R Yona at Jeta Grove

Editorial notes: The short story below was found in Shai’s Google Drive notes and is clearly incomplete. The Brain Storming section at the end of the narrative alludes to the continuation of the story

An apocryphal Braisa, non-canonical and existing only in Arabic:

“Rabbi Yona was lost at sea. Can a man’s name be changed in absentia to avert an ill-luck? […]”

Thus I have heard, when the new monks arrived at Jeta Grove, carrying only their robes, a walking stick, and bowl, they brought with them a man who was not a Brahmin¹.

As the monks approached the forest they discussed many things concerning dhukka^[I] and the way to its cessation,

“Surely brothers a watching mind is the greatest thing, bringing with itself all other spiritual faculties.”

“From mindfulness comes the unfettering of the mind, like the Southerners sing in the name of the cowherders, Your silhouette dispels my loneliness, your embrace makes my worry unbegotten.”

“There is nothing better than a guarded mind. With great effort, Mara^[II] is won and that which was conditioned by karma becomes unconditioned.”

“Is it not the case the wholesome karma is more praiseworthy than a guarded mind. Wholesome karma arouses the guarded mind as a fruit that is received, but there is no guarded mind without great effort.”

“But there is no one who receives the fruit…”

There was never an end in sight once the young bald-shaven men began their strange sing-song discussions, which to the Rabbi’s ears sounded mired in repeating lists, and frustrated by politeness that made itself lame by avoiding clear judgment. He had heard that the Galilean rabbis were unusually polite, but their’s was an ornament inseparable from their humility; and in any case, their parables were famous for simultaneously explaining their reasoning whilst entrapping their partner in a web reconstructed from irrefutable chains of deduction. The men with bright cloaks worn in the manner of desert travellers, by contrast, seemed unpractised in public discourse or lawmaking. Most barbarians confused public display with glamour and fame; these were at least safe from that mistake.

These strangers were kind and hospitable, but he had seen a funeral at the last village, and the painted men calling down fire from the celestial spheres to incinerate their deceased reminded Yona of the Persian traders. A wariness of the spirits known to congregate at sites of idol worship grew in force but was forgotten with a realization that the smell had evoked a deep pain. Woe was the world which raised the wicked and asked the brightest to sanctify all that they knew in impure fires. The unforgettable miasma left by the burnt hair undermined his remaining hope, and he would no longer hurry to ask whether anyone knew of the land of Israel. He would love God with all his heart, but it would be a fool’s lie to wish for things he disbelieved. The first charnel ground he saw confirmed his expectations; he was no stranger to corpses rotting unburied, but never by choice. The scenes were known to the old prophets, but still unknown in every way.

The man who called himself Gopana had kept him constant company for the first few days, translating to the best of his broken mongrel vocabulary, mixing words that sounded phonetician, and some that sounded from someplace further north. No one showed any surprise at Yona’s linguistic adaptability, nor was any other interest shown. The men were heartfelt but he suspected defective in some way, perhaps childlike in their naive acceptance of his strangeness.

It was Gopana who had explained why the men had stopped to sit by the bodies. The creole the pair developed was sufficient for the task, but the explanation was abominable, and thereafter the Rabbi chose to walk alone.

He felt like one awakening from a dream that had become lost in insomnia and wine, and was now untangling phantom tendrils, waiting to see once more a world of fixed measurements and truths. The past had filled his nights and days, but those now looked hollow, soulless and false. Before he had felt buried, now he was merely floundering in an unending ocean. In sporadic moments he was mercifully distracted, now by a majestic bird that rose amidst a cacophony of song, another time by a labyrinthic tree that dragged the eye into shapes that seemed impossible, but invariably a current would drag his mind back down into terror and regret for pains and losses. The regret was the only compromise he allowed his lower soul; in any case, it was a feeling he did not know how to argue against. It was wrong, but he agreed with it.

That night was when the rains started, but the travellers were kept dry within the hollow of bushes that were protected by squat trees with leaves the size of a yearling lamb. The flattened stalks within the hollows were soft, and the comfort felt like a great charity. The appreciation opened something within Yona, and he felt a fatigue which was not a disguised wish for oblivion. The men had mostly dispersed, a fire was started somehow amidst the rain, whose unwavering outpour hinted at heavenly dams being finally broken.

In Israel he had prayed for dew, but his homeland was lost no less than the boat that had cast him into the ocean and into this new land. He decided to thank the creator for settling the winds inside him, and for allowing fresh rains to nurture him. The regret would not leave, but Yona knew that his God was only good. When he sang Hallel the dark men moved nearer to listen, and he was grateful for their company. Later he awoke to hear a sad melody being hummed. Then, in the blinding darkness, amidst the waters that were now heard in the drops falling from the drenched canopy, the music tugged until the dam was weakened. Yona cried, and by the next morning his heart was lighter, but the walls around his heart had reinforced themselves, and the remaining pain he would have to carry alongside other such weights that accumulate in the lives of most (whose size can be publicized but never shown).

[Use something like above as “setting scene”, thereafter need to start writing a story, can either continue to ramble, or piecemeal scenes as exercises in their own right, or plan]

Forever verged on the investigative without ever committing to the holding of any one position, they could continue all day without pause or progress. Rabbi Yona stopped listening – not because he knew to solve their riddles; but because he had never met a pagan who did not resent Kol Yaakov – and distracted himself by estimating the height of the sun and the number of hours since its dawn. Had he travelled into a land with other seasons? Was it possible that time and months and seasons were not universally identical? Do the festivals cycle with the months of a man’s life or of the land’s seasons? Once he started listing the pertinent laws and arguments, he could continue all day without pause (but without a partner, without progress either).

It was mid-day according to the sun’s position when the sound of a horn announced that the destination was not much further. Yona’s heart skipped a beat, only the Moshiach’s shofar could reach this distant land, and it would take many more months for that hope to become calloused against the caustic tenor of a disappointment that now struck its own chords.

B/s

A section in which Y devotes to finding way home:

• Sees a sign which gives him new hope (this hope is not fulfilled in his cycle). A dove with an olive leaf.
• In contrition at loss of day, Y fasts for a week, snippets are told, e.g. argument with Brahmin, dreams of things lost, regret transforms to guilt, but cannot find any fault until he encounters B’s mother who is mourning the loss of her son (who left in secret), and thus learns that he was wrong to save the children (but he does not accept this in his heart)
• (He only discovers which is Shabat at the end of this section).
• White elephant on the 8th day carries him to x then he is kidnapped. Then they are attacked by a prince who is seeking revenge, then gets drunk, then wakes up next to a river sitting next to an old man who speaks Greek.
• End chapter with the first kiddush.

^[1] Why does it say “not a Brahmin”? Therefore there is reasons to believe that the man was Brahmin, and so the verse says, he was “not a Brahmin”. It is taught that the reason was that the man was pale, like the Brahmin. But others say that the reason was that the man was self-assured, like the Brahmin. For those who say self-assured – is self-assuredness reason to expect that he is Brahmin? Rather, let us say that he was pale.