Daughter of Cana Read online

Damaris pressed her lips together and crossed her arms. “I understand that you may not want to marry while the situation with Yeshua is still uncertain. But you cannot leave Tasmin without assurance. She is alone and vulnerable, and you do her a disservice by not speaking to her.”

  “And what should I say?”

  “You must speak to the rabbi first. Have him draw up a betrothal contract. Bathe and put on your finest tunic, then go to Cana and present the contract to her. Take a gift—a good one. And promise that as soon as you can, you will go get her and make her your wife.”

  I stared at her, considering her words, and then smiled. “You always were the bossy sister.”

  “I’m older than you,” she replied, her eyes twinkling. “I am expected to be bossy.”

  “If I do this, will you help with the wedding feast?”

  “For you, brother, I would do anything. Now go to Cana with the rabbi before some other man claims Tasmin first.”

  On the short walk home, I allowed Simeon and Joses to walk ahead so I could talk to James. “So,” I said, lowering my voice, “I discovered why Damaris invited us. She presented me with a stern rebuke.”

  Even in the darkness, I saw James lift a brow. “Let me guess—she wants you to marry Tasmin.”

  “You knew?”

  He smiled and shrugged. “She is right, you know. You are two grown people, you spend a lot of time together, and yet you are not betrothed? People are talking.”

  “But how can I marry anyone when Yeshua is attracting so much attention? I worry about him, and I do not want to put her in the middle of what might turn into a tragic situation.”

  “Did you make this objection to Damaris?”

  “Of course. She said she understood, but I should at least arrange the betrothal.”

  “Damaris has always been wise in the way of women.”

  I hesitated. “There is another reason I have waited.”

  “Your poverty?”

  I laughed. “Perhaps there are three reasons.”

  “Then what?”

  “Thomas.” I lifted my suddenly warm face to the coolness of the night air. “When I first met her, all she could talk about was Thomas. Thomas does this, Thomas says that. I have always admired Tasmin—”

  “Of course. She is beautiful.”

  “Yes, but more than that. She is thoughtful. She is kind. Yet I kept asking myself how I would feel married to a woman who constantly talks about another man.”

  James glanced at me, then returned his gaze to the road. “You met her a long time ago, right after Thomas left with Yeshua. So ask yourself—does she still talk about her brother?”

  I pressed my lips together. “Not as much.”

  “You see? Things change. No one remains the same.”

  I stared at the row of buildings ahead, our house jammed in between others. Where would I build a home for Tasmin? How would I build it? My brothers and I continued to work—we had built four pergolas since finishing the merchant’s—but we were far from wealthy. I would need time to save enough to build and furnish a home for a wife.

  “I cannot marry for months,” I said. “Not only because of Yeshua but because I have no house. I cannot even build onto our home, for there is not enough space.”

  James nodded. “HaShem will provide, and when the time is right, you will know it. But our sister is wise—if you love this woman, you should declare yourself.”

  I smiled. “That, big brother, will be the easy part.”

  Two weeks later, with the ketubah in hand, the rabbi and I made the journey to Cana. “Couldn’t you have found a woman close by?” the rabbi groused as we covered the furlongs. “Nazareth has virtuous women, too. Even a few who are beautiful.”

  “Tasmin lives in Cana,” I answered, “and I cannot see myself with any other.”

  “Humph.” The rabbi wiped sweat from his brow and glanced at the sun overhead. “I hope she has refreshments. Is she a good cook?”

  I nodded. “She bakes for weddings.”

  “Ah, well then. Perhaps you will put on a few pounds. Nothing like a stout frame to show that HaShem has blessed you.”

  Finally we entered the city, attracting attention from everyone we met. While I was now a familiar face, the rabbi was a stranger. More than one villager guessed at our purpose. One young girl ran up to me, grinned, and asked if she should fetch Tasmin’s aunt Dinah.

  “Please do,” I said, returning her smile. “Have her meet us at the house.”

  A few moments later, we stood at Tasmin’s courtyard gate. Yagil heard our greeting and thrust his head through the doorway. “You want to see Ima?”

  The rabbi frowned. “She has a child?”

  “She found him by the side of the road,” I said. “As Mordecai took in Hadassah, Tasmin has taken in Yagil.”

  “Then you have found a rare woman indeed.”

  Tasmin appeared a moment later, and her face went the color of a rose when she saw us. “Come in,” she said, opening the gate. “I did not expect visitors today.”

  “I would have sent a message,” I said, not moving from the street, “but it was easier to come myself.” I bowed slightly and gestured to the rabbi. “This is Amon ben Eshkol, our rabbi.”

  Tasmin dipped her head. “I am honored.”

  I cleared my throat. “Tasmin,” I began, aware that the neighbors were watching from their open doors and courtyards, “let me speak clearly and directly. We have come today bearing a ketubah, a contract of marriage between you and me. It has already been signed by the rabbi and another witness. In this document I have sworn to care for you, provide you with food and clothing, and not to require you to leave Israel unless you consent. The mohar, the bride price of two hundred silver dinars, will be paid to you if I divorce you or die . . . but I do not plan on divorcing you, and I hope you outlive me by many years. Ordinarily your father would agree to this contract, but since he is gone, I was hoping to speak to your aunt Dinah or perhaps one of your uncles.”

  At that moment, Dinah came rushing up the street, out of breath and trailed by half a dozen young girls. “Wait!” she called, waving. “Wait for me.”

  She stopped by my side and clasped her hands over her heaving bosom as I repeated myself. When I had finished, the rabbi lifted the rolled ketubah, presenting proof of my intentions.

  Dinah looked at her niece, her eyes glowing. “Well, Tasmin? Are you going to let them in?”

  Tasmin’s eyes sought mine, and for a heartrending instant I thought she would say no. Then she smiled, somehow her hands found mine, and I knew my heart would find a home in hers.

  “Come in, come in,” Dinah said, pushing past me through the open gate. “We will make lemon water and serve date cakes. We have to celebrate. Tasmin, it is time you were a married woman! We have much to plan, much to think about.”

  Tasmin bent her head toward me, her words for my ears alone: “I prayed you would come,” she whispered, her voice fragile and trembling. “And now you have. God is good.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Tasmin

  After the house emptied of friends, family, and neighbors, the rabbi discreetly took Yagil outside, so that Jude and I could have a few moments alone.

  My husband-to-be took my hands, and his eyes caught and held mine. “I will build a home for you,” he promised, “and then I will come for you. It may not be within the year, however. I would rather marry you when Yeshua is not teasing Galilee with the idea of revolt against Rome. I do not want controversy to spoil our wedding.”

  “I don’t think anything can spoil what HaShem has brought about,” I replied, my heart warming to the gentle look of love in his eyes. “And about your brother—I have been pondering his ideas. I look at Yagil, I know Yeshua healed him, but I also know that he is the son of Joseph, not the son of God. So I asked myself: if he is not our messiah and king, then what is he? And I think I have found an answer.”

  Jude lifted a brow. “My brothers and I would certainly like t
o know it.”

  I led him to a dining couch and gestured for him to sit with me. “I believe,” I said, gripping his hands more tightly, “that your brother may be a genuine prophet. Prophets have power. Didn’t Elijah work miracles? Didn’t Moses speak for HaShem? And didn’t Moses tell us Adonai would send us a prophet?”

  “‘A prophet from your midst, from your brothers, like me, will raise for you the Lord your God. To him you must listen,’” Jude recited.

  “See? Doesn’t Yeshua call himself a prophet?”

  Jude nodded slowly. “No one is a prophet in his own village.” He pulled free of my hands and leaned forward, his forehead crinkling. “Our people have been waiting for the prophet for hundreds of years. My father was always telling us that when the assembly resolved that Simon the Maccabee would be their leader and high priest, they said he would fill that role until a trustworthy prophet would arise.”

  “They may have been speaking of Yeshua.” I shivered as gooseflesh covered my arms. “After a year of hearing about Yeshua, after seeing what he did for Rahel and Yagil, I cannot say he is an ordinary man. I have tried to figure out how he performs miracles, but, like Pharaoh’s magicians when they could not replicate Moses’s wonders, I have to admit that Yeshua’s healings involve the finger of God. Yet knowing what the Scriptures say about the promised king, I cannot say Yeshua is the messiah. But a prophet—one who points the people to God and who works miracles by HaShem’s power—that I can believe. What do you think?”

  Jude seemed preoccupied, as if he were sorting through memories and prophecies, then he looked at me and smiled. “You may be right. Let me discuss it with James.”

  I squeezed his arm, then smiled at a sudden thought—this arm was now mine to squeeze. The cheek was mine to kiss, the mind mine to explore, for legally Jude was already my husband.

  His thoughts must have been moving in the same direction, because as I quietly celebrated the idea that he belonged to me, Jude turned, wrapped me in his arms, and kissed me slowly, thoughtfully, and gratefully.

  “Damaris was right,” he said when he released me. “She said anyone could see how I loved you. I’m only sorry I was so slow to let you know it.”

  “I forgive you,” I whispered. “You will always be worth waiting for.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Tasmin

  As I waited for Yeshua to fulfill his ministry and Jude to build our house, I kept busy in Cana. Though my nights were often lonely, my days were full because I had Yagil to care for and Aunt Dinah to keep me company. I still missed Thomas and I was desperate to join Jude, but Yagil proved to be the medicine that made my heart merry. The boy made me smile when waiting grew tedious, and his laughter filled my empty house with life.

  I found great joy in teaching my little boy. Every morning we would kneel by his bed and recite the shacharit, or morning prayer. “‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These words, which I am commanding you today, are to be on your heart. You are to teach them diligently to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. Bind them as a sign on your hand, they are to be as frontlets between your eyes, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.’”

  “Why, Ima,” Yagil asked one morning, “do we say the same prayer morning and night?”

  “Because,” I answered, “saying them in the morning is our acceptance of the yoke of heaven, the yoke of His commandments, and our reminder of the exodus from Egypt.”

  “What’s a yoke?”

  I sank to the floor and faced the boy. “A yoke is a wooden bar that joins two oxen together. They pull beneath it and serve their master. Accepting the yoke of heaven means that we are submitting ourselves to serve HaShem. We will obey His commands as they are written in the Law.”

  I’m not sure how much Yagil understood in those early days, but by the time he was five, he could recite all three paragraphs of the Shema without prompting.

  Life settled into a routine, its ordinariness broken only by occasional reports about Yeshua. Every visitor who came to our village brought another story—about a miraculous healing, stories he had told, or people he had angered. Over the next few months, everyone in Galilee, from the wealthiest merchant to the poorest servant, seemed to develop an opinion about him: he was our promised messiah, or he was a fraud and a trickster.

  I clung quietly to my conviction that he was a prophet sent from God.

  One story resonated with me long after the telling. A visitor from Jerusalem told us that some experts in the Law wanted to trap Yeshua with his words. The Pharisees sent him some of their students and some members of Herod’s party. They said, “Rabbi, we know that you tell the truth and teach what God’s way is. You aren’t concerned with what other people think about you, since you pay no attention to a person’s status. So tell us your opinion: does Torah permit paying taxes to the Roman emperor or not?”

  Yeshua, knowing their malicious intent, said, “You hypocrites! Why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used to pay the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked, “Whose name and picture are these?”

  “The emperor’s,” they replied.

  Yeshua said to them, “Then give the emperor what belongs to the emperor. And give to God what belongs to God.”

  Everyone listening at the well marveled at Yeshua’s clever answer, and I held it close to my heart. The emperor wanted our taxes, and a portion of our money belonged to him. But what belonged to HaShem? Our offerings? Our tithes?

  The question niggled at my brain for days. HaShem didn’t want our offerings, for the psalmist wrote, “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire—my ears You have opened—burnt offering and sin offering you did not require.” And tithes were paid by farmers within the Promised Land, ten percent of the crop to pay for tenancy on God’s land. There was another tithe, paid annually, of ten percent of our crops, which we carried to Jerusalem and ate while we were in the Holy City. So what part did HaShem want of us?

  I asked Jude the next time I ate Shabbat dinner with his family. I told them of Yeshua’s response to the Pharisees, then asked my question. “If we are to give to HaShem what belongs to Him,” I said, “then what do we give Him?”

  The brothers looked at each other, then Jude smiled at me. “Easy, my love,” he said. “He wants us.”

  “Us?”

  “All of us.”

  “Everyone at this table, you mean?”

  “Yes, and all”—he gestured from his head to his feet—“every part of each of us.”

  My mind blew open. HaShem didn’t want my tithes of dates, though I was happy to give them. He didn’t want the effort I took to offer my morning and evening prayers. He didn’t want the token coins I tossed into the basket at the synagogue. He wanted me. All of me.

  I did not talk much for the rest of the evening, but when Yagil and I went home at the end of Shabbat, I resolved to reimagine my way of thinking about HaShem. I had been parceling out bits and pieces of myself: my obedience to the Law, my required tithes of produce, my regular prayers. But when I was not performing my required duties, my life had always been my own . . .

  Or was it? Jude knew better. My life had come from HaShem, so it belonged to Him. And He wanted all of me, all the time.

  What did that mean? I moved through my days with a new awareness of God, of what it meant to wear the yoke of heaven. I was to serve Him in everything, not only when required to speak or act according to the Law.

  As the months passed, I began to say farewell to Cana. In a year or so, this city would no longer be my home. When Jude finally arrived to carry me to our wedding, Yagil and I would move to Nazareth, and this place, these people, would no longer be part of my daily life. The butcher who carved my meat behind a curtain so I wouldn’t have to see the blood; the woman who bought more dates than she
needed out of generosity, Aunt Dinah and my uncles, whom I rarely saw but were still part of my family.

  What would the people of Nazareth think of me? Would they regard a newcomer with the same hostility they had displayed toward Yeshua, one of their own, or would they welcome Jude’s wife?

  I tried not to be anxious about the upcoming changes. Some things would remain the same. My house would stay in the family, for since Abba’s death, it legally belonged to Thomas. The groves also belonged to Thomas and would provide a good income for him should he ever decide to settle down and marry. If and when he decided to return to his old life, he would find it easy to blend into village life. I would not be around, of course, yet Nazareth was not far away. Jude and I would always welcome him into our home, and he would make a great uncle for Yagil and the other children HaShem sent us.

  As winter warmed into spring and the third Passover without Thomas approached, Jude showed up at my house. For a moment I feared he brought bad news—had something happened to Yeshua? Had his twelve closest disciples been arrested?

  But one look at his smile assured me that all was well. He greeted me with a chaste kiss on the cheek, then let me lead him into the house, where Yagil danced around him, clamoring for his attention. He talked to Yagil for a few moments before sinking onto the couch. He looked at the linens I had sorted into piles. “What are you doing there?” he asked.

  I ran my hand over the top of the folded linens. “I am sorting through what I should take and what I should leave behind for Thomas. The finer linens will go with me, since I embroidered most of them and Thomas has no use for such things. One day, when he marries, his wife will undoubtedly bring linens of her own—” I halted when his face closed, as if he were guarding a secret. “What’s wrong?”

  He shrugged. “You do not need to be in such a hurry, that’s all. Thomas is still with Yeshua. And my brothers and I have been so busy that I have had no time to look for a place to build our house.”

  I sank onto a stool and struggled to mask my disappointment. “We have been betrothed for nearly a year.”