The
Jerusalem of my dreams is not this ghost town, or at least most of the time
it's not. Most of the time, it is
exceedingly beautiful: white walls gleam in the sun. Palm trees sway like thatch-topped sylphs, enticing
me closer. Lithe women, baskets brimming
with pomegranate and myrrh, make their way laughing to the markets. No, I do not dream of Jerusalem as it is, but
as it once was, for after all: it is
my dream.
Not
that I’ve ever seen The City, you
understand: I am a child of the exile, born a generation after my grandfather—a
rich merchant—and grandmother were brought here, in the final wave of
deportations. They carried a bitterness about
them until the end of their days, which was understandable: in Jerusalem, they
gave lavish dinners, attended by everyone who was anyone: other merchants, visiting
princes, once even the High Priest himself.
Here, in Babylon, my grandfather worked in the royal stables and my grandmother
sold ragged leather goods, pieced together from scraps scrounged from tannery garbage.
Their
bitterness was inherited, to a lesser degree, by my father, who passed it down
even more diluted to me. Though there is
little hope for my future, beyond inheriting my father's job, which he inherited from Grandfather, I was
taught to read and write, courtesy of his fondness for education, and his
unshakable hope for restoration. But I do
not share his bitterness, because Babylon is all I know, and it is wondrous enough. The hanging gardens. The Ishtar Gates. The great ziggurat Etemenanki,
"House of the Frontier Between Heaven and Earth," which lay next to
the Marduk’s Temple.
And through it all flows the beautiful Euphrates, palm-lined and
laden with fish, which inspired a harpist of a previous generation to write: “By
the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered
Zion.” And though I cannot share the harpist’s
anguish, still I dream, almost every night, about the Jerusalem of old.
Until last night, that is.
Last night I dreamed of water . . . rivers and fountains and up-wellings
of water. I was shown springs, with tendrils
of moist, fertile sand spreading from them, teeming with creatures I did not
understand. I felt the cool breeze
brought about by the moisture in the air;
I shooed away tiny flying things swarming around on my face.
I plunged into the Euphrates, and magically observed the life
swarming in its green-filter depth: small, golden carp peered at my face, eye
to eye, mouth working, pumping water over their gills. Plants swayed like a prairie in the wind—how
did I know what a “prairie” is? Dark
forms darted among the fronds. Suddenly, a shadow came between me and the surface;
I looked up and beheld a giant crocodile, snaking along just above, searching
for prey. And yet I was unafraid,
because, in my dream, I knew in whose hands I was held.
And the dream went on and on, seemingly without end: oceans,
lakes and watering holes. Waterfalls, wells
and inland seas. Every kind, every
quality, every quantity one could think of, shown to me, kaleidoscopically, like
a festal vision, and yet particular, in every detail. Until, at last, I woke up, feeling
miraculously wet, as if I had in body made the journey instead of just in my dream. Or perhaps it was only perspiration.
And all of today I have spent pondering the dream, trying to
divine what it meant. For as we all
know, dreams are not sent merely for our pleasure. Indeed, the divine speaks through dreams, whether through the strange gods of our
captors, or our own Lord God Almighty.
And so I wrestled with the dream . . . was it a premonition? Did it foretell some experience that I or
someone I know would have? Or was it
informational: was God trying to tell
me something? Or—and this is a frightening thought!—did the
Lord want me to do something, say something, pronounce something, like he did the
prophets if old?
I could not come to any definite conclusion, and not for the
first time I wished that God would be just a touch less mysterious. And
as night crept near, I began to wonder: what would I dream tonight? What nocturnal visions
would the Lord visit upon me tonight? Would
it be more water, this time in forms I can barely comprehend? Would it be a return to the old Jerusalem dream,
a fantasy that would never be fulfilled?
Or would God tell me what he wants
from me?
And now I stride inside, toward my bed, determined to find out, though I am not the least bit tired. But as I near the corner where my pallet
lies, my feet start to feel leaden. My
eyelids droop, as if they are weighted, and as I reach the bed, I start to
pitch over, toward it. The last thing I
recall before sleep hit is seeing the candles, lit by my mother at dusk,
snuffing out on their own. Or perhaps it's just the stirring of the air
at my passing.
In my dream, I am before the throne of God, who is immense . . .
All I can see are his feet, sandaled like mine, and tree-trunk legs,
disappearing into the mist; on second
thought, into greasy smoke, and I know where I am: I am in the inner room of
the Temple, the holy of holies, where only God can go. I am reminded of the tale of my forefather
Isaiah, and his vision in the throne
room, and as if to reinforce the association, there are the seraphim,
six-winged flying serpents, flapping and screeching above me. Thank goodness they keep their distance, they
don’t brand me on the mouth as they did Isaiah, but I get the point: I am to be
in his tradition, I am to prophesy in his line.
It fills my heart with dread.
Now there comes a voice, indescribable and intimately familiar, nowhere
and everywhere at once. It is quiet and infinitely loud, seductively female and
decidedly male, near and yet very, very far.
It said “I am the Lord your God.
God of your ancestors Sarah and Abraham, Josiah and Tamar, of the
infinite abyss and the highest transcendence.
I am the God of paradox, of light and dark, of opposites that
compliment, and those that beggar the mind.
I am nothing and everything at once, empty and overwhelmingly full.”
The voice is silent, it seems to await a reply, so in a
trembling voice I say: “Ah . . . mighty Lord of Paradox, I am, uh, honored to be in your presence, and of
course, awaiting your command. What
would you have me do?”
And the voice is all whispers yet clear as a bell: “Prophesy, O
mortal, as did your forefather Isaiah.”
Silence again. “What
would you have me say, O Lord?”
“Tell the people about life
. . . true life. Life that cannot be bought or sold, life that
is not for sale.”
I do not understand, and I say as much.
“Remember the water, O Human, remember the water.”
Suddenly, I am awake, and it is morning, and the voice of the
Almighty rings in my ears. Remember the
water . . . remember the water. And I do,
I remember the dream, the delightful, cryptic vision. Every place there was water teemed with life,
even in the harshest desert, even in the most sterile, lunar city. The river, where harps were hung, the watering
holes, the lakes and the seas, gushing with life.
All of a sudden, I know to say: Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters, and as I write, I realize that I mean everyone, rich and poor alike.
These waters, this life does not discriminate, it is
not rationed along the lines of have and have not. There is no dry season for this water, this life. This wine and milk are without cost, and
what’s more, they are priceless, they are literally without price.
And now the words tumble out, driven by a spirit, by a wind, by
a ruach that comes from within.
And it strikes me that in true prophetic fashion, I am speaking for God,
yet they are my own words as well. They
are my own thoughts, and yet they are the Lord’s as well. Why
do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that
which does not satisfy? Why do you buy toys
and amusements, things made of clay
and metal, when they do not fill the void within? They are temporal, finite, pretty and gaudy
and fascinating, but they do not nourish, they are thin gruel. The waters of life, gushing up from the
desert, beloved by sages and all who possess true wisdom, are rich and satisfying.
And
I find myself, in the name of God, offering up a covenant, an everlasting
covenant, like that offered David, and it is breathtaking in its audaciousness:
here they are, captives in a foreign city, strangers in a very strange land, and still God promises them everything. You shall call
nations, entire nations, to you,
nations you do not even know, and they shall come! And I realized that
through my words, the Word, the word
of God, continued to create,
continued to call into existence a new reality, just as they did in the
beginning, when they swept across the waters of the deep.
Now
the words come tumbling, gushing out, and they are no longer as if from God’s
mouth, no longer in the third tense. I speak
from my own experience of the nearness, the closeness
of God: I urge the people to seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon God
while he is near. If they return to the
Lord, if they come to the waters, God
will have mercy on them, God will pardon them, for—says the Lord—my thoughts
are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways, and I certainly get it, I
get the mordant humor, the stark irony: God will pardon them precisely because his thoughts are not like our petty thoughts, his ways are
not like our petty, childish ways.
And
the whole breathtaking construction suddenly becomes clear: God is infinitely
near to us, less than even a heartbeat away . . . He is as near to us as a
breath, close as a thought, and yet
as far from our understanding as the stars above. Mired in things that are by nature not divine, that do not nourish us or quench our thirst, the waters that God offers are sure and everlasting.
They are the waters of mercy, the
waters of pardon, the waters of forgiveness. Ho! Come to the waters, all you who are
thirsty, come to the waters and be washed in God’s love. Amen.
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