Transgression Read online

  “Nineteen centuries of persecution will do that to you,” Rivka said. “But that hasn’t happened yet for these people. In this century, Jews are like every other primitive ethnic group in this world. They consider themselves to be the only pure race, and all other peoples are impure. It’s basic anthropology—us against everybody else. Really, it was the Greeks who thought up all that liberal stuff about how all men are created equal.”

  “So Paul got it from them,” Dr. West said.

  “Maybe,” Rivka said. “But it’s a funny thing that he didn’t get it from them while he was growing up in a Greek city in Turkey. He didn’t get it until God knocked him off his horse on the way to Damascus. It took Jesus to change Paul.”

  “Or an epileptic fit,” Dr. West said. “That’ll knock you off your horse, all right.”

  Rivka laughed out loud. It was incredible to hear such naiveté from a university professor. “Dr. West, that is absolutely absurd,” she said. “Paul’s life changed profoundly on the Damascus road. He’s spent his whole career getting chased, beaten, starved, and imprisoned! You’re telling me he’s doing it on account of a fit? And he’s going to get his head chopped off in a few years. For what? Look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that it’s all just a bad case of the shakes.”

  Dr. West held up his hands. “Peace, Miss Meyers! I surrender, okay? Maybe we can ask when we meet him—how’s that sound?”

  “That might be tricky,” Rivka said. “I doubt either of us would have a chance to talk with him. I’m a woman, and you don’t speak the language.”

  “So you’re a woman,” Dr. West said. “What’s the big deal? You just told me Paul is the great women’s libber, or whatever.”

  Rivka resisted the urge to whack him. Why this deliberate sarcasm? She took a deep breath. “To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it’s the culture, stupid.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning, have a look around, will you? This is a different world here. Everyone’s staring at us. Staring at you, actually, because you’re talking to a woman in public. In this culture, you don’t do that.”

  “So what?” Dr. West said. “Maybe you’re my wife. Why wouldn’t they think so?”

  “Because men don’t speak to women in public,” Rivka said. “Not even to their wives. Jewish men don’t, anyway.”

  “So how do they set up their little flings?” Dr. West asked. “And speaking of that, am I correct in believing our friend Hana is a lady of the night?”

  Rivka felt her neck getting hot. “She’s a nice girl trapped in something she doesn’t like.”

  “That’s what they all say,” Dr. West said.

  “So why do you ask?” Rivka said sarcastically. “Were you thinking of asking for her price list?”

  “I just thought it was interesting, your choice of roommate. You’re a nice Christian girl. She doesn’t seem your type.”

  For some reason, that tipped Rivka’s anger over the edge. She hated being pigeonholed. “I don’t have a type, and neither does Hana.” She turned and stomped away, heading toward the south end of the Temple Mount.

  She heard footsteps behind her, hurrying to catch up.

  “Miss Meyers?” Dr. West said.

  She was too angry to answer.

  “Miss Meyers, listen, I’m a bit of a joker. It’s a weakness of mine. Sometimes I push people too far.”

  “So push off.”

  “What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry,” Dr. West said. “I hadn’t realized it, but you’re a lot like Ari, you know. One little thing, and you blow up.”

  It wasn’t just one little thing, Rivka thought, but a whole succession of little things. She was tired, and far from home, and yet dazzled by her surroundings. And it annoyed her to hear this sarcastic stream of uninformed skepticism.

  Real skepticism she could understand. There were plenty of things she found hard to believe in. The Bible wasn’t a simple book, and God wasn’t a simple god. For that matter, the universe wasn’t a simple place, or wormholes would be impossible and she wouldn’t be here.

  But she hated the shallowness reflected in Dr. West’s questions. She had heard it all before, in late-night dorm discussions and undergraduate seminars. It was all so sophomoric. People would question anything having to do with God, but they wouldn’t question their own questions. They would challenge the authority of a theologian, but they wouldn’t challenge the authority of their buddy who claimed he had read a book that disproved the Bible.

  And the final straw was that remark about Hana. Rivka hated seeing people put down, especially those who couldn’t defend themselves. In a sense, she felt that was her mission in life, to be the defender of the defenseless.

  “Miss Meyers, are you going to talk to me?” Dr. West said. “I screwed up, okay? I’m asking you to…forgive me. You can’t just walk away from me when I’m asking you to forgive me, can you?”

  Oh great, he was doing the noble stuff, taking blame, asking forgiveness. He had beaten her to the punch, and that annoyed her. After all, it was partly her fault. She had been awfully touchy today. And while it was true that Dr. West had been needling her, followers of Yeshua weren’t supposed to respond in kind, were they?

  She stopped and turned to face him. He looked penitent enough. Rivka sighed. Seventy times seven, and all that. Sometimes, she wished Yeshua had cut the forgiver a little more slack, and the forgivee a little less. But he hadn’t.

  “Okaaay,” she said, dragging out the word to put off the next part. This stuff never got any easier, no matter how much practice she got. “I forgive you. But cut the snide remarks about Hana. And next time you want to argue about my religion, bring some live ammunition. Nothing ticks me off more than hearing nonsense from an intelligent person. I’m sure you get annoyed when some dork spouts off about how Einstein was wrong.”

  “Einstein was wrong,” Dr. West said amiably. “On a lot of issues. He never did swallow quantum mechanics. But I get your point.”

  They walked together in silence for some minutes. The outer courts of the Temple Mount were huge—a rectangle some three hundred yards by five hundred. Rivka knew this perfectly well in her head, but it was something else to experience it, to be here. You could put a hundred thousand Jews in this vast esplanade, and there would be plenty of room left over.

  “I have another question,” Dr. West said. “You were telling me about that Sanhedrin thing a while ago. That’s what exactly? The government?”

  “Close. It’s a Jewish advisory council that answers to the Romans on local matters. The Romans are actually quite good about respecting provincials’ rights to self-government. In theory, anyway. In practice, they shoot themselves in the foot quite a bit.”

  “Say, are you up for continuing our guided tour? Maybe we could have a look at where the Sanhedrin meets.”

  “Honestly, I don’t really know where it met,” Rivka said. “There was a place called the Chamber of Hewn Stone mentioned in the Mishnah. Unfortunately, nobody left any maps showing its location. The Sanhedrin met there for many years. Supposedly, they later met somewhere on the Temple Mount. We don’t really know, but my money’s on the Chamber of Hewn Stone, wherever that is.”

  “We could stop at a gas station for directions,” Dr. West said.

  “Go ahead,” Rivka said. “How’s your Aramaic and Greek?”

  Dr. West laughed. “Men aren’t allowed to ask directions, even when we speak the language. Can’t you ask somebody?”

  Before Rivka could answer, he thumped the side of his head. “Oh, that’s right. You woke up on the wrong side of the Y chromosome.”

  “I suppose I could ask a woman,” Rivka said. “But if they’re all as well-informed as Hana, I might not learn anything.”

  “Oh well, we’ve got time,” Dr. West said. “The trial doesn’t start for a few days, isn’t that what you said?”

  “Right,” Rivka said. She turned and gave him a curious look. “But you don’t seriously want to go, do you?
It won’t be till next week sometime, and neither of us has any chance at all of getting in.”

  “That’s okay,” Dr. West said. A little smile played around his lips. “I know you’re dying to see Paul. Maybe we could just hang around outside. I…well, you’ve given me some things to think about. Maybe Paul is different than what I’ve been taught. I’m open-minded. I would kind of like to get a look at him, too.”

  Rivka found herself grinning. Maybe this debating with skeptics was worth it after all. Maybe Dr. West would come to believe. A long shot—but worth trying.

  Now that she thought about it, she did want to see Paul. She had come back two thousand years, and by blind chance had landed practically in his lap. She had to see him.

  More than that, she would love to spend a day with him, picking his brain. She had a number of doubts in her own mind—real doubts, not the manufactured kind that you got in dorm room bull sessions.

  She wanted to ask Paul what was his source of information on the life of Yeshua. She wanted to ask his opinions on the afterlife, given that the Hebrew Bible said so little on the subject. She wanted to ask about the sovereignty of God, and how he could be in control of the universe, when her life was so out-of-control.

  She had a thousand questions, but no hope of ever asking Paul any of them.

  No hope at all. Because she was a woman.

  Chapter 15

  Ari

  ARI HAD NEVER BEEN KISSED by a man before. Surprisingly, he found that he didn’t mind it.

  He and Baruch had gone to a large house for the feast of Shavuot. He still hadn’t figured out why they were celebrating the feast on the evening of Shabbat, rather than on Sunday. Baruch had explained that the Pharisees interpreted the Torah differently on this point than the Sadducees did. Ari didn’t follow the reasoning, but he didn’t really care. The important thing was that he would eat a good meal tonight. A land where nobody ate lunch was not his idea of a hospitable country.

  The women busied themselves in the kitchen preparing the food. The men stood in small circles in the outer courtyard, enjoying the coolness of the evening air. Ari had already begun to get a feel for Aramaic, although he still couldn’t express himself very well.

  “Brother Ari, you must meet Brother Yohanan and Brother Yoseph,” Baruch said. “My friends, Brother Ari has come to Jerusalem from a far country to celebrate the feast with us. He is a learned man who knows the secrets of how God created the world.”

  Ari smiled at the two men. Brother Yohanan threw his arms around Ari and kissed him on both cheeks. Before Ari could recover from this shock, Brother Yoseph did the same.

  Somehow, this strange and simple gesture changed things for Ari. Until now, he had thought of himself as an outsider in this little community, an observer. Now he felt welcome, part of the family. A brother. Whether he liked it or not, he had become an honorary member of the community of Rabban Yeshua.

  “Tell us about how God created the world,” Brother Yoseph said. A small cluster of men gathered around, looking expectantly at Ari.

  Ari wondered how in the world he could get out of this. If he told them about the Big Bang, they would stone him for heresy, if they understood him. He cleared his throat, waiting for inspiration to strike. What could he say that would make sense in their reference frame? Would they have a clue what he meant if he said that in the first nanosecond after the Big Bang, photons had outnumbered matter by a billion to one?

  Photons. Electromagnetic radiation.

  Light.

  “In the beginning was Light,” Ari said.

  “The Light of wisdom,” said Brother Yohanan.

  Brother Yoseph smiled. “The Light of the Word.”

  “The Light of Yeshua,” said Brother Baruch.

  Heads nodded all around the circle. “Rabban Yeshua was the Word and the Light,” someone else said.

  That started a discussion too rapid for Ari to follow. Never mind. He had told the truth and had not been stoned for it. He stood quietly, enjoying the sound of excited, happy voices. Voices arguing about Torah. It reminded him of his boyhood, when his stepfather’s friends would argue Torah on Shabbat afternoon. Except that those friends rarely talked about That Man. These new friends ate, slept, prayed, and dreamed Rabban Yeshua.

  Ari shook his head in disbelief. He had been so sure That Man had never existed. A legend. A syncretistic avatar myth. But that idea didn’t work. He might just as well go back to his modern world and argue that Elvis Presley had never existed. That would be absurd. Too many people remembered the King. And in this world, too many people remembered Rabban Yeshua.

  Of course, their memories were faulty. They talked of miracles, healings, prophecies, resurrection. Ari didn’t believe any of that. When he had lived in America, the supermarket tabloids had carried at least one story every month on Elvis sightings. People believed what they wanted to believe. Not everybody took care to pursue the simple, unvarnished, uncomfortable truth.

  Ari did. And the truth was that the carpenter from Nazareth was just as dead as the crooner from Nashville. Nothing could change that simple truth. Nothing.

  * * *

  Ari

  Ari lay on the hard floor, trying to sleep. After the feast, he and Baruch had come back to the house for the night. Then Baruch had gone somewhere for an emergency meeting, leaving Ari alone. Apparently, it was an internal affair to figure out what to do about Renegade Saul. Ari had not been invited, nor would he have gone if given the chance. He didn’t want anything to do with Paul of Tarsus.

  It had to be midnight by now, and yet Ari could not sleep. He had grown up believing that there was one traditional Judaism, Orthodoxy. Not that he liked the Haredim, but he had always assumed they represented the teachings of the fathers from antiquity.

  Well, here he was in antiquity, and obviously somebody had forgotten to clue these people in on their traditions. One group said one thing; another group said another. And they attacked each other in the harshest terms imaginable.

  Ari found it all disconcerting. He had imagined that Jewish religious rivalries were a modern phenomenon. Dead wrong! Judaism in this century had no center—just a bewildering variety of sects, subsects, and countersects.

  And in the middle of it all sat these Jewish Christians, blithely unaware that they were a contradiction in terms. Ari wanted to sit down with Baruch and ask some pointed questions. Do you believe that your Rabban Yeshua is literally and genetically the Son of HaShem? Do you believe that his death cancels your sins? Do you believe HaShem is one—or three?

  Ari once had a neighbor in Boston, a blond born-again airhead, who tried to convince him on all these points. Such questions were important to modern Christians. He had a feeling Baruch would not have even thought of these issues. These people were not theologians or philosophers. They lived in simple obedience to the Torah and to their Rabban Yeshua, and they seemed to have no inkling of any contradiction.

  Ari heard the door open. He opened his eyes and squinted into the deep darkness.

  “Brother Baruch, is that you?”

  “Did I wake you, Brother Ari?” Baruch asked. “Please forgive me. I tried to be silent when I came in downstairs.”

  “You were quite silent,” Ari said. “I heard nothing until you came through this upstairs door. I’ve been awake thinking since you left.”

  Baruch grunted something. Ari could hear the swish of his cloak coming off his shoulders.

  “So what happened at your meeting?” Ari asked. “Did you decide to send Renegade Saul away?”

  “If it had been my choice, we would have,” Baruch said as he knelt down. Ari heard him fumbling for his bedroll on the floor.

  “So you’ve got some liberals among you. Is that the problem?”

  “I do not know what you mean by liberal.” Baruch’s voice tightened with anger. “We had a plan. Brother Yaakov was to give Renegade Saul an ultimatum—something impossible to perform.”

  “And it went wrong?” Ari asked.
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  “Two things went wrong,” Baruch said. “First, Renegade Saul was permitted to speak. So he spoke, and he spoke, and he spoke.”

  “Was he boring?”

  “No, unfortunately not,” Baruch said. “Renegade Saul is a very entertaining speaker, and very persuasive. He told of his work with the goyim, how they have come to a belief in our Mashiach and a knowledge of HaShem, how they worship in our synagogues on Shabbat, how they have their demons cast out and their diseases healed.”

  “And you do not approve?”

  “No, of course I approve!” Baruch snapped. “How can any Jew disapprove of such things? I shed tears when he told of the jailer who beat him and then repented within hours and became a believer.”

  “Then why are you angry?” Ari asked.

  “Because Renegade Saul is content with too little,” Baruch said. “The goyim leave their idols and confess belief in HaShem and learn the prophecies of Rabban Yeshua, our Mashiach. And that is all! He does not bring them into the community of Yisrael, nor teach them to obey the commandments which bring joy. He does not make them walk in the way of Torah.”

  “Why should he? They are goyim,” Ari said. An instant later, he mentally scolded himself for defending Paul. Paul was the enemy.

  “If they wish to become our brothers, let them join the community,” Baruch said. “Let them be circumcised as we and our fathers are, and let them learn Torah.”

  “Did Renegade Saul persuade anyone?”

  “No, but he weakened our resolve.”

  “You said that letting Renegade Saul speak was the first mistake. What was the second?”

  “Brother Yaakov asked Renegade Saul to purify himself in the Temple with four of our brothers,” Baruch said. “We believed that he had renounced the Temple and Torah—that he was an apikoros.”

  “And?”

  “And he agreed!” Baruch said. “He had no right to do that, if he does not keep the commandments.”