The Nations Demanded Their Wages and God Handed Them a Sukkah

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The Scroll Against His Chest

At the end of days the Holy One took a Torah scroll and held it against His chest, the way a man holds the one possession he will not set down. Then He called out across the whole gathered world, "Whoever labored in Torah, let him come and collect his wages."

The nations came at once, and they came in a crush. They pushed and shouldered and shouted over one another, every kingdom certain the pay was already owed. The noise of them was the noise of a marketplace at closing, and the Holy One let it ring a moment before He spoke. "Do not crowd in like this," He said. "Let each nation come with its own scribes, one people at a time, and state its case."

Rome Counts Its Marketplaces

Rome stepped forward first, as Rome always did, sure of its standing. "With what did you occupy yourselves?" the Holy One asked.

"We built marketplaces without number," Rome said. "We raised bathhouses in every city. We heaped up silver and gold past counting. And all of it, every coin and column, we did so that Israel would be free to sit and labor in Torah."

The Holy One did not raise His voice. "Every stone of it you laid for yourselves," He answered. "You filled the marketplaces to seat harlots in them. You raised the bathhouses to pamper your own flesh. As for the silver and the gold, they were never yours to bring. Mine is the silver and Mine is the gold." Rome had no second sentence.

Persia Counts Its Bridges and Its Wars

Then Persia came, and Persia had built things too. "We conquered cities beyond number," it said. "We threw bridges across every river. We waged war after war. And all of it we did for Israel's sake."

"You took the cities to break men under forced labor," the Holy One said. "You raised the bridges to stand on them and collect the toll. And the wars were never yours. I am the one who is a man of war." He looked across the whole assembly of them and asked one question. "Is there a single one among you who can stand up and declare this?" And this was nothing but the Torah, the Torah that Moses set before Israel. Not one of them opened his mouth.

One Easy Commandment in the Heat

The nations found their voice all at once. "Did You ever offer it to us, and we refused?" they said. But He had carried it to every nation of the world. He had shone out from Seir upon them, and each in turn had handed it back. Now they changed their plea. "Master of the Universe, give it to us again, fresh, and this time we will keep it."

"I will not weigh you by the whole of it," He said. "I will give you one small commandment. Keep that one, and I will pay you as I pay Israel." He told them, "Go and make a sukkah." And every nation ran and cut branches and raised its booth, glad the price had come down so far.

Then the Holy One reached up and drew the sun out of its sheath. The heat came down without mercy on every roof of leaves. And the nations, who had built marketplaces and bridges and could not sit one afternoon in a hut of branches, kicked their booths apart and stormed out into the open, snarling, "Let us tear off their cords." The One who sits in heaven laughed. He mocked them as they went.

The Idols Vanish and the Account Falls to One

Outside their broken booths the nations rounded on the gods they had carried so far. "Come and bow with us before the Holy One," they said to the images in their arms, "for it was you who led us astray." And in that instant the idols passed away, every one of them, gone like breath off a cold morning. The nations who had served carved things stood shamed with nothing in their hands, and the ground opened them a road down to Gehinnom (the fiery place of punishment after death).

Israel remained, a third of the world, the children of the three fathers, the only people who could declare the thing the nations could not. And the thing itself had never been the mountain of works the empires tried to stack in their defense. Rabbi Simlai could count how small it had become. Six hundred and thirteen commandments were spoken to Moses at Sinai. David came and stood them on eleven. Isaiah came and stood them on six. Micah pressed them down to three, "to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." Amos pressed them to two, "Seek Me and live." And Habakkuk came and set the whole of it on one line, "The righteous shall live by his faithfulness."

That single line was the wage the nations had come to collect and could not, the one booth they would not sit inside, while Israel had carried it out of every fire the world lit beneath them.