The Ascent of Eli Israel (7 page)

The streets of Mea Shearim bustled as usual, as bearded, hat-wearing men dressed in customary black hurried back and forth on their way to or from prayer. Their wives in kerchiefs and long dresses, some pregnant, some not, dragged strollers piled high with children and bags from the market.

The rebbe smiled at a pair of passing men whose noses were buried in prayer books. “Isn't it wonderful,” the rebbe said. “Jews everywhere.”

“It is wonderful,” the doctor said, suddenly beaming.

“Tell me,” the rebbe said. “How does a Gentile find himself living in Jerusalem.”

“I came to be here for the millennium.”

“The millennium?” the rebbe said, confused.

“The year two thousand,” the doctor said, ushering the rebbe out of one of the neighborhood's many gates.

“Oh-ho,” the rebbe said, laughing. “Two thousand years since . . . It is funny, it must be ten years since I have seen your calendar. For us, for Jews, it is the year fifty-seven sixty.”

“And your Messiah has still not arrived.”

“Today,” the rebbe said. “I am absolutely sure he will arrive today. I have been absolutely sure of that every day for the last sixty-three years. If not today, then tomorrow, which when it arrives,” the rebbe said in a singsong manner, “will be today.”

“Tell me, what will happen when your Messiah comes?”

“Of course, the Temple will be rebuilt. And we will have a King of Israel at last, and the entire world will be full of the knowledge of the Lord,” the rebbe said nonchalantly. “And yours?”

“Exactly the same,” the doctor said. “It is written that the Lord Jesus Christ will return to a hill east of Jerusalem and redeem the world.”

“And how will you know it is him?” the rebbe said.

“I will look at his hands and at his side, and see if the scars are there. And if there are scars — ”

“Enough,” the rebbe said, laughing. “Enough of this. Let's turn around. I'm tired of walking today.”

They stopped just short of the walls of the Old City, near Damascus Gate, where the doctor offered him a sip of his water. The rebbe was sweating in streams, and gulped down most of the bottle. The sun was still directly above their heads, and felt to the rebbe as if a thousand-pound weight were on his shoulders. They began slowly walking back up the sloping hill.

“Do you know there is a way to walk all around Jerusalem without walking up a hill?” the rebbe said.

“And have you found that way?”

“No.”

“Take off your coat and hat. It is too hot for you to wear wool on a day like this.”

“But I always wear this,” the rebbe said, refusing to remove his heavy wool coat. “I have worn it for hundreds of years.”

The next morning, Sarah waited until the rebbe had finished his prayers.

“Israel,” she said. “Nobody has seen Yitzchak for days. Do you know where he is?”

The rebbe was in a foul mood as he unwound the tefillin from his aching arm. Aside from his back still aching, now the muscles of his legs were sore. “What, am I Yitzchak's keeper? Do I know where he is every minute of the day? He is a young man, so he is out praying. Maybe he went to Shchem, maybe he went to Hevron. His cousin is living there.”

“But nobody has seen him,” Sarah said. “Nobody knows where he is. We must find him. Last week a yeshiva boy from Sanhedria was found stabbed in the street.”

“All right, all right, wife, I will call Schmuelik, I will call Reuven, I'll call everybody. We will turn the world over, if that's what you want.”

And that was when the doctor walked in, looking red and childlike, burned from the sun. The rebbe wanted to say, “Now you know why we wear the coats?”

“Your door was open,” the doctor said. “Are you ready to go?”

“I'm not going anywhere today. Now besides my back hurting and my neck hurting and my arms hurting, my legs are hurting, and precious Yitzchak is missing and we must find him, because if we don't find him, my wife will never let me sleep.”

“You shouldn't wave your arms like that,” the doctor said, with his arms still at his sides. “It will throw your whole body out of alignment. We must continue to strengthen your back. You are doing so well. In a few more days, your back will be as strong as a tree, and the adjustments will hold.”

“Ach, the forest is burning,” the rebbe said. “Today my business is Yitzchak. Surely you can wait until tomorrow to make me better. If you want, you can make the popping in my back.”

“It's important that we continue to build your strength. We have come so far.”

The rebbe asked Sarah to leave the room, turned his back to the doctor, and crossed his arms over his chest.

“The rebbe is asking you to pop him quickly,” the rebbe sang, “and tomorrow you will return to walk with him. But right now, he must find Yitzchak.”

The doctor pressed himself close to the rebbe, took his crossed arms in his hands and thrust in with supernatural force. The rebbe screamed out in pain, and felt like he was being broken to pieces. He actually called out for his mother, and then fell to the floor. “What have you done to me?”

“Tomorrow, we will walk,” the doctor said, and lifted the rebbe up. He placed a hot hand between his shoulder blades, pushed in slightly, and left the stunned rebbe alone in his room.

The Dokszycers searched synagogues and study halls from Pisgat Ze'ev to Efrat but did not find Yitzchak nor any sign of him that day. But the rebbe said not to worry, there are not many places Yitzchak could go.

Friday morning the doctor arrived as promised. The rebbe had not slept at all the night before. He had tossed and turned in his bed thinking of Yitzchak and the doctor and Sarah, who had yelled at him while he stretched on the floor, telling him to get up, he looked like a snake. She was angry that he would not spend another day searching for Yitzchak, who would have to spend Shabbat among strangers.

The rebbe appeared wearing a plain white shirt, buttoned to the top, and a pair of black suspenders. On his head he wore only a large black silken
kippah
pulled low over his brow covering his hairline. His heavy wool coat and large-brimmed black hat lay on top of the rebbe's bed like a sick or dying man.

“We are walking farther today?” the rebbe asked.

“If you are ready,” the doctor said.

“Look,” the rebbe said, pointing to a bottle hooked to his belt. “Water.”

The doctor adjusted the rebbe's back, repeating, “Good, good,” as he worked.

“Hurry back,” Sarah called after the doctor and the rebbe, but they didn't hear, lost as they were in discussion.

“So you are saying that Jesus was the son of God and is the Messiah?” the rebbe said rhetorically as he mopped his forehead with a handkerchief.

The doctor nodded his head.

“So the Messiah has come?” the rebbe said.

“Yes.”

They walked in silence for a few moments through the buzzing quarter of Mea Shearim, where men hurried off to pray before the sabbath and the women frantically rushed about buying food for their Shabbat tables.

“No,” the rebbe said. “The Messiah has not come. Because if He had, the world would be a very different place. So your Messiah has not come. So you wait.”

They arrived a while later at Damascus Gate. Even the cool-blooded doctor was sweating now, as they stepped down toward the massive entrance to the Old City. Young Arab men joked and pulled their kaffiyehs around their faces against the gray smoke that still swam through the city. Women sat on the ground along the entryway, selling fruits and vegetables on outspread headscarves. An Israeli soldier sat languidly in an opening above the entrance and picked his teeth with a telephone card. They entered the ornamented stone gate and were immediately swallowed up by pressing crowds and the tinny sounds of Arabic music. The air smelled to the rebbe like barbecued meat. It was the Muslim sabbath and thousands of men dressed in kaffiyehs inched their way toward the Dome of the Rock to pray to the mighty Allah. This was the way the rebbe always walked to the Western Wall, but had never been that way on a Friday morning. Bearded kaffiyeh-wearing men pressed forward, their ragged caftans flapping as they walked. An old man waved his arms, shouting loudly in Arabic. The rebbe looked over at the doctor and saw his milk-dish of a face contorted with fear. The rebbe, too, felt unease in the pit of his belly and reached out to take the doctor's hand in his, so as not to lose him.

They turned into a small street and the rebbe let go of the doctor's hand. Immediately the crowds and the smells of spice and Turkish coffee were gone. The street narrowed and then widened out again. A group of men and women dressed in white and beige, topped with gaudy sunhats, moved toward the rebbe and the smiling doctor. They were singing hymns and several dragged a large wooden cross. “That can't be good for the back,” the rebbe thought, stopping to catch his breath. He stared around in wonder. These people, pale and plain as cotton balls, nodded their heads to the doctor as they passed. Who were they? One man wearing round glasses like the doctor pulled out a camera and shot a quick picture of the rebbe standing beside the Third Station of the Cross.

“What?” the rebbe screamed. “What are you doing?” The man smiled and took another picture. The rebbe screamed again, a curse so ancient that even he did not know its meaning, and then he charged at the man, kicked at him, and jumped on his back. The doctor pulled the rebbe away, almost throwing him onto the ground as the group scattered.

“My back,” the rebbe said, from the ground where he lay awkwardly on his side. “Ohhhhh! My broken back.”

“Like the agony of Christ,” the doctor said, smiling. “This is where Jesus fell for the first time.”

“My back, my back! What are you, crazy? Take me home.”

“Do you want to be saved?”

“Yes. Pop my back. Please pop it.”

“God made his original covenant with a Jew,” the doctor said. “And now it is time to renew that covenant.”

“Pop my back!” the rebbe screamed. “Pop it. I must go home.”

“Do you know that even from here on the Via Dolorosa, you can hear the Shabbat sirens sounding for the Jewish sabbath. I can leave you here,” the doctor said. “Or, I can pop your back now and you will come to my office for a final adjustment. It is not far from here.”

“What are you going to do?” the rebbe said, wincing in pain.

“I will fix you so you do not feel pain when you pray,” the doctor said.

The rebbe paused for a moment and looked down at the stones beneath him. He stood up. “Okay. I will go. But I must be home by Shabbat. Now, please pop my back. I am broken in two.”

The doctor moved in behind the rebbe and placed his hand between his shoulder blades and thrust forward as he pulled in from the front. “Now we will walk.”

“Who were those people? Who was the man with the camera?” the rebbe asked, and took a long drink of his water.

“Pilgrims,” the doctor answered. “Holy pilgrims.”

As they passed the Condemnation Chapel and the Chapel of the Flagellation, the doctor excitedly explained the importance of the buildings. “And just over there is Our Lady of the Spasm.”

“Spasm?” the rebbe thought. “What is this, sick? Flagellation, condemnation?”

Then they passed the Church of Saint Anne and left the walled city through Saint Stephen's Gate.

“There is the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Basilica of the Agony where Jesus was betrayed by a kiss. And of course across the valley, there is the Mount of Olives.”

The rebbe knew the Mount of Olives well. He planned to be buried near his father on the western slope facing the Old City. His head began to buzz from thirst and the heat and he wanted to sit down, but he didn't dare, as they were passing through a Muslim cemetery. A shepherd and his flock were fast approaching through the tall, dry grass. “How much farther?”

“Not far. How is your back?” the doctor said, not waiting for an answer as the road sloped down into the valley. “When the Messiah returns, all who are buried here will be resurrected.”

“Yes,” the rebbe said. “I know that.”

They walked in silence down among the cracked Hebrew gravestones. The rebbe read the names to himself and mumbled a silent kaddish for the dead. And though he knew they would one day be returned to the earth he felt a deep sadness for them as there was one thing the dead could not do. They could not perform God's mitzvah of prayer.

After noticing a grave marked with the name Ben David, the rebbe bent over and placed a stone on the grave. “Our Messiah must come from the house of David.”

“The same as Jesus,” the doctor said.

The rebbe turned around and faced the Old City. The sun was finally starting to move down the sky toward the west and he removed his
kippah
for a moment and mopped the sweat from his brow. “There. You see.” He pointed vaguely toward the city. “The sealed gate. It is called the Gate of Mercy. That is the gate the Messiah will use when he at last enters Jerusalem.”