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

As water reflects a face back to a face, so one’s heart is reflected back by another.

Proverbs 27:19

As warm light touched my face, I opened my eyes expecting to see the dawn of a new day. But the sun was nowhere to be seen. A thick fog surrounded me, a grey cloud dry to the touch. I squinted in the shimmering light as a figure approached through the haze. I had never seen the man who approached, yet everything about him was familiar. My gaze flitted from his curly grey hair to his lanky frame, coming to rest on his eyes.

“You look as I did at your age,” he said.

My ache at hearing his voice. “Father?”

“I am here, Lev.”

Tears clouded my vision. My whole life had unfolded without his guidance. Why had he come now? The question had hardly arisen before the words I could not share with anyone else came tumbling out. “Father, I failed. I killed Shimon.”

His smile disappeared as he shook his head. “Shimon was murdered by a soldier of Tzidon, Lev. You are not to blame.”

I wanted to believe him, but I knew better. “He died because he listened to me. It was my idea to pass the roadblock without fighting.”

He seemed to float closer through the fog. “There were nine soldiers at the roadblock, all trained killers. Had a battle begun, there is no telling how many would have died. You and Uriel might now lie among them.”

“He saved us the last time. The spirit of the Holy One filled him, and none could stand before him.” My heart pounded. I tried to lift my hand and reach out to him, but I was frozen in place.

“The Holy One gives the gift of prophecy with an open hand, Lev, yet few are blessed to receive it even once in a lifetime. You cannot know if he would have saved you again. You did the best you could for him. As I tried to do for you.”

Hot tears stung my eyes. “Why did you have to leave me so soon?”

I heard my own voice in his sigh. “I wanted better for you, Lev. I did not want my battles to become yours. Certainly not when you were so young. Now you find yourself at the center of a war larger than any I ever fought.”

“I don’t want it.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “I want to go home.”

His eyes lifted to a spot above my head. “You may return to your uncle if you wish. None will begrudge you leaving after all you’ve been through. You may still be safe there.”

“I’m no use to anyone here anyway. Not in any meaningful way.”

His eyes caught mine and it was like staring at my reflection. “You have more power than you imagine.”

“The power to get my friends killed?”

“Forget how Shimon died. Think instead about how he lived.”

His words sank in. “He gave everything for the prophets.”

“Indeed.” The fog swirled, and suddenly I could only hear his voice. “If you choose, so can you.”

“But who am I?”

“Who was Joseph? He was the lowest of us all, a prisoner and a slave. From those depths, he rose to save the entire nation.”

I looked down at my travel-stained tunic. “He was a son of Jacob.”

“You are a descendant of Aaron the Kohen.” His voice was next to me now. “It’s not humility to make yourself smaller than you are.”

“I’m a boy, not even of age.”

“Even King David was twelve once. There is greatness inside you, Lev. You only need to awaken your will. Your ratzon.”

“Awaken my ratzon? How do I do that?”

“Lev!” a voice broke through the fog, but it was no longer my father’s. The last of the light disappeared, and I awoke in total darkness. “Lev!” I heard again. It was Batya, Ovadia’s wife.

“Coming,” I called back, but I closed my eyes again and burrowed deeper into my straw bed, hoping to hear my father one last time.

“Lev!” she called a third time.

I rolled myself out of bed, my back groaning. I had never been so sore. Not even when I stranded my flock on the far side of the nahal below Levonah as the rain fell in torrents and the dry gully became a rushing stream. I carried each sheep back across in my arms, as stones and branches driven by the water pounded me. My uncle called me a fool for trying to get back, saying I should have taken cover and waited for the rains to subside. I still remember the agony of getting out of bed the next day, but this was worse. At least then I’d gotten a good night’s sleep and had risen to Aunt Leah’s hot porridge. But how could I complain about rest to Batya, who worked later than the moon and rose to wake the dawn?

I climbed down the ladder to the kitchen. One touch to the oven told me it was still warm from the baking the night before.

“Fire the oven and get grinding.” Batya didn’t look up from the dough. “I’ve almost finished kneading the flour you milled yesterday.”

“How could you finish it?” I asked. “I must have ground for twelve hours.”

She snorted. “Each of them like a man. I’ll need you to grind for another twelve today, and this time do it proper, like a woman.”

“You said I’d get faster.”

“You have been getting faster, but five more prophets arrived yesterday. There’s more to do than ever before.”

“We can’t send it out to a miller?”

“We’ve been through this, Lev. We can send a little bit out, but any more and he’d wonder why we need so much. We can’t have any questions about what we’re doing.”

Ovadia had sent away his slaves and maidservants for the same reason, which was why all the work fell to me. Batya caught my gaze. “I can do some of the grinding today if you want to try your hand at the baking again.”

I scanned the burns on my fingertips from pulling bread off the red-hot oven walls. “No, no. I’ll grind.”

“Light the oven first, it needs time to warm.”

I stirred the coals back to life, laying splinters of wood on top. Once I saw the flames rise, I threw a handful of barley onto the lower millstone and dragged the smaller upper stone back and forth over the grain with as much energy as I could muster. My muscles protested, but I wanted to make as much flour as I could before the entire house became unbearably hot. There was a reason the rest of Israel baked outside.

“We can’t use the outdoor oven today?” I wiped the sweat from my face.

“We can do two hours. Any more and the neighbors might wonder why we’re baking so much.”

“And grinding outside?”

“Perhaps for another hour. Any more…”

“And the neighbors will wonder why we’re grinding so much,” I finished. I cursed under my breath as I lifted the grindstone. It was heavy, but only about as long as my foot and made from a hard, charcoal-colored rock that Batya said was common in the northern part of the kingdom. I held it in both hands and pulled it back and forth over the barley kernels, grinding them to dust.

Outside, the sun finally rose. It would be a cool, dry day, as all the winter days had been since Eliyahu brought the drought. Inside the house, the oven grew hot. Sweat dripped from my forehead and pooled under my arms.

In my family, Dahlia ground the flour each day before making the next day’s bread. The wealthier families in Levonah had their flour ground by their maidservants, or else would send the grain out to a miller, who let donkeys do his work. Only in Emek HaAsefa had I ever seen men grinding flour and baking bread, and they were slaves.

Ovadia sent his slaves away because he couldn’t trust them. Now I’d become the trustworthy slave. Still, if it kept my master and the other prophets alive, I should do it with joy. So I told myself, but the joy refused to come.

Late in the afternoon, we finally finished, and I loaded the bread into saddlebags. A knock