Bar Mitzvah-- A Short-short story

Bar Mitzvah

It started in the north and south at the same time. Generals von Rundstedt and von Bock led the fourth and eighth divisions of the German army to capture Poland in the blitzkrieg that surprised all of Europe. None of the residents of Koszalin, Poland expected the German invasion by sea and air of northern Poland. Rumors spread through the town of a possible German invasion but Josef Solanski didn’t pay much attention to the news floating around Koszalin. His thirteenth birthday was coming up on September 7 and along with that his bar mitzvah.

The fire crackled next to Josef as he sat listening to his mother and grandmother discussed his bar mitzvah and ensuing celebration. He felt a funny feeling every time he thought of his bar mitzvah. He had been taught all his life about YHWH and each year his Jewish family faithfully kept all the traditions of the Jews, but he had started to wonder if all of that was true. Ekaterina always talked about Jesus and how he was the Messiah that his religion taught about.  If Ekaterina was right that Jesus could heal her so that she could walk better, then maybe he was worth believing in. Josef looked into fire next to him. Still how would he tell his parents of his shifting beliefs? Did he even want his bar mitzvah? These feelings had been welling inside him and Josef thought he would burst if he didn’t let them out soon.

“Ruth, the boy doesn’t need all that,” spoke his father.

“But Reuben it’s his bar mitzvah. We need to celebrate properly.”

Josef blurted out it out before he even thought. “I don’t want my bar mitzvah.”

Shock registered on all of the faces in the room. Before anyone had time to respond, Josef explained himself. “I think Jesus might really be the Messiah. Ekaterina keeps telling me all about the miracles he did. What she says makes sense.”

“Ekaterina told you this?” spoke his father with a stern and startled voice. “You shall see her no more and you will have your bar mitzvah. What she says is not true.”

With that said his father stood up and walked out of the room effectively ending the discussion. Josef got up and headed to bed without having to be told. Maybe that wasn’t the right time but he didn’t know of any good time really. He just wanted to know the truth and if Jesus would heal his beloved Ekaterina then he would pray. He would do anything for his best friend.

Morning dawned early but silence engulfed Koszalin. Josef walked quietly through the outskirts of the city, being careful to not pass the bank where his father worked. He didn’t want his father to know he was going to meet Ekaterina. She was supposed to meet him in the apple orchard west of town. Pushing a branch aside, Josef walked farther into the orchard. Silence caught him off guard. No birds chirped, no squirrels scampered on the ground. Slowing down his step even though he was late, Josef guardedly approached a clearing. The horrifying scene that greeted him left his stomach hurling. Ekaterina lay on the ground her legs lay twisted and broken. Blood enveloped her body and face and bruises covered her arms and body. Her lifeless eyes stared up at him.

Bitter tears sprang from Josef’s eyes as he knelt by her side. “Ekaterina?”

Silence greeted him. His best friend was dead. Who could have done this? Ekaterina didn’t deserve this cruelty. She was the sweetest girl and her love for Jesus glowed from her. Is this how God repaid her devotion and love?

Josef’s eye caught a red cloth tucked inside her hand in the pocket of her dress. He pulled it out. A square red patch with a German swastika showed on the cloth. The Germans had done this! His father had warned him to be careful because of the ever closer approach of German troops. At last they’d come and left something beautiful yet horrible in their wake. Hatred rose up in his heart for the German soldiers that had killed his best friend. Josef picked up the paper that she also had and read what it said. He realized it was a verse from her bible that she said she was going to show him.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

If this was love, Josef didn’t want it. All Ekaterina had told him about Jesus had made sense but now he didn’t know what to believe. How could there be a God when this happened? Grabbing the paper from Ekaterina, Josef tucked it in his pocket and dejectedly walked out of the orchard and away from Koszalin. Leaving all he loved behind. The bar mitzvah didn’t matter anymore. There was nothing to celebrate.

Bar Mitzvah is the original work of Mary Beth Weaver and hereby she claims the copyright for the work written above. ©

All scripture is taken from the New King James Version. Rom. 8.35-37.