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| Photo cred: https://selahvtoday.typepad.com/selahv/2010/04/stop-casting-stones.html |
We all knew Leah, Leah’s father was never
there and her mother couldn’t do much to keep up with the rising cost of living
in Jerusalem. She was a beautiful woman shaped like two jars of wine one on top
of the other. I remember I had the hots for her growing up. Her mother failed
to pay a lot of debts and the debt collectors came and collected Leah and her
brother as two seedlings from a dry garden. She was only 13 at the time when she was deflowered. She was a slave girl in Reuben’s
father’s house then. Her little brother died at the age of 9 and soon after her
mother also passed on.
When her mother’s debt was paid off, it was
time she paid a debt of her own. A debt to life she never knew she had
accumulated. Reuben’s father cut her off after she had fallen pregnant. Reuben’s
mother would not wear the mantle of shame her husband had brought her. Everyone
knew though. Now Reuben’s dad is on the council of the Sanhedrin, its amazing
how far a few shekels can take you in the right hands. We heard that Leah lost
the baby. The economy was getting tougher with the Romans imposing new taxes
every day even poor Leah had to pay her share. Mrs. Yehuda had taken her in. Mrs.
Yehuda ran a small brothel at the corner of Mamre and 1st street.
On this particular day I was with Reuben
and we were joined by Abimelek, Jacob and Solomon whom we call Sols. We were
all now elders in our various synagogues and these days that was the way to go
if you didn’t attend Law school in Greece or had a Roman Citizenship like Saul
who had both and I particularly didn’t like the fella but he was efficient.
Anyway, there was this new Rabbi in town who thought that he was better than
everyone and would not see that the system we had as a nation worked but this
guy was hell bent on destroying everything we treasured as a people. Well this
day was the day of reckoning.
You see, we, we went to the elite schools
in the country maybe not as fancy as the one Saul went to but we were pretty
smart, smarter than 98% of the population so dealing with some carpenter was going
to be a breeze and we were up to the task. To be convincing we needed a well-known
sinner to use as bait, yea you guessed it, it was going to be Leah, no one
would deny it if we somehow caught her in a compromising situation. You see our
ancient laws say that if anyone is caught in adultery then they should be stoned
to death but the Roman law says no Jew can kill anyone under any circumstances unless
sanctioned by the prefects or governors, so you see whichever way this
carpenter cum Rabbi would answer we still get rid of him. Either he is with us (against the Romans) or he is with the Romans simple.
Little Titus who usually collected the
Sabbath offerings was the one we used to hire Leah for just an hour. We knew
the place and time and we were there in time to catch all the action. Our group
had grown larger because we needed to make a spectacle of this Rabbi. We
grabbed Leah scantly clothed and dragged her to the carpenter Rabbi. She was
sobbing because she knew we could deal with her as we dealt with Esther who
would not cooperate and wanted to destroy the High priest’s reputation last
year. I left the others chanting what was to me unimportant statements outside
the temple. We were going to kill two birds with one stone. Destroy this new
age Rabbi and instill the fear of God in to the people so that they know who is in charge. If the Romans try to pin this righteous execution on us the carpenter
Rabbi was there to take the fall for it. Genius. I went to gather my little heap of
stones.
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| photo cred: https://pastorernieblog.org/2016/10/18/a-woman-caught-in-adultery/ |
We all somehow got confused at this clear statement and we all stood
there like idiots who had messed their robes, unable to pick up a stone and yet
unable to move away. On the ground it seemed to me that he wrote of that night I
was with Sharon in Samaria but it can’t be, how does he know? No one knows
about this. Is he going to announce this list? Who told him? My pride’s weak
anchor was giving in to this wave of confrontation with what felt like God
himself. My guilt started dragging my feet away. Simeon was the first amongst us
to walk away, I was too ashamed to look at my colleagues, we were all ashamed
somehow to look at each other. All I could barely hear were soft, quick footsteps
retreating with guilt. We had somehow learned how to strain a gnat yet
swallowing a camel whole, growing forests in our eyes yet the thicket of our
shameful acts did not stop us from seeing the toothpicks in our others’ eyes. We
all left our heaps of stones there that day. Our big heaps of self-righteousness,
pride, hypocrisy and an assortment of hatred and judgement prepared for Leah,
prepared always for others.
Leah has a Job now and she is married to
one of the followers of that Rabbi. My Name is Joseph, today Leah’s husband and
I are preparing the grave for that Rabbi whom they have finally crucified. We still
gather stones but this time for a different purpose, building each other up as
the Carpenter Rabbi has commanded us to do. Every time I see Leah, I see how
the stones we can use to crush others can be used to build each other up. I
will gladly cast my first stone of love to a foundation for others to be built up.
by Simbarashe McNorris Hakata
