Take This Cup (4 page)

So
this
is
it,
she thought as her belly became rock hard, held for a minute, and then slowly relaxed.
Not
so
bad. I must tell Ezra not to worry. Not at all.

Sarah said aloud, “Hmmm. So my sisters exaggerated their pain. Probably to impress their husbands.”

Sarah rose from her bed. Yet another contraction seized her. This was much stronger. She groaned and gripped the tent pole for support, panting until it passed.

All
right . . . then . . . all right . . . So maybe they were not exaggerating all of it
.

Stepping outside the tent, she cupped her hands and called cheerfully, “Hepzibah, wake up, my sister! You’d better hurry. I need your help, Hepzibah. Our little one says he wants to see the dawn with his own eyes this morning!”

Chapter 3

I
was born shortly before sunrise. They tell me I was a large, angry, big-voiced baby, with a full head of dark hair and fists that made my father proud. I had an appetite to match my size.

“He’s going to be a big fellow.” My father smiled down tenderly at me. “A fighter, I think.”

According to the tradition of our family, my name would not be revealed until the circumcision on the eighth day. My mother guessed that surely Father would call the boy something that honored a warrior ancestor. She mentioned a dozen names, but my father did not respond to her suggestions.

“Can’t you tell me?” my mother asked him the day before my circumcision.

“The Lord has not revealed the boy’s name to me yet, wife. Tonight, as is my tradition, I’m going to the waterfall for a
mikvah.
I will pray and ask the Lord to tell me what I should call my son. A name is so important. It sets the course for a life. I will bathe beneath the waterfall and immerse myself in the pool. Then I’ll listen for the voice of the Lord. Adonai will speak to me. He will tell me who my son is meant to be.” Father gathered clean clothes and a blanket and struck out in the dark up the path to bathe in the cold snow melt.

Mother lay in the tent with me at her side. She says I nursed
and then slept. A trickle of milk escaped my full lips. She wrapped my fingers around her thumb, kissed my forehead, and whispered, “I know who you are. Though your father will name you for a mighty man, a great man, you are my little lamb. You will always be that to me.”

My father returned at daybreak. With his hair swept back from his face, he looked like a young man as he stood over Mother and me.

“Well?” she asked.

“He is to be a servant of the Most High. The Lord has revealed it to me.”

She patted the edge of the bed, eagerly inviting my father to sit. “Tell me.”

He grabbed a jug of cold milk and took a long swig, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he sank down beside her.

Father took her hand. “Nehemiah. That is his name. Like the one who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. Look at those hands. The hands of a wall builder, don’t you think?”

“Nehemiah. Does this mean our son will return to Jerusalem?” my mother ventured.

“The Lord has spoken. On behalf of all in my family who remained in exile, our son will return . . . for some mighty purpose, it will be. The Lord has spoken this to me clearly.”

“For a mighty purpose. Then I will be content.”

On the eighth day of my life, my father lifted a calloused palm and squinted toward the brightening eastern horizon. The sun had not yet appeared above the peaks of the Bersheesh range, but he studied the fading stars carefully. When he could no
longer distinguish Regulus, the Little King star marking the paw of the Lion of Judah, he muttered, “It’s time.” Raising his voice he called toward our tent, “Sarah! Bring the child.”

My mother, cradling me, stood with Hepzibah in a circle that included my three brothers, a brace of shepherds, and Rabbi Kagba. A chorus of “
Baruch
HaBa
. . . Blessed is he who comes,” greeted me.

Even though it was the Sabbath, when all ordinary work was prohibited, this particular ceremony was not only allowed to continue, it was required.

Rabbi Kagba explained: “The eighth day . . . always. We stand here in the shadow of Bersheesh, which we remember is the same expression as the first word in
Torah.
Here, beside the Mountain of Beginnings, beneath the same crags that witnessed the dawn of creation, we continue an unbroken obedience to that commitment. A special blessing attaches to a son of Abraham who is joined by covenant to the Almighty on his Sabbath day. Such a one, it is said, is selected by the Lord of the Sabbath for a divine anointing, because the Almighty breaks his own law of Sabbath rest to welcome the newcomer into our people. Please give the child to his eldest brother to hold, on this, the ordained eighth day.”

When Mother detached me from her breast, I gave a full-throated yelp of protest.

The rabbi smiled. “In fact,” he added, “the only time we do not circumcise on the eighth day is if there is risk to the health of the child. Clearly,” he said, indicating how I brandished two clenched fists, “such is no concern today!”

Ezra, my youngest brother, stifled a yawn, and this action spawned a wave of similar motions among the shepherds newly come from the night watches.

“And,” Rabbi Kagba instructed, “we perform this ceremony early in the day, because we should always rush to complete a
mitzvah
, a duty, and never delay it or put it off.”

A rough-hewn wooden bench had been padded with a fleece and topped with a woven woolen cloth for the ceremony. The group drew nearer together to witness as the rabbi opened a leather case and withdrew a small, sharp blade. My eldest brother unfolded the swaddling from around me.

Without speaking, Rabbi Kagba delivered a message by upraised eyebrow to Hepzibah and received a nod in reply. The midwife stepped slightly behind my mother. The rabbi had seen more than one mother faint at the sight of her son’s blood and always made sure someone was prepared to catch her.

“Blessed are you, Adonai, King of the Universe,” Kagba intoned, “who has sanctified us with your commandments and commanded us in the ritual of circumcision.”

While the last syllable of the blessing still hung in the morning air, the rabbi flicked the knife in its duty and the act was complete. They tell me that, instead of crying out, I frowned and tightened my jaw. This stoicism brought expressions of approval to the faces of the shepherds.

While Kagba staunched the blood, Father loudly bellowed, “Blessed are you, Adonai our God, King of the Universe . . .” When he realized that his shouting was not needed to cover any crying, he moderated his tone and continued, “King of the Universe, who has sanctified us with your commandments and commanded us to make him enter into the covenant of Abraham, our father.”

And the witnesses responded, “As he has entered into the covenant, so may he be introduced to the study of
Torah
, to the
wedding canopy, and to good deeds.” As yet still unnamed, I was rewrapped and cradled by my brother.

Eber, one of the shepherds, poured a cup of wine from a goatskin bag and handed it to the rabbi, who raised it aloft.

“Each time we welcome a son of the covenant,” Rabbi Kagba said, “we prepare our hearts for Messiah. ‘Blessed is he who comes,’ we proclaim, renewing our hope that the Anointed One is coming.” Then he added, “And I have seen him.”

This announcement caused a stir among the onlookers.

Unwilling to interrupt the ritual, Kagba waved away the buzz of questions. Instead of answering, he prophesied over me, “This son of Abraham will, with his own eyes, see Messiah in Jerusalem. It is time for the blessing of the wine.”

When
Kiddush
had been said for the fruit of the vine, Kagba touched his finger to the liquid and placed a drop on my lips. Mother says I sucked the dark red fluid thoughtfully.

“Now,” Kagba demanded of Father, “what is his name?”

“He shall be called . . . Nehemiah.”

“Nehemiah,” Kagba repeated with approval. “Cupbearer to the king and rebuilder of walls. Very good. So, Creator of the Universe, may it be your will to accept this act of circumcision as if we had brought this child before your glorious throne. And in your abundant mercy, through your holy angels, give a pure and holy heart to Nehemiah, son of Lamsa, who was just now circumcised in honor of your Great Name. May his heart be wide open to comprehend your holy law, that he may both learn and teach, keep and fulfill, all your laws. Amen!”

I was returned to my mother and tucked next to her heart. I’m sure I gave a man-sized sigh and snuggled contentedly closer to her.

Though
it was barely past sunrise, the feast in honor of my circumcision began. A large tent, its sides rolled up, had been arranged on the grassy plain as a pavilion. It was sizable enough to contain all the herdsmen not on duty. They reclined in a great circle on heaps of hides.

Platters and trays loaded with food were carried around and cups splashed with wine. It was, after all, another
mitzvah
to celebrate the life of the newest member of the covenant, even if I, the guest of honor, was fast asleep.

“So, now, Rabbi,” Father demanded, waving a green onion for emphasis, “you must tell us your tale. You say you have seen the Messiah?”

Scratching his beard, Kagba leaned back and stared toward the southwest. “I met him just months after his birth,” he said. “By now he would be a grown man, in his twenties. He is somewhere, learning, studying, listening . . . waiting for the call of the Spirit that will prompt him to reveal himself. I’m sure of it.”

“Don’t be so vague!” Father insisted. “Tell us plainly, who is he?”

“He is called Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father was named Jacob.”

“Like Jacob the Patriarch was the father of Joseph the Dreamer,” Mother murmured.

“Just so,” Kagba agreed approvingly. “I noticed that connection as well.”

“And why haven’t we heard of him before?” my father inquired. He counted on his fingers in thought. “If he was born in the time of Old Herod of despicable memory, why are we only now learning of him?”

The rabbi sat up straighter at that. “It is
because
he was born in the days of the Butcher King that you haven’t heard of him,” he suggested. “But let me tell my story in its proper order.”

Father shushed the other conversations around the meal. “Fill your plates,” he said, “but listen to the learned rabbi.”

The shepherds needed no urging to load their platters with heaps of rice and lamb stewed with tomatoes. Then they settled back to be entertained.

“You know I have some knowledge of the stars,” Kagba said modestly. “Many years ago I located something in the fourth book of the law. You all have heard it: ‘A star shall come out of Jacob.’
¹
Now, many teachers believe this foretells the coming of the Messiah. But I, and others, wondered if his birth was linked to the sight of an actual star in the heavens.

“For many years I studied and pondered, searching the night sky for clues and struggling with ancient texts by day. I was not alone in my quest. There was a great man of our people named Balthasar who lived”—Kagba gestured toward the east—“over the mountains, in Ecbatana. We wrote to each other, sharing knowledge and anticipation.

“And then one spring, we saw it: the wandering star the Romans call Mars, that we call Ma’adim, the Adam. It was joined to the Atonement star that resides as the heart of the virgin. You remember? ‘The virgin shall conceive and bear a son’?”
²

Kagba paused to scoop up some lamb with a piece of flat bread and munched before continuing. “I will not try to recount all that I witnessed over the next year or so, but let me say that there were wondrous sights in the skies: the Righteous King star joined to the Lord of the Sabbath, over and over again, until I became convinced the birth of Messiah must be at hand.

“I traveled from Tarsus, where I had carried out my
studies, to Damascus, and who do you think I found there? My old friend Balthasar, come all the way from Parthia on the same errand as myself. Other scholars assembled too—from Ethiopia, from India—all with the same goal: to greet the newborn king.