The Lilychild

My preview text is: She ran into the house, slamming the door, her dark eyes flashing with anger, the dusty tail of her embroidered cloak flying behind her. Azariah, the chief servant, ran to get the basin of water to wash her feet, but by the time he got to the water jars, she was already in the great room, her sandals leaving a trail of dusty footprints across the marble floor. Looking straight ahead, she stormed up to the loft, where Jairus ben Levi was seated at his desk. She spoke with a firm voice. "Sir, there is absolutely no reason why I should not be allowed to sit in the synagogue school and be taught by the rabbi with the boys! It is disgraceful for a daughter of Abraham to have to hide in the room next door and secretly listen over the walls! Why Sir? Jehovah-God is not prejudiced against females! Why is the rabbi prejudiced? Why are all boys prejudiced? You are not prejudiced against females and you are the Ruler of the Synagogue! Why Father?" Jairus reached out and took his twelve-year-old daughter by her small, soft hands and looked directly into her dark eyes. They were slowly filling to the brim with hot tears, ready to overflow down over olive-tan cheeks, already flushed with a rosy tint. The tall girl's face was a picture of her mother, but she was physically built in the image and likeness of her father. "My precious Susanna, how many times have I told you that we Jewish people are burdened with the tradition of our elders. How many times have I told you that life is not fair to all? How many times have I told you that Jehovah-God is the God over the just and the unjust?" His brow wrinkled as he saw the hurt in the face of his only child, and his eyes began to mist. "Father, does Jehovah-God care about tradition? Does He follow the tradition of men? Haven't you even taught me that the writers of the Talmud have even said: that 'the words of the scribes are all weighty.' Isn't that what you have taught me Father about tradition?" Susanna had a cameo face. Its delicate shape accentuated by her long dark-brown hair, was parted in the middle and hung down over her small shoulders to the center of her back. A tall girl for her age, she was just beginning to show the signs of womanhood, her mouth was startlingly full and her lips were deep red, highlighted by her olive-tan complexion. Whenever she was perturbed, her cheeks turned fiery red, a condition which her father noted at that moment. "Yes, my Lilychild." The name Susanna meant lily, and "Lilychild" was his name of endearment for his daughter. He always was pleased that she was a brilliant child, except at times like this when she used all her knowledge and cunning so she could get her way with her father. "But we must always respect the tradition of the elders...and your mother, as well!" "Father, I've overheard you talking with mother several times about man's traditions, and you called them 'out of date and foolish.' My not being able to sit with the boys and be taught by the rabbi is one of those awful traditions! Now, on top of that, mother keeps telling me that I have to spend more time learning to cook and sew and to care for crying, dirty-bottomed babies!" Her father ducked his head in a gesture of accepted defeat on that point. The close father-daughter relationship had taught Susanna how to argue with her father without incurring possible parental rebuke. "Well, you could cut off your hair and wear boy's clothing. Then I could see about getting you in the school," he chided, "but I'd have to look among the orphans for another pretty daughter to marry off to some rich merchant's son! But I don't know if our world is ready for something like 'a boy named Susanna.'" She wrenched her hands from her father's and dropped them to her side with a slap on her hips, her lower lip protruding. She saw she was getting nowhere with this approach to her father. She cunningly changed her tactics. "Father, that is not funny! But look at it this way...what more could I possibly learn from the rabbi, compared to what you have taught me?" she demanded. "What could I possibly find of interest that might be written on those juvenile boy's slates at school after I have listened to the best teacher in the world teach me about the 'Law, the Prophets, and the Writings?'" Seeing that her father's expression did not change, she changed her approach again, this time using a pleading tone. "But Father, if all I ever do is to learn to cook and sew and take care of squalling babies, that is nothing more than what many servants do. Her father shook his head back and forth. His lips were pursed tightly, holding back his laughter over her arguments. Seeing that she had not received what she felt was her justice, she continued. "But Father, who will help you read when the light gets dim, who will listen to you preach your long, long sermons, who will agree with you when you march up and down in this room as you rail against the oppression of Rome and the compromises of the Pharisees and the Sadducees in Jerusalem?' Who, father? But perhaps mother is right! Perhaps you have taught me everything there is to learn! Perhaps the daughter of the Ruler of the Synagogue needs to learn the mundane things that servants do." She caught her breath and continued quickly. "Yes, I should patiently wait until you and mother have found me that rich husband from Jerusalem to take me away from this home, so that you and mother may be alone in your golden years. Then before I reach the ripe, old age of twenty, I will have been able to provide you with a house full of smelly, creepy-crawly babies, so that you can brag to all your friends at the city gate about being a grandfather! You won't have to wait long, you know. I will be sixteen in less than four short years, and then I can get married and start having babies!" "Susanna...Lilychild...Susanna! I have taught you too much. You have learned well how to try my patience with your arguments," he said, looking into her fire-filled eyes. "If your mother can accuse me of anything, it is the fact that you have become the only girl in Galilee, under thirteen years of age, who thinks and talks like a thirty-year-old because of a doting father who has spent so much time with his only daughter. A day doesn't go by, it seems, that your mother doesn't accuse me of robbing you of your childhood." "But mother just doesn't know," she exclaimed, hurt because her mother wanted her to grow up the same as other young girls of her age, and marry someone from one of the wealthy families from Jerusalem. Her mother resented her being her father's tomboy and did not want her to marry the son of a tradesman or farmer. Susanna's voice changed back to the softness of a little girl charming her father. "Oh, but I've had such a wonderful childhood with you, Father. Remember how we trapped quails in the Judean hills, and remember how we lunched on the other side of the Sea of Galilee with bread and fishes while you told me stories of Father Abraham, and of Sampson, and our great King David. Remember that time when we tied my hair up, to make me look like a boy, so you could take me inside the Great Temple when we were in Jerusalem! Remember how you taught me to read and write by the time I was five, and not only that Father, you taught me Hebrew and Greek by the time I was eight!"