My life was given over to holiness.
The Law of the Lord was uppermost in my mind, from my earliest days. We were children of Israel, the Lord God’s children by adoption, living under the Law in a holy covenant. Among my people those of us who lived for holiness sought to separate ourselves from pollution, working tirelessly to follow the law and maintain a level of purity that would please the Lord our God.
Contaminated
The world was tainted and broken and those who oppressed us scorned our sacred things and contaminated our land. ‘How long Lord?’ we cried, in our longing for the Day of the Lord to dawn. In response to the chaos that threatened us, we tried so hard to keep away from all the things which might pollute our bodies, our families and our homes.
Only the perfect unblemished lamb may be offered to the Lord God in sacrifice, so I prayed ‘Let me be perfect Lord and fit to enter into your Glory! I know the sacrifices you favor Lord and I long for my thoughts, my words, and my actions to find favor with you. Gaze into my heart Lord and see, ‘I will sing of your love and justice; to you, Lord, I will sing praise. I will be careful to lead a blameless life—when will you come to me?’
Walk in the Way of Perfection
And then my brother brought the teacher to the entrance of our home, ready to share a meal with us on the sabbath day. I could see he was one of us, that the Law of the Lord was in his heart and that he sought to walk in the way of perfection. His face was radiant like the dawn. Surely, I thought, nothing unclean has passed this man’s lips and he will not let his gaze fall on any impurity. He is a brother to us all, a Son of the Covenant. Blessed be God.
Just as the thought passed through my mind, Benjamin came and stood in our path. We were ashamed and embarrassed. What possessed him to show himself at that moment, putting us all into difficulty? We were sorry. He was a good man and every one of us pitied him in his sickness … but sickness was not something we wanted to see presented to the teacher. Benjamin knew that and should have stayed out of sight, discreetly. We would have been compassionate, but we did not want to be shamed.
I felt my face burning when Jesus looked at us and asked the difficult question,
“Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?”
No one spoke.
A Test?
What could I say? The teacher was known to be a healer and I longed to see Benjamin healed but what response should we give to that question? Was he testing us? Was the teacher himself being tested?
I watched Jesus closely. I saw him touch the sick man and I witnessed him, as he gazed into those swollen, suffering eyes, and it seemed to me then that Benjamin’s face shone with reflected light, like Moses’ face shone when he came down from the mountain. As he turned to walk away, I could see that all the swelling and sickness had left him.
Jesus turned to us and quietly asked us,
“If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?”
I knew that I would leave the house with my rabbi.
