Chapter 3 | Another Test
Sheets of rain blurred the vineyard into shadows. I stood on the threshold, counting between lightning and thunder, my heart beating harder with every crack. The shutters rattled. Somewhere outside came the sharp crack of wood breaking, the dull thud of stone slipping.
When dawn came, the land was changed.
We walked the rows slowly, every step heavy with dread.
Vines lay broken across the soil, tangled like bodies after battle.
A section of the stone wall had crumbled and spilled down the hill.
One olive tree—an old, noble one—had split clean down the middle, the break so stark it felt like judgment fallen from the sky.
And yet… it could have been worse.
We patched what we could, our hands numb, our voices quiet. Baruch grumbled, but without venom. Even he understood. Lavi clung to my side, eyes darting at every ruin.
I whispered the words that steadied me, though they cut even as I said them: We had offered the required sacrifices. We had kept the Sabbath. Had we not obeyed enough? Uncle Eleazar would say the storm was a test.
But why did every test feel like loss?
~
I went to my room and shut the door behind me. The small space smelled faintly of olive oil and dried herbs, of wool warmed by too many nights spent half-awake. I sat on the edge of the pallet and let my hands fall uselessly into my lap.
For a moment, I did nothing.
My arms trembled—not with fear, but with the letting go of it. The storm. Taxes. Abba’s condition. All of it.
I pressed my forehead to my knees and closed my eyes. The room felt too quiet. Too empty.
I carried so much. And I did it well.
The thought startled me—not with pride, but with truth. The vineyard still stood. The ledgers balanced more often than they did not. I had kept us alive. I had kept us respectable. I had done what was required.
And yet, still it seemed the weight never lessened. It only shifted, settling deeper into my bones.
A strange thing twisted in my chest then—not despair, but something lonelier. The realization that no one asked whether I was tired. No one wondered how long I could keep going. They only assumed I would.
And perhaps the strangest part was that I had begun to assume it too.
I straightened, drawing a steadying breath. I did not weep. I would not.
There was a quiet pride in me too, stubborn and unyielding. I liked doing things right. I liked knowing the work was done properly, the Law observed, the household kept in order. Chaos frightened me more than exhaustion ever could.
If I carried the weight, at least I knew where it rested.
So I pulled on my work cloak and set my jaw. The storm had passed, but its wounds remained. And so I went to work.
Baruch was already at the rows, leaning on his hoe with more weight than effort. He straightened when he saw me, muttering about his back, about the rocks, about anything that made his labor sound greater than it was. Still, when I gave direction, he obeyed. Grumbling, always, but obeying.
“Brace the trellises first,” I told him. “If the vines aren’t lifted, we’ll lose the shoots. And then check the jars near the wall—we cannot have water seeping in.”
He muttered something about me driving him like Pharaoh, but he moved.
Lavi followed close behind me, his bare feet darting over stones as though he belonged to the earth itself. His curls bounced with every step. He carried a coil of twine almost as big as his arms, grinning like it was a treasure.
“Talia! Show me how to tie them again! I’ll do it right this time, I promise!”
I laughed despite myself. “You nearly strangled the poor vine yesterday.”
“But today I’ll do better,” he insisted, puffing his chest.
I crouched and guided a young shoot toward the stake, twisting a reed around it with practiced fingers. “Like this,” I said. “Gentle, but firm. Strong enough to hold against the wind.”
It was the way Abba taught me years ago—orderly, precise, leaves stacked neatly, nothing out of place. A method that made sense to me. Control meant safety. Predictability. Protection.
He leaned in, eyes wide, taking it in with the wonder of a secret. In a way, it was one. He would never know how much I treasured his eagerness, his unshaken trust.
By midday, the sun had burned away the storm clouds.
The vineyard shimmered with drops of water clinging to leaves, every surface shining, polished by an unseen hand.
I stood at the crest of the hill, breathing in the smell of wet earth, thyme, and sun-warmed vine.
Wild thyme ran ragged along the goat path and fence line.
The herd had crushed it during the storm, and the breeze carried its fragrance through the vines like a remembered blessing.
The rows stretched below me, scarred but still standing.
And I… I felt both mighty and small. Everything in me ached—from the hours bent over broken trellises to the endless tallying of coins that never stretched far enough.
The vineyard needed more hands than I had.
The jars needed mending. There were taxes. Always taxes.
And Abba…
His strength slipped through his fingers like sand.
Some mornings he rose early and tried to help, only to fade before the sun had fully crested the hills.
He called it sickness. Others called it laziness.
I didn’t know what to call it. Only that it always seemed to take him from the work at the very moment I needed him most.
A part of me hated myself for thinking it, but another part whispered it anyway: I shouldn’t have to carry all of this alone.
I pushed the thought down like a weed, but it kept growing back.
I lifted my face toward the sky.
“Yahweh,” I whispered, “make me strong. Provide for us. Guide me. Even when I follow the Law, even when I do all I can… every time things are well, another storm comes. Another test. Another burden I don’t know how to carry.”
My throat tightened. “The vines strain. The jars crack. The coin runs thin. And Abba…”
I exhaled hard. “I know he tries. But trying does not lift the weight from my shoulders.”
The wind brushed through the rows, warm and slow as it moved between the leaves.
“I surrender to You, El Hanne’eman, Faithful God. Keep me where I cannot keep myself. Carry what keeps growing heavier.”
The words trembled in the open air, like the vines after a storm—fragile, but still rooted.
I pressed my palms into the soil, grounding myself in the only certainty I had: the land, my work, and the God who gave both.
That evening, we ate by lamplight. Lentils and bread, simple and warm, the kind of meal that filled the stomach even when it could not quiet the mind.
Lavi sat cross-legged on the floor, tearing his bread into pieces, carefully inspecting each. He dipped it once, frowned, then dipped it again.
“It tastes better when you wait,” he announced solemnly.
I snorted before I could stop myself.
Abba smiled faintly at that, the lines at his eyes easing. “Everything does,” he said.
Lavi brightened. “Then I will wait always.”
“You will not always want to,” I said, reaching out to ruffle his curls.
He grinned, unbothered.
For a few moments, we ate in silence—no ledgers, no storms, no taxes. Just the scrape of bread, the flicker of oil light, the shared stillness of the same small room.
It was not rest. But it was something close.