People who have touched our lives: Benzi

Benzi:  Many of the people at this dig are young Jewish University students.  They are astonishing in their beauty, brilliance, and character.  We have been deeply impressed.  One of the young men on our team in Area E is called Benzi – short for a name that means "Son of Zion".   He has dark curly hair cut in a way that makes it curl up around his skull cap and form a halo around his beautiful, gentle face.  He reminds me of someone who could play the part of the beloved disciple John in a Biblical movie.  He and Daddy were assigned to be partners, and they worked together most of the week, enjoying wonderful talks while they moved loads and loads of dirt. On Friday morning, Itsak, our area supervisor, came in his quiet way and invited us to a "short break".  We all gathered around him, and he said he wanted to thank the students who were completing their assignment and would be leaving us, and to thank them, he said, we were going to have cake.  We sat down in the dirt, broke the cake into pieces, and ate together.  Benzi spoke up and said, "I had a dream."  Everyone wanted to know what he had dreamed and so he began, "I dreamed that Ole and I were digging in our square and we hit something that sounded like wood.  We worked and worked trying to dig it out.  We were so excited, we didn't even go to breakfast.  It took a long time to get it dug out, and when we finally did, it was a treasure chest!  Itsak told everyone to gather around while we opened it.  That took some doing, too, because the lock was…" he paused, looking for the right word in English, "Frozen!" "Rusty" Stuck!" everyone suggested, wanting him to get on with the story.  "Yes," he said.  "We finally got it open…."  Long pause.  "What was in it?" (Many voices.)  Benzi took a long breath, "It was empty." "Oh,h,h,h,h,h,h…" (Unison groan.)  "But", Benzi brightened.  "There was a note inside that said that the real treasure…."  (Another pause.)  "was the friendship we have found as we have worked together."  And everyone burst into applause.  This week we are missing Benzi  and the others who went home.