“When the terrorists struck the Pentagon on 9/11, did they do it because it was the same day that . . . ?”
“No. They had no idea, no more than did the Romans who destroyed Jerusalem on the same day on which the Babylonians had destroyed it. The terrorists did it to inflict destruction on their enemies. But everything led up to that day. It’s the biblical principle of judgment, the exposing of the foundation.”
“And that which was built up on 9/11,” I said, “the Pentagon, will, on 9/11, be broken down.”
“Yes,” he replied, “the juxtaposition, the inversion of judgment.”
“And the day of the declaration, Roosevelt’s address to the nation and to the world, when the line was crossed. The Pentagon was begun on the same day that would change the course of the war.”
“Yes, the president addressed the nation on the night of the day of the groundbreaking.”
“Did they plan it that way, to go together?”
“No. It just happened to happen that way.”
“So on the morning of the night that would seal America’s entrance into the war, the Pentagon was begun.”
“The groundbreaking night of the groundbreaking day.”
“So the Pentagon was begun on the day that began the American age.”
“Yes, built to replace the old State, War, and Navy Building, which had housed the War Department and navy from the late 1870s onward. It was in the late 1930s that the War Department began relocating from the now massively overcrowded building to a temporary residence in the Munitions Building on the Washington Mall. The departure from its old headquarters came at a symbolic moment. Within days of the War Department’s departure, Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began. So in the very same days that the American War Department was departing from its old headquarters, the war that would transform the War Department and America itself was being set in motion.
“It was the end of an era. The old building had served as the headquarters of the American military for sixty years. What happens if you count sixty years from the beginning of the building that replaced it, the Pentagon, from 1941—what year does it bring you to?”
“2001!”
“And if you count sixty years from the exact date, the day of the groundbreaking, the day that began the new era, to what day does it bring you?”
“September 11, 2001 . . . the exact day!”
We said nothing after that, for some time. The people around us, the boatmen, the presidents, were still frozen in place. The prophet began walking away from the scene, back to the river.
“Wait!” I said as I caught up with him. “I have a question.”
“Ask.”
“The Pentagon is a symbol not only of military power but of America
as the world’s predominant military superpower, and the era in which
America has reigned as the head of nations, the American age. And what
took place here, on this ground, sixty years before 9/11, on that first September 11, was the foundation of that era . . . ”
“Yes.”
“Then the second 9/11, the 9/11 of the breaking down, would mark the beginning of another era. If the groundbreaking of the Pentagon marked the beginning of all these things, then what would its breaking down mark? Would it not mark the ending of all these things, the beginning of the end of the American age?”
“It was a warning,” said the prophet. “And as to what will happen, that depends on if the warning is taken.”
“It was all there!” said Ana, “It was all there, and we didn’t see it. Everything began on 9/11. And it just happened to happen on that day, not because anyone planned it but because of what was written thousands of years before. It’s gigantic.”
“And there was still one more piece to the mystery of times,” said Nouriel, “something that the world missed, a sign that appeared on 9/11 itself, something I thought was a dream, a vision—but it turned out to be real.”
Chapter 11
The Mystery Ship
IT WAS NIGHT. I was standing on a shore at the edge of a city.”
“What kind of city?” she asked.
“It was hard to tell in the dark, and I was looking away from it. But it was a modern city. I was overlooking a river. Moving across the sky in accelerated motion was a half-moon. It disappeared, as did the night. It was now morning, a peaceful morning at first. Then I heard the sound of explosions and sirens.”
“What was it?”
“I didn’t see. It was all coming from behind me. And I never turned around but kept looking out into the harbor. And then I was enveloped by a white cloud, not of fog but dust. Everything became misty. At times I could only see a few feet ahead of me. At other times, I could see across the river, and at other times, somewhere in between.
“I saw people, masses of them, standing along the shoreline, waiting to be taken away from the city, away from the chaos and the mist.”
“What do you see, Nouriel?” said the prophet, who was now standing to my right.
“I see people trying to get away. Something happened.”
He didn’t say anything. We both stood there watching as ferries, tugboats, and other vessels came into the harbor for the people waiting on the shore.
“What do you see, Nouriel?” he asked again.
And that’s when I saw it. Emerging from the mist in the middle of the river was a ship. It was unlike anything else in the water that day. Everything else was of the modern world. But the ship was from another century, wooden, with white trapezoidal sails and three masts topped by three flags. It stood out from everything else that was taking place around it, not just because of its appearance but because it seemed to separate from the chaos surrounding it, as if two different ages were colliding in the water. It disappeared into the mist and reappeared, over and over again. The whole thing appeared almost ghostly.”
“I see a ship,” I replied, “a ship that doesn’t belong in the scene.”
“You don’t recognize it?”
“Should I?”
“You should. It appeared in your other dream. In fact, you were aboard it.”
“The ship of the foundation,” I replied. “The ship that discovered Manhattan and marked the beginning of New York City . . . the ship that laid the foundation of the first power and the rise of America as the strongest economic power on earth.”
“It has a name,” said the prophet. “It’s called the Half Moon.”
“Yes, I learned about it in school. But why am I seeing it now? It doesn’t go with the rest of the scene.”
“But it does.”
“What am I seeing? The people are fleeing the city because . . . ”
“It’s 9/11.”
“So what is the Half Moon doing in the waters of New York City on 9/11?”
“On what day did the Half Moon first sail into these waters to discover this island?”
“On September 11.”
“So then it all does go together.”
“So it’s the juxtaposition of the two events. The vision is showing me the prophetic connection between the day of destruction and the day that New York City was born, the two 9/11s.”
“No,” said the prophet, “The vision is not showing you that.”
“Then what?”
“It is about the connection. But it’s not a vision that’s showing you that.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not seeing a vision.”
“A dream.”
“You’re in a dream, but what you’re seeing is not a vision.”
“Then what am I seeing?”
“Reality. You’re seeing reality.”
“What do you mean? The Half Moon sailed these waters how long ago?”
“Four hundred years ago.”
“But I’m seeing the Half Moon sailing in the river on September 11, 2001.”
He paused before responding to that.
“Because it did.”
“But it’s impossible.”
“The Half Moon was there on 9/11.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It sailed again . . . and you weren’t the only one who saw it. On 9/11, the Half Moon appeared in the waters of New York City. It appeared to those fleeing the city.”
“It makes no sense.”
“In the midst of the calamity and through the mist of the destruction, the Half Moon appeared in the Hudson River, making the same journey it had made centuries before when it all began on the first 9/11.”
“A ghost ship?”
“No,” said the prophet, “a sign . . . a sign manifesting on the day of destruction . . . a sign given to the city and the nation.”
“How?” I asked.
“The same way it always does. No one planned it out. But all events converged that it would happen. It just happened to happen that at the end of the 1980s, the Half Moon was rebuilt to match the appearance and scale of the original ship. And on the morning of 9/11, it approached the island of Manhattan, as it had done four centuries earlier on that same day—but this time it did so on the day of calamity.
“As it sailed up the waters, the two great towers collapsed and a massive cloud of dust filled the harbor. Those fleeing the calamity witnessed the image of a centuries-old Dutch ship with masts and sails making its way through the mist of the calamity. The meaning of what they were seeing undoubtedly made no more sense than the calamity itself. But they were witnessing a sign, the origins of which went back centuries and the mystery of which went back to ancient times.”
“And the meaning?”
“In the days of judgment, the foundation is exposed; it becomes visible. The Half Moon was part of the foundation. So on 9/11, it again became visible; it reappeared in the same waters. The building up is juxtaposed against the breaking down. So the Half Moon that sailed past those same waters along the island of trees and hills on the day of planting now sailed past the streets and skyscrapers on the day of the breaking down.”
“It’s the mystery in imagery. In the city was the imagery of the breaking down, but in the waters was the imagery of the building up. So the Half Moon represented the planting of the city, and the destruction represented the uprooting. So the ship of the planting passed by the ruins of the uprooting. The two images were juxtaposed, the image of the one 9/11 against the image of the other.”
“Yes,” said the prophet. “But what was planted on the day the Half Moon first sailed into that harbor was not just a city but a power, the rising of the greatest economic power on earth. So the reappearance of that ship on the day of calamity was a sign not only to a city but a nation.”
“So everything returned,” I said, “not only to the day but to the place, to New York and Washington, DC. And as New York was the first foundation, so it was the first to be struck.”
“Yes,” he replied. “And what part of Manhattan specifically marks the foundation, the very beginning? The southern tip. The southern tip of Manhattan was the first part of the island to be seen on the day of its discovery. And where did the World Trade Center stand and fall?”
“On the southern tip of the island.”
“And do you know what the city began with at that southern tip, the first thing the Dutch built there?”
“No.”
“A trade center.”
“A trade center!”
“Yes, the ancient mystery of judgment—everything is brought back to its foundation. So on 9/11, everything returned to the same place and to the same day. 9/11 returned America to the 9/11s of its rising. And in each place, there was an object, a building, that represented the power that had risen there. And on that day, each object was struck down.”
It was then that I realized that the Half Moon was gone. I turned to the right and looked up the river. And there it was, disappearing into the distance.
“Nobody could have put all that together,” I said.
“No,” said the prophet. “Long before the 9/11 that shook the nation to its core, 9/11 itself was the foundation of the nation’s powers.”
“And it’s all a warning,” I said, “that what was planted will be uprooted, and what was built up will be broken down.”
“Yes.”
“The next mystery would be different from the others, and yet all the others were leading up to it.”
“And what did it involve?”
“Something I had never heard of and yet that had been in existence for ages. And on the morning of 9/11, it all fell into place.”
Chapter 12
The Parasha
I WAS STANDING AT the entrance of an ancient building of white stone with a classical facade and massive white columns. I knew I was supposed to enter it. So I did. Inside the building were more massive columns, marble floors, giant halls, tables and chairs, and a multitude of scrolls. I took it to be some sort of library.”
“A library,” she repeated.
“Some sort of ancient library.
“As I walked through the hall, an old man in a dark-red robe, a white beard, and flowing white hair approached me.”
“I am the keeper of the scrolls,” he said. “May I help you?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I’m not exactly sure why I’m here.”
“Have you come to inquire into a day?”
“Perhaps,” I said.
“A day of importance?”
“Possibly.”
“Then you’re looking for the Book of Days.”
“The Book of Days? I’ve never heard of it. What is it?”
“The book in which are found the appointed times and the appointed words of the appointed times. Come,” he said, “and I’ll show it to you.”
He led me down the hallway and up a stairway, then down more hallways and up still another stairway, and down another hallway until we came to a pair of giant doors of engraved stone. What the doors revealed as they opened had the appearance of another realm. The chamber or building we had now entered was so big that I couldn’t tell where the ceiling was or, for that matter, where the floor was—as there were many floors, many levels, and all lit up with the light of oil lamps. Most striking of all were the scrolls. There had to have been thousands of them, tens of thousands, all resting on shelves, one beside the next, one on top of the next. The scrolls appeared to be thin. But their numbers were so vast that the resulting vision was overwhelming.
“What is this?” I asked.
“This,” said the man, “is the Book of Days.”
“Which one?”
“All of them. All of them together.”
“All this is the Book of Days?”
“Yes.”
He then led me down one of the walkways, surrounded to the right and to the left by rows upon rows and stacks upon stacks of scrolls.
“Of course, the book is made up of many sections, many portions, and many moments and times.”
“Moments and times?”
“For example, right now we’re passing through the section appointed for the fifteenth century. Soon we’ll be passing through the sixteenth, and on and on toward the present.”
“I’m not understanding.”
We continued walking through the hallways of scrolls, around corners, and up still more staircases.
“The twentieth century,” he said. “We’ve reached the twentieth century!”
We continued walking. Finally, he stopped.
“What year did you say you were looking for?”
I didn’t say. But the section we were in was the year 2001.
He led me further down.
“And in what month?”
“September,” I said.
He led me a little further still.
“The appointed words are timed to every seventh day of each week. Which day of September are you looking for?”
“The eleventh.”
“Do you want the word that followed it or the word that led up to it?”
“Whichever is closest to that day.”
“The word closest to September 11 was that which led up to it, the one appointed to be read three days before.”
“That’s the word I want.”
At that, the man removed a scroll from the shelf and handed it to me.
“And there you have it,” he said. “Open it.”
So I began unrolling it as best I could without having a table or surface on which to lay it down. I looked at the words but had no idea what they meant, as it was written in a foreign language.
“Do you know what you’re looking at?”
“No.”
“It’s called Ki Tavo.”
“Ki Tavo,” I repeated. “What does that . . . ?”
I turned around to finish the question. But he was gone. But there in his place was the prophet.
“What is this all about?” I asked. “What do all these scrolls represent?”
“The Word of God.”
“But why is it called the Book of Days?”
“Because these particular scrolls are scriptures appointed for the set times.”
“Appointed from when?”
“From ages past.”
“And appointed for what, exactly?”
“To be read, recited, and chanted on the appointed Sabbath day. They’re called the parashas.”
“And what does that mean?”
“A passage or portion of scriptures.”
“Which scriptures?”
“The main portion comes from the Torah, the five books of Moses . . . the first five books of the Bible.”
“All these thousands and thousands of scrolls . . . come from five books?”
“Each scroll in this chamber represents the word appointed for each Sabbath of every week of every year . . . for centuries and ages.”
“The man in the red robe who led me here, the keeper of the scrolls, is he significant?”
“I would say so. That was Moses.”
“Moses wore a red robe?”
“It’s not that Moses wore a red robe. It’s that Moses is often portrayed as wearing a red robe. He’s a symbol of Moses.”
“And what was the word that he called the scroll?”
“Ki Tavo.”
“But what does it mean?”
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