The Ancient Witnesses

48 • The Ancient Witnesses: A Journey to Discover Our Sacred Roots

“I’m reading one of your books!” I said, eager to talk to him. “What are books?” he replied to no one in particular. I could not think of what to say to that. I stared at the open book with its exotic handwriting. Then, I answered, “It’s where the words are!” He looked at me in a way I’ll never forget: it was the same look, I believe, that Jesus gave the rich young ruler in Mark’s Gospel, where it says, “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” 10 In any case, Ephrem touched his finger to his forehead and then patted his chest and said, “The words are in here, brother, or they are nowhere at all.” I smiled; he was right, of course. Then I remembered that ancient culture was oral as opposed to written or literate. “Besides,” he continued, “which of these books can sing?” Sing? I thought to myself, who expects a book to sing? Then it hit me: the words in the book I had been looking at—Ephrem’s own book—were arranged in strophes like poetry, they were songs, hymns. “Books can’t sing,” I agreed, “but they can teach you what to sing, because they’re hymns, your hymns!” “The Midrasha ?” he asked, furrowing his brow. “I don’t know,” I replied, “what does that mean?” Midrasha , Ephrem explained, were special songs composed in order to teach. Then he told me about his church school in Nisibis (ancient Turkey), his home city, where the teachers would sing their lessons to their

10 Mark 10:21 NIV.