Martin Fieber - He Who Returned

“You have had met up with those ominous folks? Sarah, I forbid you to have any further contact with that family. Have you understood?”

“Samuel, I am so sorry, but I will not allow that to be taken away from me. From anyone. Not even from you. I married you, I value your strong faith and I will even go into another country with you if it is necessary, but I will not let you tell me whom I am allowed to meet or not! And especially not when we are speaking of such nice people that are so good for me, that see my soul, and that cherish me as much as I cherish them.”

Suddenly Samuel turned into a raging beast. He hit Sarah right in her face, again and again. Then he took a stick that was always at hand in a corner of the room, and kept beating his wife with it. Countless times. Endless moments passed. Then he threw Sarah on the floor, pushed up her robe, and took his wife as brutally as he could.

Samuel was no longer in control of himself. He pounded away in her, again and again. His body cramped up, he moaned and screamed until he had reached the peak of his crazed lust. Then his body relaxed. He could only hear the whimpering of his wife. Then he stopped in shock and let her go.

He got up, smoothed his robe and left the room, followed by a large shadow that left Samuel and vanished in thin air a few moments after he had left the room.

Samuel would have to return at any moment, having completed his evening walk. Even this evening, after he had brutalized Joshua’s mother so badly. Joshua had been the one to find his mother. He sat next to her at the bed and held her hand. Joshua looked into the eyes of his mother. Something in her soul had broken today. It seemed as if the love had vanished from her and as if desperation and sadness had taken its place in here.

Joshua trembled with fear, for when Samuel was in that kind of a mood, anything was possible. His fear of Samuel had grown so great that even the bottomless hatred against him seemed so minor that he hardly felt it. His hand dug into the wooden cross, without him being ware of it.

Joshua was sad. Why did he and his mother have to suffer so much under Samuel? And why was he always a model of justice for everyone else? Joshua recalled a trial that had recently taken place in the synagogue as usual. Almost the entire village had been present. Samuel, who as rabbi was also the judge in the village, had settled a dispute between two farmers, who had been fighting over a calf, so astutely and justly, that on the one hand Joshua’s admiration for his father was increased, yet on the other hand the recognition, that his father was just to everyone except his family, destroyed that feeling immediately. He never wanted to attend court proceedings again. Joshua never wanted to experience how loving his father could be to other people again. He hated Samuel.

The feelings coming from the house of the rabbi were so intense that Jesus, who had just lain down to sleep, picked up on them and immediately called upon his father in the vast heavens above.

“Father, please help my friend Joshua and help his mother, so that she no longer need be in pain. Please remove any and all hate from that house and transform it into loving and forgiving energy. Thank you father.”

“Jesus, I want you to help me and your half-brothers in the workshop today.” Joseph’s voice sounded very serious. “We still have to prepare quite a few things before we go to Sepphoris in a few days to aid in fully rebuilding the city.”

“Why was the town destroyed?” Jesus was very curious and always wanted to know about the background of events.

“You have already heard of the zealots, right?”

“Yes. Those are men who want to drive the Romans out of Galilee.”

“Exactly. They want to drive the Romans out of all of Galilee and Judea. These zealots fight and are very brutal. Many of the members of their various groups are from Sepphoris. One might say that city is the home of the zealots. After the death of Herod the Great the situation was very dangerous, and the Romans wanted to keep the town from falling into the hands of the zealots. After all it is located on the main trade route which connects Damascus and Egypt.”

“Many people must have been killed.” Jesus became sad.

“Yes, and not only that. Many of the former inhabitants were sold as slaves to the Romans. Among them many children. One hears a great deal of awful things.” A tear slipped down Joseph’s cheek. “Jesus, we have to hurry up. Come now.”

Jesus followed Joseph, whom he viewed more as an uncle or a brother than as a father, into the workshop. There Jossi and Judah had already begun working early in the morning.

“Jesus, our job is to equip the theater which is currently being built in Sepphoris with doors. And to supply the dressing rooms of the actors with tables. We need eleven doors, seven are already finished. You can brush away the shavings and bring us the tools that we need. Is that all clear?”

“Yes, after all I’m not that small and dumb.”

“And if you do a good job, then you can join us sometime when we go to Sepphoris and take a look at the theater.”

“How many people fit in there?”

“Jesus, stop asking so many questions. You had better do as father tells you!” Judah was annoyed. He hated it when Jesus kept on asking questions like that. “There is a broom in the corner. Get started already.”

Jesus observed the three men while they worked. Judah drilled holes into a door they were making out of cedar wood, Jossi planed off the rough spots from another. Joseph marked the spot for mounting a metal handle on yet another. He had just picked up the eleven handles from Shaul, the smith. He looked at the tools which hung on the walls. Various saws, chisels, a couple of hatchets, iron and wood hammers, files and drills. The planers were lying underneath the large axe which Joseph was especially proud of because he had brought it with him from Egypt.

During the last couple of weeks Jesus had spent a lot of time in the workshop while the men were in Sepphoris. He had carved himself his flute and other small objects. He loved wood, especially the olive wood with its interesting grain. He had secretly tried out some of the smaller tools and had already gained some abilities. Joseph however knew nothing about all this. Although he was young compared to his nearly grown-up half brothers, he knew that he would be deliver quality craftsmanship and that he would be a good craftsman if God asked this of him. He would like to build new houses.

God, I thank you for being here in Nazareth. Today for the first time I had the feeling that I was in exactly the right place here. I did not know this up until now, but now I am certain of it. Even though I often feel weak and drained, even if I am sickly, as people in the village apparently say about me, even though I still hear voice calling ‚you false Messiah!’ behind my back, from today on I know that I am in exactly the right place. Why since today you might ask father, but I do not know the answer.

Joshua was very sad today. I have rarely seen a boy who already has such an aura of sadness at his age. Please help him and his family. May you bless all beings and fill them with your love. May it always be thus.

∞

Joshua and the other children were sitting in school listening to the words of the torah. Samuel was reading them a few passages from the records which described the life of Moses. But Joshua was not listening because his thoughts were with his mother, who had recovered physically some in the last couple of days, yet who had remained a different person nonetheless since the horrible event. She was closed-off and kept her speech to a bare minimum in daily life. Suddenly Jacob the potter entered the room and told Samuel that a man who urgently wished to speak with him was waiting outside in the courtyard.