Light

The law is a light in my mind, my study and joy; sometime intricate, sometimes astonishingly simple. The foundation of our faith is the law, the basis of our covenant with God. I gave all my life to the law, first to understand the patterns and complexities, then to implement them. Perhaps you don’t quite understand that, how should you? To put it less ambiguously, I gave everything to be a worthy follower of Israel’s greatest prophet, Moses. I was so, so determined not to be like those of my people who in the past ignored the prophets calling them back to obedience. I was always open to anything or anybody who made that prophetic call to further obedience.

There is always the danger of a false prophet, but there are standards, criteria you can judge by. And yes, some of those are quite sophisticated, but I tell you now, that the basic one can even be understood by an unclean beggar. A good faithful Jew keeps the law. Simple. As simple as it is to understand that human suffering is the result of human sin, and God’s punishment. Of course I knew that wretched man had sinned, or his parents. Otherwise he would not have been blind. Simple. Rude of course to say it too loud and too publicly, and not to sympathise a little with his plight, but, simple.

I was seriously annoyed that those who plainly did not have the intellectual or personal qualifications to do so attempted to challenge that educated and mature view. I grew more and more irritated as the man, whose blindness proved beyond all doubt he was a sinner, argued back – alright then, the man who appeared to have been blind…

My anger was beyond words, when a law-breaker turned round and dared, dared, to call me blind with everything that THAT implies.