“I’m concerned about Joel,” Scott began.
“Joel Felsberg?” Rabbi ben David interrupted.
“Yes,” Scott confirmed.
“I haven’t seen Joel since the last time the three of us went to the Jerusalem Symphony. How is he? Is there anything wrong?”
“That’s why I’m here. He came up to the Temple yesterday to find me. He was running and waving his arms,” Scott exaggerated, “and yelling ‘I’ve found him! I’ve found him!’ I told him to calm down and asked what he was talking about, and he said he had seen the Messiah.”
The rabbi raised an eyebrow at this, but the reaction seemed more to convey introspection than trepidation. The rabbi’s expression gave Scott the impression he hadn’t been listening. “Rabbi?” he said, seeking confirmation that the rabbi had heard what he was saying.
“The Messiah?” he asked after a moment.
“Yes.”
“Did he say where he had seen him?”
“In a dream, but he’s convinced it was more than that. I guess he thinks it was some kind of vision.”
“Hmm,” the rabbi said with the same look of introspection. He paused for several seconds and then asked, “Can we be sure it wasn’t?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Why?” asked the rabbi.
Scott frowned, pained to have to answer. “I hate to even say it,” he said. Rabbi ben David waited. “Apparently, whatever he saw in his dream has convinced him that Jesus, or ‘Yeshua’ as he called him, was the Messiah.”
This time the rabbi both raised his eyebrows and pushed out his lower lip. Clearly he was surprised, but there was no indication that he was appalled. Scott had expected a much stronger, or at least quicker, response. The rabbi seemed lost in thought. Obviously, he had something on his mind. Another man might have asked him about his distraction, but not Scott. He had never been one to openly show concern about other people. He was much happier with a room full of computers than a room full of people. The fact that he was here showing concern for Joel Fels-berg gave witness to how close the two men were.
“Well, what should I do?” Scott asked, waving his hands to make his point and hoping to draw the rabbi’s attention back to the subject.
“About what?”
“About Joel,” Scott said, still waving his hands, this time out of frustration.
“I don’t think there’s anything you can do. If it was just a dream, he’ll get over it. Just try to be patient with him.”
“What do you mean if it was just a dream?” Scott asked in disbelief.
The rabbi scooted forward in his seat. “Well, it’s interesting that he should have this dream at this particular time.” Scott was still too surprised to notice, but the rabbi no longer seemed distracted. “My studies have recently brought me to a rather interesting passage. Let me read it to you.” The rabbi took his reading glasses and a book from the coffee table beside his chair and opened to a place he had bookmarked. Then he began:
Who can believe what we have heard?
Upon whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he has grown, by His favor, like a tree-crown,
Like a tree-trunk out of arid ground.
He had no form or beauty, that we should look at him:
No charm, that we should find him pleasing.
He was despised, shunned by men,
A man of suffering, familiar with disease.
As one who hid his face from us,
He was despised, we held him of no account.
Yet it was our sickness that he was bearing,
Our suffering that he endured.
We accounted him plagued,
Smitten and afflicted by God;
But he was wounded because of our sins,
Crushed because of our iniquities.
He bore the chastisement that made us whole,
And by his bruises we were healed.
We all went astray like sheep,
Each going his own way;
And the Lord visited upon him
The guilt of all of us.59
“Rabbi,” Scott interrupted, “why are you reading me this?”
“Just listen,” the rabbi answered. Scott did not understand why a rabbi would be reading what was obviously a passage from the Christian New Testament, but he had more respect than to challenge him just yet. The rabbi continued:
He was maltreated, yet he was submissive,
He did not open his mouth;
Like a sheep being led to slaughter,
Like a ewe, dumb before those who shear her,
He did not open his mouth.
By oppressive judgment he was taken away,
Who could describe his abode?
For he was cut off from the land of the living
Through the sin of My people, who deserved the punishment.
And his grave was set among the wicked,
And with the rich, in his death –
Though he had done no injustice
And had spoken no falsehood.
But the Lord chose to crush him by disease,
That, if he made himself an offering for guilt,
He might see offspring and have long life,
And that through him the Lord’s purpose might prosper.
Out of his anguish he shall see it;
He shall enjoy it to the full through his devotion.
My righteous servant makes the many righteous,
It is their punishment that he bears;
Assuredly, I will give him the many as his portion,
He shall receive the multitude as his spoil.
For he exposed himself to death
And was numbered among the sinners,
Whereas he bore the guilt of the many
And made intercession for sinners.60
Scott wasn’t sure whether the rabbi was finished, but he had no desire to hear any more. “Why have you read this to me?” he asked.
“What do you think?” the rabbi asked in return, ignoring Scott’s question for the moment.
“I think the Christian writers do a poor job of imitating the style of the Jewish prophets.”
The rabbi smiled broadly. It wasn’t exactly the answer he had expected but it made the point. “Why do you assume that these are Christian Scriptures?”
Scott still wasn’t sure what the rabbi was up to but the question-and-answer teaching style reminded him of his days in Hebrew school. The rabbi must be using this to make some point about Joel’s delusion, he thought. “Well,” Scott answered, as if he were in a classroom, “there are two reasons. First of all, the writer is obviously writing about Jesus: all that business about being wounded because of our sins and crushed because of our iniquities. That’s a Christian belief—that Jesus was a substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of mankind. It is obvious this is one of their Scriptures trying to convince the reader that Jesus was the Messiah.”
“Is that what it is saying?” the rabbi asked before Scott could get to his second point.
“Of course. It’s obvious. It could be nothing else.”
“And the second reason?”
“Second,” said Scott, “is that I have never heard nor read that passage before. If it was from the prophets, I would have heard it read in synagogue.”
Rabbi ben David leaned forward and handed the still-opened book to Scott. Sitting back again in his chair, he crossed his hands on his stomach and exhaled audibly through his thick gray beard. Scott found the passage quickly; it was well marked. Then he looked at the top of the page. It read “Isaiah.”
Suddenly his eyes filled with rage. “Were the Christians not satisfied to add their writings to the back of our Bible with their so-called ‘New’ Testament?” he roared. “Have they now begun inserting their lies into the very text of the Tenach? Where did you purchase this? We must put a stop to it immediately before others are deceived!”
“As you can see,” the rabbi said, flipping to the title page, “t
his is translated according to Masoretic text and was published by the Jewish Publication Society of America. What I read you is in your Bible, too, Scott. You can go home and look.”
“That’s impossible. My Bible was given to me by my grandfather. The Christians could not have—”
“Those are the words of the prophet Isaiah, Scott.”
Scott’s eyes grew wide with bewilderment. “But why have I never heard this before?”
“You have never heard it because that passage is never read in the synagogue. It does not appear in any rabbinic anthology of synagogue readings for the Sabbath. It is always passed over.”
“But who can the prophet be talking about?”
The scrutiny of the rabbi’s stare turned Scott’s question back to him.
“But it can’t be. The prophet must be speaking in allegory.”
“Perhaps. In rabbinic school, when I was young and believed everything I was told, they covered this passage briefly and they taught us that Isaiah was speaking allegorically of Israel. But if the ‘he’ the prophecy speaks of is Israel, who then is the ‘we’? Clearly there are two parties spoken of. And if the ‘he’ is Israel, then whose sins—whose iniquities—have we borne? Who is it who was healed by our wounds?
“‘He was cut off from the land of the living through the sins of My people,’” the rabbi continued, reciting a piece of what he had just read. “Is it not Israel who are God’s people? And if Israel is God’s people, and ‘he’ was cut off from the land of the living through our sins, who is the ‘he’?” Rabbi ben David frowned and concluded: “So we are back to the same question: To whom does the prophet refer?”
“But what about the part about dying from disease? Jesus was supposed to have been crucified,” said Scott.
“In truth,” Rabbi ben David answered, “that wording is a very selective translation. You can see right here,” he said, pointing to the editor’s note at the bottom of the page 61 from which he had just read, “the meaning of the original Hebrew is uncertain. ‘Disease’ was just a guess. But even with that, who can miss what the prophet is saying?”
Scott did not answer.
The rabbi sighed. “So there is the reason for my distraction,” he said, “and the reason I find Joel’s dream, or at least the timing of it, so curious. You see, it was because of a dream that I recently read that portion of Isaiah. It was not so colorful a dream as the one Joel described. I’m not even sure I was asleep. I just kept hearing a voice calling my name and telling me to read the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. I was as astounded as you when I read it. I could not understand how I could have so long ignored what you have just said is so obvious; allegory simply cannot explain the striking similarity. If ever a prophecy were exactly fulfilled, then this …” The rabbi stopped himself from saying more. “Well,” he continued, “so now I find myself in a dilemma. As you have said, it is obvious of whom the prophet seems to be speaking, and yet I cannot allow myself to admit it. But,” he said, and then paused, “neither can I bring myself to deny it.”
New York, New York
The Security Council was called to order to assess the progress toward reaching a compromise on a new secretary-general. Although there was still a long way to go before a decision, substantial movement had occurred. The first major change was the withdrawal of the candidacy of the ambassador from Saudi Arabia. It quickly became clear that certain other regional representatives, particularly India, simply would not accept an Islamic secretary-general and since the selection had to be unanimous, the Saudi ambassador had bowed out. In doing so, he made it clear that whoever was ultimately chosen would have to pay a price for the Islamic region’s spirit of compromise and cooperation. The representatives of East and West Africa who had supported the Saudi were then approached by the American and the Japanese ambassadors for their support, but both were reluctant to support either.
After some late-night deliberations between the supporters of Japanese Ambassador Tanaka and the Africans, French Ambassador Albert Faure, who more and more seemed to be filling the role of impartial facilitator, had asked the representative of West Africa whom he could support. An hour later, after private discussions between the East and West Africans, they answered that they could support the representative of Northern Asia, Ambassador Yuri Kruszkegin. Faure relayed the information, and the next morning Tanaka withdrew and threw his support to Kruszkegin.
In the meantime, however, the Saudi, who represented the Middle East, had agreed to support Ambassador Clark of the United States. When the Security Council adjourned, the vote was five for Kruszkegin, four for the American Clark, and as before, China abstained. The issue was tabled for seven more days.
Ten days later
Jerusalem, Israel
The black stretch limousine of the Italian ambassador to Israel, Paulo D’Agostino, pulled past the security barriers and stopped outside the front entrance of the Israeli Knesset. Accompanying D’Agostino were Christopher Goodman, Robert Milner, and Milner’s guest, Alice Bernley. Close behind the limo, security personnel from the Italian embassy followed in an armored truck carrying a large wooden crate that had recently been delivered to the embassy from Alsace-Lorraine, France.
Inside the Knesset building, in the office of the prime minister, Israel’s High Priest Chaim Levin and two Levite attendants had just arrived and were exchanging pleasantries with the prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs while they awaited the arrival of their guests.
“Thank you very much for coming, Rabbi,” the prime minister told the high priest.
“I am always willing to be of service to Israel,” the New York-born high priest answered. “But tell me, have they still not said why it was so important that I attend this meeting? And why of all days, it had to be today?”
“No, Rabbi. The purpose of the meeting is to allow the new Italian ambassador to the United Nations an opportunity to present arguments for renegotiating our treaty with the UN— nothing that should concern you and, I might add, nothing that really concerns me. The old treaty has lapsed and, while I admit it has a few flaws, I am reluctant to agree to any new negotiations. I would have refused this meeting altogether but for the fact that it was requested by former Assistant Secretary-General Milner, a man of some influence with ties to American bankers. As for why he asked that you be invited and why it had to be on this day, I do not know. He said only that they will be bringing something with them that you will want to see.”
The meeting was soon under way and Christopher began to address those assembled. Alice Bernley was the only woman in the room. It was a little awkward explaining her attendance in an official meeting of state, but there was no way Bernley would have allowed this moment to pass without her. Christopher would be brief and to the point; all of the arguments he would make about the treaty had been made before. But that was not the real reason for this meeting anyway. Still, it was necessary that Christopher offer a clear explanation of the treaty’s purpose and the reasons the UN believed that a new treaty—not just an extension of the old one—was required. The duration of the proposed treaty would be seven years, and would allow the parties, upon their mutual agreement, to extend its effect for three additional periods of seven years each. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the treaty; it was just typical matters of state. The only thing of even passing interest was a provision for a mutual agreement of nonaggression. Even this was included primarily as a diplomatic formality. Israel certainly had no intention of attacking anyone. After so many years as a nation under constant threat of war, while it still had problems with terrorism, it had established itself militarily as a nation which none of its neighbors would consider attacking.
Christopher’s summary presentation lasted only about fifteen minutes. He offered to answer any questions, but none were asked. Apparently the prime minister wanted to get through this as quickly as possible.
“Ambassador Goodman,” the prime minister said as soon as it was clear there we
re no questions, “I am sometimes praised for speaking candidly and other times criticized for being too blunt. Either way, it is the way I am. I hope you will not take offense. What you have said, though eloquent and well reasoned, has all been said before. And what was lacking before is still lacking, which is to say an apple will always lack the qualities that would make it an orange. You offer us an apple and make guarantees that we will like it as much as an orange. We, on the other hand, are happy with the orange we have. We do not seek guarantees that we will come away from the conference table satisfied with the agreements contained in a new treaty; we are satisfied with the old one. We find no compelling cause to alter that position.”
“I appreciate your position,” Christopher answered, “and your frank response. I hope that you also appreciate frankness.” Christopher spoke quickly, allowing no opportunity for interruption. He was about to get to the real reason for this meeting. “What separates us on this issue is not the need for formal extension of agreements in the old treaty. I’m sure we both recognize the importance of the formalization of agreements for the protection of all concerned. Neither is there disagreement on the issues involved. Diplomatic immunity, transport of diplomatic packages without interference, and mutually held agreements of non-aggression are hardly controversial issues. What separates us, Mr. Prime Minister, is trust.
In His Image Page 37
