Daughter of Jerusalem Read Free Page B

game. Twenty minutes later I called for a respite, and the children sat cross-legged on the ground and drank water from earthenware cups I had filled and passed around.
    They were lovely children, full of life and exuberance but obedient as well. After they had finished their water, I distributed small clay animal figures and told them to play quietly. Then I went back to Daniel.
    This time together had become part of the pattern of our days. Daniel would come home from the synagogue, change into the sameplain tunic and brown robe that the rest of the men wore, and then join the children and me. His father never expected him to join his brothers and cousins on the shore, doing the hard physical labor of packing salted fish into great wooden barrels for shipping.
    Daniel was his father’s pride and joy, and as long as the rabbi continued to sing his praises, he was excused from physical labor and left to do almost anything he wished to do.
    What he wished to do was to spend time with the children and me—mostly with me. For my part, I looked forward to this moment all day long. “What do you and Daniel
talk
about?” Ruth had once asked.
    I answered, “The scriptures.” I don’t think she believed me, but it was true. Daniel told me about what he was studying with the rabbi, and we would discuss some of the questions the rabbi had posed. We were fortunate to have such a scholarly rabbi at our synagogue in Magdala. Daniel said that none of the other towns around the lake had anyone nearly as learned.
    I loved to listen to Daniel talk. He was much more interesting than any of the men who stood up to speak in the synagogue. When Daniel talked about the Lord and His covenant with the Jews, it made me understand how fortunate I was to be one of God’s chosen people. Daniel said he liked to discuss things with me because I had a quick mind and I made him think. I treasured those words as the greatest compliment I had ever received. That was what was so splendid about Daniel. He would have liked me just as much if I hadn’t been pretty.
    Lately he had been intrigued by the story of Judas Maccabeus, the hero who raised a Jewish army and drove the Syrian empire out of our lands. I heard about every battle that Judas ever fought and every campaign he ever planned. If anyone else had dwelled on these militarydetails, I would have found it tedious, but I loved the fire that came into Daniel’s eyes and the flush that rose in his cheeks as he related the heroic deeds of Judas and his brothers.
    “David led an army and won back our lands,” I pointed out to him this afternoon, as the children played. “Why isn’t David your hero? He was our greatest king, after all. Surely he was a greater man than Judas.”
    “Of course I revere David. But the important thing about Judas, Mary, is that he did all of this only a hundred and fifty years ago! Now here we are in the same situation, only this time it’s the Romans, not the Syrians, who are occupying our lands. We must find another Judas Maccabeus to rise up and lead us. We need the Messiah to come!”
    This was not a new refrain, nor was Daniel the only man in Magdala to speak of the Messiah. Our people were growing increasingly weary of the Roman occupation, which our own kings had invited and seemed happy to collude with. Herod the Great and his son, Anti-pas, had built great palaces modeled after the buildings of Greece and Rome. Magdala itself was too small a town to have Romans stationed here, but Capernaum, only a few miles away, had a large Roman army presence. Everyone in Magdala hated the Romans and longed to be rid of them.
    I decided to change the subject. “Tell me the story of Esther.”
    The fiery look faded from his face to be replaced by amusement. “Again?”
    “I could say the same thing when you start talking about the Maccabees,” I retorted.
    I loved the book of Esther. There was so little in our literature about women, and I thought Esther was just as