Some descriptions of the young Yeshua taken from the book,
Mary, by Sholem Asch.
p. 209
The boy, Yeshua, both at school and at home, was
invariably found to dominate his immediate company. What the other boys found
irresistible in him was an unquestionable, absolute sincerity. And Yeshua
asserted his domination with a light hand, like a born prince – not by any
display of superior scholarship, but by a natural authority of character which
radiated from his least action or remark.
p. 210
The boys of the higher grades, all learners of the oral
Law, found their diversion in mock trials to which they brought all the
penetrating sagacity of scholastic pilpul,
as taught during school hours. They would choose one of their number to act as
judge, and he, after hearing the case – usually an involved contrivance of
improbabilities – handed down a sentence framed in the spirit of the scribes
and Pharisees. Not infrequently the sentence passed was of such astuteness that
it was reported to the Rabbi, who, on occasions, had been known to pass it on
to Jerusalem. The elders, therefore, encourage the game, seeing it as a welcome
means for whetting a child's intellect and fortifying him in the knowledge of
the Law.
Young Yeshua showed no ambition to excel in the game. The
truth was that he had little relish for the oral Law with its labyrinthine
technicalities. And when his friends challenged him to take part in the mock
trials, he answered with finality, "I don't like to pass judgment on
people."
p. 211
Yeshua lived in the world of the Prophets. He did not
shine in the other studies, some of which called for great keenness and
subtlety, involving as they did complex calculations concerning measures and
crops. Nor was he much taken with interpretations of the Law, no matter how
ingenious they might appear to others. His affinity was with the Prophets, whom
he interpreted according to his own judgement.
 |
Mosaic of the Prophet Jeremiah in the
facade of Basilica of Saint Paul
outside the walls. Rome, Italy |
In Yeshua’s grade they were studying the book of
Jeremiah. They had come to the passage where the Prophet comforts his people
and, in the face of the direst peril, foretells the future of radiance and joy.
No man could more cruelly damn and execrate his people – and no one knew better
how to console. The majestic mourner of Israel was also the sweetest minstrel
of Israel's hope. Even now he had brought his fiery scourge down on their
cowering backs, adding the Prophet's lash to the enemies sword, as though he
gloried in his nation's wounds and had sworn to unscab their sores that they
might never heal – but all at once he changes pitch and sings again of
forgiveness to make the heart burst with hope. No man expressed more intimately
his nearness to God than this Prophet of wrath and lamentation. Never once did
he utter a plaint for his own torments, which were the wages of his
exhortations. Not a drop of his personal bitterness stained the cup of comfort
which he held out to his people. The spittle in his face was forgotten, his
bruised body covered over, his prisoner's ditch consigned to oblivion. From the
mouth of the Rachel he let poor and undying lament for his people, the mothers
lament for her sons. And the voice of God itself he invoked to restrain
Rachel’s tears with assurance of love and forgiveness. And finally, he stirred
the deepest
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| Rachel |
longing of his people till the end of time, when, like a messenger
of love, he delivered the mystery of Israel's marriage with the Lord:
"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the
covenant with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring
them out of the land of Egypt; which My covenant they brake, although I was a
husband to them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will
make with the house of Israel. After these days, saith the Lord, I will put My
Law into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their
God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his
neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all
know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I
will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." [Jer.
31-35]
By these words Yeshua was so deeply stirred that he could
not hold back his tears while he recited them in class. There was laughter
among some of the boys; others wept with him. All felt moved by the Prophet’s
compassion, and even those who pretended to laugh did so with forced bravado as
if to show their manly self-possession.
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