The Eternal Jew’s Tale, #203, Crystal Haggadah, 14

In this episode, a sharpshooter on a kibbutz opens up in ways no one expected.

The Eternal Jew’s Tale
A Pesakh Montage, The Crystal Haggadah
Midrashbase

Kibbutz Teruah Midrashim, the Eretz, 1950 CE, Part 1

After the table is cleared of food, pots and dishes washed and dried, babies nursed, children in bed, the full moon hanging overhead, only then we begin our tales…

near death moments, visions seen, rivers of time backward flowing, faces and bodies changing shape, old beliefs like fog dispersing, the wind whispering secrets and lies…

such events we all had experienced while standing guard in our tower, alone.

Tamar, a sharpshooter opens so:

“‘…’Cause, *Moshe killed an Egyptian man* and yet the Lor still chose him. Times long past it seems to me. Was it just last month or before the war? Was I still a child? Where’s that child in me?
*-* Shmot/Ex. 2:11-12

“I remember the moon, hidden by clouds, then light broke thru, a shadow, it moved…

“…then strange, a glimmer of my Saba Hirsch, his wire-rimmed glasses and stubbly beard…

“Then dark again but my eye was attuned down the barrel, true the sight, waitin’ for a break in the clouds again and the moon’s light like a spotlight down.

“It made me feel so tall up there, tall as that tower, an eagle lookin’ down.

“I knew every plant; I knew every shape; I knew every shade; I knew where he was. ‘Cause fedayeen can’t hide from me. Moonlight. I got him. I shot. A scream.

“…Moonlight Sonata. Flutter of leaves, moon-eyed daughters, a tease, misdeeds…

“Like a lizard slitherin’ from an icy pond, I ascended out of my warrior mind, wonderin’ if that one Moshe killed screamed like the fedayeen I shot.

“That scream, I hear it in my sleep; morning alarm, my hearing at dawn, my hearing at night, I hear it at noon.

“Brilliant sun. Shadows fled. That sweet pumpkin, little Jabril, he taught me how to milk a goat. They look so alike, him and Hassan. Now there he was…

“‘… ya seen Hassan? The earth calls out, ‘Have you seen her son?’
Mayan calls out, ‘Ha’ ya seen my gun?’…

“…‘Cause what could I say? ‘I killed him last night?’ Starin’ at my coffee, my silence a lie. They look so alike. The sun is so bright. I can’t remember what he looked like at all. All that’s left is a silent scream. I hear it at dawn, I hear at night, I hear at noon. I hear it now.

“Sometimes I see him when I go to town, but it’s not him. His family moved. Sometimes I see him in our own kids, but really I can’t say what he looks like at all. ‘Cause he’s only a scream and nothin’ more.

“And now it seems so long ago, or maybe it hasn’t happened yet, or maybe it won’t happen at all, or was it last year in a book I read?

“I felt so old and I knew what to do. I felt like Moshe, ready to act. Now, where did all those years go? Now I feel so young, so unprepared. Or maybe its just I feel so small. Maybe I just want to disappear. ‘Cause, how can I stand before the Lor?”

Long silence. Who could have known Tamar held such pain in her gut, such guilt in her heart, such doubt in her throat? Nogah, who was like a sister to her, dips a ladle into her heart and pours it into our empty cup:

“Long time since we all have been tots, our whole lives like a thousand years…

“‘Wait. Wait. A messiah is coming *to lift away* your troubled thoughts, oh the greatest man as ever will be, oh the greatest day as every was…
*-* others say: to lift a weight from

“Well, I saw that man with my own eyes, except she was a woman. And no one else could see her messiah-diffracted soul. But I could see. As dawn emerged and clear the light. Her shimmering fields, seed and shoot and waving sheaves. Then shimmer of feelings in darkest plight. Black rain and caustic winds, sheaves crinkled in fire and smoke. All lost, faith and hope.

“Flickering fields, pulse and repulse, earth redeemers, violent schemers; earth redeemed, earth be damned. Welcome Elijah with cup in hand.

“Umma we called her but her name was Suhar. Mother of twins, Jabril and Hassan, and little Mahmoud tagging behind; her husband gone, who knows how long. A mender of anything ever been worn; a midwife for many local girls; good with a gun, good with a knife to shoot and skin and butcher a hare; walked from her village every day, her three children circling round —

“where they came from, where they went, and which was which, no one knew —

“while she taught us how to care for sheep, or how to line a cistern with tile, or how to build a mudbrick pen.

“Yeah, a mother of hatreds, a sower of doubt, a minder of all our schedules and tools; a midwife of deformed ideas and plans; will she butcher you like she butchers a goat?

“Flickering faces, pulse and repulse, mudbrick sheds, bury the dead. Sisters, whispers, poison words. Which is which? Who can infer?

“Is that Elijah knocking at the door? Is that Delilah to deceive us once more? This or that? Who can be sure? Sun comin’ up, she slips in the door.”

~~~~~~~~~~

In the next episode Tamar’s inner searching gets unfolded further.