Embedded. Marc Knutson
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only by oil lamps that hung at strategic intervals, it was difficult to see where we were going. Amal reached up and removed one of the lamps from the stairwell wall, which cast an immediate shadow of his form directly behind him. The stairway was dark, cool, damp and quite spooky. I wanted to memorize all our turns and how many landings we encountered in case I needed to recall them should it become necessary to make a hasty retreat. There have been times, I thought to myself, where every once in a while in my journalistic endeavors I would personally challenge my own decisions. Especially those that made me push outside a comfort or safety level, all for the cause of getting a story. The deeper we descended these stairs, the more that challenging feeling began to creep in. This was surely one of those times.
Nearing a door at the end of a long, musty corridor, Amal reached for the handle and slowly opened it into a small, candle-lit room. There was a round, makeshift table in the center of the room where a lone oil fed wick flickered as it rested atop an earthen jar. Along the walls stood wooden racks that I wasn’t sure what they were used for. Strewn around the floor, in no specified arrangement, was an assortment of mismatched and oddly patterned stuffed cushions. Amal motioned for me to be seated. I looked down and peered into the dimly lit room to find a cushion to sit on. The lowlight environment made it difficult to make out seams and cushion edges. I picked one that I thought would be comfortable enough in the situation and began to sit down, when suddenly my eye discovered that there was movement on the cushion that I had singled out. Acting just as startled as I was, a frightened rat scurried away from the landing zone that I had selected. The goose bumps appeared on my arms as quickly as the rat fled. I didn’t like this, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to be worth it.
Closing the door behind us and assuring that it was secure, Amal broke the silence and whispered, “I am sorry for the intrigue Mr. Stanton, but it is critical that we speak of these matters of the messiah in secrecy. The Pharisees are very jealous. They will have the Roman guards alerted, we’ll be seen as seditionists to the Roman government, and eventually tried in court without representation, and most assuredly,” he said with a heavy emphasis on the word, “we’d be sentenced for death and torture on one those hideous crosses. You probably saw them lining the main road between here and Jerusalem?”
“I’ve seen them,” I responded in a disgusting tone. He was right in using the term “hideous” to describe the Roman crosses. I had read a report in a widely circulated medical magazine about the cruelty of the Romans and what agony awaits people sentenced to death on a crucifix. I distinctly remember putting the article down because of the gory details. “Amal. I wish to neither draw attention to our meeting, nor risk first- hand knowledge of a cross. However, I need to ask certain questions that will give me background on this movement that is emanating out of the Nazareth area. Tell me about the stories of the miracles. Tell me what you know about a religious man that people are identifying as their messiah. Why do they call him messiah? What do they mean, and why is it so special to them?” As my questions flowed from me, they also picked up in rapidity. Amal held out his hand, palm down, to indicate to me that I was either too loud, or there were too many questions, or both.
“Slow down Mr. Stanton,” he said in a barely audible whisper. Silence draped the darkened room as noises of sandals walking past the door could be heard. We could tell that they were headed away from the door, but suddenly stopped and headed back toward our room. The rattling sounds of keys on a key ring forced all eyes in the room to focus on one spot of the door at the same time the door handle. Several attempts were made to fit the right key into the lock as we all sat in motionless silence. After a few attempts, it became obvious that the intruder didn’t have the right key and, out of frustration, walked away. Amal raised the index finger of his right hand to his still pressed lips, while holding his left hand out, in the palm down attitude, to indicate that no one was to say a word or move until the coast was clear. As the sandal bearers footsteps faded away up the stairs, Amals’ whisper finally broke the silence, “That was close. We must keep our voices down and our meeting to a minimum of time.”
“Lucky for us he had a wrong set of keys,” I interjected in a low voice.
“No, Mr. Stanton, lucky for us we know how to jam locks from the inside so that his keys would appear to him as the wrong one,” responded Amal. Standing up, Amal slowly made his way over to a wall deeper in the room. He went about 15 paces, stopped and reached up for a stone that appeared to jut out slightly from the balance of the other stones on the wall. Wiggling it just slightly, it loosened enough for Amal to extract it from its un-cemented position, leaving in its wake, an apparent cavity in the wall. Reaching in to the empty chamber, Amal retrieved a tube of what appeared to be rolled up parchment paper. Walking back over to where we were seated, Amal began to speak in a low voice. “I want to show you, Mr. Stanton, what we believe. This is a copy of a sacred scroll. As commoners, we are not suppose to have personal copies of God’s words, at least that’s according to our religious leaders. The members of the Sanhedrin, forbid having any part, or parts, of the Torah in the public’s hands for they believe that only they have the power from God to read, understand and thus interpret it for the common populace. So, Mr. Stanton, I am sure you can appreciate our position in the need to protect our copy, right?”
“Amal,” I began, “I’m a journalist, my readers must feel that they can trust me and what I write. My sources have to feel that they can trust me to protect them as a source. I have the double duty of double trust. I don’t reveal my sources of information. I can’t reveal my sources or else I would eventually lose credibility and have to change careers. It’s not only a tradition among journalists, but it’s a celebrated and controversial aspect of our trade. We would not get many stories if people didn’t trust us. For what it’s worth, I appreciate your trust in me.”
Through my little soliloquy on trust, Amal remained motionless as he tenderly held the scrolls of paper under his left arm, sort of shielding them from me with his body. Feeling convinced that I had earned the right to see the scrolls, Amal retrieved them from under his arm and carefully laid them out on the table before us. I reached for my laptop, opened it up on the table also. I was going to be sure that I left nothing to memory and noted everything that he had to say about this messiah guy.
Reverently making motions with his hands and mumbling some sort of Jewish prayer under his breath, Amal began to unroll the papers. “The Torah is our holy text,” Amal said as he began his religious instruction to me. His face took on a whole new tone of reverence. His wry smile was replaced with deadpan seriousness, which created an even more ominous tone in the dingy and damp room, “Authorship has been ascribed to Moses. The scrolls speak to us of the beginning of time and of the history of the Jewish people and the Laws of God for man. There are those who believe that the Torah and the writings of Moses subtly speak of God’s ultimate plan for man, that of saving man from his own sin. However, it is the latter writings of the prophets that speak to us of a coming messiah, the one who is to be sent by God Himself, to rescue us from the curse placed on man from earlier sins.”
The serious look on his face as he spoke confirmed his convictions to this as truth in his mind. He began to point out specific sentences of words that were revealed on the papers. “While we have not yet secured the full document, and to be sure we are working on that, what we have here is a partial scroll of the later prophets that I spoke of,” he began, “I am not going to take you through all the history of the Jews, whether as a nation, or as a people, I will simply get to your interest point, is that all right Mr. Stanton?”
I’m a naturally curious person as it is, but his tone of voice, body language and serious expressions drew me in to want to learn more from him, but time was precious, and we were in a dangerous place.
“Amal, I am fascinated, and want to hear it from the beginning, but I believe you are correct in getting to the point, any veering off course may expose us to a greater probability of discovery here, and I don’t wish to experience a cross.”
“We are in agreement about that, to be sure,” responded Amal. “The prophets speak of the messiah as a king. A man of peace, a savior from sin, and our protector from an eternity of separation from God in sheol. The members of the Sanhedrin perceive any testimony of a king of the Jewish people that is alive today as a threat to their own power over the people. That’s why we