My Glorious Brothers by Howard Fast

best the Temple is a word or an image for them; they pass their lives and most of them never see it; but when had the Adon not seen it, walked in it, prayed in it? He was a Kohan; scratch the Temple and you cut his flesh. How can I say what it meant to him to see a pig’s head on the altar?
    Yet he did not falter, but walked to the altar and stood there in the filth. We followed him, and Judas raised his hand to sweep aside the head.
    â€œLeave it alone,” the Adon said coldly.
    John began, softly, the prayer for the dead, but the Adon cut him short. “Not here! Do you pray for the dead here?”
    Minutes went by, and still he stood there, his back to us. Then, at last, he turned around very slowly. The impassiveness of his face amazed me. His cloak was thrown back, and the pure sunlight, entering through the roof, played brilliantly on his pale silk jacket. His beard was quite white now, his long hair white too. Calmly, he looked at us, his glance passing from face to face, as if he were mildly inquiring for some quality he was certain he would find; and at last he fixed his gaze on Judas.
    â€œMy son,” he said softly.
    â€œYes, Father,” Judas answered.
    â€œWhen you cleanse this place, cleanse it well.”
    â€œYes, Father,” Judas whispered.
    â€œThree times with lye, as the law says. Three times with ashes. And three times with cold, clean sand from the River Jordan.”
    â€œYes, Father,” Judas said, his voice hardly audible, his eyes welling with tears.
    â€œAnd three times more, with cold water and loving care.”
    â€œYes, Father.”
    Then the Adon went to John and kissed him upon the lips; then to me; then to Judas, to Eleazar, and to Jonathan. Then he said: “We have no more to do here. Let us go home.”
    We left the Temple, but at the gate the Adon paused, grasped one of the Levites by the arm, and said, “Where do you dwell?”
    Shrinking, the man answered, “In the Acra.”
    â€œAre there other Jews there?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHow many?”
    â€œAbout two thousand.”
    â€œMen of wealth?” the Adon went on. “Men of property? Men of culture?”
    â€œYes—men of culture,” the Levite said.
    â€œAn island of Western culture,” the Adon said softly. “One bit of Athens in the land of the Jews. Is that it?”
    The Levite nodded, uncertain as to what to make of the Adon’s gentle manner.
    â€œFriends of the King of Kings?”
    â€œYes,” the Levite said, “friends of the King of Kings.”
    â€œGood. And they are safe and secure with walls wrapped around them and with ten thousand mercenaries to protect them from the ill-nurtured anger of their people. And is Menelaus, the high priest, with them?”
    â€œYes, yes.”
    â€œTell Menelaus that Mattathias ben John ben Simon was here from Modin to taste the glory of civilization, and tell him that I brought with me my five sons. Tell him that someday we will return.”
    And then we walked back to Modin.

Part Two
The Young Man,
the Maccabee

And if you are not Jewish, but from the outside, a stranger, as we say, of the nokri, how then shall I tell you what is meant among my people when we say “the Maccabee”?
    It is an old, old word among a people who have a curious veneration for words. We are the people of the Book, the Word, and the Law; and in the Law itself it is written, “Thou shalt not hold a slave and have him ignorant.” In a world where very few can read and write, the merest water carrier among us reads and writes, and with us a word is not a thing to be spoken foolishly or in an offhand way. And Maccabee is an old, old word, a strange word; yet were you to read the five books of Moses and all the other writings of old, you would look in vain for the word Maccabee. It is nowhere written.
    It is the nature of the word: it is not a title that a man may take, but a gift that