“Goren. In Hebrew threshing floor is goren.”
“Goren! Rabbi Goren!”
“In Hebrew his name means threshing floor. And the threshing floor is the Temple Mount.”
“‘Rabbi Threshing Floor’! So the man who returns to the threshing floor is named Threshing Floor!”
“In the Jubilee the original state of the land is reaffirmed. So Goren’s very name manifested the original state of the land and reaffirmed its ancestral connection to the Jewish people. The Temple Mount was purchased by King David when it was a goren, a threshing floor. And it was the man named Threshing Floor whose feet literally stood on the threshing floor, the Temple Mount, to sound the shofar on the day of the threshing floor’s redemption.”
The Oracle paused to let me take it all in. He wasn’t finished.
“Do you know when Rabbi Goren was born?”
“I have no idea.”
“He was born in 1917.”
“The year of Jubilee!”
“Yes. He was born in the year of the Balfour Declaration, the liberation of Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire, the year of return and restoration. Each Jubilee is joined to the next. So Goren was born in the one Jubilee to usher in the other. And when he ushered in the fiftieth year, he himself was fifty years old. It was the Jubilee of his own life. It wasn’t only the shofar that was the sign. It was the man himself. He was its embodiment. He was the Jubilean man. So the Jubilean man sounded the Jubilean shofar in the Jubilean year in the Jubilean place at the Jubilean moment . . . and as he sounded it, the ancestral possession passed back into the hands of those to whom it belonged.”
“Who could have put all that together?”
“Only One,” said the Oracle, “only One.”
“There would be one more mystery to be revealed behind the fourth door and before the fifth could be opened. And that mystery would begin where another had left off . . . the mystery of a desert mountain. But the revelation would be taken to another level.”
“To another level?”
“To another level of amazing . . . ”
“And what was the mystery?”
“The Masada Algorithm.”
Chapter 42
THE MASADA ALGORITHM
WHEN I RETURNED to the garden, I found the Oracle sitting in the same place as in the beginning, under the acacia tree. I joined him there.”
“This is the last of the mysteries concerning the fourth door,” he said. “Since it begins where another leaves off, we must first revisit the other mystery. Tell me, what is Masada to ancient Israel?”
“Masada was Israel’s last stand, where its last soldiers perished, where everything ended. Masada was the nation’s grave.”
“And what does that have to do with the Jubilean mysteries?”
“The Jubilee is about restoring what was lost and returning to the place you left. And so the people of Israel had to return there; the people resurrected from death had to return to their ancient grave. And so they did. And when they did, they found a word waiting two thousand years to be uncovered—the prophecy of their resurrection. They opened up their grave and found a prophecy that said, ‘I will open your graves.’” 1
“And what was it that fell before the fall of Masada?”
“Jerusalem.”
“And so if the Jubilee reverses that which was lost, then what happens if everything is reversed?”
“If the loss of Jerusalem led to the loss of Masada, then in the reversal the return to Masada will lead to the return to Jerusalem. And if in the fall of Jerusalem Jewish soldiers left the gates of the city, then in the reversal Jewish soldiers will again enter its gates. And so if Israel returned to Masada, it would also return to Jerusalem. It would all come to pass in the Six-Day War.”
“In your vision” said the Oracle, “you came into an antiquities store and were shown a sundial.”
“Yes, why?”
“Because the mystery would now be one of timing. On the sundial were the engravings of two mountains. The two mountains were Jerusalem and Masada. The shadow moved across the sundial from one mountain to the other and then back again. The mystery concerns the timing between the two events. The fall of Jerusalem and the fall of Masada took place in the same decade. So in the restoration . . . ”
“The return to Masada and the return to Jerusalem would take place . . . in the same decade.”
“Yes. And so the return to Masada and the return to Jerusalem would happen in the same decade—the 1960s.”
“When exactly did Masada fall?”
“Masada was originally assumed to have fallen in AD 73. But that was before the discovery of Latin inscriptions that dated the reign of Flavius Silva, the Roman governor of Judea who laid siege to Masada. The inscriptions ruled out the year 73 as too early. Thus the fall of Masada was determined to have taken place in the spring of AD 74. So how much time passed between the fall of Jerusalem and that of Masada?”
“From AD 70 to AD 74, about four years.”
“What happens then,” said the Oracle, “if we now apply the mystery? What happens if we take the fall of Jerusalem and Masada and reverse it? Could it foretell the redemption of those events in modern times? Could it reveal the timing between the return of the Jewish people to Masada and their return to Jerusalem?”
“We would have to know the year that Israel returned to Masada,” I said, “and then add to it the same period of time between the loss of Jerusalem and the loss of Masada. So when did Israel return to Masada?”
“Israel returned to Masada in 1963. 2 So if we add the four years, where does it bring us?”
“To 1967! It brings us to the year of Israel’s return to Jerusalem!”
“So the Jewish people lose Jerusalem in AD 70, and four years later, in AD 74, they lose Masada. In 1963 they return to Masada . . . ”
“And four years later they return to Jerusalem.”
“But let’s now go deeper,” said the Oracle, “to the Masada algorithm.”
“The what?”
“The algorithm of Masada,” he replied. “When exactly was it that Jerusalem was lost and the exile began? According to the ancient account, the Temple was set on fire on the tenth day of the Hebrew month of Av. It would have been a Sunday. The following morning began the first day that the sun rose on a Jerusalem with no Temple . . . the first day that Jerusalem was no longer in Jewish hands, the first of the countless days of Israel’s exile from its Holy City, and the first day the Jewish people were bereft not only of their Holy City but their holy house, the Temple.”
“When did it happen,” I asked, “on the Western calendar?”
“The Hebrew date places it forty-nine days before the Feast of Trumpets. The Feast of Trumpets takes place on the new moon that begins the Hebrew month of Tishri. In the year AD 70 the new moon of Tishri took place on September 24 on the Julian calendar. Forty-nine days back takes us to August 6, the first day of the exile.”
“And when exactly did Masada fall?”
“According to the ancient accounts, the defenders of Masada died by their own hand on Passover, the fifteenth day of Nisan.”
“And when did it take place on the Western calendar?”
“In AD 74 it fell on March 31.”
“Then we have the two dates.”
“So what happens if we take the exact number of days between the two ancient dates and apply the mystery of reversal?”
“What happens?”
“Between the loss of Jerusalem and the fall of Masada, the first day of exile and the last day of the resistance, is a time span of 1,333 days.”
“So then to reverse it, we would have to find the day that Israel returned to Masada and count 1,333 days forward. But we would have to know the exact date. Do we know it?”
“We do,” said the Oracle. “It was the day that Yigael Yadin, Israel’s archaeologist general, inaugurated the excavation of the desert fortress. It all began on the morning of October 13, 1963. So we must now take the time period bet
ween the fall of Jerusalem and the fall of Masada, the 1,333 days, and add it to the day Israel returned to Masada, and see where it brings us.”
“October 13, 1963, plus 1,333 days . . . brings us to what?”
“June 7, 1967.”
“June 7, 1967!”
“The exact date of Israel’s return to Jerusalem. So it was 1,333 days from the loss of Jerusalem to the loss of Masada . . . and 1,333 days from the return to Masada to the return of Jerusalem.”
“Down to the exact day! So the Six-Day War had to happen exactly when it did,” I said. “And the Arab world had to threaten Israel exactly when it did. And the waiting period had to go on for the exact number of days it went on. And the Soviet Union had to send a false report to Egypt on the exact day they sent it.”
“Not only that superpower,” said the Oracle, “but the other one as well. It was America that restrained Israel from acting until finally giving the go-ahead just days before the war. Without that restraint and that go-ahead, the restoration of Jerusalem would not have taken place on that exact day.”
“And the soldiers,” I said, “they had to enter the Lion’s Gate on that exact day. They had to return to Jerusalem on the 1,333rd day.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle, “and nobody planned it. And look at the world in which it happened. It all took place in a time of social upheaval, a war in Southeast Asia, a countercultural revolution, a race to the moon, and a ‘summer of love.’ It was in the midst of all these things the ancient mystery was moving . . . as it was the year of Jubilee. And it all came about through the intrigues of an atheistic superpower, the fury of the Arab world, the mobilization of armies, a song that touched a sacred longing, and a war that shook the world and brought an ancient people back to their lost possession. The ancient mystery was working, bringing every event together to coalesce into the appointed purposes . . . to the exact day.”
“That was the last of the mysteries of the fourth door and the last time I would see the Oracle in the garden.”
“And what was waiting for you behind the fifth door?”
“Three mountaintops, the ancient mystery behind a more recent American president, a woman of bronze, the return of an ancient king, the Jubilee of Capitol Hill, a golden man, a mystery of seventy years, a pool of lights . . . and the magi.”
THE FIFTH DOOR
Chapter 43
THE FIFTH DOOR
I WAS STANDING in front of the fifth door with the Oracle to my left. He handed me a key. I placed it in the lock, opened the door, and walked through. I was again standing on top of the desert mountain.”
“The same mountain?”
“Yes, and with the same man in red, Moses, and at his side a ram. Around its neck was a chain, on which hung a white stone, on which was the same symbol as on the fifth door. It was the strangest of all the rams I had seen up to that point. Its appearance was of white marble. Its legs and horns had the appearance of grooved columns; its face, the appearance of chiseled stone; and its hair, the sculptured adornments you’d find on the top of an ancient pillar. And yet it was its torso that was most striking. It resembled a marble cylinder covered with rows of wedge-shaped symbols or letters. And it was in motion, the symbols rolling slowly upward. But it wasn’t the cylinder that was moving but the symbols, the letters themselves, rotating along the cylinder as if they were shadows. But they weren’t shadows; they were wedge-shaped engravings in motion. The ram made its way down the mountain and into the desert. I followed. It turned its gaze to the left. I turned as well.”
THE WOMAN OF THE DOME
“I saw a statue, a bronze woman almost twenty feet high, on top of a domed building. She had a sword in one hand and a rolled document in the other. She began to move. She descended the dome and walked away from the building. The next thing I knew, I was overlooking the walled city of Jerusalem. It was the very moment of Israel’s return in the Six-Day War. But everything was frozen, the soldiers, the rabbi at the wall, everything, as if it had all become a three-dimensional photograph. Between my vantage point and the city were dome-covered buildings. And then I saw her, the bronze woman. She was walking on top of the domes until she arrived at the largest one and made her way to its summit. She unrolled the document and began to read aloud its words. When she finished reading, everything unfroze; the scene resumed its motion. But the woman was now frozen. She was now of the same color and substance of the dome on which she stood . . . motionless as in the beginning but now overlooking Jerusalem.”
THE THREE MOUNTAINS
“I turned again and saw three mountains over which the sun was rising. On each mountain was a robed and hooded figure ascending to its summit. The first was clothed in a robe of red; the second, in a robe of blue; and the third, of blackened gold. The figure in red removed his robe to reveal a mustached man in a military uniform of greenish brown, with loose baggy trousers and an officer’s cap. He lifted a ram’s horn to his mouth and sounded it in the direction of the other two mountains. Then the figure in blue removed his robe. Underneath was a man dressed in olive green army fatigues, with a netted green helmet and an eye patch. He too set a ram’s horn to his mouth and sounded it in the direction of the third mountain. The third figure then removed the robe of blackened gold. Underneath was a woman. It was the bronze woman I had just seen in the previous vision. She too set a ram’s horn to her mouth and sounded it facing away from the other two mountains. And then the sun went down on the three mountains.”
THE LAIR
“I turned again and saw a man scaling the side of a mountain. He was clothed as a warrior with weapons strapped to his back. And yet on his head was a crown . . . a warrior-king. The sky was filled with dark, ominous clouds. The man made his way to an opening in a rock, through which he entered. It led him into a vast chamber illuminated by torchlight and filled with black dragons. They were all assembled in an enormous circle. Each dragon faced outward, away from the circle’s center. And each held its wings outstretched and moved to the left so that the circle was slowly revolving. Seated on the ground in the center of the circle was a woman clothed in white garments with blue, purple, and scarlet embroidery. On her head was a white crown adorned with jewels of assorted colors. Around her neck was a metal band held in place by a series of chains stretching outward in every direction and downward to the rock floor, to which they were secured, keeping her from moving. She was the dragon’s captive. The warrior reached toward his back to retrieve what I thought would be a weapon—but was, instead, a ram’s horn. He set it to his mouth and sounded it into the lair. At the sound of the horn the chains broke off the woman’s neck. The dragons went into an uproar, each one taking flight inside the lair and merging with the others to become a dark, frenzied swarm.”
THE GOLDEN KING
“I turned again and saw what appeared to be a small stone house set on top of a pyramid-like pedestal of stone blocks. I was transported inside the house to a chamber lit up by the light of torches set in its walls. There before me was a king seated on a throne. The king, the throne, and nearly everything else in that chamber was of pure glistening gold. The golden king rose from his throne, walked over to a golden chest, and removed a cylinder, which was also of pure gold. He then walked outside, where on top of the stone pedestal was a large eagle, as in the vision of the Oval Office. The moment the king stepped out of the stone house, his appearance transformed. It was now that of a man in a dark-blue business suit, a red tie, and blondish hair. He placed the golden cylinder in the talons of the eagle, which then took off into the sky and disappeared. The man then returned to the stone house, where his appearance changed back to that of the golden king, sat down on the golden throne, and became motionless. It was then that I noticed the words engraved beneath his feet: ‘I too am he.’”
THE BOY ON THE HILL
“In the next vision I saw the same two angels from the vision of the threshing floor. The one now led the other through a valley and a meadow and into an enclosed garden. Ins
ide the garden was a little boy sitting on the ground and playing with little stone blocks, building houses. The angels sat down by the boy, one on each side. One of the angels handed him a ram’s horn. But the boy showed little interest. The scene now changed. The boy was older and racing with other boys up to the top of a hill. Reaching its summit before the rest, he noticed a small platform of white stone. He stood on it. At that moment, the angel appeared and handed him the ram’s horn. ‘It is time,’ he said to the boy. ‘It was for this moment that you were born.’ ‘How could that be,’ asked the boy, ‘if I had no idea?’ ‘Does the trumpet need to know it was appointed,’ said the angel, ‘in order to sound? It is not the vessel, but He who sounds it.’ The boy then lifted the horn to his mouth and sounded it. And on a distant hill an angel lifted a horn of radiant gold and did likewise.”
THE POOL OF LIGHTS
“In the next vision I was standing on a white marble terrace outside of some sort of palace. It was early evening. Around me were at least forty men in white robes and white headpieces and of Middle Eastern features. Everyone was gathered around a large oval pool of water encased in a wall of a stones. In their midst was a man I presumed to be their leader or teacher. His appearance was likewise Middle Eastern but different from the rest. His clothing was different as well, of blue, purple, and scarlet. In his hand was a rod, at the end of which was a fire. As he moved the rod over the surface of the pool, a line of yellow light would appear in the deep blue of the water, remain for a time, then fade away. I watched as he drew two crowns, two lions, and two eyes. ‘What is the meaning of the images?’ asked one of the white-robed men. ‘The crowns,’ said the man with the rod, ‘stand for kings; the lions, for cities; and the eyes, for the appointed times.’”
THE CYLINDER
“At the start of the final vision it took me a few moments before I could tell what I was seeing. It was a cylinder of stone or clay and covered with wedge-shaped letters.”
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