SAUL'S BOYHOOD IN TARSUS CHAPTER FIVE - Page 2

THE SINGLE-STORY, nondescript synagogue structure stood between two multi-storied apartment buildings. The noisy and crowded apartments housed the newly arrived Jewish immigrants to the city. Their families were temporarily housed there until they were capable of building their own dwellings. Since the days of Boethus, the Jewish religious presence in Tarsus had been purposely disguised in this out-of-the-way alley so as not to attract attention, and thereby, persecution.

When Saul reverently and carefully opened the large wooden door he found his father Benjamin in conference with several other rabbis. Soon he learned that the point of their discussion involved him.

"Son," Benjamin said, "we have decided to make application for you to attend rabbinical school."

For a moment Saul was too shocked to speak, then blurted out, "Jerusalem! Oh, yes!" He shouted for joy, dancing vigorously in a circle. He felt totally ignited by the possibility of going, almost as if it had already happened. To attend the highest school of his sect, to be challenged with the greatest interpreters of the scripture, law and oral tradition, what more could he desire? Of the two rabbinical schools, he did not have to ask which one his father had in mind--Hillel! He well knew the dogma of the Hillel school versus that of Shammai. Hillel taught that the oral tradition had been passed directly from Moses through holy men, and that it was to be held in higher esteem than the written law of Moses itself. "Letters are dead things. God's word cannot be contained in them. His word is alive when spoken by holy men of God," they said. The Shammai school despised the oral tradition, trusting only in the written text. Saul felt they were dull and lifeless, unable to do more than debate the placement of a jot or tittle. Furthermore, at the Hillel school he would be taught by the one respectfully called "Rabban" Gamaliel, grandson of the great Hillel himself. Truly, at the Hillel school, he might learn everything!

Benjamin beamed at his son. "We are all proud of you, son, but the school in Jerusalem must consider many things that are beyond our control when they make a selection. Still, we can't help but think that they will welcome a student such as yourself."

Benjamin and the teaching rabbis had been discussing for weeks the proper route for Saul's future. The boy had devoured every text and scroll available in the synagogue, at least twice. He recited his oral traditions flawlessly. Still, he spent evenings reading from the Greek and Roman archives at the university. Beside all that, he had managed to grasp the basics of the cilicium trade and had applied himself to the skills of weaving, tent and sail making. Tarsus did not seem to have enough to keep his mind and hands satisfied.

However, in their discussions, all the teaching rabbis had identified one trait about the boy that mystified them more than any other, and it had led them to consider Hillel. It came of an intensity, a sense of purpose and drive that they had seen in no one else. Finally they had distilled these qualities into the single word--zeal. The boy had a unique fervor about him that seemed to come from the hand of God. Only the grandson of Hillel himself could properly mold it, they thought. And so they determined to send application to the great Rabban Gamaliel, grandson of Hillel.

Benjamin continued, "Ben-Lemuel would have been very proud of you, Saul. I wish you could have known your Grandfather. There were things about him we never understood. He was a great man, always somehow beyond our reach, and some of his greatness has come into you. I wish you could have known him."