neither one thing nor the other, nothing to hold me here with Yeshua yet nothing to return to.
Yeshua’s growing popularity had made him increasingly bold. In the towns we went to there were a number of elders and teachers who had trained under Pharisees of the school of Shammai; and these Yeshua had begun to take a particular pleasure in baiting and goading. Yet while it was true that many of them, in those towns, took their superior learning as an occasion for condescension and sententiousness, others were among the most pious and respected members of their communities. Yeshua did not always take the trouble to separate the one from the other, nor was he without duplicity in decrying Shammai’s excessive legalism, which he seemed to use as an excuse for his own laxity towards the law. The attitude had begun to wear off on his inner circle as well, some of whom, for instance, openly flouted the sabbath now by travelling from their villages to join us for evening prayers in Kefar Nahum. When Yeshua was challenged over these matters, he shrugged them off.
“How can you fault them for coming to pray with their teacher?” he said.
“They have teachers in their towns.”
“And if the Messiah came,” Yeshua said, “would you tell them to keep to their towns rather than worship him?”
This kind of provocation struck me as foolhardy, particularly as there was no shortage of fanatics attached to him now who might be inclined to take such statements literally. But while logic suggested that his insolence would increasingly marginalize him, in fact the opposite seemed to be occurring—the more brazen he became, the more the crowds grew, even if half of them came merely for the spectacle and many of the rest out of superstition, hoping that some good fortune would descend on them by being near him or that some ailment they had would fall away. So his rise had begun to resemble that of the usual charlatans and false prophets, for whom it could truly be said that the more outrageous their promises and claims, the greater their sway over the people. Yet with Yeshua there remained this distinction: that for all his irreverence there was always a core of truth in whatever he said. Perhaps even now this was why I did not simply leave him—there was still that sense at the back of my mind of some answer he might hold to me, like some intractable nut he had cracked open.
Once, just among the group of us, Yaqob put a question to him about Simon’s circumcision, still troubled, as we all were, by how Yeshua had handled the matter. It was my suspicion that Yeshua’s views were even more radical than he had dared to say, or than any Jew could accept. But he answered Yaqob now by citing Hillel’s reply to the heathen who wished to learn all the law in an afternoon, that its sum was to do to others as you would have them do to you. It was one of the few times I heard Yeshua cite an authority, unlike those teachers who could not so much as put on theirshirts without quoting the Torah; though it was typical that he should choose a teaching that even in its day had caused no small amount of bafflement, and that indeed had helped Shammai in gaining ascendancy over Hillel. Now, however, Hillel’s meaning seemed obvious enough—wasn’t there more virtue, in fact, in a single kind act than in the keeping of every covenant and code?
With regard to Simon, anyone could see that circumcision or no, it would have been hard to find a more faithful proselyte: it was not only that he hung on Yeshua’s every word but that he set all his teachings into almost immediate practice, with an earnestness that would have put even the most pious of Pharisees to the test. It happened, for instance, that not long after he’d joined us he heard Yeshua in one of his sermons chastising those hypocrites who made a great public show of their praying; and for some time thereafter we could not get him to join us in our prayers on the beach, so frightened was
Yeshua’s growing popularity had made him increasingly bold. In the towns we went to there were a number of elders and teachers who had trained under Pharisees of the school of Shammai; and these Yeshua had begun to take a particular pleasure in baiting and goading. Yet while it was true that many of them, in those towns, took their superior learning as an occasion for condescension and sententiousness, others were among the most pious and respected members of their communities. Yeshua did not always take the trouble to separate the one from the other, nor was he without duplicity in decrying Shammai’s excessive legalism, which he seemed to use as an excuse for his own laxity towards the law. The attitude had begun to wear off on his inner circle as well, some of whom, for instance, openly flouted the sabbath now by travelling from their villages to join us for evening prayers in Kefar Nahum. When Yeshua was challenged over these matters, he shrugged them off.
“How can you fault them for coming to pray with their teacher?” he said.
“They have teachers in their towns.”
“And if the Messiah came,” Yeshua said, “would you tell them to keep to their towns rather than worship him?”
This kind of provocation struck me as foolhardy, particularly as there was no shortage of fanatics attached to him now who might be inclined to take such statements literally. But while logic suggested that his insolence would increasingly marginalize him, in fact the opposite seemed to be occurring—the more brazen he became, the more the crowds grew, even if half of them came merely for the spectacle and many of the rest out of superstition, hoping that some good fortune would descend on them by being near him or that some ailment they had would fall away. So his rise had begun to resemble that of the usual charlatans and false prophets, for whom it could truly be said that the more outrageous their promises and claims, the greater their sway over the people. Yet with Yeshua there remained this distinction: that for all his irreverence there was always a core of truth in whatever he said. Perhaps even now this was why I did not simply leave him—there was still that sense at the back of my mind of some answer he might hold to me, like some intractable nut he had cracked open.
Once, just among the group of us, Yaqob put a question to him about Simon’s circumcision, still troubled, as we all were, by how Yeshua had handled the matter. It was my suspicion that Yeshua’s views were even more radical than he had dared to say, or than any Jew could accept. But he answered Yaqob now by citing Hillel’s reply to the heathen who wished to learn all the law in an afternoon, that its sum was to do to others as you would have them do to you. It was one of the few times I heard Yeshua cite an authority, unlike those teachers who could not so much as put on theirshirts without quoting the Torah; though it was typical that he should choose a teaching that even in its day had caused no small amount of bafflement, and that indeed had helped Shammai in gaining ascendancy over Hillel. Now, however, Hillel’s meaning seemed obvious enough—wasn’t there more virtue, in fact, in a single kind act than in the keeping of every covenant and code?
With regard to Simon, anyone could see that circumcision or no, it would have been hard to find a more faithful proselyte: it was not only that he hung on Yeshua’s every word but that he set all his teachings into almost immediate practice, with an earnestness that would have put even the most pious of Pharisees to the test. It happened, for instance, that not long after he’d joined us he heard Yeshua in one of his sermons chastising those hypocrites who made a great public show of their praying; and for some time thereafter we could not get him to join us in our prayers on the beach, so frightened was
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