The shopkeeper stepped onto a short ladder, untied the reed cover over one of the holes, slipped both hands in, and deftly pulled out a dove. It struggled, then relaxed in his grip. “Hold it like this, with both hands over its wings.” He passed me the brown bird streaked with its purple feather-tips. “You don’t want it to fly away.” I gripped it the way I was shown. The small body squirmed in my hands, its heart beat wildly. Its feathers barely contained the bird’s fine bones; I felt as though they’d crack if I squeezed too tightly.
“Hold it firm,” he chided me. “If you let it struggle, it might get hurt. A pity to waste your copper on an unfit offering.”
I tightened my grip and the bird relaxed. “What do I do now?”
“Take it to the altar. Follow the crowd uphill toward the smoke.” Unable to contain my excitement, I snorted out a laugh. The shopkeeper’s eyes narrowed, and his beefy hand clapped onto my shoulder. “Wait, I forgot to ask. You’re of age, are you not?”
I shook my head. “Not for another year.”
He wrapped his big hands around mine, taking control of the passive dove and shaking his head with a half-smile. “I should’ve asked first. You can’t make an offering until you’re of age. I’ll not have you sin on my account.” He stepped up the ladder and returned the bird carefully to its hole, then placed my coppers back in my empty hand.
A stone rose in my throat. “Is there nothing I can do?”
“Go and bow before the Holy One. Anyone can do that.”
I stepped out of the shop and continued up the center of the marketplace, picturing Eliav laughing at me if he ever heard about the dove—I’d have to tell Dahlia when we were alone. As the street rose, the scent of incense overpowered the musky reek of sheep. Once I cleared the last of the stalls, the clamor of the caged animals faded and a new sound caught my ear. Floating above the hum of the crowd was a song unlike any I’d ever heard. The precision and delicacy of notes weaving into one another bespoke exceptional skill and countless hours of practice. I closed my eyes and filtered out the noise of the marketplace to better focus on the music. An elbow in my back broke my concentration as a thickset farmer stumbled against me and cursed. I’d chosen a poor spot to stop and gawk.
Slipping through the crowd, I sought the source of the music. The street leveled, opening out into a large square. Across the plaza, I found what I was looking for: seven musicians standing on a wooden platform, brilliant red robes falling to their feet. In the open air of the plaza, the incense was no longer just fragrant; it was intoxicating. Music floated on a cloud of cinnamon, clove, and myrrh, filling the open square.
The cry of a frightened sheep tore my attention from the melody. With the instincts of a shepherd, I sought out the distressed animal, but the thick cloud of smoke billowing up from the incense altar obscured my sight.
There was another sharp bleat, cut short by a grunt, and I spotted the lamb. Its blood flowed out in jets into a stone bowl held ready to receive it. The creature’s body sagged, lifeless, as a barefoot priest robed in white hoisted it on his shoulders and carried it up a ramp to the altar. A second priest lifted the bowl of blood and splashed it in a stiff-armed arc across the base of the altar.
Just beyond the bloodstain, a tall banner fell from the horns of the altar to its base, displaying the royal ox of the House of King Omri. As I stared, the cloth billowed out in the breeze, revealing a crack in the stone hidden beneath. The fissure ran almost the entire height of the altar, with a thin trail of ash surfacing from its depths.
Uriel’s words from the morning before came back to me: The prophets live in a world of devotion; the places they go are reached only by choice. I hadn’t really chosen to follow the old prophet; I only told him what he wanted to hear. But it was my choice to come to the altar and bow down before the Holy One.
I crossed the square and ascended to a platform of massive stone blocks towering over the plaza. A second platform stood above the first. Four limestone pillars supported a roof of woven reeds shading the sacred object: The Golden Calf.
The Calf wasn’t as immense as I’d imagined. Its eyes would barely have reached my knees, but the burnished gold reflected the sun as brightly as a mirror. Its expression was exactly that of a real calf wishing to nurse, and even from where I stood I could see the texture of its hide.
I always expected my first trip to Beit El would be with my uncle, during the annual pilgrimage, and now my pride at coming on my own was tempered by not knowing what to do. My face grew hot as I avoided the gaze of the priests guarding the Golden Calf. A gray-haired man ascended next to me. From the corner of my eye, I watched him stand for a moment, gazing up into the Calf’s eyes. He lowered his knees onto the chiseled stone. I copied him, wincing as my wound hit the ground.
I felt the Calf’s eyes watching over me, over all the faithful of Israel, as it had for generations. How many prayers had it heard?
This was my chance to speak directly to the Holy One. I recalled my earliest memories of prayer, of how I would cry out for my mother to come back. I wasn’t sure how long that went on, probably for years, until one day Uncle Menachem took me aside and explained that wasn’t the way prayer worked. “We don’t pray for the impossible,” he said, “and we don’t pray to change what already is. But we can pray for things that haven’t happened yet, like strong rains, a good harvest, or that the flock should be safe.”
So for years, I did just that; I prayed that the flock would be safe from lions and wolves, and in the two years I led the flock, I had lost only three lambs. But now, standing before the Holy One, with the flock so far away, the words sounded hollow to my heart. This was my chance to pray for what I really wanted. Not the return of my parents or the inheritance of my land—it was still forbidden to pray for the impossible.
Yet, how quickly our visions of what is possible can change. At the last new moon, I would have said that I was destined to become nothing more than a lowly shepherd. Perhaps Dahlia was right, perhaps circumstances could change, even for me. After all, here I was, just a few days later, bowing down in Beit El. If the altar of the Holy One, the holiest place in the Kingdom, could have a crack, then could I, with all of my flaws, also attain holiness?
Raphael said that his master had put him on the path to prophecy five years ago. When I asked Uriel yesterday why he had taken me for the gathering, he said it was for my music. But there was something he was holding back—I was sure of it. Could this be it? Had he brought me to the gathering so that I could catch a glimpse of a different future? Had he put me on the path to prophecy without my even knowing it?
This was finally something meaningful to pray for, a path of devotion to something greater than just my sheep or my stomach. If it was my fate to become a shepherd in the wilderness, then I wanted to be like the seven shepherds of Israel, a shepherd-prophet.
My fellow worshiper was already stretched out on the flagstones, arms extended before his head, legs trailing out behind him. I copied his position, placing my palms flat before me. Lowering my forehead to the cold stone, my hands trembled at my first act of devotion.
Joshua ben Perachyah said: Choose a master for yourself, acquire a friend, and judge every person favorably.
Pirkei Avot 1:6
4
The Knife
“Darkness is rising upon the land.”
These were the only words the prophet uttered when I told him of the King’s engagement. For the rest of the night, he sat on the precipice, deep in thought. I didn’t even get to tell him about bowing before the Holy One.
We met Yosef and his disciples soon after dawn. The two masters embraced, then led us eastward on the broad road toward Jericho. The disciples and I waited until the masters were far enough ahead to speak without being overheard, then we started off behind. Our route led down the dry wilderness slope that bridged the fertile mountain plateau, where I had spent my entire life, and the Jordan valley below. A herd of gazelles leapt along the ridge, leaving gray tracks on the barren terrain. One stopped to nibble at the dark green leaves of a lone hyssop bush that had fought its way through the rocky soil. Halfway down the slope, we turned north onto a smaller footpath that followed the ridge-line along the edge of the wilderness. A hot wind swirled with dust, and I tasted grit between my teeth. Only the toughest creatures could call this steep, arid land home. Two rough, migrant shepherds clicked their tongues to guide a flock of coarse-haired goats toward a patch of brown grasses growing in a catch-basin between the hills.
This is me in a few years’ time.
At what point had my family made clear this was my future? Was it all at once or only little by little? This was my first time in the true wild, and I saw how the sparse grass and the distant springs made shepherding here strenuous work. At the same time, a quiet serenity rested between the hillsides. Though life here would be hard, my decision to train for prophecy bolstered me. It was the perfect place for learning to hear the words of the Holy One.
My enthusiasm only lasted until mid-day, when we passed a shepherd’s tent. Outside its goatskin walls, the shepherd’s wife sat baking their bread directly on the coals of her fire. She responded to Uriel’s greeting with a ghastly smile, baring toothless gums and stretching the weathered skin of her face. There were no children around the tent—she hardly looked healthy enough to have any. Was her blighted condition a result of the harshness of their lives, or were the prospects of a wilderness shepherd so poor that her husband could marry no better? Either alternative was enough to make me cringe.
Even as the springs came closer together, returning a haze of green to the landscape, I still couldn’t clear that image of the shepherd’s wife from my thoughts. Perhaps I should bring Dahlia here to see the worn woman herself? Then she would abandon her silly dream of following me on my path, and leave me to walk it alone.
I was torn from my thoughts of Dahlia only when Raphael announced, “Welcome to Emek HaAsefa, Lev.” He swept his hands toward a valley nestled between the hills below us, its gently sloping clearing already in shadow.
I spotted black openings along the steep rock face. “Are those caves?”
“Yes. They will be our homes during the gathering.” Raphael stepped off the road onto a trail down to the valley. “And those are just the ones you can see.”
Raphael descended directly to the clearing where white-robed servants were laying out food. I stopped first at the animal pens to find Balaam already in the enclosure, snuffing loudly while eating alongside twenty or more donkeys and three horses. As I retrieved my belongings from the saddlebags, my eyes appraised the horses—had nobles come to the gathering?
In the eating area, I found a table laid out with hot bread, chickpea mash, and beet tops lightly cooked to a bright green. An Israelite indentured servant spooned out food for the disciples, while another baked bread over a clay dome. The servant took one glance at me, and his eyes narrowed. “Are you Lev?” I nodded. “Master Uriel had us set this aside for you.” From behind the cooking area, he retrieved a piece of bread dotted with small amounts of the chickpea and beet tops. After a full day’s march, I had hoped for more food than this. The servant must have caught my expression. “You can take more. I don’t care.” He put down his spoon, with the handle facing toward me, then went to help with the cooking, leaving me to serve myself. I added only a modest amount, remembering my uncle’s resentment at how much the hired workers had eaten during last year’s olive harvest.
