Howard is a doctor, marathon runner and author. He has written two non-fiction books, My Father’s Compass (2007) and Raft (2009). Carrots and Jaffas (2014) is his first novel. His latest novel is A Threefold Cord (Hybrid, 2107)
The Hebrew patriarch Abraham raises a blended family. He fathers two sons; the elder by thirteen years is Ishmael, the younger, Isaac. The boys have different mothers and the mothers don’t get on.
When the younger boy is about three or four, he is weaned.Abraham, as is customary, throws a great feast for all the friends and neighbours. Ishmael, the elder, feels miffed. He starts to torment Isaac.
Abraham says mildly, Play nicely together, children.
But they don’t.
Perhaps they can’t.
Abraham, sore distressed, separates his sons, sending Ishmael away.
God comforts Abraham, promises Ishmael will become the father of a mighty nation.
That nation is the Arab people.
God also promises Abraham that Isaac will be his heir.
Isaac becomes the father of Israel.
Just as the father loves both his sons, both sons love the father. Upon the death of Abraham, the sons reconcile and bury their father together, in the sepulchre at Hebron that Abraham had purchased on the death of Sarah.
Two nations born in discord, cannot live peaceably together.
When separated, peace prevails.
Following bereavement, they unite in shared grief.
Jerusalem in high summer. We awaken at 4.30, depart the apartment at 5.00 and already the sky is blue, cobalt blue.
Jerusalem is quiet. The roads are quiet. Quiet is rare in this city that teems with the pious, the fervent, the urgent.
Wondering whether we’ll find people enough at the Wall for a minyan (quorum), we walk with fast steps along twisting ways. We need a quorum in order to recite Kaddish, the mourner’s prayer. Erupting from an alley into the broad square we sight the Wall. Before it, in their many hundreds, the devout, already at prayer.
We three are not in mourning, we are here to remember. We are our mother’s surviving children. An indispensable fourth is her son-in-law John, devoted to Mum now as in life. The remembering starts with the first sighting of the Old City’s perimeter wall. How ancient, these creamy stones, mutely dramatic, forever contended. So many conquerors, so many defeats, such passions, stones soaked in blood.
From the plaza, we sight many minyans of minyans, male bodies cloaked in tallithot (prayer shawls). Some wave and sway, others shake metronomically, all moving to intensify intention. One youth in front of me flings his arms to the heavens, his hands clench and unclench in his entreating to God. May his prayers be answered for the good.
Past the beggars, past worshippers of all stripes, past Haredim Caucasian, and Haredim North African, past modern orthodox, past the odd Ethiope, past a pair of the pious deeply asleep, my brother and I wind and wend to the far side where, separated by less than one metre, our sister will hear us recite kaddish.
A memory of my first visit. November 1967. It’s afternoon in early winter, the air crystalline, the skies blue. An impromptu service is in progress. I attach myself to a congregation that is the chance aggregation of the moment. Those elect who are of the line of Aharon the High Priest offer their hands for a Levite to wash, prior to giving the priestly blessing. I raise my washed hands and intone: May the Lord bless you and keep you…
An afterthought lands: here I am, delivering this blessing at the Temple. This my forebears did for centuries until the Temple was destroyed, almost precisely nineteen hundred years ago. My people went into exile. At some stage in the 1800’s my grandfather’s grandparents returned to the land, settling in Petakh Tikvah, the Gateway of Hope, far to the north of here.
Is it possible that I am now, in 1967, the first lineal priest in my family to officiate here since the year 70 C.E.?
Today, together with my brother I will offer that same blessing. The blessing concludes: May the Lord lift up His face unto you, and give you peace.
Peace!
Our mother was a serene soul. She lived a long life of love, somehow happy through all of life’s losses and afflictions. Today, I remember her and honour her, without sorrow or pain. Late in her life, Mum said to me, You know I never did anything remarkable or distinguished. I never was famous or exceptional. But I did give birth to four children and I raised them and they all love me. So I suppose I was successful.
Mum, you don’t know the half of it: so well did you love us four, that every single one of us felt sure that we were your favourite.
Mum lived her life of peace. I can imagine her in no other state than peace. She went with heart at ease. My tears today are not for Mum. I shed a few sweet tears for this son who misses her. But many are my tears for my people, detested today, deserted by fair weather friends, threatened today, abroad and at home. There is tension in the air, fear too, appalled pain and grief. And mighty resolve.
But here, at this hour of pure air and quiet, Jerusalem is at peace. Have I ever attended prayers so quiet, so ruly? We hundreds recite the words, a soft hum rises from many lips. Until the Amidah (the silent devotion). Quietnessnow, perfect and complete. Torsi swing, sway and shake, hands clench and unclench.
Prayers completed, kaddish recited, Mum honoured, I make my way to my sister Margot. We fall into a fierce hug that does not quickly end. My body heaves with sobs. I’m a good sobber. There’s much to shed tears about. Tears for the present pain, tears of hope for the future good.
A gentle lady visited me in a bush hamlet. She was fifty and fair, softly spoken, with an air of sweet naivete.
Sighting my kippah she became excited. She asked, Do you have dreams, visions and prophecy? Almost apologetically, I said no, I didn’t.
In the days and weeks that followed I did have a dream. My Dad was suddenly, quietly present. In the dream I was aware Dad was dead. But here he was, standing at my shoulder, smiling. No words were spoken, none expected. This was a dream; in my dreams nothing is expected. Dad was just there. His gentle smile was a smile of sadness. I knew, as I always have known, that Dad loved me. His smile said that and more. The more was Dad’s sorrow for the world. He smiled in the understanding we shared, that I would have to live in this world of pain, that he had left, and had left to me.
Last night a vision came to me. Or perhaps the vision came as I sat in the early morning sunshine, looking out over the sea. It was a vision composed of words and phrases.
Joy to the world
The Lord is come.
Woe to the world
The Lord is hid.Joy to the world
A child is born.
Woe to the world
A child has died.
****
Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these broken wings…
In that vision I was aware that words of hope should follow: and learn to fly…but hope eluded me.
*** I spoke to the rabbi and he said.
There is always hope.
The rabbi is not filled with a sweet naivete. He carries the burden of family, every one of his father’s kin, slaughtered in the Shoah. Yet the rabbi counselled hope. He argued for it. He commanded it.
The hand of the Lord was upon me…
And He set me in the midst of a valley;
It was full of bones:
Son of man, can these bones live? O Lord, Thou alone knowest.
***
The soft lady in the bush said: We believe in dreams and visions and prophecy. She spoke the words with the fluency of mantra, with the ordinarinessof a shopping list.
I wish I had the gift of prophecy. The Prophets always spoke of the worst:
I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley.
And they spoke always of hope:
Prophesy, son of man, and say, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.
Parable: A frog is swimming in the River Nile. A scorpion hails him from the bank: will you please give me a ride on
on your back across the river?
The Frog replies: no, you’ll sting me and I’ll die.
Scorpion: no, I wouldn’t do that.
Frog: word of honour?
Scorpion: word of honour.
Frog, swimming over to the bank: alright, climb onto my back.
All is well until they are halfway across, when the scorpion suddenly stings the frog.
Frog, dying: why did you do that? Now I’ll die and you’ll drown.
Scorpion, drowning: this is the middle east – what did you expect?
I understand President Obama is visiting Israel at precisely the time as the visit of my family. I believe this to be a coincidence: neither party knew the other was coming.
However it seems their agenda might be the same.
At the play centre today, a bigger boy, perhaps 4 years old, pushed grandson Joel, aged one year and 358 days. Joel fell over. He arose and pushed the other child.
Joel’s mother said: Don’t push, darling.
Another who mother had witnessed the exchange of shoves, interceded on Joel’s behalf: Really your boy was simply defending himself. The bigger boy started it.
Joel’s mother thought for a moment: Yes, but it doesn’t solve anything does it?
Joel’s defender, smiling: You can’t have lived here very long. Of course, you are right, it is not a solution. But tell me, tell us all – everyone here needs to know – what do you suggest?
howardgoldenberg 