{"id":370,"date":"2020-08-27T19:16:05","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T17:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynnjoffe.co.za\/?page_id=370"},"modified":"2021-03-24T10:25:04","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T08:25:04","slug":"in-the-beginning-an-extract-from-the-book","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/lynnjoffe.co.za\/?page_id=370","title":{"rendered":"Read an extract from the opening chapter here \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Book I: Tummel in the Temple<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iudaea, 33 CE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we hadn\u2019t been following Hadassah\u2019s pomegranate all over the known world, we\u2019d never have wound up in Bethany. Lazzie would still be alive. And I\u2019d be mortal. But that\u2019s not how the hamantaschen crumbled. A painted lady flaps her wings and all that jazz. The disciples remember it differently, but they were always going to write their own version anyway. I was there. I saw it all. Not in my present incarnation, but who am I to split sheitel hairs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The beitzim started to roll when Rov Yossi and his chevras were invited over for that last supper. It was a double whammy, actually \u2013 Pesach and Shabbos rolled into one. Martha and I were helping Hadassah boil \u2019n bake an exodus of matzoh balls. I was never much one for domestic activity and did all I could to wheedle out of the chores in the wide, clay-baked kitchen. Normally, the servants would clean up after us. But on Pesach, Hadassah was having no shirking. Scour the scullery. Polish the porcelain. On your hands and knees, girlchicks! Seek and destroy any vestige of chametz \u2013 no wheat, no rice, no leftover shewbread, it all had to go. On Pesach, we\u2019re forbidden to put anything in our mouths that rises. Then there\u2019s the matter of changing the dishes \u2013 one set milchedik, another fleishedik. Hadassah was very proud of her Pesach crockery, handed down through the maternal line since the great trek back from Babylonia, each item adorned with a symbol of the festival: a dandelion, a sprig of parsley, chopped up charoset representing bricks and mortar of the slaves, salt water for tears. All in all, a huge schlep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twelve extra mouths to feed was no mean feast. Our second stepdaddy, Qumran Qumran, had done well in the buildup to the festival. He knew how to supply the needs of the flocking pilgrims and set up fruit stands all along the road to Damascus. Palm dates did very well that season. Figs were at a premium. He tripled the cost of olives. But he liked a flutter on the camels, did Qumran Qumran, and often returned home in his flagons with no more than a handful of copper leptons and a mild dose of the clap. Still, Hadassah was a social climber and having the chevras over would up her Quarter cred by quite a few notches. Nu, we improvised ways to stretch her stingy allowance to feed the holy horde. Rolled the matzoh beitzim smaller. Watered down the wine. She tried to pass it off as a miracle. From her lips to Yahweh\u2019s ears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lazzie didn\u2019t have to do kitchen duties. He was practising his shofar in the courtyard with the chickens while Martha and I had our hands full. I could see him from the window, pursing his clefted lips to the blowhole and wheezing a few breathy parps into the chaffed afternoon air. He hadn\u2019t quite got the first long tekiyah note right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Will you stop that racket?\u2019 Hadassah moaned from beneath her migraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Lazzie, let me show you how it works!\u2019 I shouted from the scullery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You\u2019re a girlchick, you\u2019re not allowed to touch it.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Says who?\u2019 I dropped my chametz basket and ambled into the courtyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It is written,\u2019 he wheezed. \u2018The holy ram\u2019s horn is forbidden for meideles.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018For fig\u2019s sake, Lazzie, give me a chance.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019ll tell Zaida. It\u2019s going to be treif if you touch it.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Zaida doesn\u2019t have to know,\u2019 I said. \u2018He\u2019s at the Temple all week for Pesach. Now hand it over!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grabbed the horn from his protesting grasp and puckered up to the pointy end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Give it back!\u2019 wheezed Laz. \u2018Or I\u2019m reporting you to the Sandybedmen.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Sandyhead<\/em>men,\u2019 I corrected him. \u2018You\u2019re the one with the cheder chops, schmekelface.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lazzie snatched the shofar back and drew breath again. It sounded like the bubbles we sibs blew when we were trying to turn farty blame on each other at the Shabbos table. Then Lazzie\u2019s rasping became more laboured and suddenly he fell to the ground, teeth clenched, eyes rolled back to the whites. His body arched as if a great cord was pulling him up to heaven by his wishbone and then dashing him mercilessly to the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Martha! Bring a spoon!\u2019 I screamed at my sister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Milk or meat?\u2019 Martha yelled back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018This is no time to quibble. It doesn\u2019t matter, he\u2019s swallowing his tongue!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martha flung a kneidlach ladle through the open door. I wrestled it between my brother\u2019s gritted teeth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Ma! Help!\u2019 I yelled. Hadassah stood behind the kitchen curtain, immobile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Martha, bring the \u2019nard!\u2019 I bellowed. I always had some muskroot handy for Lazzie\u2019s fits. Its roots, crushed to powder and dissolved in boiled water, calmed his convulsions and my own nerves. Too much was fatal. Too little was ineffective. You had to get the dose just right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You gave it to the Rov, remember?\u2019 Martha chided. \u2018You got the resin all over your hair?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018All right already, bring me the ash gourd juice!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It\u2019s in the chametz basket. It\u2019s not Kosher l\u2019Pesach.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018For fig\u2019s sake, Martha, get your tuchus over here!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martha dashed into the courtyard, matzoh meal and egg yolk coagulating between her fingers. She gingerly rolled up her simlah and straddled Lazzie\u2019s puny chest. I cradled his head, attempted to prise open his jaw and received a couple of savage bites to the thumb. It took both of us to hold him to the ground, or he surely would have snapped himself in two. Matzoh meal and blood began to bubble into a foamy paste at the corners of his mouth as he arched and arched again. Suddenly, he froze in mid-climax and slumped to the courtyard cobbles, lifeless, the wooden spoon slack between his foamy jaws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martha wept. Hadassah stood like a statue at the window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pulled myself together and addressed Philemon, our camel driver, who stood near the kitchen door timidly twiddling his bridle. Actually, I smelled him before I saw him. The reek of dromedary is very hard to eradicate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Phil, you\u2019ve got to take me and Lazzie to Jerusalem!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I can\u2019t put Master Lazzie in the cart, Miss Miriam. The dead are unclean.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018He\u2019s not dead, he\u2019s just very ill, Phil. And don\u2019t call me Miriam. I\u2019m Wanda now.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ripped off Lazzie\u2019s tiny tallis and put my lips to his cleft. He threw up the contents of his kishkes, a sticky teiglach and chicken feed mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018If he passes to Yahweh on the way,\u2019 said Phil, \u2018I will be the one to take the blame.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018He\u2019s got to get that \u2019nard, Phil, or he won\u2019t live to see the Seder.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We\u2019ve still got some grains of paradise and a titch of skullcap?\u2019 offered Martha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We\u2019ve tried that combo before,\u2019 I said. \u2018We have to have consecrated \u2019nard.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You can\u2019t take Lazzie anywhere in this condition,\u2019 Martha fretted. \u2018The ride will kill him.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Then I\u2019ll go and fetch it myself. Philemon, give me that bridle.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Sister, no!\u2019 Martha cried. \u2018You don\u2019t even have a dromedary licence.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m going to find Rov Yossi and I\u2019m going to get that \u2019nard for Lazzie. Now get out of my way.\u2019 And before anyone could say Halva Megilla, I scraped the step ladder from the side of the house, propped it against Sal, our family camel, mounted her hump and kicked her into gear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You can\u2019t take the camel without the carriage!\u2019 Martha shouted. \u2018You\u2019ll rupture yourself!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Wrap Lazzie in those linen strips like we did last time!\u2019 I yelled back. \u2018Powder some horseradish seeds and sprinkle one pinch in each nostril. Put him in a cool place. And keep his lips moist with melon.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Come back here this minute,\u2019 Hadassah moaned from the kitchen door. \u2018You\u2019re not going out dressed like that.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It\u2019s a matter of life and death, Ma,\u2019 I squawked from my perch. \u2018I\u2019ll be back by sunset.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Cover your keppie!\u2019 she shouted after me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My fingers fluttered to my neck where I always kept my loosened headscarf. It was wet with Lazzie\u2019s blood and gore. I twirled it above my head like a standard bearer at a gladiator match. Lazzie\u2019s precious bodily fluids dried instantly in the hot hamsin and flaked to the ground like dandruff manna. At least I\u2019d be able to find my way home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hadassah said I had perfect pitch from the moment I slithered from her womb that frosty Jerusalem morn. Where some bright infants mimic the modulations of their mother\u2019s tongue before they cut their first tooth \u2013 Mama, Mama \u2013 my first spoken word was a mimesis of my mother\u2019s woe. Oy. It was Hadassah\u2019s go-to word for tsorris. By the age of eight months, I\u2019d absorbed it from the milk of her honey\u2019d bosom, and Oy it was and Oy it would forever be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We\u2019ve run out of matzoh meal for the kneidlach . . .\u2019                <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Oy \u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Qumran Qumran is putting up the price of peaches.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Oy gevalt.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Zarah Bat Bathea is pregnant with her fourteenth.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Oy vey!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The polysyllabic \u2018oy-va-voy\u2019 was uttered only in situations of va-va-voom, like during plagues and burnings or when the Temple was overrun by out of town tourists and we couldn\u2019t get our regular seats in the mixed front pews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any inappropriate oys and we had our mouths washed out with soapweed but there was always a stash of oys for every occasion, and more va-voys were to come. The word defined our family. In cacophonic cadences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hadassah had a spontaneous song for every action. This elicited a kind of musical Tourette\u2019s which has followed me all my lives. She had hairbrushing songs and puttingonoursandals songs, tzimmesgobbling songs and kneidlachmunching songs, ditties to suckle by, tunes to teethe by, lullabies to lull us by and all manner of nursery rhymes, from Shalom Chaverim to Intsy Wintsy Schneider. Up to the age of three I believed that Hadassah could conjure the spirit of experiences great and small with a song in her heart and the mantra of oy. I was five when my mother appointed herself voice coach and stage mother to her trio of kids, and she never missed an opportunity to show off my pipes. We got used to being schlepped from dreamland in the middle of the night to be exhibited to inebriated visitors. By ten I\u2019d disentangled myself from my mother\u2019s musical meddling by singing off key and standing on Martha\u2019s toes in the choruses. I\u2019d have rather died than admit that I missed the music but I did. I tuned into my own inner medley, but even then it was difficult to shut my mother out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was worse in the Temple. The raised tones of Hadassah\u2019s voice, psalming out her obligatory god-raves, people craning to see who this strident coloratura could be, made me cringe in shemzach. Sometimes she even drowned out the shofar. My father, Theo, would stride out blaspheming and Hadassah would be abandoned, spotlit by the Ner Tamid, oblivious to the rancid looks of the mixed congregation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All that stopped when we moved to Bethany. After Theo bolted and our first stepdaddy Aziz figged out, it was Qumran Qumran who started running the shewbread. That\u2019s when the marks around Hadassah\u2019s throat turned redpurplegreenyellow and oy vey came out in a sodden and strangled key. He didn\u2019t like it when Hadassah sang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d met him before, Rov Yossi. He\u2019d visited Bethany a few times to see to the lepers and attend to Lazzie\u2019s fits. He and his chevras had a fair walk across the city, past the Temple and over the Mount of Olives, but the view was breathtaking and the company worth the climb. We Pharisees had a particularly sweet tooth; we mixed honey in our yams and halva in our jams. The Galileans salivated to a more Mediterranean fare \u2013 hummus, falafel, chatzilim. The combination was heady when the chevras came over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On their most recent visit, after Martha had served them a trolley of tea and teiglach, I sat at Yossi\u2019s feet, marvelling at their contrasts, blue-veined alabaster on top, blistered calluses on the soles. I noticed that he winced as he stood up to refill his flagon. Martha retired meekly to do the dishes, motioning me in a series of head jerks to do the same. I flipped her the ibis. Martha never permitted herself to have any fun; a rigid, iffy tattle-tale. I stayed where I was, munching away on a teigel with a bunch of Yossi\u2019s chevras, eavesdropping on their Talmudic to and frum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Did you lay your tefillin at dawn, Jimmy?\u2019 Yossi asked a ginger fisherman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yeah, Rov,\u2019 said the redhead. \u2018I rose at the first crow of the cock. I got the straps a bit twisted, but I davened until after sunrise.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Did you thank Yahweh who has not made you a woman?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yeah, Rov. Or a gentile. Or a pig.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Do you consider it a fair prayer?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019ve never really given it much thought.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018How do you think the females feel about it?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Ours is not to question why,\u2019 said the disciple with a mouth full of teigel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018My father makes some strange decisions,\u2019 Yossi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d never actually met Yossi\u2019s dad, but he spoke about him a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I have actually wondered, though, Rov,\u2019 said a sandy-haired shepherd. \u2018It does seem a bit harsh on the second sex.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018That\u2019s true, Pete,\u2019 Yossi said. \u2018The energy of the world is masculine while the female aspect of Yahweh, the Shekinah, is in exile. The voice of the bride is subdued. But there will come a time when not only will her voice be heard and understood, but her gentler perspective will be appreciated and hallowed.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My attention was distracted for a moment by Martha\u2019s insistent hand gesturing from the kitchen doorway, just when the discussion was getting interesting. Nothing gentle about my sister\u2019s perspective. I stared a No at her but by the time I got my concentration back the conversation had moved on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018But, Rov, it is said that you<\/em> are the Messiah,\u2019 said the shepherd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019ve never claimed that,\u2019 Yossi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You\u2019ve ridden a donkey. You were born in Bethlehem.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018That\u2019s all pretty circumstantial.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018But in Isaiah XXX, verse xxvi, it\u2019s all there. \u2018\u201cThe light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun.\u201d It really was a bright gibbous last night.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It\u2019s because of the hamsin,\u2019 said the Rov. \u2018This hot, dry wind causes all sorts of optical illusions.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What about Joel II, verse xxxi?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019d keep that rumour under your keffiyeh, if I were you,\u2019 said the Rov. \u2018And prophecy isn\u2019t all it\u2019s cracked up to be.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While they were debating, I crawled across to the tea trolley for a refill and knocked over an amphora of spikenard that was perched on the floor. It\u2019s not my fault that it was in such a flimsy jar. As the lip dripped its pungent resin onto the Abyssinian carpet, I scooped it up between my palms and, not wanting to waste a single drop, smeared it upon Yossi\u2019s feet. The \u2019nard just kept on coming, so I whipped off my tichel, shook out my frizzy locks and blotted up the drippings, smearing and soaking, soaking and smearing. It nearly caused a riot. But who puts an amphora in the path of a tea trolley in the middle of a Talmudic debate?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What a bloody waste,\u2019 cried a pale-faced chevra. \u2018We could all have done with a hit of that.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Don\u2019t be so shortsighted, Luke,\u2019 Yossi said. \u2018Forsooth, this is a story you can dine out on for decades.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What\u2019s she doing here anyway?\u2019 asked a swarthy Sadducee, scowling at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The meidele meant no harm,\u2019 said Yossi, but the Sadducee was on a path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m thinking about the poor,\u2019 he said. \u2018That \u2019nard could have gotten half of Bethany high for a month. It\u2019s more expensive than gold.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Hey, Jude,\u2019 Yossi said. \u2018Do your trigonometry. Bethany is a town that was founded on mitzvot. The poor flock here. There would never be enough \u2019nard to go around.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a convincing argument. But I knew Rov Yossi was really protecting me against their wrath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was when Hadassah trotted in with fresh bagels and lox to invite them for third night. The chevras had to tighten their girdles. The business with the hair had soaked up all their prophets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To download the full book, click HER<\/a>E<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book I: Tummel in the Temple Iudaea, 33 CE If we hadn\u2019t been following Hadassah\u2019s pomegranate all over the known world, we\u2019d never have wound up in Bethany. Lazzie would still be alive. And I\u2019d be mortal. But that\u2019s not how the hamantaschen crumbled. A painted lady flaps her wings and all that jazz. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":99,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynnjoffe.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/370"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynnjoffe.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynnjoffe.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynnjoffe.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynnjoffe.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lynnjoffe.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":765,"href":"https:\/\/lynnjoffe.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/370\/revisions\/765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynnjoffe.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}