The bearded and side-curled guests and their wives filled the inner court of the synagogue with their Aramaic from entrance-way to Holy Ark. The outer court, too, hummed with the Latin of the Roman officials and their ladies who had come to enjoy this amusing event. They know of the Chosen People’s peculiar mores and were reconciled to the fact that the succulent pig would not be served but their plates would be heaped with roast lamb, chicken, ducks and geese, and there would be wine, fruit, and cakes.
Pressed close to the entrance-way of the outer court stood the forgotten – despised of the gods: the lame, the blind, and the tottering elderly. They too would be fed.
A canopy covered by a talit (prayer shawl) and held in place by four poles – representing north, south, east and west – stood by the Holy Ark; and, then,
Pianissimo! for the imposing figure of the Chief Rabbi of Nazareth had entered the inner court – his pale face and prophetic eyes eloquent for he, too, had been visited by a dream and had seen the frightening noon omen ...
Next came the tall and sinewed Joseph escorted by his uncle. Joseph, the craftsman, whose exquisite furniture and modest prices were known throughout Nazareth and beyond.
Murmurs of awe like the vibrating hum of distant drums filled the inner court as the lovely Mary, dressed in shimmering white, her face translucent under a thin gauze veil, entered the canopy on the arm of her father, Joachim, to stand beside her handsome betrothed. Swaying with pious devotion, Joseph recited the Kaddish prayer of remembrance on behalf of his late parents who did not live to witness his Night of Triumph ...
Now, Mary walks seven times around her betrothed, whose eyes are shut in fervent prayer for the future. The moment has arrived: in ancient Aramaic, his voice trembling, he sanctifies her unto himself – placing the symbolic ring of eternal love on the middle finger of Mary’s left hand. Very gently he raises the gauze mist and his black-lashed grey eyes gaze tenderly into the dark doe eyes of Mary, luminous in their innocence and shy adoriation. Rabbi Natan-El places a glass goblet of wine into Joseph’s hand. After the wine has been drained by the new couple, Joseph throws the glass goblet on the ground, smashing it to splinters with his foot, symbolically re-enacting the destruction of Solomon’s magnificent temple, the death of the defenders – and the terrible unmitigated grief of G–d’s Chosen forced into Exile, a Diaspora which would last for centuries; the agony of being unwelcome guests in the lands of the conqueror and the palpitating hope that some day a splendid Final Temple to G–d would be established when the Messiah came and the redemptive resurrection took place ...
Joseph, with trembling fingers, curves the palms of his hands around the flower face of Mary, and raises her lips to his own in their first kiss of discovery ...
Allegretto! At the close of the ceremony, Joseph’s relatives leaped forward – and raised him triumphantly as far as possible above the heads – and they danced and swayed and stomped to the music of King David’s own joy instruments: the lyre, the cymbals, the drums, and the wooden flute (chalil) – an exhilarating rendition by a gifted ensemble of the Song of Songs – with the accompanying trills and staccatos of the birds – and, then, they ate of their koshered food and drank their hallelujahs to G–d.
In the women’s section, Mary broke her fast with a bowl of broth and like a magnet drawn to a dance of utter joy
swayed and undulated
ebbed and flowed –
a pure white butterfly amongst pastels in the rainbow spectrum of Love.
In a corner modestly hidden by her flowing robes, Elizabeth (Elisheva), whose apple-cheeked freshness denied her 57 years, breast-fed her infant son. YHVA had Chosen the pious Elizabeth – as He had in the past the barren Sarah, Rachel, and Chana – blessing her with a Holy Babe dedicated to G–d and man. John, the Baptist, would introduce a confused and struggling world to the Ritual of Water by Immersion, a rite of the Chosen People for bodily and spiritual purification.
As the luminous-eyed Mary danced toward her, Elizabeth rose to greet her cousin with a warm embrace and her miracle baby, John, as though aware of the secret quickening under Mary’s heart ... gurgled his delight.
After Ann and Joachim had kissed their daughter and embraced their son-in-law – calling upon G–d to guide them; after the last footsteps of the departed guests had filtered into the cricket-calls and breeze whispers of the night; and after Joseph had collected vegetable peels in a tablecloth for the animals in the stable along with cake crumbs for the chickens and chattering birds,
The Couple – freshly minted as G–ds Own Breath at dawn, stood close together at the entrance-way to the synagogue’s outer court, and Lo! –
In the distance, as if trying to bridge the eons, stood another couple and a small child – forgotten, dismissed as lepers – rejected – but not by YHVA who would lead them home form their marbled mythology in due course ...
Under the tropical dawn with the Star of Bethlehem still as bright as the moon to guide them, Joseph and Mary strolled as man and wife to the nest they would share – Joseph’s modest home; for, although a sensitive artisan who poured his gift of Love into his work, Joseph was not rich – only in generosity to the poor and the upkeep of the synagogue – after the Roman conqueror had taken its share in taxes – but Joseph’s home was filled with the excellence of his work: delicately shaped chairs and tables, closets and an exquisite bridal bed.
Now, they stood before the small stable-manger giving sup to G–d’s living creatures – the cows, the chickens, and the ancient donkey which would play her role in G–d’s unfolding drama in bringing Mary to Bethlehem in the dead of winter to offer the choice of Love to the pagan world. Nor were the birds forgotten, YHVA’s twittering messengers – who settled on Mary’s shoulders and on her palms – for they sensed her gentleness; and Mary joined their caroling with the laughter-peals of her own throated bell.
When, at last, they had climbed the stairs to the bedchamber – and stood for a moment, overwhelmed but shy ... the mysterious six-cornered Star of Bethlehem filled the room with the glow of Love.
Gently, like the stroking of bird feathers; delicately, as the whisper of breeze through flower beds; mountingly, as the waves of the seas – flowing, ebbing, rushing forth in joy ... Mary and Joseph became as one in the eyes of G–d and man in the sanctity of love fulfilled.