The Lamp of Darkness by - (most recommended books TXT) 📖

Rabbi Yishmael said: Do not judge alone, for only the One may judge alone. Do not say ‘accept my view,’ for it is for them to decide, not you.

Pirkei Avot 4:10

The next two months were the quietest of my life. The ceaseless downpour, at times a drizzle, at times a gusty torrent, dampened my desire to speak. But it wasn’t just my need for conversation that was subdued, the chatter in my head also diminished. I worried less about the future, finding comfort in the fact that I’d chosen a master, letting the burden of deciding both of our paths fall on him.

Yonaton and I stole away to the old musicians’ cave with our instruments whenever he wasn’t busy with the grape harvest. Now that it was just the two of us, I grew almost as familiar with his music as with my own. He harmonized wonderfully but struggled to lead. So I became the leader of our duo, developing over time the sense of when to give him free rein and when he needed shepherding. I pushed myself to play crisper notes, and started to rely on small movements of my head, and especially my eyes, to signal changes in the music.

As I grew quiet, other voices emerged around me. I learned to distinguish one birdsong from another, and to discern the direction of the wind by listening to the water dripping off the cave roof. But I wasn’t just becoming more sensitive to sound. Silent languages also revealed themselves. Even though I barely spoke with the disciples, my awareness of their moods heightened; I sculpted my music to their needs, playing softer when their eyes were tight, faster when their heads drooped.

Yet, even as I became more peaceful, tension built in my master. The time for the planned ending of the gathering came and went, yet the prophet didn’t leave the valley to resume traveling. As the Sukkot festival drew near, he became fixated on the rain, standing for hours at a time at the mouth of his cave, observing the windswept clouds churn in the sky. When he wasn’t teaching or searching the skies, he spent most of his time in the darkness at the back of his cave, even taking his meals alone.

On the first night of the weeklong festival of Sukkot, my master stood with me and the three remaining disciples staring out into the gloom while streams cascaded down the cliffs. A flash of lightning illuminated our rickety sukkah getting battered by the wind. A swirling gust rocked its wooden frame to and fro. Rain as hard as hail pelted the few cut palm fronds that remained on top. The navi sighed in disgust and returned to the back of the cave where a table of holiday dishes awaited. “Rain on Sukkot is a curse; you feel like a servant who brings his master a drink, and his master throws it back in his face.” He broke the pitch seal of a wineskin and filled his goblet for the sanctification. “The rains will not stop in time for us to eat in the sukkah tonight. We will celebrate the festival here in the cave instead.”

It wasn’t a warm invitation to a feast. Despite the succulent aroma of roast lamb, my appetite dwindled as I sat down. Apparently, the disciples felt the same way. The meal was brief and silent, and when it was over, most of the food was left on the table to grow cold.

I woke in the middle of the night, heart pounding, sweat beading on my forehead. I knew the signs well—the old nightmare. It had visited me twice since Shiloh, each time depositing in my memory a little bit more, just small details. Once it was a shawl pulled across my back, another time a sword striking a shield. Now I lay still, trying to remember more, knowing that as soon as I moved, the vision would evaporate.

There was a knife, my father’s knife. Also, I felt my master’s presence, as if he was there with me, helping me decipher the clues. Lying in the dark, suspended halfway between sleeping and waking, it struck me; until I first met the navi in Levonah, the nightmare had always been sealed, like a lockbox of memory. But now details were starting to leak out through cracks in its wood.

I sat up and pulled my sheepskin tightly around my shoulders. The dying coals cast a faint glow, enough for me to just make out the curled-up bodies of the disciples. We’d taken to sleeping in the same cave since the rains, as much for company as for warmth. But my master’s bedroll lay empty against the far wall. Where could he have gone? I turned to the mouth of the cave, where he’d sat for weeks watching the rains, but I saw only gray mist creeping up from the valley.

I stepped to the mouth of the cave and shivered in the damp, cold air. The full moon penetrated the clouds enough to emit a dim, silvery light, reflected by the mist that blocked my view of the valley. Unable to see, I closed my eyes and listened—there was a rhythmic splashing coming from somewhere down below. I opened my eyes and peered into the haze, trying to locate the source of the sound. With a sudden gust of wind, the mist parted.

The old navi danced barefoot in a puddle of rain, his steps slapping out a wet rhythm. His linen tunic clung to his skin, and even from my distant vantage point, I felt the raw power in his legs. After weaving several wide circles in the downpour, his feet grew silent. Uriel held his hands out wide, tipped his head back toward the heavens, and shook with laughter. He passed both hands over his face, like a child waking from a dream, and started back toward the cave.

I ducked inside and stirred the coals of the fire back to life. Uriel entered, dripping wet and singing quietly, shivering from the cold. His face shone, and he didn’t stop his song even as he rubbed his hands together over the blaze. His voice woke the disciples, and all gathered together around the fire. “There is no sorrow on Sukkot. It is a time of joy,” Uriel began. “The Presence comes to dwell with us inside the sukkah, just as the bride joins her beloved under the wedding canopy. But such a union is possible only in joy. If we cannot rejoice in the sukkah, we may not enter.” Uriel paused and met the eye of each listener in turn, holding mine the longest. It was a piercing gaze that cut right through to my heart. Did he know I had watched him dance? “But joy is a path to union wherever we sit. So, we shall delight in our festival despite the rains. And perhaps we will merit to enter the sukkah before the holy days end.”

On the fourth day of the festival, a new noise filled the cave. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t actually a sound at all, but rather the lack of one: the rains had stopped. Outside, the wind blew wisps of dark clouds across the skies far above us, but there was no hiss of falling rain. A stillness pervaded the cool, clean air down below. Two disciples rushed out of the cave, waving for me to follow. When we reached the sukkah, one dropped to his knee, and I climbed onto his shoulders—as the lightest one, the roof was my responsibility. The other disciple handed up the fallen branches one by one, and I laid them across the top, creating a roof thick enough to provide shade but not shelter. When we’d finished, I examined our rebuilt sukkah. The ground was soaked with mud, the walls were battered and barely holding together, and the waterlogged roofing dripped into the interior. Yet, I never felt happier to have a sukkah.

The one remaining servant prepared a feast, serving each of us individually, as he had since I returned. Midway through the meal, Uriel’s hand paused on the way to his mouth. He stood quickly without explanation, exited the sukkah, and strode up the hill that bounded the eastern side of the valley toward the road. The rest of us continued to eat, but our eyes followed the prophet. It wasn’t long until we saw what our master had sensed: a donkey trotting along the hillside.

The navi reached the road just before the rider passed, and he flagged him down. The man stopped, spoke briefly to Uriel, then continued on his way. There was a shadow on my master’s face as he dropped back into the valley, but no trace of it remained by the time he entered the sukkah. He stepped inside and, ignoring his meal, burst into song. The rest of us joined in, but though I knew the tune well, I struggled to harmonize. My master sang a bit too fast.

The break in the rain didn’t last, and we never returned to our sukkah. The eighth day that capped the festival marked the beginning of the rainy season. The ground was already bogged with mud and rain still fell in torrents, but Uriel declared that the prophets had prayed for rain at the end of Sukkot ever since Joshua led our people across the Jordan River, regardless of what the skies held. We gathered at the chilly opening of the cave, wrapped in all our clothing and sheepskin sleeping mats, to hear the prayers of the old prophet as he stood just outside the mouth of the cave, arms wide, calling out in a raw voice.

“Master of the World! For the sake of Abraham our father, who ran to bring water to the tired and thirsty, do not withhold