Джеймс Миченер - The Source

Within a few hours he persuaded the citizens that Yigal’s plan to fight Rome was sound, and the mob swung from Naaman’s counsel of reasoned surrender to one of impulsive belligerency. “As general in charge of the north, I tell you that if we oppose Vespasian with all our power, the Roman legions can never dislodge us.” The crowd continued to cheer, and before the cautious warnings of Rab Naaman could be voiced, Josephus had divided the citizens into military units, had appointed his captains, had sent Yigal like a lackey to bring all available olive oil from the press, and was identifying new constructions that would strengthen the walls. Houses whose sides projected above the walls were given two severe tests by Josephus: Could their roofs support fighters? Could their sides resist Roman siege engines? If they failed either test he said simply, “Tear them down.”

To the homeless ones from outside the walls Josephus said, “Sleep in the Roman temples. We are at war.” When these matters were settled late in the afternoon, he turned to Yigal and explained, “We’ve chosen to meet the Romans at Makor because we know you have hidden water. I’d like to see it.” So Yigal led the fiery young leader down the shaft, through the sloping David Tunnel and to the well, where to his surprise Josephus looked not at the sparkling water, clear even by the light of flares, but at the roof.

What’s he interested in the roof for? Yigal asked himself.

“Solid?” Josephus asked, tapping the ceiling with a piece of broken water jug.

“Very thick.”

“Good,” the young general said, and he led the way back to town. At the shaft he went up the exposed flight of stairs as swiftly as if he were an athlete, while Yigal trailed behind.

Wherever Josephus moved in the next few days his energy was infectious. On the wall he convinced the workmen that they could build a little faster, a little higher, and he helped them do both. With the women who were passing stones from the dismantled houses he joked, and soon had them laughing. He inspected all water cisterns to see that they were filled and announced that each house must in addition keep jugs of fresh water available in case of fire or the Romans’ taking the well. He even went to the synagogue to persuade Rab Naaman and the old scholars that Makor was doing right in resisting the Romans, and although he had no success with Naaman, he was not surprised when he cajoled the other bearded leaders to support him. On the eve of battle there was hope in Makor, generated by this charismatic young general, and the town went to bed on the night of April 4 satisfied that it had a chance of withstanding the legions.

Two citizens of Makor failed to be impressed. The first was Rab Naaman, who sat alone in the synagogue reflecting on the days ahead and praying: “Almighty God, Your children are about to launch a war which few understand and into which they have stumbled blindly. Destruction is upon us and the scattering of tribes. O God, protect us in the years ahead, and if the Romans are to be the new conquerors after the Egyptians, Assyrians and Babylonians, let us find some way to exist as prisoners within their camps.”

And Yigal, in spite of the support which Josephus had given him, also viewed with suspicion the sweeping success of the adventurer, for he saw in the young general many things he did not like: the man’s energy was vulgar; his enthusiasm was of constant force, regardless of the subject; he acted as if he could persuade any man to his conviction, if only he could talk with him long enough; like a clever Greek he could marshal facts to support any position he had taken; and his desire to see the well and to inspect the roof was in some unspecified way suspicious. With apprehensons of disaster, where he had once had hope, Yigal walked through the evening twilight on this last day of peace and entered the small home where Beruriah, their three sons, their wives and the eleven grandchildren were waiting, and there he placed about his shoulders a white woolen shawl in which he conducted family prayers: “Almighty God, we are about to fight on Your behalf, but I am worried. When I tried to explain this war on Your simple terms nobody understood, but now everybody’s ready to follow the young general who gives them no reasons at all. They go to war not from faith but from arrogance, and without appreciating the consequences. Father and director of our destinies, guide us. Let every person in this room gird his courage for the days ahead.” He prayed in silence for some moments, and in the quiet room his wife imagined that she could hear the tramp of Roman feet. She, better even than her husband, realized that Yigal had sought to enlist his townspeople upon a holy mission, and they had refused to comprehend what he was talking about: the defense of their faith, no less. But under the influence of General Josephus they were willing to engage the Romans in an act of plotless warfare, the end of which could only be death. She bowed her head and echoed her husband’s prayer: “In the days ahead let us have courage.” And in the small room the nineteen members of this family prayed that as good Jews they might prove faithful to their God. When darkness came they did not light their lamps, nor did they put away the dishes, but they prayed as a unit, and when the babies fell asleep they were placed on the floor, and all remained in the room.

Midnight came, and the furry owl that lived in the wadi hooted his signals, but the family prayed on. Under Yigal’s guidance during the preceding years this group of people had come to know God as their benefactor and friend. They had often speculated on why He permitted men like King Herod and Caligula to rule, and they had never found logical explanations. Now that Nero was imitating the earlier persecutors of the Jews, they were increasingly perplexed, and were forced to conclude that in these matters God was not entirely powerful. He had selected the Jews as His personal representatives on earth and He was well disposed toward them, but when raw evil was set loose against His people, as in the case of Nero and Vespasian, God seemed powerless to prevent the persecutions. Yigal knew, of course, that the prophets Elijah, Jeremiah and Gomer had explained that these recurring visitations of evil were called forth by the backsliding and stiff-neckedness of the Jews, and not by God’s impotence to combat evil; in fact, far from being unable to control the tyrants, the prophets had argued that God personally dispatched them to serve His own purposes, but this Yigal refused to believe.

“God is like us,” he told his silent family as the night hours waned and roosters began to crow in the distance. “He loves good and He wills it to prevail, but the time comes when He requires our help to make it triumph. This day is such a time, and if others fail in their resolve, we must not.”

“Are you afraid that General Josephus won’t know what to do?” one of his sons asked.

“I wish that Josephus were more like Naaman—a man of God,” Yigal said, as dawn began to brighten. Then, seeing daylight on the wall outside his home, he was struck anew by the infinite relationship that exists between God and man, and he cried, “Let us dedicate ourselves this day,” and he caused even the babies to be awakened, and he moved from one person to the next, asking, “Do you this day dedicate yourself completely to the will of God?” And each member of his family was required to look into the gray-green eyes of this simple man as he posed the eternal question. When he came to the babies he allowed them to grasp at one finger of his hand as he smiled at them and consecrated them to the thundering days ahead. He was at that moment a fifty-three-year-old Jew who, through years of speculation and ritual, had come to believe that God and the Jews were truly bound together in a covenant comprising deity, people and land, and when the press of terror was most acute, that covenant was most meaningful. In his white prayer shawl, marked with blue stripes and knotted fringes, he concluded the prayers: “Almighty God, we are with You now, and for as long as it is Your will that we shall live, till a hundred and twenty.” As he said these words cries rose in the street that from the walls the lookouts could see the Romans advancing, and the family of Yigal went out into the sunlight to see the latest persecution descending upon them.