Moses Of Crete

It always starts with me floating through some ethereal fog. My feet are drifting off the ground. I look down but I have no idea how far up I am. I can barely see my hand in front of my face. A purple and navy mist circles around me. For the longest time I am frozen. Then I slowly start to pitch forward. I start to spin and tumble, directionless through the haze. It is familiar, although with this awareness I start to feel terror. My body is heavy and I am somersaulting in all directions. My heart is racing; my form feels so tired. I am desperate for air. As I am churning around, I cannot tell up from down. The landscape, through flashes of lightning is slowly being revealed to me. There is a sound scratching through me. I hear a crow cawing. The anger in its voice echoes through my head. I can never see it. It brings a rage, an unquenchable anger; I want to grab the bird with my hands and rip it apart. This feeling grows inside of me. An intense pain blooms at the top of my chest, spreading downwards and inwards. Then an acute sense of loneliness and isolation washes over me.

Without fail, I then find myself jumping out of bed, scared, shaken but alive and awake. Father says my dream is a gift from Shekhinah. It is the creator's way of waking me up before the sun rises so I can be at the bakery to open it in time.

448AD The Port of Chania on the Greek island of Crete.

I am rushing along the streets down to the harbour. It is I would guess three hours before the sun will break. Everyone is asleep, apart from the bakers and the fishermen out on their boats. I bang on the door and Nikolas opens it for me.

“Kalimera, Jakob.”

“Kalimera Nik.”

“We have a busy one, the cupboards are bare. They must have been mobbed yesterday.”

My father owns one of the most successful bakeries in the harbour. But a lot of our reputation relies on the morning’s trade. I have been in charge of the mornings for two years. Nikolas sleeps on site and I am glad he has already lit the outside ovens. In just over an hour the first fishermen are going to be knocking on the door. The ones going out and the ones coming back in. I take a look at the stores. We have half a tray of baklava and a tray of lauzinaq. Mother has clearly been baking challa and babka for the temple again, and not resupplying the shop. The next hour is going to be hell.

Within fifteen minutes the first sets of loafs are being slung into the ovens. We are having to do the jobs of four. We have a filo batch ready to go. No time to prep it. At that moment my sister’s son, Ibrahim arrives. I clip him around the ear.

“You are late, get on the ovens”, I say.

He is only twelve and I watch him curse me under his breath as he puts his apron on.

One of two reasons, why we are the best bakery is how good our filo pastry is. The only person better than me in Chania at making filo is my mother. It is an art; a form of meditation, an act of prayer. Mother says, only the discipline and heart of a true Jewish Baker can achieve perfection here. It is an offering.

I take a disc of filo pastry the size of a plate. Nikolas is producing stacks and stacks of these piled on top of a bench to my side.

I dust some flour on this first piece of pastry and begin picking up the dough with one hand while laying the pastry onto my other forearm. I manoeuvre the pastry rapidly from right to left in a circular motion. The smell of flour fills the room.

This process stretches the dough out. I continue to do this for a few minutes. It’s an exercise that requires good upper body strength. I slowly but surely manipulate the dough into the size of a large bed sheet. I turn to the biggest table you have ever seen. It is covered with high grade cheese cloth. Quickly flinging the pastry onto the table. I stretch it out even more by pulling on it, bit by bit, using only the tips of my fingers until it’s as thin as a grasshopper’s wings, doubling it again in size.

I start to slice the pastry into large sheets. Ibrahim brings melted butter and vegetable oil from the ovens. Nikolas plaits and folds the filo, filling them with wild greens from the mountains and creamy myzithra, a local cheese. He is making kasseropita, a cheese pie which is a firm favourite with the fisherman.

We will be ready to open; the chaos of the first hour is now moving into the mania of the second.

The other reason we are the best bakery in Chania is our baklava; a rich, sweet dessert pastry. Ibrahim prepares the large copper pans and chops the walnuts and pistachios. Nikolas assembles and I stay making my meditations in filo. We are like a Spartan drill unit; unstoppable and intimidatingly efficient.

Layers upon layers of filo dough are separated with melted butter and vegetable oil, and laid in the pan. A layer of chopped nuts then more layers of filo. Here we add an extra layer of almond, honey and cinnamon with just a pinch of cardamom. Finishing with three more layers of filo. Nikolas then cuts the creation into perfect lozenge shapes. Everyone thinks that extra layer is our secret.

Our secret is our syrup.

After baking, a syrup made of honey, rosewater and our secret orange flower water is poured over the cooked baklava and allowed to soak in. It is extraordinary.

The bakery is now full of staff. The last three hours have just disappeared and I have not even noticed the doors open, or the customers enter or the team assemble. I look into our syrup barrel, it is empty. The day is going to be long and it is now time to go to the harbour for resupply. I leave the bakery in the capable hands of my sister; parting on a cart with Nikolas, shopping list in hand.

I love my city. I love how busy the harbour is during that first hour of sunlight. Everybody is racing. They all want to be the first; to see, to buy, to tell their stories. The city, so asleep four hours ago, is now awake and raring to go.

Chania has grown into an important city-state. We sit under the umbrella of the Byzantine empire but they leave us to our own devices. Out of all the city states in the Mediterranean we are the most cosmopolitan. There is a wide mix of faiths here and very little persecution. There are at least four different types of Jews. There have been attempts to remove us from other areas; take our property if we refuse to convert to Christianity, but not here, never here.

In the rest of the area, the Roman Empire is on the ropes. They still have our homeland, a homeland no one in the family has seen for three generations. Ten years ago, the Romans lost Carthage to the Visi-goths. There is an excitement and hope in the diaspora, that important days are coming for all of us.

I guide the cart away from the docks and I can feel the tension in Nikolas.

“Please Jakob, let’s not do this again.”

“I just want to hear him speak.”

“Your father, will not be pleased.”

“Well don’t tell him then.”

We slip out of the city and find him in the shade on a slope by the olive groves. The new Moses has a large crowd. There are a lot of faces here from the Jewish diaspora. He is speaking Yevanic; Judaeo-Greek. It is a relief as yesterday he addressed the crowd in Hebrew. My Hebrew is poor and Nikolas has none.

“I have returned as predicted in the Talmud. I am here to save our people again. I have come back from the hidden world to this corrupted world. I have returned to save you from your materialistic sins. I will part the sea, as I did before, and guide you back to the land of promise.”

He never said he was the messiah but vowed the messiah would be waiting for us when we returned. His speech was long and beautiful. He wanted us to follow him on a new exodus. If we would follow him and observe mitveh, he would show us a miracle to reward our faith. All he asked in return was for us to cast off the material possessions of this world and join him in returning to the old world across the seas, to be the first men in the new nation. Nestor in the Iliad, defines a good leader as one who is a good speaker of words and doer of deeds, in that order. If we had faith in his words, he promised to show us these actions.

The crowd cheered in unison. I was getting ready to return with Nikolas to market. When a man approached me.

“Are you Jakob, the baker?”

“I am.”

“Moses Reborn wants to speak to you”

“About what?”

“He says he understands what your dream means.”

When we return to the bakery it is late. Father runs the bakery in the afternoon. As I enter, my mother smiles at me and strokes my cheek and leaves. There is a sadness to her touch. I put it out of my mind. The braziers of water out the back have been prepared by Ibrahim and he is nowhere to be seen. Father will not look at me. There is a storm coming. I unload the rose petals and orange flowers with Nikolas and start boiling them to make the components for the syrup. I tell Nikolas to leave, preparing the space for the incoming thunder I can see on the horizon.

Two hours later, father closes the shop. It has been months since I was this late in the bakery. He comes into the courtyard where I am finishing the syrup.

“Where were you today?” he asks

There is no point lying; he knows.

“I went to hear the new prophet speak,” I reply.

“He is no prophet.”

“Father…”

“He is a Sethian; leader of a gnostic cult. He is a heretic.”

“I cannot agree.”

“Your responsibility is here with the family. Here with the bakery.”

“No one works harder here than me.”

“This is yours, my legacy is yours.”

“I don’t want it.”

The words shock him to the core. He is speechless.

“I don’t know what I want,” I counter.

“This evil spirit is taking the Jews from the diaspora and leading them away. Is that what you want? To leave this. To leave everything.”

There is a long silence.

“Yes,” I reply.

He strikes me. I barely flinch. He has split my lip and I taste the copper in the blood. He is an old man, I am not. I turn my face and offer him my other cheek. It is not charity but a blatant provocation. His eyes flare with fire. His anger flushes his face.

“I disown you, demon, get out. Get out.”

I remove my apron and leave.

That night I joined the exodus. When the day was right, Moses was going to part the sea and walk us back to Palestine. There we were going to drive out the Romans and reclaim our land. There were about seventy of us at this stage and first we were going to walk to Lake Kournas and be ritually cleansed and born anew as in the tradition of mitveh.

The majority of the group were young men, the thinking between us was we were going to be soldiers in a new war. When we arrived at Lake Kournas, there were another hundred people waiting for us. Here there were families, old people, a mix of everyone. Some of the young men from Chania whispered among themselves, these new additions contradicted their thinking.

As we started the ritual, a militia, sent by the diaspora in Chania, arrived. They had been instructed to reclaim their sons and kill the heretic. We quickly gathered what we could to protect Moses. We gathered in a tight ring around him as the militia dismounted their horses. Moses told us to put down our stones and walked forward to meet his enemies.

He stood in front of them and the militia unsheathed their swords, ready to strike him down. Then there was a distant rumbling. The birds in the trees, black crows, took flight and headed for the horizon. A single crow lands in between Moses and the militia. Unfazed and not frightened, the bird, glowers at the thugs with a stare of defiance. The men of the militia startled, now look unsure of themselves. The sound increased. Then it started.

The earth shook with rage and anger as he faced them. Trees uprooted. Stones tumbled down the hillside, then from the earth there was a deafening roar. The militia fell to the ground quaking in fear. The defiant crow takes flight.

Then the miraculous happened; the lake drained away.

The sound drifted away and silence descended upon the scene.

Everybody fell to their knees in front of the prophet. Even the militia knelt and prayed. It was true. Then the calls and screams of worship erupted from everyone. When the day came, he would indeed part the sea and take us home. The deed he promised he had completed. After that day, many flocked to join the exodus.

The next few months, we circled Crete picking up followers. Nikolas even joined us. We were back to being bakers, cooking on open fires to feed the growing numbers. People closed up businesses and houses. Tossed away their keys and left all their worldly belongings behind. Word of the miracle of the Reborn Moses spread and our numbers by the time we reached Zakros on the eastern shore had swelled to over two thousand.

Camping on the slopes that night, word went round, tomorrow was the day. There was an excitement in the crowd. Late into the night you could hear us singing. I do not think anyone slept. The community and love, that night was overwhelming. Tomorrow was going to be everything. Moses would part the sea and we would soon begin the long journey home.

The next morning, we gathered high up on the cliffs of Epano Zakros. Moses stood before us with his long staff held aloft and pointed out towards our homeland.

“Our true home is here, over the water. No one, however material he might be in this life, can avoid leading a double existence in reality. One life is lived in the visible universe, the other plays out in the invisible. Here you will be tested. Your faith is what will bring you home. The devil will deceive you and make you doubt yourself. If you believe in what I have taught you, trust what I have shown you, the first step will bring you into glory. Now walk off this cliff and embrace your destinies.”

There was a murmur among the crowd. Then a women ran to the edge of the cliff and flung herself off. Followed by another and another. Then there were tens of people leaping to their glory. I was standing next to Nikolas.

“Something’s wrong. Listen.” I said.

We could hear groaning coming from over the edge of the precipice. We both turned and fought against the flow of people running towards the edge. We forced our way to the back. There were others there who had changed their mind. The militia from the lake were driving them back with spear and sword. An old woman is struck down by the rod of a spear. They were forcing everyone towards the sea. As we are pushed back I can feel myself trampling on bodies underfoot. I look for my saviour to call out to him to save us. I cannot see him anywhere. On a Cyprus tree behind everyone I see a single black crow. It looks at me then opens its beak and lets out a throaty caw. I feel lost.

When the time came I too tumbled over the brink. I could see hundreds of bodies dashed on the rocks and hundreds of people desperately fighting in the deep currents. I plunged head long into the water, heartbroken.

I was back there in the purple fog. Except this time, it was cold. I was tumbling head over heels. The anxiety was fighting to return. I stayed strong and refused to panic. I am going to embrace this inevitable destiny. I can feel my heavy body sinking. The pain in the chest is back; spreading. I open my mouth and inhale. My lungs are burning. I clear my mind and as I descend into the darkness I understand that here; there is an ascent of my soul to true knowledge.

My struggling soul is no longer afraid. I see a small spark of light in the darkness and as the sensation of my body fades and my vision gets cloudy; it grows. That small speck of light starts to stretch around me. I am embraced by it.

I feel love. I feel warmth.

I am saved.

***

Historical Notes

This is a true story.

Moses of Crete was a self-proclaimed Messiah and prophet in 447 - 448 A.D.

Crete in 448 A.D. suffered a powerful earthquake.

The Roman Empire was collapsing and could no longer control its outer regions. In accordance with one interpretation of the Talmud, the Messiah was expected in 440 or 471. Great hope in the arrival of this messiah claimant appeared about this time in Crete.

He called himself Moses, and promised to lead the people, like the ancient Moses, dry-shod through the sea back to Palestine. His followers, convinced of his claim, left all their possessions and waited obediently for his instructions. They followed Moses to a promontory overlooking the sea and at his command cast themselves off - where many drowned or were destroyed on the rocks below. Very few, were saved by fishermen who out of curiosity brought their boats to witness this event.

Then, Moses of Crete, mysteriously disappeared. Some say he was a madman and drowned with his followers among the rocks. Some say he was a conman and a narcissist, taking advantage of the hopes of people. Others say, he was a demon brought to wreck evil on the world.

Thank you for reading my story.

I publish my stuff independently for no other reason that I would rather these strange ideas that rattle around my head from time to time have a place to go.

My reach is decided by you so if you enjoyed this and think it could reach a little further I would love for you to share it.

If not that is also cool.

I have more strange musings here, Enjoy.

Have an awesome day.