A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz [220]
Once I plucked up my courage and asked Aunt Aili—even though I knew what the answer would be: "Who was Jesus?" Her lips quivered slightly as she replied hesitantly that he was still alive, and that he loved us all, particularly those who mocked or despised him, and if I filled my heart with love, he would come and dwell within my heart and bring me suffering but also great happiness, and the happiness would shine forth out of the suffering.
These words seemed so strange and full of contradictions that I felt a need to ask Father too. He took me by the hand and led me to the mattress in the kitchen, which was Uncle Joseph's refuge, and asked the famous author of Jesus of Nazareth to explain to me who and what Jesus was.
Uncle Joseph was lying on his mattress, looking exhausted, gloomy, and pale, his back resting on the blackened wall and his glasses raised onto his forehead. His answer was very different from Aunt Aili's: Jesus of Nazareth was, in his view, "one of the greatest Jews of all time, a wonderful moralist who loathed the uncircumcised of heart and fought to restore to Judaism its original simplicity and wrest it from the power of hair-splitting rabbis."
I did not know who the uncircumcised of heart or the hair-splitting rabbis were. Nor did I know how to reconcile Uncle Joseph's Jesus, who loathed and fought to wrest, with Aunt Aili's Jesus who neither loathed nor fought nor wrested but did the exact opposite, he especially loved sinners and those who despised him.
In an old folder I came across a letter that Aunt Rauha wrote to me from Helsinki in 1979, on behalf of both of them. She wrote in Hebrew, and among other things she said:
...We too were pleased that you won the Euro-Viseo Song Contest. And how about the song?
The faithful here were very glad that they from Israel sang: Hallelujah! There is no more fitting song ... I was able also to see the film Shoah, which caused tears and pains of conscience from the countries that persecuted to such an extent, without any end, without any sense. The Christian countries must ask much pardon from the Jews. Your father said once that he cannot understand why the Lord allows such terrible things ... I always said to him that the Lord's secret is on high. Jesus suffers with the people of Israel in all its sufferings. The faithful also have to bear their share of the sufferings of Jesus that he let them suffer ... Nevertheless the atonement of Christ on the cross covers all the sins of the world, of all mankind. But this you can never understand with your brain ... There were Nazis who received pains of conscience and repented before their death. But their repentance did not make the Jews who died come back to life. We all need atonement and grace each day. Jesus says: Do not fear those who kill the body, because they are not able to kill the soul. This letter is from me and from Aunt Aili. I received a heavy blow to my back six weeks ago when I fell inside the bus, and Aunt Aili does not see so well.
With love,
Rauha Moisio
And once when I went to Helsinki, because one of my books had been translated into Finnish, the two of them suddenly turned up in the cafeteria of my hotel, both wearing dark shawls that covered their heads and shoulders, like a pair of old peasant women. Aunt Rauha was leaning on a stick and was gently holding Aunt Aili's hand, as she was now almost blind. Aunt Aili helped her to a corner table. They both demanded the right to kiss me and bless me. It was not easy to get them to allow me to order them each a cup of tea, "but nothing else please!"
Aunt Aili smiled slightly: it was not so much