The Dovekeepers

THE SECOND WALL had been breached. That rough edifice we had built until our hands were ravaged and bleeding, until there was no longer a single tree standing in the field, had cracked under their battering ram, the dirt spilling out, the pliant limbs of the almond trees splitting, turning to dust. Our people had done all they could to fight the tide of what was to come, the soldiers that would climb through, the bloodshed and the torture and the murder on the day of our greatest feast. Eleazar came into the plaza. We were brought there by the sound of the ram’s horn, used to call us to prayer. I made my way among our people, though I was still weakened from childbirth, the infant hidden in my cloak. I left a trail of blood on the stones, which turned black as it fell away from me, an omen I understood well.

From my place on the edge of the crowd, I could see women whose children I had helped bring into the world. I saw my daughter with her bow, mud streaking her arms and legs, and my son, ruined by battle before he was a man, and my people in the throes of sorrow, and the man I had loved since I had first seen that he would come to me.

“We resolved not to follow the Romans and to follow God alone. Now the time has come for us to prove our faith. We cannot disgrace ourselves in the eyes of our Lord, or submit to slavery. If we fall into Roman hands, it is the end of everything, not only our lives but the life of Zion. We had the privilege to be the last stronghold, and as God has favored us so, let us return the favor and die nobly as free men.”

People began to panic at Ben Ya’ir’s words. It seemed that some might attempt to flee. But there was also a surge forward of the most loyal, those who had burned for freedom and could not turn back now.

“By daybreak, our enemy will be upon us, and we can hold them back no longer, but we are free to choose to die with honor, in the arms of those we love. We cannot defeat the Romans in battle here on this earth, but we can deny them a victory.”

Women wept on either side of me. I pitied Eleazar that he must speak these words.

“We have done everything to claim our freedom, and we cannot stop now. We do not know why God let His city burn to the ground, why He has let our people be chased into extinction, why we must die today. Our freedom is our winding sheet, and it is more glorious than any other. We will leave nothing behind for our enemies, and the taste of their victory will be bitter, and they will not be able to cut the heads from our bodies and leave them for the ravens.”

The women wailed, and some of the men joined in. The flames around us were a blessing, for they roared and made it difficult to hear the peals of agony and grief.

“Let our wives die unharmed, our children without the bitter mantle of slavery. Do you want them half-devoured by wild beasts, tortured by fire and whippings, enslaved? Let us make haste. Let us avoid the evils of mankind. We prefer death before those miseries. Let us go out of the world with our wives and children in freedom.

“Let our story bear witness that we perished out of choice, a choice we made at the beginning, to chose death rather than slavery.”

Warriors were sent to set fire to the storerooms. The heat was worsened so that it became an inferno. We seemed to have fallen headfirst into the month of Av, that time when the sorrows of our people blaze, when God tests our faith and our duty and our belief in His greatness.

WE LISTENED to Eleazar as we might listen to a dream, one we could not stop, one from which there was no waking. I felt my love for him so deeply I thought I might break as the boughs of the almonds had, my ardor the knife that pierced me. People began to run to their houses, not to escape but to gather their worldly goods so they might be destroyed rather than fall into the hands of the Romans. A great bonfire was begun, and all we owned was heaped upon it, garments and sandals and wooden bowls and yards of wool. The goats and sheep that were left had their throats slit, and their bodies were placed upon the fire as burnt offerings sacrificed to God, for there would be no need of meat or milk, only of God’s grace. There was no Temple standing and this would be our last sacrifice.

Eleazar’s men, his favorites, warriors who had fought beside him, men scarred by battle who had journeyed from Jerusalem to become hawks in this desert, came to him to encircle him. Some of them sobbed and were consumed by grief; others no longer felt the pains of the world, for they were in a state of sacrifice, as warriors were before they entered into battle. There were fifty or more, Amram among them, and these men brought broken pottery pieces, ostraca, upon which their names or initials were written. The weeping grew more furious as the lottery was begun. The priest and his learned men began to pray and chant, rocking back and forth with the passion of their prayers.