An Unexpected Father
I was never meant to raise a child.
I was a man of scrolls and laws, of lineage and watchful silence. My life moved in measured steps — duty, prayer, and the rhythm of exile. I walked the streets of Susa with my head down, not in shame, but in survival. A Jew among many. Seen, tolerated, but never truly safe.
And then… she came into my life.
They brought her to me wrapped in linen, her face pale from tears, her fists clenched like she was still trying to hold on to the ones who birthed her. She had no words that day. Just eyes. Enormous, searching, devastated eyes.
Her name was Hadassah.
My cousin’s child — my blood. The fever had taken them both, mother and father, in the space of a week. The neighbors tried to console me when they placed her in my arms. “It’s only until she finds someone more suitable,” they said. “You’re a bachelor. A court man. How will you raise her?”
But when I looked into her face, I knew. There would be no one else. She was mine now.
I took her home to my small quarters near the outer courts. The floor was uneven. The walls were cracked. But I swept the dust clean, lit the lamp near the mat where she would sleep, and set aside my scrolls. For her.
She didn’t speak for the first three days. Not a word. Just stared at the wall, small shoulders rising and falling with quiet breaths. On the fourth night, she reached for my hand as I knelt to pray. And on the fifth, she whispered a name — “Abba?”
I answered without hesitation.
“Yes, Hadassah. I am here.”
The Language of Silence
She was the kind of child who listened more than she spoke. She watched everything — how I washed my hands, how I rolled up the Torah, how I paused between words when I prayed. I taught her to recite the Shema, and she clung to those words as if they were stitched into her soul:
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one…”
Sometimes I would wake in the night and hear her murmuring them in her sleep.
I called her myrtle blossom when I braided her hair — Hadassah. She didn’t know then that her name was more than poetic. In exile, the myrtle blooms quietly. Hidden. Fragrant. Steady. It does not demand attention. It simply remains.
She became that for me.
A symbol of what could grow even in foreign soil.
Roots in Exile
We lived modestly. I served at the king’s gate — an honorable position for an exiled Jew, but nothing extravagant. I translated documents, mediated disputes among the people, and kept my ears open. In exile, information was as valuable as silver.
I never told Hadassah everything I saw. The way officials mocked our customs when they thought we couldn’t hear. The way coins exchanged hands to silence justice. The way Persian nobles spoke of women like ornaments.
But I raised her to know the truth — about our God, our people, our past. She knew the stories of Abraham, of Joseph, of Moses, of Ruth. She learned not just to memorize them — but to see herself in them.
That was my hope for her. That she would carry her identity not as a burden, but as a calling.
The Myrtle Blooms
I thought my greatest act would be keeping her safe.
I had no idea… that the day would come when she would be the one who stood to save us all.
But for now, I tucked her in each night. And whispered the same words my uncle once whispered to me, long ago: “Even in exile, we are never unseen. He watches. He remembers. He delivers.”
And in the flicker of candlelight, Hadassah — my Hadassah — slept in peace. While the world outside continued its dance of politics, wine, and war, I held the quiet legacy of a people who were waiting… Waiting for a moment. Waiting for redemption. Waiting, perhaps, for her.
