I was a toddler when I recited my prayers by heart. Grandpa Jacob was a prayer leader then, taking the place of great grandpa Abraham, after whom our synagogue was named. It was grandpa’s duty to recite prayers and benedictions for me, as well as for other people who could not utter pleas for them-selves. When I was too young to read, I listened to his chants and watched the printed letters running backwards past his finger, like trees rushing behind the bus I took so many times to study far away from home in Jerusalem.

Grandpa Jacob taught me that in the time of the First Temple, our ancestors’ prayers were entirely spontaneous. Worshipers used their own words to utter thanks and supplications any time they wished. Therefore, he said, I could use my own words to wish for any thing I wanted. I do not recall the desires I had as a toddler but I do remember mimicking the movement of grandpa’s lips, his whispers and chants, as well as, his general demeanor. Our film records demonstrated already then the bond between grandpa and me.

It did not take much time for me to read. I was an infant when toddlers chanted the alphabet at my crib. Hardly three years thereafter, I recited them in turn, showered with sweets falling from above like manna from heaven. It was the day of my betrothal to learning; a ritual held over since the time my ancestors lived in Babylon.

I learnt that our history began with our patriarch Abraham. Abraham, the patriarch, left Ur at the time of King Ur Nammu. He wandered to Haran, Canaan, Egypt, finally settling in Hebron, where he purchased the Cave of Macpelah, a burial place for him, his wife Sarah and the rest of his family (2000 BCE). Our legendary King David was anointed in Hebron but when Israel succumbed, Edom, Greece, Rome, Arabs, Franks and Turks settled it, each leaving its mark, especially Herod the Great and Salah-A-Din. Hebron, Abraham’s shrine, is nowadays a battlefield.

In the time of Abraham, Nimrod, the son of Canaan, proclaimed him-self God, defying heavens from the height of a tower built downtown Babel. Wickedness spread on earth then, imposing upon the righteous wandering to far away lands.

Abraham, grandpa told me, stayed near, wandering in the outskirts of Babel, beheading every idol in sight, except for one waving an axe high. Shortly thereafter Nimrod cast Abraham in jail. A few years later, the tower of Babel reached heaven and Nimrod ordered Abraham thrown from its pinnacle. When the executors neared the summit, their language confounded and the tower crumbled.

Thereafter, kings followed Abraham’s teachings. People shattered idols. And my ancestors left Ifrikia to settle Canaan, the land where Abraham was crowned king.

Great-grandpa was a Ben Moshe but he was named Abraham too. I was born shortly after his death. But grandpa Jacob who knew him well told me his tale. ‘Abraham’ grandpa said ‘did not acquire Hebron with strong arm. He bought it from Ephron the Hittite for a price.’

Abraham distinguished himself from neighbors by his love for Heaven, his distinction between right and wrong and his commitment to do right on earth, like Shem the priest and Noah the righteous who saved us from extinction. Abraham, in grandpa’s tales, was a just man. He was shy of war, hospitable to strangers and put in Michael’s words, Abraham was a leader of a cultivated tribe, one of many Hebrew tribes that migrated from Mesopotamia to the western Mediterranean, to earn a living as merchants or in the services of local kings. Our ancestor was versed with contract making, Michael said, even his relationship with God was contractual in nature. He exchanged fertility for loyalty, for it was his dream to spread his seeds across nations. Thus, beyond the Land of Israel, we live everywhere, bound by an everlasting pact, trading righteous behavior for God’s grace.

I was still young when Michael told me God was in my mind. It was a time when God appeared like superman in my dream. I wanted to be like him. But when I woke up, I suspected Michael did not speak of the same God grandpa knew, a God who made my ancestors wise and good, just and loving and without whom life could not exist. In all things, Michael told me, even in the tiniest of plants, there lies life. I liked grandpa’s God but I loved Michael’s too.

At a very young age I knew I was born in the image of our extraordinary God and that my purpose on earth is to complete Its creation. Yet, I wondered. Because grandpa attributed life to an Almighty Creator, the cause of everything, even things beyond understanding.

As I approached Bar Mitzvah, I asked my mother if God existed for real. Mother was not surprised. She looked at me and smiled. She loved me unconditionally, even in light of my scepticism.

No one knows! Mother said. In the beginning people said God was the sun, or the moon, or nature itself. Abraham, our forefather, separated the Divine from realm of nature, thinking ‘It’ was a force outside of nature, a power outside of him. Ever since, the tales of revelation enticed moral existence. Ever since our ancestors attributed to divinities meanings to suit them. Abraham shattered his father’s old material gods to create One Universal God. Later Prophets gave up the God of sacrifices for the God of justice. As old gods died, new ones were born in the image of succeeding generations, like the transformation of a male and female into a newborn child!

So you see, mother said, when the wonder of rebirth became common knowledge, our minds opened to believe in what we know, displacing beliefs in the unknown. Our vision of God changed. Nowadays, the wise hardly see divinity in external powers. They seek salvation within, relying increasingly on themselves.

I grew freer as I approached Bar Mitzvah, discovering in the process that grandpa’s God did not have to be mine and that our bond was one of survival and perennial love, for I loved him as I loved my mother and I loved both as I loved myself. And although the once divine lost its shine, along with its privileged priests of then and now, I pronounced my Bar Mitzvah vows as if grandpa’s God was also mine for there lied my adulthood and corresponding responsibility.

Thereafter I shunned no reason, scorned no learning and did not cling to a single creed. My creation no longer had a beginning or end, it lied in existence itself, in truth and in everything.

Kiriat Shemona
Purim, 1969

It was a time when a sterile woman was likened to a dead tree, a childless man was counted lifeless and the crown of existence was the birth of a male child to carry the name of his family.

What could a sterile woman or a lifeless man do in those days? They went on pilgrimage to holy sites where long dead saints rejuvenated stale unions. Those were the clinics where infertile couples were impregnated and where male off springs took place in wombs where only female broods were born. When a child was conceived, the pregnancy was announced to the sound of cries of joy. From that moment, every precaution was justified to carry the pregnancy to full term.

My conception was announced in a whisper and although my parents lived in Israel, far from Maghreb, cries of joy spread the news in my hometown, from its northern edge at the Fort of Tel Hi to its south end at the JFN Nursery.

Kiriat Shemona had no ruins like Hatsor and no holy tombs like Meyron, but it had the fort of Tel Hi. In the late forties and early 50’s, Kiriat Shemona was one of the hundreds of villages and towns, which sprung across the Land of Israel like Spring weeds, growing in most unlikely places. Its main street, Tel Hi Boulevard, came down from the fort of Tel Hi, about one thousand meters above, and ended another thousand meters below, a short walk past the Jewish National Fund nursery.

Our apartment perched on the Eastern side of the Mountain of Naftali, below Tel Hi, sat about fifty meters above the Hula Valley, which some time before I was born, was a swamp.

I lived with my mother, who, before I came into being, became known as Miriam the librarian. My mother came to Palestine from Morocco, before the independence of Israel. The year was 1948. She was barely three years old.

My grandmother, Esther, lived in the Moshava, North East below Tel Hi Boulevard. Her small semi-detached dwelling sat in a small plot among black round stones, vestiges of an age, when the earth shook and the land spit fire. Her plot was intended for farming, but the Labor government, which controlled every move in town, had changed its plans.

Grandma Esther walked the fifteen minutes that separated our houses, at least twice a day. In the morning, her walk was brisk and her route hardly deviated from the imaginary straight line that linked her house to ours. She came to take charge of me while mother went to work. But in the evening, her life wore a different pace, for she strolled away, leisurely, taking much more than the time required for such a walk. Along the way, people greeted her with a touch of reverence, to which she responded with demonstrations of affection known only in a world that exists no more. It was a ritual during which love was exchanged between friends in public, without any shame at all.

My grandfather, Jose, one of the many mayors who ruled the town, quit his coveted post suddenly, as if to adopt a strange habit, that is, disappearing for months without any satisfactory explanation, at least to me, when I was a child. When he resurrected in town, his appearance changed and he no longer spent his time taking care of other people’s business but devoted most of it among us, caring for my grandmother, my mother and me.

While growing up, I knew that ‘in the spring of the year 1948, grandpa was one of the early birds who deserted his old home in the Maghreb to build a new one in the Land of Israel!’ Much later, when I grew up, I discovered that he was involved with immigration. He, I was told, brought perhaps 18,000 Olim from Morocco in 1948 and 1949, and more than 300,000 in the 30 years thereafter, but I did not hear him take credit for it.

Upon grandpa Jose’s disappearance, we received his letters via an address in France, reassuring us, that the sun shone on the Land of Maghreb and that its climate remained benign.

Around that time, the postman brought also letters from Canada, from Michael Levy, an old friend who left Israel, also suddenly, although a promising career was ahead of him. His letters were addressed to Miriam Kesus, my mother. Kesus was my mother’s maiden name, before she became Ben Moshe.

My mother, Michael Levy and I had one thing in common, we spent a good portion of our childhood at ‘Yeshiva Ha Levy,’ a school which did not require head cover and where scholastic demands were light enough not to spoil our day dreaming, the secret of our happy childhood.

In my dreams, I tried to imagine what my father was like and sometimes, an image of him appeared before me, making me think that he was Michael Levy. But, in one room in our home, old pictures told another story, my father was real, he had a Brith Milah, a Bar Mitzvah and a Hupa. But, my father was absent and his absence made him legendary, especially because of the void he left in our life.

I heard many tales about my father and there were several versions to each, my mother’s and my grandma’s. And when men resurrected in our midst, my grandpa’s Jose and my surrogate father’s Michael, added their own accounts.

Ladders to Heaven
Marc Eliany © All Rights Reserved

“Thousands of years passed. The time of hunting had passed and farmers began tilling the land. Artisans were born and merchants exchanged the bounty produced on the face of the earth. And earth, after many years of darkness, became a pleasant place to live again.

Most cannot remember what really happened, for every one knows only that which they experienced. And the sages who remembered said:

‘The spirit of a legend is not in a story
But in the freedom to see
The essence of nature in eternity!’

Ever since, all that was born claimed no longer that it came first or that it created all, only that it is a tiny portion of the whole. And the sages multiplied to hold ladders for people to climb the heavens. And ever since, pilgrims sing:

Bless the brave
Who climb to heaven,
Insight is their garland.
Bliss – their realm.

And all that was created roam the world. And people eat from the fruit of knowledge everywhere.

The tale of Lilith and the Jnun
Marc Eliany © All Rights Reserved

“In the beginning,” my mother told me, “Creation came into being and everything was born within It. And Creation said, ‘It’ and no other, created all. And those who were born after ‘It’, rebelled and said: they were the beginning of everything!

And ever since, many sages have come and gone. And each has said:

‘Come with me
To heaven,
To the place
Where
The Creator of all
Resides.’

But all that was created was afraid to fly. And Creation became the king of all and everybody else became Its slaves. And Justice deserted the world. And Creation fell from heaven to earth. And eternity existed no more.

And ever since, a sage was born in every generation. And the sage lived a perfect life, showing others the way to complete creation. But, Lilith, summoned a serpent and turned it into an object of great desire. But the sages did not sway from their path.
And the serpent called upon darkness to hide its shame. And the darkness lasted many days. And a ferocious wind came thereafter, sweeping every tree, every hill and every shelter where mankind hid its desire. And the wind blew away the best of soils. And sand covered much of the land. And rain, rather than feed earth, turned into ice in far seas!

And when the sages ached for the desolation, they summoned Mercy to reign on earth. And ever since, rainfalls refresh the land for the livings to rejoice. And children grow tall and their beauty surpasses all that was created before.

Ever since, Lilith and the jnun live in the underworld. And when light shines upon the earth, darkness retreats into its depth. And everyone remembers that the reward of peaceful life is in good deeds.”

Solomon’s Lesson in Humility
Marc Eliany © All Rights Reserved.

During David’s reign, a man sent his son on business to Ifrikia. The son took the road each day with dawn while resting always upon sundown, until his arrival to Aghamat, on the outskirts of Marrakech.

When the young man concluded his affairs and took the road back to Jerusalem, any river he came to cross swelled. The youngster delayed his crossing each time until the water subsided. One day, a caravan crossed a powerful stream he would not negotiate and drowned. The young man crossed the river when the torrent subsided, gathering maggots of gold and strings of pearls he found along his path.

It was a time when a trip from Jerusalem to Ifrikia took a long time and much happened in between and when the young man arrived home, he found that his father had died and that one of his slaves appropriated his wealth as if he was the sole heir. The young man mourned his father, making no attempt to re-appropriate his inheritance.

One day, Solomon, King David’s son, heard the tale of the young man and decided to render justice and unravel the truth. Solomon exhumed the old man’s corpse and dyed one of the bones with the blood of the alleged heirs. The blood of the true heir permeated the bone and thus he secured his inheritance. This is to teach us that wisdom was widespread in ancient times, way before the invention of modern sciences and before the knowledge of the DNA spread.

When Solomon became king, his possessions grew beyond the prescribed in heaven and earth. And the wise in the land pleaded with him to reduce the burden he placed on the Israelites and angels warned him of a pending lesson in humility if he did not mend his ways. But Solomon remained unmindful of all injunctions and an edict came down from Heaven to banish him to live a life of a beggar in far away lands.

Hungry and deprived, Solomon wandered from land to land until he arrived to Aghamat, which was the edge of the world in ancient times. Solomon told anyone who cared that he was the son of David, the mighty king of the Israelites but even the priests of Aghamat who knew his countenance in Jerusalem, could not recognize him, causing him much despair.

One day the heir to whom Solomon restored the inheritance returned to Aghamat on business and as usual, he held a banquet for rich and poor alike before returning to Jerusalem. Solomon, who stood among the poor, was called to pronounce the blessing on the bread and as soon as he opened his mouth, the heir recognized the king and kneeled before his grace to the bewilderment of every one present.

Solomon journeyed about three years before this incident but once he was recognized, the gates of Heaven opened and in a twinkling of an eye, the Merciful transported him back to Jerusalem. And when Solomon vowed to rid himself of his possessions and live in humility, befitting a monarch in Israel, he was anointed king again. Ever since, it has been a tradition in the Maghreb for the wise to live in great modesty.