Joshua glanced around the room. The twenty-eight boys around Joshua were silent – out of fear of the rabbi and a little out of respect for the writings. Only Simeon, whom he watched from the corner of his eye, was quiet out of sheer ignorance. Joshua knew that he simply could not follow along with what all had heard. Simeon simply did not understand Hebrew, let alone Greek. His little world was strictly Aramaic.
“For a child is born onto us, a son is given to us, upon whose shoulders the rulership lies. He is called wonder-council, God-hero, eternal father, prince of peace.” The rabbi looked up from his torah scroll and turned toward the young faces.
“Who of you would like to translate this part now?” Joseph, a frail boy, raised his hand. Next to Joshua, he was the most talented of the lot.
“Not always Joseph.” Samuel seemed angry. “With him I am sure that he has understood it. How about you, Amos?” The voice of the rabbi was demanding. “I am waiting..”
Amos glanced around the room in fear and eventually took heart and made an attempt. He did not get past a mumbling, but Joshua had to admit it was fairly respectable, since he was the best buddy of Simeon and also not exactly blessed with smarts.
“Yes, not bad, Amos. Show me the passage in the book that is related to this one. Or rather, in which the Messiah is announced.”
However now Amos was at the end of his ability to understand. “Rabbi, I am sorry but I do not know“, he said very quietly.
Samuel looked around among the group. “Who knows it? Simeon?”
He only shook his head.
“Eleasar?” This one too was being asked too much.
“Ismael, son of Jacob? Do you know it?”
“I think it is the passage in the seventh chapter. I will try to recite it. That is why the Lord will give you a sign: ‚See, the virgin will give birth to a son and give him the name Immanuel.’ Is that right, rabbi?”
“Very good, Ismael. Truly very good.” Samuel nodded briefly. “I see you are making good progress. I will let your father know when I see him again.”
At this moment a sadness passed through Joshua, as if a demon had stolen his soul. He could not bear it when his father was nice to other boys. For he himself was hardly ever the recipient of any such kindness. He wished that the friendly words of his father were only for him. He needed the next few minutes in order to calm himself down and not act out his anger against Ismael. It truly was not his fault. And after all Ismael was one of those with whom Joshua got along best. Joshua did not feel like learning anything else today and let his thoughts drift. Fortunately the rest of the morning passed fairly calmly and he could daydream a while. Would the Messiah really come or was it only an old story in order to give the people hope? He did not know, but he was awaited the saviour joyfully. Someday he could come and save him from his father the rabbi, and then he would feel better.
“So, you children of Abrahams“, Samuel continued and brought Joshua back from his daydreams into the house of the assembly, “that is enough for today. You know that the family of the craftsman Joseph is living amongst us once again. This evening there will be a celebration for them. I expect you all to be very polite and demure. Good. May God gift you with insight. The Lord be with you.”
∞
Today Samuel was happy, for he saw some progress with some of his students. Yes, a bright one that Ismael, he thought to himself. There was nothing more beautiful than when young souls understood the teachings of their forefathers and recognized the importance of laws and commandments. Yes, this was his life. He no longer thought about Simeon and his gang, for with those stupid souls every attempt to teach them anything at all was in vain.
A thousand thoughts swirled through Samuel’s head. But the laziness of these children! The fewest of them still wanted to learn Hebrew, because the Greek world was advancing. Galilee was slowly losing its faith because the curse of those Greeks lay on it. And this useless Herod who had declared Sepphoris the capital of Galilee sat in his palace and let heathen slaves construct all those buildings, gave them shelter and even paid them for it. What had Samuel had to see in Sepphoris again yesterday! This town, once beautiful, which had been burnt down a few months ago by the Romans and nearly completely destroyed. The town had burned for two days, until the last fire had burnt out. He would never forget the name of the Roman responsible for that: Publius Quintilius Varus. What had this murderer only done! After this horrible deeds were done in his name in the area surrounding the capital of Galilee. House searches and humiliations, countless inhabitants were sold into slavery or ended up on the cross. People said that over 2000 of them were the victim of this awful torture. The Romans often came through Nazareth often of late. They were searching for the zealot Judas, the son of Ezechias, who terrorized Galilee as leader of various groups of resistance fighters and had let himself be declared king of the Jews.
The zealots were not Samuels world, these resistance fighters reacted to there enemies with the same ruthlessness. However they were nonetheless Jews. But the Romans? Every few days a couple of legionnaires came through Nazareth and looked for fellowmen of Judas. No, these damned Romans! Now heathen buildings stood everywhere in Sepphoris. A theater had even been completed a few days ago. They were now merely working on completing one of the auxiliary buildings with the dressing rooms. Actors, those damned hypocrites. And the most outrageous thing of all was that works of those arrogant Greeks were being performed there. Just yesterday evening had seen a performance of play by Aeschylus. ‚Orestie’ or something like that. It had been the premiere. This piece was about king Agamemnon, who had returned from the Trojan War. Samuel asked himself how such a play, in which the subject matter was murder, blood revenge and extramarital affairs, could even be performed,. What a superficial Greek world! Those Greeks were false, arrogant and quarrelsome. A folk of thinkers, pah. Yes, they had always been able to think, but they had never been able to trust in God. Ah well, they were not the chosen people of God. What else could one expect of them? But what was worst of all: nowadays many Jews outside of Galilee could not speak Aramaic any more and only spoke the arrogant sounding language of those Greeks. And now even the children were beginning to dream of the Greek towns outside of Galilee. Yes, the Messiah was desperately needed.
Samuel briefly returned from the world of his thoughts to make sure whether all of the children had left the room. None of the brats was there anymore.
And once again Samuel’s restless thoughts returned to the incorrigible zealots. They wanted to cast out the foreign rulership of the Romans by force. On the one hand they were right, for what business did the Romans have here among the Jews anyway? They were even worse than the Greeks. But by force? That was assuredly not the right way. Killing simply was not the way.
This was also the reason why Samuel had been in Sepphoris yesterday. He had met with several Rabbis from the area and with some priests from Jerusalem there. They had spoken about the increasing violence in Galilee and about the influence of the Greeks on Jewish life. Much was said but there was no result. As usual. One wanted to wait and see how the next couple of months would develop. But yesterday had really upset his frame of mind. How Bealja, his clerical person of trust from Jerusalem, had told him, the unswerving loyalty to the law of the rabbis in Nazareth had even reached the high priests ears in Jerusalem. In a final talk Bealja had told him that one was concerned about a Rabbi in Ephesus. He supposedly no longer was focusing on the transmission of traditional teachings, but rather enjoyed his time with easy women. And if the situation did not improve in the next few months, once was considering sending him , the good Samuel, into this town in distant Greece and have him preach the God of Abraham in this cave of depravity. Samuel had asked Bealja why he of all people was being considered for this. Bealja’s answer was clear and sent a shiver down Samuel’s spine. Whoever had such a good reputation in the faithless and backward Galilee had to possess unusual abilities.
At first Samuel was shocked by this idea. Ephesus! He did not know much about this town, only that it was the town of black magic. The whole world had probably heard about the magic books of Ephesus. But to leave his home was out of the question. How could they ask this of