to let the warm rain mingle with the blood from her head and run in streamlets down her sweat-soaked body. When she opened her eyes a moment later, she realized there was rain-melted pigeon crap from the crack above coming down. Her stomach heaved.
“I do this because . . . why?” she muttered to herself.
But she knew the answer that was wedged into a deep inarticulate place inside her like a hidden treasure: the rock never changed. That is, almost never; on rare occasions there could be some shifting and slight rock fall, or a loose hold, but it was rare. The rock was an intimate and private place that held her trust. She climbed because she placed her faith in rock, trusted that it had been there for a very long time and would continue to be there for a longer time after she was gone. She cringed when she saw roads blasted through rock ledges on highways that had been put through mountains, but here, in the protected wilderness areas, the rock was pristine and untouched, except for the climbers who had gone before her.
Most rock felt good under her hands. Granite was best, because of the friction it provided, as well as its solidity; mica schist and basalt tended to be a little more slick, and hardened volcanic ash, such as at Smith Rock in Oregon, would tear at a climber’s fingertips after a single day, leaving raw skin. Exploring a rock’s surface was, she imagined, like a blind person exploring the features on a person’s face. She could know the rock, and the rock was solid; it was simply there, acknowledging her silent probing. She supposed answers came to her questioning hands in their own time, more likely when she was off the rock rather than on it, and she rested in that knowledge.
The rain began to lighten and she wiped her face on her shoulder. She looked up again, worried about getting the pigeon junk in her eyes. Uncertain if the rope was jammed or not, she wavered in her decision to climb again. She had fallen only because she had ignored the flaming pain in her forearms, simply wanting to get this particular climb over; it wasn’t that the climb was beyond her ability. In fact, she could have led it, so that she would have been at the top now instead of her partner. They had decided to try it despite the known weather hazard, but he owed her one on account of the pigeons.
She climbed a few feet. The rope did not rise with her, remaining slack at her waist. Nervous at this development, because another fall with slack rope this time would hurt a lot more than a fall with a rope tight on her, she yelled “Up rope!” at the top of her lungs. The rope didn’t answer.
“Up rope! Up rope!” Still nothing. She would have to climb another foot, try to dislodge the jam.
She found another small ledge for her feet and stacked them side by side, then yanked on the rope for all she was worth. Blessedly, it came loose. Her partner was awake at the other end and hauled it up until it was snug again at her harness. She shook out her arms, dipped her hand into the chalk bag at the back of her waist, then realized in dismay that she had left it open during the rain storm so that the chalk had gummed up and was now useless. The rock was wet anyway, she realized, and she would just have to make do. Wending her way through the cracks, using each fissure to her balance and leverage advantage, she snaked up the rock. Her focus distilled as she blocked out all other sensory input to complete the harder section near the top.
Her forearms were on the edge again for lactic acid build-up, but now she calculated how much strength she had left and decided to make the final lunge for the top. Her fingers grabbed a nub, she worked her feet onto a good hold, then proceeded to put to shame a Barbie doll’s flexibility as she pulled up and over the top of the climb like she was getting out of a swimming pool.
Jonathan, looking like a bedraggled rat, his legs braced against the ground, widened his eyes at the blood, then smiled at her when he realized her flying accusations were sign enough she was okay.
“How’d you like that finish?” he said.
“Just ducky. I had pigeon poop dripping in my face. And the rope was jammed.”
“Yeah, I figured. I kept tugging and tugging after you fell and you just weren’t moving for the longest time, so I figured there was a jam. Guess you undid it, huh? Good thing. I’d trade you the pigeon poop for being a lightning rod up here.”
She smirked at him, then rubbed her forefinger and thumb together. “World’s tiniest violin.”
“Good climb, but it would have been a lot better if it had been dry,” he offered.
She just shook her head. They began coiling the rope and organizing the metal gear pieces before hiking out for the last day of their vacation before the drive home to Wisconsin across the Badlands.
3
Jairus alternately ran and walked. The dust and grasses whispered to him while his legs tensed and his toes flexed; he moved under the burning blue of the Galilean sky but did not notice it. Nabby’s ears wiggled away flies, as Jairus’s anxieties whirled around him. Gradually, he and the animal moved into a rapid rhythm.
He had had to leave in a hurry; Aviel was dying and his further delay would only make him responsible. Thus, it was in an unclean state that Jairus sought Yeshua. “It can’t be helped,” he explained to the donkey, needing to engage with something living besides the thoughts in his head. “One small drop of blood, an entire well, who is to know? I had to leave, and even now, who knows . . .”
Aviel’s bleeding worried him from more than just a health perspective. Jairus knew thoroughly how he had violated the laws of purity these last few days, with his caresses of Aviel’s brow, his holding her hand. He should never have touched her in the first place, should have left it up to Rivka and Devorah, their youngest, to care for her. But every inch of his skin knew his touch could be life-giving to his dearest daughter, and so, in the privacy of his own house, he had done what he believed any father, Greek, Roman, Jewish, Samaritan, would have done. Pekun nefesh. Saving a life. No one would know except his family. And maybe Yeshua. Jairus decided to keep it to himself, until he could speak to Yeshua himself, take him aside.
Jairus would go to the mikvah ritual bath to cleanse himself when he returned. Back at home, Jairus’s synagogue was sizeable and did well financially, although Jairus was grateful he did not have to handle the monies. His responsibilities suited him: he led a study group for the youngest of students each day and was helping to plan the construction of a school for them. Through study God could speak to people, Jairus believed, and through prayer the people could speak to God, so he also led the daily services, kept them on time, prepared and sometimes read from the scroll, and helped the young readers be less nervous as they read. Often he would hold a calming hand on their shoulders as they pointed to the Hebrew words with the silver yad, the miniature pointer designed in the shape of a hand, intended to mark the place for the reader without the reader having to touch the sacred scroll. He made sure the scroll was put away properly with its ornamentation and coverings and took responsibility for a myriad of details that were so ingrained in him that he could not imagine not caring about ritual. Ritual, along with Rivka’s solid support, allowed him to bring into line his sometimes chaotic internal world.
Jairus reflected on the distinguishing nature of ritual. Through ritual Jews became different from the Greeks and Romans, as they sanctified the mundane tasks of life along with the voracious appetites of sex, love, power, and wealth. The holy mysteries of life and death they acknowledged through the letting of blood in animal sacrifice at the Temple. Ritual’s framework created a space in which, gradually and over time, Jairus could feel his responses to the world. He was a thoughtful, sensitive man, which others seldom guessed, and he loved his wife and daughters.
This illness of Aviel’s had no structure. It fit within no framework he knew. It was as foreign to him as working on a Sabbath would have been. In ritual he could find meaning; in this impending death, nothing. Because he allowed small but expanding room for mystery beyond the meaning provided by ritual, he sought Yeshua.
When Yeshua had come to speak at Jairus’s synagogue, it was as if, when he spoke, even when he read from the scripture, a new framework took shape, ether-like, but nonetheless real. Jairus wasn’t sure he could grasp the new inflection Yeshua placed upon the scripture, the way he seemed to make oral side-notes in the margins to the ancient teachings.