Джеймс Миченер - The Source

Each night he prayed with his large family, looking upon his many grandchildren with a love that not even he had imagined possible. “We are the chosen of God,” he said, and if he had been asked why he persisted in the defense of Makor, he would have replied, “Because no man can understand the kind of work God will allot him in this life, but whatever it is, he had better perform it faithfully.”

On the day when it became apparent to all that the town must collapse with the next sunrise, Yigal gathered his family for the last time to discuss with them what a good Jew should be: “You children may live your lives as slaves in some far country,” he said with little outward emotion, “and it may be difficult for you to remain Jews. But if you remember only two things it will be easy to be faithful. There is but one God. He has no assistants, no separations, no form, no personality. He is God, one and alone. The second thing never to forget is that God has chosen Israel for special duties and responsibilities. Perform them well.” He hesitated and his voice broke. “Perform them well.”

Placing the prayer shawl about his shoulders he leaned back and closed his eyes and in a low voice began to recite that gracious litany of the ordinary Jewish household, the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs in which the Jewish husband recalls the good life he has known with his wife:“When one finds a worthy wife,

Her value is far beyond that of pearls.

The heart of her husband is confident about her

And he does not lack gain.

She does good and not evil for him

All the days of her life …She rises while it is still night,

Giving food to her household

And a portion to her maidens …She makes sure that her merchandise is good;

Her light does not go out at night.

She puts her hands upon the distaff,

And her hands take hold of the spindle …Her children rise up and declare her blessed,

Her husband also, and he praises her:

‘Many daughters have done virtuously,

But you have excelled them all.’

Mere grace is delusive and beauty is empty;

The woman who is reverent toward God is worthy of praise.”

He stayed with his children for some hours, talking with them about the various countries to which they might be taken, after which he gathered all the elders of the family and formed them in a circle about the young ones. The older Jews held hands as Yigal said quietly, “Wherever you go in slavery, remember this moment. You are surrounded by the love of God. You are never alone, for you live within the circle of God’s affection.”

He put the children to bed, then went through the streets of the little town, reassuring all who were awake and encouraging them to behave with dignity on the morrow. At the beautiful forum, now demolished by the Roman ballistas, he talked with the hungry men, and on the ramparts he could see in the moonlight that escape hole which the Romans had not yet found. In the marble-faced gymnasium, where the wounded lay, he comforted them, and at the synagogue where a few old Jews prayed through the night he paused to participate in a discussion of God’s law as laid down in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and the men argued like Jews, as if tomorrow were an ordinary day.

Then dawn began, and he called his men to their positions. To an onlooker he would have been an amusing little man that bright morning, an ordinary Jew making believe he was a general, but he sustained his men as if he had been a Caesar fresh from triumphs along the Rhine. When the Romans moved forward, when their great machines creaked and groaned with power as they bore down upon the walls, he went from spot to spot encouraging his men as he had seen Josephus do, but by the midmorning the walls began to crumble. Nothing that the Jews could do prevented the crunching force of Rome from triumphing, and by midday the assaulting legions occupied the forum.

Early that afternoon Vespasian gave a command which he would often regret in his later years when as emperor he knew the responsibility that adheres to casual commands. He ordered the crucifixion of Yigal and his wife Beruriah. Tall poles were brought to a point outside the town, at the edge of the olive grove in which the little Jew had worked. Crosspieces were nailed roughly to the poles, and eight long spikes were produced. Yigal and his wife were laid upon the crosses, and their extremities were nailed down with the great square spikes. Then the crosses were raised in the air, but before the bodies of the two Jews were pierced so that they might bleed to death, a scene of horror was paraded before them.

The nine hundred surviving Jews were herded to a spot beneath the crosses, and as Yigal and Beruriah looked down in their own agony, shrewd judges from among the Romans cried, “That one’s of no use to us,” and swords would hack an old man or woman to death. In this way four hundred were disposed of, after which two engineers coldly studied the younger men to judge whether or not they could survive work on the ship canal that Nero had ordered to be dug at Corinth. With practiced eyes they spotted any deformity: “This one has a bad arm.” And swift swords would slash away both the arm and the head, but some of the sturdier Jews were reserved for transportation to the isthmus. Then the hard-headed slave traders who accompanied all Roman armies stepped forth to appraise the women; only a few were found worth saving and more than three hundred rejects were slain in a few minutes. Finally the children were led before the slavers, and all under the age of eight were automatically killed, for it had been found that these rarely survived the slave camps. An older boy with a harelip, a girl with a limp … these were cut down at once, but any who might bring a fair price were thrown into great iron cages for transportation to the slave market at Rhodes.

“O God, preserve them!” Yigal moaned, and then he saw the special hell that Vespasian had decreed for the man who had poured boiling olive oil upon his Romans. The seventeen members of Yigal’s family were led forth, and his three sons were cut down as their mother screamed in agony. Then their wives were slain. And finally the eleven grandchildren were taken one after the other to the foot of Yigal’s cross, where they were pierced by Roman swords. Eight, nine, ten, they died. The last child was a little boy who could not understand what was happening. From behind two soldiers struck him and he fell a mutilated thing.

The seventeen corpses were then tossed into a pile, after which General Vespasian, arms akimbo, stood beside them, calling to his adversary, “Observe, olive worker, the fate of Jews who resist Rome.”

His body numb with pain, Yigal found strength to call back, “But they will resist.” With wonder and contempt the bull-necked Roman stared for the last time at his twisted victim, then left abruptly to supervise the final destruction of the town.

Only then were soldiers with long lances permitted to pierce Yigal’s belly and Beruriah’s neck. It was obvious that she would die first, and she turned her eyes to gaze with love upon her frightened, retching husband. Her lips moved but made no sound, and as the two Jews looked at each other across the sunlit space, she expired. Yigal, watching her, whispered:“Many daughters have done virtuously,

But you have excelled them all.”

He turned his head away from the carnage to look once more upon that small town on the hill where he had been so happy. The walls were coming down and in all quarters there was flame.

LEVEL

VII

The Law

Originally a stone lintel above the west door of the entrance to a synagogue, with decorations as shown on top: two groups of vines, leaves and bunches of grapes, beside two date palms, all symbolizing the richness of the Galilee; in the center a small four-wheeled flat wagon bearing the holy Ark of the Covenant, an acacia box containing the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. The ark was carried by the Jews on their forty-year march from Mount Sinai to the promised land. Captured in war by the Philistines, it brought them only evil until they voluntarily returned it. Brought by King David to Jerusalem, finally placed by King Solomon in the temple, from which it vanished at the time of the Babylonian destruction. Carved in white limestone, Makor, 335 C.E., reused in 352 C.E. as part of the southwestern façade of a Byzantine basilica and recarved in that year by the original artist with three Christian crosses. Deposited at Makor March 26, 1291, during the destruction of the Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene.