lotsa suffering going on around the world for god to sleep in like a high skool drunk
2 min read Giving it a thought (If you have brain) there is an answear
The man's sufferings were so great that at times he began talking to
himself.
'Oh, fool that I am ...' he muttered, swaying on the stone in the pain
of his heart and clawing his swarthy chest with his nails. 'Fool, senseless
woman, coward! I'm not a man, I'm carrion!'
He would fall silent, hang his head, then, after drinking some warm
water from a wooden flask, he would revive again and clutch now at the knife
hidden on his chest under the tallith, now at the piece of parchment lying
before him on the stone next to a stylus and a pot of ink.
On this parchment some notes had already been scribbled:
The minutes run on, and I, Matthew Levi, am here on Bald Mountain, and
still no death!'
Further:
The sun is sinking, but no death.'
Now Matthew Levi wrote hopelessly with the sharp stylus:
'God! Why are you angry with him? Send him death.'
Having written this, he sobbed tearlessly and again wounded his chest
with his nails.
The reason for Levi's despair lay in the terrible misfortune that had
befallen Yeshua and him and, besides that, in the grave error that he, Levi,
in his own opinion, had committed. Two days earlier, Yeshua and Levi had
been in Bethphage near Yershalaim, where they had visited a certain gardener
who liked Yeshua's preaching very much. The two visitors had spent the whole
morning working in the garden, helping their host, and planned to go to
Yershalaim towards evening when it cooled off. But Yeshua began to hurry for
some reason, said he had urgent business in the city, and left alone around
noontime. Here lay Matthew Levi's first error. Why, why had he let him go
alone!
Nor was Matthew Levi to go to Yershalaim that evening. He was struck by
some unexpected and terrible ailment. He began to shake, his whole body was
filled with fire, his teeth chattered, and he kept asking to drink all the
time.
He could not go anywhere. He collapsed on a horse blanket in the
gardener's shed and lay there till dawn on Friday, when the illness released
Levi as unexpectedly as it had fallen upon him. Though he was still weak and
his legs trembled, he took leave of his host and, oppressed by some
foreboding of disaster, went to Yershalaim. There he learned that his
foreboding had not deceived him - the disaster occurred. Levi was in the
crowd and heard the procurator announce the sentence.
When the condemned men were led off to the mountain, Matthew Levi ran
alongside the file in the crowd of the curious, trying to let Yeshua know in
some inconspicuous way that at least he, Levi, was there with him, that he
had not abandoned him on his last journey, and that he was praying that
death would overtake Yeshua as soon as possible. But Yeshua, who was looking
into the distance towards where he was being taken, of course did not see
Levi.
And then, when the procession had gone about a half-mile along the
road, a simple and ingenious thought dawned on Matthew, who was being
jostled by the crowd just next to the file, and in his excitement he at once
showered himself with curses for not having thought of it earlier. The file
of soldiers was not solid, there were spaces between them. Given great
dexterity and a precise calculation, one could bend down, slip between two
legionaries, make it to the cart and jump into it. Then Yeshua would be
saved from suffering.
One instant would be enough to stab Yeshua in the back with a knife,
crying to him: 'Yeshua! I save you and go with you! I, Matthew, your
faithful and only disciple!'
And if God granted him one more free instant, he would also have time
to stab himself and avoid death on a post. This last, however, was of little
interest to Levi, the former tax collector. He was indifferent to how he
died. He wanted one thing, that Yeshua, who had never in his life done the
least evil to anyone, should escape torture.
The plan was a very good one, but the fact of the matter was that Levi
had no knife with him. Nor did he have a single piece of money.
Furious with himself, Levi got out of the crowd and ran back to the
city. A single feverish thought was leaping in his burning head: how to
procure a knife there in the city, in any way possible, and have time to
overtake the procession.
He ran up to the city gate, manoeuvring amid the throng of caravans
being sucked into the city, and saw to his left the open door of a little
shop where bread was sold. Breathing hard after running down the scorched
road, Levi got control of himself, entered the shop very sedately, greeted
the woman behind the counter, asked her to take the top loaf from the shelf,
which for some reason he liked better than the others, and when she turned
around, silently and quickly took from the counter that than which there
could be nothing better - a long, razor-sharp bread knife - and at once
dashed out of the shop.
A few moments later he was again on the Jaffa road. But the procession
was no longer in sight. He ran. At times he had to drop down right in the
dust and lie motionless to recover his breath. And so he would lie there, to
the astonishment of people riding on mules or walking on foot to Yershalaim.
He would lie listening to his heart pounding not only in his chest but
in his head and ears. Having recovered his breath a little, he would jump up
and continue running, but ever slower and slower. When he finally caught
sight of the long procession raising dust in the distance, it was already at
the foot of the hill.
'Oh, God! ...' Levi moaned, realizing that he was going to be too late.
And he was too late.
When the fourth hour of the execution had gone by, Levi's torments
reached their highest degree and he fell into a rage. Getting up from the
stone, he flung to the ground the stolen knife - stolen in vain, as he now
thought - crushed the flask with his foot, depriving himself of water, threw
off his kefia, seized his thin hair, and began cursing himself.
He cursed himself, calling out meaningless words, growled and spat,
abused his father and mother for bringing a fool into the world.
Seeing that curses and abuse had no effect and nothing in the
sun-scorched place was changed by them, he clenched his dry fists, raised
them, squinting, to the sky, to the sun that was sliding ever lower,
lengthening the shadows and going to fall into the Mediterranean, and
demanded an immediate miracle from God. He demanded that God at once send
Yeshua death.
Opening his eyes, he became convinced that everything on the hill was
unchanged, except that the blazing spots on the centurion's chest had gone
out. The sun was sending its rays into the backs of the executed men, who
were facing Yershalaim. Then Levi shouted:
'I curse you. God!'
In a rasping voice he shouted that he was convinced of God's injustice
and did not intend to believe in him any longer.
You are deaf!' growled Levi. `If you were not deaf, you would have
heard me and killed him straight away!'
Shutting his eyes, Levi waited for the fire that would fall from the
sky and strike him instead. This did not happen, and Levi, without opening
his eyes, went on shouting offensive and sarcastic things at the sky. He
shouted about his total disappointment, about the existence of other gods
and religions. Yes, another god would not have allowed it, he would never
have allowed a man like Yeshua to be burnt by the sun on a post.
'I was mistaken!' Levi cried in a completely hoarse voice. 'You are a
god of evil! Or are your eyes completely clouded by smoke from the temple
censers, and have your ears ceased to hear anything but the trumpeting
noises of the priests? You are not an almighty god! You are a black god! I
curse you, god of robbers, their soul and their protector!'
Here something blew into the face of the former tax collector, and
something rustled under his feet. It blew once more, and then, opening his
eyes, Levi saw that, either under the influence of his curses, or owing to
other reasons, everything in the world was changed......
