THE AWAKENING OF THE DRAGON
“I turned and saw a hooded figure in a robe of dark crimson. He was walking through the ruins of an ancient city of marble pillars, arches, domes, temples, and statues. Jutting out from the top of a nearby hill was a line of spikelike objects. I didn’t realize it at first, but what I was seeing were the scales of a dragon, a colossal dragon of white stone. The dragon was partially submerged in the earth, lying still, dormant. The hooded figure ascended the hill, approached the dragon’s head, and spoke. ‘It is time for you to return as well.’ At that the dragon opened its stone eyes and began breathing, the white of its stone now turning dark crimson. It then roused itself from the earth and began walking through the ruins, breathing on them. Wherever it breathed, there came the sound of rumbling. The statues were now moving, stepping down off their pedestals and out of their temples, gods and goddesses and the ancient leaders who worshipped them . . . all following the dragon. Then it breathed on an ancient stadium, and I heard the sounds of cheering and screams. There was now a cacophony of sounds rising up from the ruins of the ancient city, drums, festivities, laughter . . . and those screams.”
THE STAINED-GLASS WOMAN
“I turned again and saw a donkey walking through the gate of a walled city, across a large plaza, and into an elaborately decorated cathedral. I took it to be St. Peter’s Basilica. It approached a stained-glass window, on which was the image of a woman seated on a throne, adorned with gold and arrayed in a purple cloak. She had light skin, auburn hair, and a regal gaze. The woman began to move, rising from her throne and stepping out of the window. She was still of stained-glass but now of three dimensions. She sat down on the donkey and was carried out of the cathedral and away from the plaza, then through villages, mountains, and a multitude of diverse landscapes. As she journeyed, her appearance began changing . . . from European to Middle Eastern and Jewish; her hair, from auburn to black; and her garments, from ornate to simple and ancient. And then the colored glass began breaking off until she was no longer an image but a person, beautiful, young, and full of awe. Finally she arrived at her destination, the gate of an ancient city, Jerusalem. She dismounted the donkey and approached the gate, where seven women in white were waiting for her. They clothed her in the radiant white robe of a bride and ushered her through the gate.”
THE HOMECOMING
“I was back in the harbor of the earlier vision where everyone was fleeing the land. But now they were returning, in ships, boats, and on foot, clothed in the garments of diverse lands and ages. Again I journeyed inland. Streams of people were converging from every direction to the same place—the mountain. It was then that I recognized a figure walking among the others in the streams of people. It was the stranger. Then I saw the man with the measuring line and the woman in the vineyard and the old man walking hand in hand with the little boy. Then I saw King David and Ben-Gurion, Herzl and Allenby, the prophet Amos, Rabbi Goren, Truman, the man in the black hooded robe, Cyrus, the magi, people from all different times and places . . . and visions . . . all now part of the procession converging on the mountain and ascending it. I didn’t go up with them but stayed behind so I could see it all from a distance. At the end of the multitudes was the white-haired man in a red robe with a staff . . . Moses. The mountain’s summit was now bathed in golden light. In the midst of the radiance, and partly obscured by it, was the looping structure I had seen earlier, a second colossal sandal but this one of pure radiant gold. The man in white was now again standing at my side. ‘And if the one returns,’ he said, ‘so shall they all.’”
“That was the last of the visions within the vision. I continued following the golden ram through the wilderness. Along the journey we came upon the fifth ram, the ram of white marble. He followed behind the golden ram. Then we came upon the fourth ram, then the third, the second, and the first. They all joined the procession. In the distance ahead was the same mountain as in the last vision, with streams of people still ascending it and Moses at the end. The rams approached and began ascending it as well. They were soon just behind Moses. He led them, as a shepherd would lead his sheep, up to the mountain’s summit. I watched as the procession came to its end, and all the ascenders entered into the golden radiance on the mountaintop. And the vision ended.”
Chapter 54
THE ORACLE’S TENT
IT WAS AN especially hot day. I decided to go to the oasis to cool myself in the waters of the pool. I was floating on my back with my eyes closed when I heard a noise. I looked up. And there he was.”
“The boy?”
“The boy . . . standing on the rock at the edge of the water, looking down at me with a smile. How he found me, I have no idea. So I got out of the water, changed my clothes, and followed him. I was taken again through scenery I had never seen before. Much of the sand in the desert was hard and crusted. But he now led me into a valley where the sand was soft and loose, what you would expect to find on a beach. It was in that valley that I first saw the tent.”
“The tent.”
“The Oracle’s tent. I had expected something much more ornate. From the outside there was nothing to distinguish it, just coarse black and brown cloth. Cautiously I parted the curtains of its entrance.”
“Welcome,” said the Oracle. “Come in.”
So I did. It was on the inside that it looked more like what one might expect of a desert chieftain’s tent, with carpets, pillows, and cushions all covered in Middle Eastern embroidery, along with household vessels of molded clay and beaten metal, oil lamps, ornamented chests, old books, and other miscellaneous items too numerous to mention. He offered me some tea and refreshments. And I told him the vision.
“So,” he said, “behind the sixth door you saw not only the sixth ram but all the others. The sixth door is unlike the doors before it. It concerns all of their mysteries, their origins and ends.”
“Their ends?”
“That to which they lead . . . and that which they bring about in the end.”
“The next time I saw the Oracle, he would reveal the secret behind all the Jubilean years I had been shown. He would open up their matrix.”
Chapter 55
THE MATRIX OF YEARS
I RETURNED TO the Oracle’s tent. It was mid-afternoon. He was sitting in the shade just outside the curtains that formed the tent’s entrance. He beckoned me to join him inside. So we entered the tent and sat down on its embroidered cushions.”
“Is it possible,” he asked, “that behind everything we’ve seen, all the Jubilean manifestations, lies a mystery that binds them all together?”
“You mean beyond Leviticus and the mystery of the Jubilee itself?”
“Yes. What is it,” he asked, “that the Jubilee undoes?”
“The loss of one’s ancestral possession, one’s land.”
“And what loss was it that lay behind everything we’ve seen?”
“The land of Israel and Jerusalem.”
“Which happened when?”
“In AD 70 with the destruction of Israel.”
“Yes and no,” he replied. “The loss and the destruction began earlier than that. It all began in AD 66 when the Jewish people in Judea revolted against Roman rule. In response the Roman governor Cestius Gallus invaded the land to end the revolt. After a nine-day siege of Jerusalem that ended in failure, Gallus withdrew his army. In the midst of that withdrawal his troops were ambushed and suffered heavy losses. The Roman forces were driven out, and a revolutionary provisional government was set up in Jerusalem.
“It was then that the Roman emperor Nero sent one of his generals, Vespasian, to crush the revolt. Vespasian entered the land from the north and focused first on the land of Galilee. In the subsequent months he and his son, Titus, waged a military campaign of destruction, obliterating rebel strongholds and decimating the civilian population.”
“Those were the two men I saw on horseback, Titus and Vespasian.”
“Yes. So Galilee was the first of lands
to be lost to the Jewish people. The nation’s destruction would begin there. It was there that those who resisted Roman rule were first crushed and where the survivors were first taken prisoner and led captive into the nations. The coming two thousand years of Jewish exile began in Galilee. So in terms of the Jubilee, Galilee was the first of Israel’s ancestral possessions to be lost. Do you remember what I told you about Israel’s first settlements?”
“Before it became a nation?”
“Long before it became a nation. The first Jewish settlements in the land, the beginning of the nation’s restoration, were established in 1878. One of the settlements established that year was called Petah Tikvah, or the Door of Hope. But the very first was called Gei Oni, or the Valley of Strength. It was founded in the spring of that year. Later it would be revived and renamed Rosh Pinah, meaning the Cornerstone.”
“And it’s significant because . . . ”
“That very first settlement was planted in northern Galilee, the very first land lost to the nation in Vespasian’s campaign. So the restoration of the land began in the same place where the land was first lost.”
“The Jubilean reversal.”
“Yes,” he replied. “But it’s not only a matter of where, but when.”
“When the land was lost?”
“Yes. When was the ancestral land first lost? It was that loss that determined everything that followed. And all the Jubilean restorations would be joined to that loss. So when did it take place?”
“When Vespasian invaded the land.”
“Yes, but when?”
“I don’t know.”
“Vespasian invaded the land in AD 67. It all began in that year.”
That’s when it hit me.
“The formation of the standards,” I said. “It was LXVII. It was the Roman numeral 67!”
“The armies of Vespasian began their campaign in AD 67. It was that campaign that began the removal of the Jewish people from the land and the land of Israel from the people, the separation of two thousand years.”
“The separation that the Jubilee undoes.”
“It was that event in AD 67 that would determine the timing of everything else. In which year does the Jubilee take place?”
“The fiftieth year.”
“The fiftieth year after AD 67 is what?”
“117.”
“Yes. The timing of the Roman invasion plus the fifty-year cycle of the Jubilean mystery will determine that the years of restoration will end in the number 17. Tell me, when was the land transferred for the last time before the time of restoration?”
“When it passed to the Ottoman Empire.”
“And that took place in the year 1517 . . . a year ending in the number 17—the twenty-ninth Jubilee from the year of Vespasian’s invasion. And in what year did Allenby drive the Ottoman Empire out of the land and liberate Jerusalem, and was the promise of a national homeland given to the Jewish people?”
“In 1917.”
“Another year ending in 17—the thirty-seventh Jubilee from the year of the invasion. And when, for the first time since ancient times, did a major world power restore legal sanction to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel?”
“In 2017, when America recognized Jerusalem.”
“Another year ending in 17—the thirty-ninth Jubilee from the ancient invasion.
“But a mystery beginning in AD 67,” said the Oracle, “and made up of fifty-year cycles will ordain that the key Jubilean events will also take place in years that end in the number 67. Tell me, in what year did the stranger and the man with the measuring line come to the land? And in what year did the release of the land begin?”
“In 1867.”
“A year ending in 67—the thirty-sixth Jubilee from the first loss of the ancestral land. And when, after two thousand years, did Jewish soldiers enter the gates of Jerusalem?”
“In 1967.”
“Another year ending in 67—the thirty-eighth Jubilee from when it all began. So with the exception of the political Jubilee, which began in the fiftieth year of Zionism, every Jubilean event manifests in a year ending with the number 17 or the number 67: 1867, 1917, 1967, and 2017. . . the timing of each one determined by the invasion of AD 67, the year in which the destruction began.”
“What season was it when it all began?”
“Springtime,” said the Oracle, “as in your vision. The invasion began in the spring of AD 67. Vespasian began his attack in the month of May. And the greatest and defining siege of that first campaign and of the entire war apart from Jerusalem, the siege of the city of Yodfat, began in the early days of June.
“And so it just happened to happen that the Jubilean redemption began in the spring. It was in the late spring of 1867, at the start of June, that the stranger began his journey. And it was in that same month that the release of the land began. And in the Jubilee of 1917 it was also in late spring, in the beginning of June, that Allenby was appointed commander of the campaign that would liberate the Promised Land. And in the Jubilee of 1967 the events that would set in motion the Six-Day War began in May and the beginning of June. And in the Jubilee of 2017 it was at the beginning of June that the United States Senate passed the resolution that would lead to the Jerusalem Declaration. And that first Jewish settlement that began Israel’s restoration was inaugurated in May, the month of the destruction. And in that same month, in May of 1948, the nation of Israel was reborn.” “So the timing of the ancient calamity,” I said, “determines the timing of the restorations.”
“Or the timing of the restorations,” he said, “is joined to the ancient calamity. Each Jubilean event is the redemption of that which began in the spring of AD 67.”
“And it was all there from the beginning.”
“What was the next revelation?”
“The secret that lies at the center of the age . . . and that sets the stage for the end.”
“And what is it?”
“The mystery of the sandal.”
Chapter 56
THE RETURN
I RETURNED TO the Oracle’s tent on a windy afternoon.”
“In my vision where everyone was fleeing the land, there was a sandal on top of the mountain. What did it mean, and what did it have to do with everything else?”
“If you had to sum up the Jubilean mystery,” he said, “in one word, its essence, its power, and its consequence, what would it be?”
“Return,” I said, “and restoration.”
“Those are two words, but let’s focus on the first: return. The Jewish people return to their ancient land; the priests return to their Holy City; the soldiers return to their ancient fortress; the farmers return to their ancient fields; the Nazir returns to his ancient court; each returns to his own possession.”
At that he took out a piece of parchment. I knew enough now to recognize the writing on the parchment as Hebrew.
“The Jubilean ordinance,” he said, “Leviticus 25. And this,” he said, pointing to one of the words on the parchment, “is the central command in Hebrew, tashuvu, you shall return. It comes from the Hebrew root word shuv. . . which begins with the letter shin. That’s what you saw on the sixth door and on the golden ram. The word shuv is filled with meaning. It can be translated as ‘to return, to turn back, to recover, to reverse, to recur, to relinquish, to receive back, to restore, and to come home.’”
“All those things describe what happened in the Jubilean years.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle, “and yet there’s a deeper dimension to the word and to the mystery. According to the ancient covenant, if the people of Israel remained joined to God, they would remain joined to the land. But if they departed from God, they would depart from the land. The physical realm was bound to the spiritual. Physical separation from the land would be a manifestation of a spiritual separation from God.
“But it was also written in that same covenant and foretold by the prophets that if they returned to God, they would likewise return to the l
and. So then their physical return to the land would be connected to a spiritual return to God.
“Do you know what the word shuv also means?”
“No.”
“To repent.”
“The same word for return also means repent?”
“That’s the point,” he replied. “For to repent is to return . . . and to come home . . . and to be restored. For the people of Israel it’s all joined together. So then, we have a mystery,” he said. “According to the Law and the Prophets, if the nation turned away from God, the people would be taken into exile and scattered to the ends of the earth. And it happened exactly as it was prophesied. The Jewish people were led captive into exile and scattered to the ends of the earth.
“But according to the covenant, before a physical departure of such magnitude could have taken place, there had to have been a spiritual departure. But then what was it? It would have had to have taken place at the time of the physical departure, thus in the first century, when the exile of two thousand years began.”
“So there had to have been a spiritual departure,” I said, “colossal enough to have transformed Jewish history. So what was it?”
“The Scriptures prophesy that at the end of the age, the Jewish people will return not only physically to the land but spiritually to God. In the Book of Hosea it is written:
The children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince. . . . Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. 1
“According to the prophecy, after a long period of time without a kingdom or nation-state, the Jewish people will return, not just to their land but to ‘their God and David their king.’ You can only return to that which you’ve departed from or been separated from. So according to the prophecy, there would be a separation between the Jewish people and ‘David their king.’”
The Oracle Page 26
