will the sun rise so that I can go to the Temple. I must put an end to everything-today!
The decision made, his mind felt somewhat soothed. He closed his eyes, fell asleep, and had a dream. The sky seemed to be an orchard enclosed by a rail fence and full of wild animals. He too was a wild animal and was frisking with the rest, and in his frisking he jumped over the rails and fell onto the ground. When the people saw him they became terrified. The women screamed and collected their children from the streets so that the beast would not eat them. The men seized lances, stones and swords, and began the hunt… Blood was running all over him when suddenly he fell prone onto the ground. Then it seemed that judges accumulated around him in order to judge him. They were not men, however, but foxes, dogs, hogs and wolves. They judged him, condemning him to death. But as they led him to be executed, he remembered that he could not die: he was a heavenly beast, and immortal. And as he remembered this a woman took his hand, and it was Mary Magdalene. She brought him out of the city to the fields. “Do not go to heaven,” she said to him. “Spring is here; stay with us.” They marched and marched, until the border of Samaria. There the Samaritan woman appeared, her jug on her shoulder. She offered it to him and he drank; afterward, she too took his hand and brought him, without speaking, as far as the border of Galilee. Then his mother emerged from under the ancient flowering olive trees. She was wearing a black kerchief and weeping. When she saw the wounds, the blood all over him and the crown of thorns in his hair she lifted her hands. “As you scathed me,” she said to him, “may God scathe you. You placed my name on the tongues of men: the whole world is buzzing. You lifted your hand against the Fatherland, the Law, the God of Israel. Didn’t you fear God; weren’t you ashamed before men? Had you no thought for your mother and father? My curse upon you!” Having said this, she vanished.