“If Rava created a man, why shouldn’t I create a woman?”
To tell her that what the great rabbi created, a greater one dissolved, will not satisfy this child. For she is not driven by pride, or avarice, but by a broken heart.
She is only twelve, and she has lost much more than father and mother and home; she has lost her trust in the faith that they taught her. Her name is Ahavah, and I know the anger that burns within her.
“Should life be created to bring death?” I finally reply to her question.
She is thrice surprised: That I found her hiding place in a long-abandoned house, that I understood the words she spoke and the symbols she arranged upon the ground, and that I know why she means to raise a Golem.
This story first appeared in ResAliens Zine Issue #11
“Who are you?” she asks.
“I am Serach, daughter of Asher.”
Her eyes widen in shock. She knows the name. And I know the anger. It is the same I felt at the same age, over 2000 years ago.
~*~
My grandfather, bemoaning his fate, arguing his innocence before his three so-called friends, would not cross the line and call his Maker evil; but I had already crossed that line. If it had not been for grandfather’s faithfulness to the Maker, the accuser would not have been given free rein to destroy all he held dear… including my mother, my father, all that we had.
So, hidden behind a rock, I observed; and I saw the real court. I did not bother to wonder how. The unbearable light on the throne could not be discerned, but the accuser was there beside it, hanging on every word, while living beings clothed in light watched: some in dismay, some in hope, some pleading his case before the throne. But clearest of all, I saw the one in the likeness of man. He was transcribing everything that was said onto a glistening scroll of silver that unwound over his arm as the blazing iron stylus in his hand etched the letters on its surface.
Then, grandfather Job railed at his Maker for persecuting him mercilessly; for even children – the surviving children – hated him, and those who had loved him had turned against him. And I agreed. And I longed to see him pay. When he cried out, ‘Oh, write it with a tool of iron on tablets of stone,’ I rose, rushed into that assembly of light, and begged the man for his stylus. And he gave it to me.
With it in hand, I returned to the rock, knelt back down on the ground, and on its surface, still wet from my tears, I carved down the words I hoped would finally condemn him. But what he said was not what I had expected.
‘I know that my Redeemer lives.’ He avowed. ‘And in the end, he will stand upon this earth. And though this earth be my grave, though my body has been destroyed, I will see G-d. I with my own eyes, and not another. Oh, how my heart yearns within me.’
No. My heart yearned for something very different. I waited and I scoffed until the whirlwind came and the unbearable light finally spoke and acquitted him!
I left that place numb, eyes spent of tears, and a heart still trembling in anger. To forgive his friends, that was the sentence passed on him. No more.
And what about us? We are supposed to bow down to the will of the Maker without knowing why all this suffering had to come? No, that is not justice. That is not mercy. I wanted my own answer. I wanted to see Justice and Mercy with my own eyes.
‘You are young.’ A voice behind me startled me. I turned around. It was the man with the silver scroll. ‘Perhaps in your time,’ he went on. ‘Perhaps Justice and Mercy are to be the legacy of your generation.’
‘My generation? A generation of generations would not be enough to set things right,’ I spat back, clenching the stylus in my fist, defiant.
But he did not require it back. He simply vanished. And though I did not realize it then, the man took me at my word.
Within a month, three daughters were born to grandfather Job. By the end of the year, seven sons had been added and my three newborn aunts had married and borne children of their own: cousins who never knew me.
It happened so fast. I caught a glimpse of their joy while everyone forgot me.
I age 40 times slower than the human race; one year for every generation.
I was barely sixteen when Asher, Jacob’s son, adopted me into his family. I fell in love in Egypt, only to see the oppression begin, and those who opposed it destroyed. After three lifetimes of slavery, at twenty-six, I saw Abraham’s promise fulfilled, as Moses led all of us out of Egypt.
Cycles of joy, suffering, anger, and peace, repeat over and over again. Will it never end? Even when prophets that can bring fire down from heaven rebuke our hearts, we never learn. We want Justice and Mercy on our own terms.
~*~
She is like me. Such hate, in a heart so young… She does not know what hate can do. But I do know. I know because I know her heart. For long ago, after Moses gave us the Law, I discovered the power of the stylus: that words written from the Word become true in me by its fire. And so, when despair brought me one more time to flirt with destruction, I determined never again to fall prey to a reckless heart. That day I seared the prophet Jeremiah’s words across my chest: ‘I the Lord search the heart and test the mind.’
“Serach bat Asher, she mutters as she upends her satchel, spilling the scrolls all over the dank ground, shoving them aside until she finds the one. Unrolling it, she does not have to read, for she knows them all by heart. “Some say you are the Chol, the Phoenix that has ever watched over the fortunes of our people; that you were there when we fled Egypt, there when Solomon dedicated the temple… there when it burnt down.”
“Yes, I have seen it all.”
“You were there,” her anger will not abate, “and you did nothing? At least I will do something.” She reaches over to the forehead of the beautiful clay sculpture she has fashioned on that ground and inscribes, at the edge of the hairline, the letters aleph, mem, and tav, spelling Emet, ‘Truth’. And the creature of clay comes to life. “Now,” she says as she embraces it, “I have a mother they cannot kill.”
She draws a rolled parcel from the bottom of the satchel, and I taste the sour pang in her chest that accompanies the tears welling at her eyes. I smell the sea breeze and the fish market of her memories… and the stench of fire and death that took it all away. The singed tunic belonged to her mother. She dresses her silent creation in it. I know where they are going.
Sepporis, Akre, Caesarea, have all fallen. Cestius Gallus and his army, thirty thousand strong, swept through Galilee like a lightning bolt, squashing the zealots’ rebellion; and growing in violence on their way to Jerusalem. By the time they reached Joppa they were burning villages and fields indiscriminately, destroying everything and everyone in their path. This child survived.
Hand in hand they disappear into the ruins.
~*~
In the middle of the Sabbath’s night, the fences of the Roman encampment at Gibeon are shattered by a shadow that neither sword nor spear can stop. The sound of the Roman alarm triggers the rebels’ ambush. Over 500 Romans fall, and the main force is driven back to Beth-Horon.
But it matters not. For within a week, Cestius Gallus and the Twelfth Legion gather on Mount Scopus northeast of Jerusalem. The fate of the city is sealed.
I have known it would end this way since I saw the first Temple burn. I recognized back then the echoes of the future. But the carnage need not come, if only they would flee. Those that heeded Jeremiah’s cry and fled Jerusalem, survived the Babylonian onslaught. But there is no Jeremiah this time, no appeal to reason, only hatred.
The Romans pour down like a swollen river through Bezetha, the new city. Within a day and a half, it is all ruins and fire. On the third day they start their attack on the wall of the upper city, opposite Agrippa’s palace. The counterattack from the walls is fruitless, for the tortoise of shields interlocked above the soldiers’ heads proves impregnable. The elders within, call for surrender; pleading for the gates to be opened to the Romans.
But Cestius has a different plan for a swift victory. The upper city was just a distraction, to draw the defenders to that side of the city. On the evening of the fourth day, the Twelfth Legion rushes in a swift march across the Tyropoeon valley and falls against the western wall of the Temple mound, faster than the defenders can negotiate bridge, valley, and gates to reassemble within the narrower confines of the Temple courts.
While the Roman ram starts to pound the wall, two cohorts advance upon the gates to set them on fire. Surely, this is the end. Surely, the Jews would rather surrender than see their Temple destroyed. That is what Cestius Gallus is counting on. But just before midnight something changes.
At the ram’s next blow, it is the metal head that resounds in agony. The soldiers within the testudo recoil back, staggered momentarily. But they gather themselves again; and again, in unison, push the gigantic beam with all their might. This time the beam splinters at the collision. For the other side of the wall has acquired a mighty buttress, in human form: two arms pressing against the wall and two legs unyieldingly anchored on eretz Yisrael.
The cries of amazement from within, only increase the confusion outside. And then the buttress begins to move, scales the wall, and stands at the top. In the light of the full moon, its defiant shadow covers the Roman force below. They have little time to panic. The Golem jumps down, shatters through the testudo protecting the remains of the ram, and starts its rampage.
The headlong flight of the Legion before that silent destroyer, drives one half of the army into the other. His forces in disarray, Cestius Gallus orders the retreat. And as the day starts to break, they attempt to retrace their steps out of Jerusalem toward the camp at Antipatris. But the rebels control the mountains above the pass of Beth-Horon. The Romans lose over 6000 men.
“We have won.” Ahavah says as she draws beside me at the Fish Gate. Holding her hand, is her silent creation. The darkness of her skin reminds me of Solomon’s beloved Shulamite, but her eyes are the color of brass, for this beauty has but one purpose: judgment. The love the child bestows upon it makes no difference.
“Child, you have only delayed the inevitable. I know the history of our people; it repeats itself, time and time again. Had we bowed our head, it would not have been to Caesar… he would have been but an instrument in the hand of the merciful One.”
She scoffs. But within one month of my life, I am proven right. The Romans have returned to exact their revenge. In those three years, the people have armed themselves, declared their independence, and then started to devour each other.
Jerusalem is divided into factions that hate their brothers as much they hate the Romans. Murder and rapine are rampant. Only the approach of the Roman army brings them together, just as the city is filled by crowds that have come to celebrate the Passover.
Four Legions under the command of Titus, son of Vespasian, surround Jerusalem. Bezetha is once again razed to the ground. And then begins his attack upon the walls from the northwest. The first and second walls fall swiftly, with the defenders driven back to the upper and lower cities and the Temple district.
In what seems to me the blink of an eye, Titus raises ramparts against the upper city and against the Antonia fortress, north of the Temple. Ahavah is there. Her creation undermining the ramparts from below while the rebels set them on fire from above. But just as quickly, new ones are raised and battering rams deployed.
There are just too many Romans, everywhere. Once the Antonia fortress falls, the battle reaches the porticoes of the Temple; and the outer courts are set on fire. Echoes from the past: On the same day that the Babylonians destroyed the first Temple, the Romans break into the outer court. Within two more days, the blaze has spread into the inner court and to the Temple itself.
The bloodbath is unimaginable. The Romans spare no one; man or woman, child or aged, rebel or refugee… they all fall. What their sword does not consume, the fire does. The roar of the flames and the cries of the dying merge into a horrifying din, heard well beyond the walls of the city. Jerusalem is screaming in agony.
And I finally see the child again, petrified at the horror of it all. An aged priest had dragged her into the sanctuary seeking to save her, together with a dozen other children cowering at the back wall beyond the incense altar. The only thing keeping a squadron of soldiers from seeing them is the curtain of fire rippling across the walls and the roof.
I sear the words of Isaiah onto my arm, ‘when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee’, and I run.
One of the Romans catches a glimpse of the priest, starts to cross into the blaze, sword drawn. The Golem moves to protect, but the priest stops it, holds its face with his hands, and turns its eyes to a corner of the blaze. “Torah!” He cries. And the creature understands. It runs, starts gathering every scroll she can, and envelops them with her body. The priest does the same with Ahavah, as the Roman sword comes down.
Four more soldiers are almost upon them. I only have time to carve three letters onto the palm of my left hand: resh-dalet-dalet: radad – flatten down – and no soldier can stand in my path. By the time I reach them, the firestorm is beyond control; the ceiling crumbling, the metalwork raining down. With a push, I throw the soldiers out of the sanctuary and retrieve the child out of the priest’s dying arms. There is only one way out: through the wall.
I gather the other children. Across my right arm I burn Jeremiah’s lamentation: ‘O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a torrent day and night: give thyself no respite.’ And at my touch the stone weeps, enveloping us in a sheltering downpour. At the brush of my left hand, stone and ground slide apart and sink, making a way out of the Temple, out of the city, out of Mount Zion.
~*~
Across the Jordan, in the Gilead of my childhood, we meet many who fled the city before the massacre, in obedience to an oracle. And every child finds a new family to care for them; save one. She refuses consolation. Her hatred, like the fire in the city, has consumed all that it can consume… leaving behind embers of despair.
I cannot let them go out. Fire is all her heart has known for so long, without it, she will give up and die. And I know how to fan the flame; for I know there is still resentment in there, directed at me. Wherever she walks I walk. Wherever she rests I rest. Until she finally speaks again.
“Why didn’t you stop them? I’ve seen the power you wield. If you are afraid to use it, give it to me… and I will kill them all, every stinking Roman!”
“And you will be the Judge?”
“Who else will do it?”
“And what about the Idumeans and Bar Giora’s assassins that murdered Hanan ben Hanan and his chief priests? Some of those zealots have survived, will you judge them too? Or the Galileans of John of Gischala, who in their insatiable lust ransacked the houses of the wealthy in the upper city, murdered the men and violated the women?
“Even before the Romans arrived, those three so-called generals of our people had burned down the granaries that could have prevented the starvation of the masses during the siege… to force the people to fight. Will you judge them all?”
“Jerusalem would have survived.”
“It would not have. I know… because I tried, long ago.
“I was 45 when the Assyrian army laid waste to the land of Judah. I fled with the remnant of my family to Jerusalem. We did not even have time to bury the dead. But even there, Sennacherib came. Finally, King Hezekiah cried out to the Lord for help. And the prophet Isaiah brought him the answer. But all that the prophet promised was that the Assyrian would not enter the city, that the Lord would turn him back to his land.
“And what about all I had loved and lost?
“I screamed for vengeance. But the Lord would not reply; so, I took matters into my own hands. Even if He would not speak to me, His words had already been written by Nahum of Alqosh. And I burned those words across the back of my arms: ‘they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings’.
“As the sun set, I stood on the wall of Jerusalem to face that vast army. With the last refrains of the maarib fading behind me, I fell upon them. Faster than the eye could see, I moved through that host. A sweep of my hand stole a man’s breath; a touch of my finger, shattered a neck; a push of my hand crushed armor and chest.
“The roar of my passing, toppled horses and disintegrated chariots. I hurled the Rabshakeh through his private guard, and pieces of men scattered through the air like broken clay dolls. I mowed them down, twenty men per heartbeat. I gave them no chance to react; dashing from one end of the camp to the other, they had no front to defend, no rear to escape. Those that I spared momentarily, fainted at the horror: carnage rolling like waves over the field, a crimson maelstrom spewing everywhere its flotsam of dismembered life.
“I left Sennacherib for last. I wanted to see the terror in his eyes.
“Stumbling to a standstill, knee deep in death, I called out his name. And just as he stepped out, barely able to stand, surrounded by his royal guard, a tall shadow in the shape of a woman appeared between us. At a wave of her hand, a column of fire rose from the ground and consumed a path through the field of blood, from the Assyrian’s tent down through the Kidron valley and beyond. ‘Go.’ She commanded. It was more a lion’s roar than a word, but they obeyed. Their chariots fled down that road of ash even as I screamed, ‘they are mine!’
“I almost became the lightning again, but the shadow seized me in mid-air and slammed me down onto the carpet of corpses at her feet. She pinned me down, and at her roar my chest felt like it was going to explode; and my heart finally sank in terror, all hatred and bloodlust forgotten.
“Only then did she let go and stood above me, fully formed: A woman, clad in rent garments black as smoke. The curls that cascaded across her shoulders and down her back, glistened like onyx; but her face was white as the moon, except for the reddish-black kohl outlining her eyes and flowing down the two sides of her nose like the tear streaks of the great running panthers of the Kushite savannah. Her arms and legs were just as pale, but for the blood… covering her legs from the knees down and her arms from the elbows to her fingertips. And on one hand, I finally saw, she was holding a sickle.
“‘Who are you?’ I managed to ask.
“‘I am Neqamah. I am vengeance!’
“‘The tenth plague –’ I finally recognized, as I shut my eyes; but the memory would not be held at bay. And I heard it all again: the wails of pain and anguish of an entire kingdom, filling the night. All because of the stubbornness of one man, one Pharaoh that refused to bow down before the Judge of all the Earth.
“‘You remember,’ she said, as she lifted me to my feet.
“‘An eye for an eye,’ I said, glancing up at her eyes. ‘Pharaoh paid for every newborn he killed.’ But I could say no more, for I started to cry.
“‘An eye for an eye, and yet you weep,’ she said. And with a blood-stained finger she lifted my chin up and forced me to look upon the plague I had wrought.
“‘One hundred and eighty-five thousand soldiers who will never return home. Is this what you want to be, the messenger of death? What will you tell their children?’
“I crumbled at her feet, clung to her, and wept.
“I do not know how long I was there. But sometime before dawn, she picked me up and carried me back to the wall. ‘Yes, an eye for an eye is the Law,’ she said, ‘but there is only one Judge to whom belongs the power of life and death. That burden was never meant for man or woman to bear.’
“She glanced one last time at the field of death and said: ‘You want to see Justice and Mercy? Then act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before your Lord.’”
The child looks at me with eyes on the verge of tears. “You, you saved Jerusalem from the Assyrian.”
“Did I? The word of Isaiah came true. Sennacherib never returned. He was murdered by his own sons in the temple of his god. And yes, Jerusalem was spared… but not for long. A little over a century later, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon carried out the final sentence. And, again, I lost many I loved.
“Warning after warning came our way; and yet we refused to learn that justice and mercy have always been ours, ours to live and to give… regardless of whether we receive them or not, regardless of what anyone else around us chooses to do.”
Ahavah nods at my words and looks away. The scars on her heart no longer feel as deep, maybe they can begin to heal. But I can also feel the trembling that follows, as she realizes that she rejected every welcoming arm that had been extended to her. And she wonders, what will her life be like, alone in this land?
She turns to me, with hope in her eyes. I know I would welcome that chance, to love and care again for a child. But in what would seem to me months, she will be older than I; carried away by unrelenting time.
I cannot bear to bury another loved one, ever again. Before she can ask, I tell her: “Child, my life is not one that you can share. But there is someone that has been following us from afar.”
I motion at the veiled figure sitting at the foot of the nearby hill. She waits until the child looks at her and then she gets up and comes our way. And the child runs to her. The embrace lasts but seconds before Ahavah recoils back in shock. Undaunted, the Golem kneels before the child and uncovers her face and arms. It is the same face, but her body no longer has the texture of clay, it gleams in the light of the setting sun. The fire, like a kiln, transformed her into a creature of exquisite porcelain. They embrace again, and Ahavah finally weeps.
At my approach, the Golem undoes the satchel that she carried tied to her back, and hands it to me. And now it is my eyes that well with tears. They are the scrolls from the Temple. I hold them close.
I do not know what to do.
I run my finger over her forehead; neither of them protests. But even if I wanted, the aleph cannot be erased. The Emet is now etched in stone. Is that the sign I have been hoping for? Am I really to allow this creature to live on?
As if reading my heart, the Golem stands, reaches into the satchel, and draws out one scroll, hands it to me; and I open it. It is the scroll of the prophet Ezekiel. She guides me with her face and eyes as I unwind the parchment, until I get to the promise of the restoration. And there, I see; and I read the verse aloud: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
She drops her tunic to her elbows and kneels before me. And so, I write across her shoulders; each letter sizzling with divine fire. She flinches at each stroke, but the child holds her hand tightly, and she just nods me on. As I reach that last word, basar, I marvel at the richness of that simple combination of three letters: bet, shin, resh: for together they mean flesh, yes, but also life, and also good news.
Lost in that thought, I do not see the change happen. It is Ahavah’s gasp that makes me look again. And then I see that the written words are no longer etched on porcelain, but on flesh.
The woman kneeling between us stretches a tentative finger to the ground from which she had been born and scribes on it the word yadah, ‘thank you’; and then, lifting her face, trembling, she forms that word with her lips and says it aloud.
They hold each other again for a long time.
Together, in silence, we watch the sun set and the moon and stars rise. Ahavah is the first to speak again. “Search, daughter of Asher, how could I ever thank you?”
I bow my head and smile. “Guard your heart, my child; and give love and mercy as you have received.”
Her smile is lovely. Then she speaks again: “She needs a name.”
“How about Keren-Happuch,” I reply, “I had a beautiful aunt named Keren-Happuch. I wish I had gotten to know her better.”
“Keren-Happuch,” they both say at the same time, and smile.