A vitzedek ben Shalom soon discovered that people were much more willing to hear his prophecies when he sang instead of shouting. He’d always had a good voice so he invested in some singing lessons. Then he bought a darbuka drum at an Arab shop near the Damascus Gate. Now he shared his prophecies in a warm melody accompanied by drumming and punctuated by shofar blasts. People would crowd around and the hat lying before him on the pavement filled up with coins and dollar bills.
“But I don’t do it for the money ” he told Miriam one evening as he placed 977 shekels before her on the kitchen table. “It’s not about the money. If they want to donate that’s fine. I say the words Hashem puts in my mouth. I sing whatever He tells me to sing.”
Her response was gentle but direct. “When will He tell you to stop?”
“That hasn’t been revealed ” he said.
And so it went. Everyone kept asking her why she stayed with him. He’d clearly gone crazy. Obviously a woman couldn’t stay married to a man who put on a long white robe tied with a rope and circled the city walls eyes aglow singing “Od yeishvu zekeinim u’zkeinot b’rechovot Yerushalayim.”
