As she watched him hug his daughter, Leah remembered how it felt when Master Reuben’s arms had encircled her the night they had grieved together for Ruth. She remembered the scent of his silky hair, the dampness of his tears on her gown after he had gone. Her heart twisted inside her like a wrung cloth when she realized how much she longed to hold him again.
“No,” he said after a long moment, “I don’t want anything to change. I can see that she loves you, Leah . . . and that you love her. I can’t deprive either one of you of that.”
Leah bowed her head—as much to hide her tears of joy and relief as in humility. “Thank you, Master Reuben,” she murmured.
That spring, the master was away for two long weeks, traveling to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover. When he returned, he brought Nathaniel the preacher home with him, along with a small group of the preacher’s followers. No longer welcome in Degania’s synagogue, they held services every Sabbath in the villa’s spacious reception hall. Nathaniel stayed until the Feast of Pentecost, teaching Leah and everyone in the household who wanted to learn about Yeshua the Messiah. What amazed Leah the most was the fact that the followers of Yeshua allowed women as well as men, servants as well as Master Reuben, to sit side by side at the teacher’s feet and discuss the Scriptures. Several families from Degania and the surrounding villages began coming and were baptized in Master Reuben’s mikveh. Many of the servants, including Miriam and Ehud, were baptized, too, but it grieved Leah that her brother Gideon wanted nothing to do with the meetings in the master’s reception hall.
“Please come,” she begged her brother. “Why won’t you come? I know you would like what Nathaniel has to say if you would only listen.”
“Reuben ben Johanan works for the Romans,” Gideon said. His face was cold and hard, the way it had looked after the Roman soldiers had beaten him. “It’s bad enough that he owns my body. I won’t have him trying to own my thoughts, too.”
Master Reuben listened thoughtfully to Nathaniel, but he always stopped short of declaring himself a Christian and being baptized. He had spent an enormous amount of money to purchase a set of Torah scrolls from the Essene community in Qumran, along with as many scrolls of the prophets as he could acquire. One day he showed Leah where he kept them. “I want you to read these to Elizabeth when she is old enough,” he said. “I want her to know how the Messiah was promised to us in God’s Word.”
Not content to wait until Elizabeth was older, Leah began reading the scrolls to herself each night so that she could talk about what she read with Nathaniel and the others. God had satisfied the hunger of her heart, she realized one day. She could read and study Scriptures for herself, feasting on them as she had longed to do when she used to stand outside the synagogue windows. And in that Word, God had slowly revealed Himself to her, showing the fullness of His love. Leah marveled at how perfectly Yeshua had fulfilled all those prophecies.
“Five days before Passover,” Nathaniel explained, “on the day the lambs are chosen, Yeshua made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem as our king, just as the prophet Zechariah had promised. ‘Behold, your King comes to you, righteous and having salvation . . .’ The people proclaimed Yeshua king that day, shouting ‘Hosannah! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
As Nathaniel explained the Scriptures, from the fall of Adam and Eve to Yeshua’s death and resurrection, God’s plan took form and shape before Leah’s eyes, as if she had stepped back from her loom and suddenly discovered that the intricate pattern of stripes and colors were not individual threads, but a finished garment.
“I believe that Yeshua was the promised Messiah,” she told Nathaniel one Sabbath afternoon.
“Would you like to be baptized?” he asked. Leah looked away. A cold chill washed over her, as if she had plunged into an icy bath.
“What’s wrong, Leah?” Nathaniel asked when she didn’t reply.
“I don’t want anything to do with ritual baths. I have too many bad memories from when I used to go—” She stopped, embarrassed to mention the law that required bathing after a woman’s uncleanness. She hadn’t gone back to the public mikveh since becoming Reuben’s servant.
“Yes, I know the Pharisees have misused it,” Nathaniel said gently. “They demand meaningless cleansing from all our daily impurities, real or imagined. But their washing cleans only the outside. The Pharisees say nothing about cleansing the heart.”
“Reb Nahum and Rabbi Eliezer keep watch like a couple of jackals waiting to pounce,” Leah said. “They condemn everyone for transgressing the Law, yet they never keep it themselves. They make so many holes in the Law to slip their own sins through that it resembles a fishing net! And the priests in Jerusalem are just as bad. They demand a ritual cleansing before we enter their Temple, but they make themselves rich by cheating the poor people who only want to worship God!” She stopped, horrified to discover that she had spoken her thoughts so freely. It was one more reason the Pharisees had always condemned her, and now she had done it again—in front of Rabbi Nathaniel. She stared at her hands, folded in her lap, afraid to see his face.
“You’re right. Baptism does symbolize our cleansing from sin,” Nathaniel said. There was no shock or anger in his voice. “But Yeshua Himself was baptized, and we know that He was without sin. Baptism also symbolizes a new beginning as we leave the old ways behind and are born again into a new life in Christ. Our ancestors went through the waters of the Red Sea as they left slavery behind. Their children passed through the Jordan River as they began a new life in this land. We believe in one baptism, in Yeshua’s name, for those who want to identify with His ministry, His sacrifice, His forgiveness.”
Leah didn’t reply. She knew that she wasn’t ready.
Two days later, Nathaniel and the others returned to Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost. Master Reuben made the pilgrimage with them. Time passed too slowly for Leah after they were gone, like a very heavy cart moving uphill.
The evening Reuben returned, Elizabeth ran into her father’s arms, crying, “Abba, Abba!” He lifted her high in the air, laughing with joy, then sat with her on his lap as he described Jerusalem and the celebration at the Temple. Even though she was too young to understand, Elizabeth loved listening to the sound of her father’s voice. But Leah listened to his words, and she recalled her own disappointing visit to the Temple and the many barriers in the women’s court that stood between her and God. She remembered the lamb she had helped raise, and how the priests had rejected him, just as they had rejected the perfect Lamb of God. Leah’s lamb had known the sound of her voice and had responded to her; as Yeshua had said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”
As she watched Master Reuben, a man of wealth and power, stooping low to allow his little daughter to rest in his arms, she saw a picture of her heavenly Father bending down to earth to draw her near to His heart. He was the God of David’s psalms, the God who had created the beauty of a child’s laughter, the tender shepherd who would lay down His life for His flock.
“Master Reuben,” Leah said as he stood to carry his sleepy child to bed, “I would also like to be baptized.”
CHAPTER 11
THE GOLANI HOTEL, ISRAEL—1999
B
lessed are those whose strength is in you
, Abby read,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs
. . . .
She stopped when she noticed more strange marks in her Bible. The
p
in
pass
was underlined, the
w
and the
e
in
weeping
, the
g
and s in
springs
. She scribbled the letters in the margin of her journal, spelling them forward and backward, then tried to unscramble them like a puzzle. They made no sense. She had forgotten to ask Emily about them. Abby had been too enraged to remember anything after reading Emily’s last letter.
Please don’t be mad, but Daddy is still living here at home
, she had written.
I overheard him talking to that woman on the phone and telling her that the affair was finished. He moved all of his stuff out of her apartment on Saturday, and so he has no place else to go. Mom, he has changed so much this summer. Wait until you see! My pastor invited Daddy and Greg to the Promise Keepers convention in Indianapolis next weekend, and Daddy agreed to go
. . . .
It was a little late for Mark to think about keeping his promises. And it was much too late to suddenly decide he wanted to move back home. Not her home! How could Abby possibly trust him after what he had done?
Tell him he
has
to move out by the time I get back!
she had written in reply. She would not share the house with him again for a single day.
Abby could tell from their letters that Emily and Greg had reconciled with their father while she was away. It would be childish and wrong of her to expect their children to take her side against him. They loved him, and Abby was certain that Mark still loved them. But every time one of them mentioned Mark, her temper flared. She had hoped her anger would ease and maybe even disappear while she was in Israel as she slowly began to write him out of her life, but now she realized that she would never be allowed to forget him. She and Mark were linked together by their children. Like it or not, she would be confronted with him for the rest of her life. Her anger was a fire that was never going to be allowed to die. Instead, it would be stoked and fueled each time she saw him—at Greg’s and Emily’s college graduations, at their weddings, with future grandchildren. Hannah’s husband, Jake, had said “don’t hate,” but Abby needed to ask him how he managed to do that when he was forced to battle the same enemy again and again.
Abby closed her Bible and hurried to get dressed, styling her short brown hair with a curling iron and putting on lipstick and a dress. The Sabbath began at sundown, and that meant a celebration dinner with candlelight and special foods as the Israelis welcomed the Sabbath like an honored guest.
She happened to leave her bungalow the same moment Ari was leaving his, and they walked together to the dining room, talking about the day’s discoveries at the site. The change in him continued to amaze her, as his frosty facade finally thawed. She no longer dreaded being stuck alone with him, finding instead that they could talk comfortably. As soon as they entered the dining hall, Hannah motioned them over to her table.
“We saved you both a place,” she said. “Abby, Ari, I’d like you to meet Moshe Richman, his wife, Judith, and their three children, Dan, Gabriel, and Ivana. Moshe manages this hotel and Judith does all the bookkeeping.”
They were a striking yet somewhat somber couple in their early thirties, with coffee-colored eyes and thick, wavy brown hair, which their two oldest children had inherited. The youngest, Ivana, a little girl of about six, had a radiant head of hair the color of an Irish setter’s.
“Nice to meet you,” Abby said. “Ivana and I have already met. She sometimes joins me for my walks around the hotel grounds in the evenings.”
“I hope she has not been a bother to you,” Judith said with a worried frown.
“Not at all. I enjoy her company. We don’t speak the same language, but we’ve become friends, just the same.”
Hannah said something to Ivana in Hebrew. She nodded and gave Abby a shy smile. The two boys, about eight and ten years old, were as solemn as their parents.
The Richmans accorded Hannah the honor of lighting the Sabbath candles. Abby listened appreciatively as the family recited the prayers and blessings in Hebrew. It surprised her that Ari prayed along with them after the skeptical comments he had made about religion when they’d visited Jerusalem. After a ritual hand washing, Judith uncovered two fragrant loaves of
challah
, and they began to eat. With Hannah translating, the children told Abby all about themselves and their activities at school. Judith explained how the adjoining kibbutz where they lived operated the resort hotel as a community venture.
“Moshe, why don’t you tell Abby a little about yourself,” Hannah suggested when Judith finished. “Tell her how your family came to Israel.”
Moshe spoke without looking up from his plate, cutting his meat into small pieces with deliberate concentration, his face growing even more somber. “My grandfather was born in Berlin. He was not much older than my son Dan when Hitler came to power. His family tried to escape, moving from Germany to Amsterdam, but of course the Holocaust caught up with them in the end. The Nazis arrested them and transported them to concentration camps.”
He stopped cutting, gripping the knife and fork like weapons, as if forgetting that he still held them. “My grandmother and grandfather were the only members of their families to survive the death camps. They met each other after the liberation and were smuggled ashore together, past the British, on a beach near Netanya.”
Abby glanced at Ari, remembering his words to her the night they had stood on that beach. The hardships the Jewish people had endured awed Abby, making her own trials pale in comparison. That they could survive such horrors and still trust in God’s unfailing love, as Jake would say, spoke volumes about their faith.
“When my grandfather was in the death camp, Psalm 102 became his testimony,” Moshe continued. “‘My days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers. . . . I am reduced to skin and bones. . . . All day long my enemies taunt me; those who rail against me use my name as a curse. For I eat ashes as my food and mingle my drink with tears because of your great wrath.’ That was my grandfather’s experience. But the second half of the psalm was his hope, a hope that has now been fulfilled: ‘You will arise and have compassion on Zion. . . . For her stones are dear to your servants. . . . the Lord will rebuild Zion. . . . The children of your servants will live in your presence; their descendants will be established before you.’”