My Glorious Brothers by Howard Fast Page A

only the people may give. In my father’s time, there was no Maccabee, nor in his father’s time, nor in his grandfather’s time; but if you speak to the old men, the Rabbis, of Gideon, they will not term him Gideon ben Joash, which was his name, but speak of him softly and gently as “the Maccabee”; yet how many were there like Gideon? Not of David will they speak thus, nor even of Moses who stood face to face with God, but of Hezekiah ben Ahaz, and perhaps of one or two others—of them, they will say “They were Maccabees.”
    It is not a word like “Melek” or “Adon” or even like “Rabbi,” which means “my master,” only in a strange and venerable way that is hard to explain. The Maccabee is no man’s master, and no man is his servant or his slave. Once in a long, long while there comes out of the people a man who is of them and from them and with them; him they call the Maccabee, because they love him. Some say that, in the beginning, the word was makabeth, which means “the hammer,” and such a man was a Hammer for the people to wield; and others say that the word once meant “to destroy,” because he who bore it destroyed the enemies of his people; but I know only that it is a word like no other word in our tongue, a title, worn by a few man—and I knew few men who deserved to wear it.
    Rabbi Ragesh said that there was only one—and to him he gave it.
    ***
    We came back from Jerusalem to Modin, where the walls of our valley pushed the world away. In the hills, each valley is an oasis which can even close out the sounds of men and women in pain, and time drove by in that rhythmical sweep, measured by sunrise and sunset, by the five crops a year we take from our soil, by the ripening, the reaping, the planting, the sowing. Yet it was different, and every day was the last day.
    One day I came from the fields, hoe in hand, sweating and dirty, barefoot and barelegged, my pants rolled to the knee, and I saw the Adon taking the sword out of the jar of olive oil. Judas stood by the window, dressed for traveling, for hard traveling in the hills, leggings over heavy sandals, his striped cloak folded back over his shoulders and belted to him. On the table, there was a package of bread and dried figs and raisins. I looked from one to another, but neither spoke. I went to the basin and washed my hands and face, and as I dried myself, Eleazar entered from the courtyard behind the house, carrying Judas’s horn bow, which had been buried there, and a handful of arrows.
    â€œHere,” he said, handing them to Judas. “And I’ll ask you once more—can I go?”
    â€œNo,” Judas said shortly.
    The Adon was wiping the sword. “It will weigh you down,” he said. “You’re not used to a sword, my son.”
    â€œThere are many things for me to learn. The sword, I think, is least difficult. Will you fetch me the scabbard?” he asked Eleazar.
    â€œWhere are you going?” I demanded.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWhere is he going?” I asked my father.
    The old man shook his head. Judas ran a bowstring through his fingers, rolled it and placed it in his pouch. The short bow and the arrows he thrust into his belt under his coat.
    â€œAnswer me!” I said angrily. “I asked you where you were going!”
    â€œAnd I told you—I don’t know.”
    â€œWho does know?”
    â€œI’m going into the hills,” Judas said, after a long moment of hesitation. “I’m going to walk through villages. I’m going to look at the people and talk to them.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œTo see what they will do.”
    â€œWhat do you expect them to do?”
    â€œI don’t know. That’s why I am going.”
    I sat down on the bench by the table. Eleazar returned with the scabbard, and Judas sheathed the sword and slung it over his back, under the