Life will never be the same again

28 Shevat

What happened last night?
Here goes! Shmuel opened the door, and there was no one there. All of a sudden, He was leapt upon by Rivkah and Shmuli shouting “Surprise!” Goodness! it was a surprise! They were followed by two more children, some weary looking adults, namely, Miriam, her daughter Shl’moit and her husband and finally Shim’on one of Miriam’s other sons. Shmuel went outside to help Shim’on with their donkey and luggage. My! it was now dark and we had nothing to feed the guests! I sat them all down and made herb tea. The children were talking all at once, something about sleeping in a field with some sheep! Maybe I just heard that wrong. The two women sat to one side sipping their tea, looking very relieved.
Shim’on came inside and whispered something to the other man and Shmuel poked his head round the door “I’m off to the neighbours, Honey, we need to feed these people!”
He returned shortly with some bread from Hadassah. He was accompanied by Aunt Tirzah and Uncle Shaul and a rather large pot of stew. She had insisted on supervising its transport as it was very hot. Normally, our farm house felt quite roomy, but tonight, it seemed to be bursting at the seams.
The children were extremely tired. They had been travelling since First Day morning. Rivkah fell asleep before she finished eating, so her Daddy carried her to bed. Sh’monit, introduced me to her husband, Zeb who was a really gentle soul who kept apologising for all the trouble. When Shmuel had finished tucking Rivkah in Shmuli began to get really excited,
“Can I sleep in the barn tonight, please! Please, Dad, can I?”
“We can sleep in the barn with him,” offered Zeb, “It’ll be very crowded in here”
“Are you sure…”
“It will suit us fine, I’ll see he does not get into any mischief,”
With that, he took the three boys to the barn to get them settled.
In all the commotion I hadn’t noticed Miriam had hardly said anything at all. Shim’on stood up and said, “I think we need to explain what happened,” he said. “I don’t think our lives are going to be the same again. It has been a very traumatic time from whole family, especially Mum.”
“Just hang on a bit,” said Shmuel, “I really think I ought to go and see if Rabbi Moshe has gone to bed yet. I just have a feeling it will be better if he was here.”
“Yes,” said Miriam wearily, “that would be really nice.”

It must’ve been half an hour later when Shmuel returned with Rabbi Moshe who was still wearing his nightcap. The poor man had obviously hurriedly dressed as I noticed he was still wearing his bed socks too. I’d just made another round of herb tea. He accepted a cup and sat down with the others. Whenever there’s a crisis that’s what we do in our family, have a cup of herb tea. There’s nothing quite like it.

Despite the children going to bed it still seemed very crowded in our living room. Aunt Tirzah and Uncle Shaul was still there. For some reason my aunt seemed determined to stay. Shmuel turned to Shim’on and said “I think you’d better tell us what happened.”
Shim’on took a deep breath. He told us “On Shabbat, Yeshua had been asked to read from the Haftarah,  from the Prophet Y’shayahu. I know you will have had the reading here in your synagogue too. He commented on it briefly, and then a riot broke out. The crowd took great offence at what he had said. We just grabbed the children and took them home. They spent the night with a friend of ours who keeps a sheep out on the hills. And we left early the next day to go to KfarNahum. Yeshua was going to find somewhere to live there anyway as you already know, but none of us feel particularly safe in Natzaret any more. Ya’akov is still there to keep an eye on the business, but I don’t think any of the women and children with going back there for quite some time.”
I glanced at Miriam, I could see she was crying. “I was afraid something like this might happen one day, I have thought about it many times since before he was born.” she said

I will let you know what Miriam told us tomorrow, as I have to do some housework today. We are all so tired after being up half the night, and animals need to be fed and chores need to be done.

Tags: Aunt Tirzah, bed, boys, children, crowd, family, First Day, Hadassah, Haftarah, herb tea, KfarNahum, Miriam, Natzaret, Rabbi Moshe, Rivkah, Rut, Shaul, sheep, Shmuel, Shmuli, Surprise Goodness, Tirzah, Uncle Shaul, women, Ya'akov, Yeshua, Zeb