A Premature Apocalypse

by Dan Sofer

  Besides, this resurrection, suicide-bombers and all, was probably not the Resurrection, and the Final Redemption lay far ahead in the future.

  Having poked holes in the prophecies of doom, Yosef had drifted off to sleep.

  Today, however, Yosef had learned of the so-called Sixth Aliyah. The floodgates had burst, and waves of newly resurrected foreigners washed over the country. Yosef had nothing against the second-timers—he had sheltered them in his own home—nor did he fear that the State of Israel could not absorb them. He wasn’t even troubled by the zombie-like behavior of the new immigrants before they awoke in the Holy Land. It was the theological implications of the phenomenon that had triggered his panic attack.

  Jewish traditions had whispered of Resurrection Tunnels. Righteous individuals who had not merited burial in the Holy Land would walk upright through these subterranean pathways to the Promised Land. The Sixth Aliyah meant that yet another ancient prediction had materialized. Perhaps this resurrection was indeed the Resurrection, and the Final Redemption was at hand. And if so, could Yosef indeed be the ill-fated Second Messiah, the right-hand man who must die so that the Messiah of David may live? Yosef had yearned for the Redemption, but was he willing to sacrifice his life—to widow his dear Rocheleh and orphan his precious sons?

  No! That made no sense. Yosef was just a simple neighborhood rabbi. He didn’t belong on the stage of history just as he didn’t belong in the office of the Vice Prime Minister. Never mind. Soon Yosef would relinquish his ministerial posts, including the Vice Premiership. He would be safe.

  Then Yosef had learned of the second news item. The spectacular implosion of Moshe’s coalition agreement meant that Yosef would remain Vice Prime Minister for the foreseeable future. As Vice Prime Minister, Yosef remained Moshe’s right-hand man and next in line. The Second Messiah has a name, Emden had said. The Messiah of Yosef!

  Yosef shuddered again. Emden had urged him to flee like Biblical Jonah, but Yosef knew how that story had ended. He could resign from the government, but the timing could never be worse. “Vice PM Resigns Amid Claims of Prime Minister Corruption,” the headlines would read. “Prime Minister’s Inner Circle Flees Zombie Invasion.” How could he betray Moshe at this time?

  No, there must be another way. Emden was wrong. Yosef grasped at the facts that disproved his theory. Moshe had not discovered the Ten Lost Tribes; neither had he rebuilt the Third Temple. And where were the other signs of the Messianic Era—the war of Gog and Magog, the evil Armilus, the natural disasters, the devastation?

  Yosef nudged the laptop on his desk to life and searched the Internet. According to Wikipedia, the Jewish Second Messiah would lead the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and reunite them with the tribe of Judah. This warrior Messiah would wage war against Armilus and die in the battle.

  Hah! Yosef had not located the Ten Lost Tribes, and he was no warrior. He scanned the references at the bottom of the article. They included ancient Jewish writings that the Jewish Biblical canon had rejected. Enough!

  The intercom buzzed.

  “Yes, Ram?”

  “Rabbi Levi of Torah True is here to see you.”

  Rabbi Levi? Yosef didn’t recognize the name. Was Torah True keen to join the government even without Gurion? The visitor might provide the escape hatch from public office that Yosef craved.

  “Show him in!”

  Yosef patted his hair and straightened the lapels of his suit jacket. This time he would be more receptive to the rabbis’ demands. Let them be the Messiah of Yosef.

  He stood as the door opened, and Ram showed the young rabbi in.

  Rabbi Levi shook Yosef’s hand but kept his head down, only the ends of his red beard peeking beneath his black hat.

  When the door closed behind him, the young rabbi raised his head and fixed Yosef with a pair of radiant blue eyes.

  Yosef’s shoulders sagged. “You’re not here for Torah True, are you?”

  Tom Levi, the messianic cult spokesman, grinned like a naughty little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He sat down. “I’m glad you found time to meet with me, Rabbi Lev.”

  Yosef ignored the veiled recrimination. He could call security, but that might push the lunatic to more desperate measures yet. Perhaps all the little boy needed was some fatherly attention. “How can I help you?”

  “You should take your job more seriously.”

  “As Vice Prime Minister?”

  “No, your real calling. Vice Messiah.”

  Yosef almost swallowed his tongue.

  “We’ve got work to do,” Tom continued. He leaned back in the seat as though he lived there and glared at Yosef.

  “Like rebuilding the Temple?”

  “Among other things. Such as reinstating the priestly sacrifices.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?” Yosef didn’t even want to debate whether sacrifices in the twenty-first century were a good idea.

  Tom leaned forward and smiled his blissful, crazy smile. “The Temple Institute has already prepared the sacred vessels, and they’ve figured out the incense recipe too.”

  “And the Temple Mount?” Yosef asked. “Do you expect the Waqf to just hand over the Dome of the Rock so you can rebuild the Jewish Temple? They don’t even allow Jews to pray at the site.”

  “Screw the Waqf and his golden dome. We’ll bulldoze that monstrosity whether he likes it or not.”

  “The last time an Israeli Prime Minister visited the Temple Mount, the Arabs rioted.”

  “That’s why the Prime Minister must come out, and soon.”

  “Come out?”

  Tom rolled his eyes as if the answer was obvious. “Announce that he’s the Messiah. Then he can get on with business, and nobody will dare stand in his way.”

  Yosef bunched his eyebrows and tilted his head. “I don’t understand. Wasn’t your friend supposed to be the Messiah?”

  “Who?”

  “The Messiah on the Wall. The man you introduced at the Kotel.”

  “Oh, him. He died.”

  His matter-of-fact delivery of the tragic news shocked Yosef, and he couldn’t resist a jab.

  “Isn’t he going to ‘rise from the ashes’?” He raised his hand in the air, palm up—repeating the words and gestures Tom had used moments after the paramedics had carried away his former leader on a stretcher.

  Tom shrugged. Talk of his dead friend seemed to bore him. “Whatever. That didn’t work out. But our Moshe Karlin, he’s the man!”

  Yosef thought of the mangled body on the stone tiles of the Western Wall Plaza, of the giddy hope and expectation he had nursed in his breast that morning. This messiah idea was a dangerous business. He needed to cool Tom off before he did more damage.

  “We all want the Messiah,” he said, keeping his tone calm and devoid of sarcasm. “But we have to be very careful. Nobody can force the Redemption. We need patience. It’s too early to jump to conclusions. We need time to think this through.”

  Tom ground his molars, staring absently at the wall behind Yosef. He shrugged again and got to his feet. “You do your thinking, but don’t take too long,” he said. “We’ve waited two thousand years. That’s long enough.”

  Chapter 24

  Maimonides riffled through the glossy magazine he had found on the side table of the waiting room. The lifelike paintings on the pages displayed a wide variety of animals and breathtaking vistas that he’d never glimpsed before. There was so much to learn—so much to see! Today he was taking the first step in his own voyage.

  He glanced up at the secretary behind the desk, a young woman of about fifty years of age, who peered at him over her glasses, then returned to her reading. She had not forgotten him.

  With difficulty, he read the cover title of the magazine. National Geographic. He had no idea what the words meant. English was the key to knowledge in this World to Come. Although the Dry Bones Society had provided an introductory course, he would need to master the language if he was to advance his studies.
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br />   Telephones. Mechanical carriages. Flying metal ships! The wisdom that humanity had accumulated over the past thousand years boggled the mind and burst the limits of the imagination. After his initial shock and disorientation, the thirst for knowledge overpowered him. He must study with diligence and discard his prior assumptions. Mankind had uncovered the secrets of Creation, and come what may, he would learn them too!

  He turned the page and yet another picture took his breath away. Planet Earth in all her glory, a blue dot in the black vastness of space. The image astounded him each time. The Earth revolved around the sun, of course, not vice versa. This was so embarrassingly obvious when you thought about it. Men had landed their flying ships on the surface of the moon and returned home to tell the tale!

  Questions multiplied in his brain; his ignorance was unbearable.

  “Rabbi Maimon,” the secretary said. “The President will see you now.”

  “Oh, thank God!” Maimonides jumped to his feet with the energy of a much younger man and strode toward the white door.

  The President’s office was neither very large nor ornate. Framed certificates and photos with various dignitaries lined the walls. A thin clean-shaven man smiled at him from behind his desk and got up to greet his visitor.

  “Good morning, Rabbi Maimon,” he said, in Hebrew. “It is an honor to meet you.”

  “The honor is all mine.”

  Maimonides sat in the vacant chair. The President had white hair. Good. The task ahead required a man who had devoted his life to studying.

  They smiled at each other.

  “Would you like a tour of the campus?”

  “Maybe later.”

  “OK.” The man cleared his throat. “How can I help you, then?”

  Where to begin?

  “I want you to teach me.”

  The man gave a good-natured chuckle. Good. A sense of humor. He would need patience, too. Lots of it.

  “What would you like to learn?”

  “Everything!”

  Another good-natured laugh. “Could you narrow that down for me?”

  “Sir, in my first life I began my studies at a very young age. I learned Aristotle by heart and became expert in all branches of knowledge: Mathematics, Astronomy, Philosophy, and Medicine. I served as physician to Sultan Saladin and his royal family. And, of course, I wrote extensively on Jewish law and philosophy. I expect that my religious treatises supplied the final word on those topics. The modern sciences, by contrast, have advanced greatly since then. In short, Mr. President, I want very much for you to be my mentor and master, to teach me the knowledge of the New World.”

  The President of the Hebrew University blinked. This time he did not chuckle. Had he gone too far? Did the list of his achievements sound like the boastings of a braggart, one unworthy of the master’s time?

  The kindly man cleared his throat. “Rabbi Maimon, I don’t think that is possible.”

  The words stung like a slap in the face. “Pardon me for asking, sir, but why not?” His fingers dug into the padded armrests of the chair.

  “You see, Rabbi, the amount of knowledge we teach at the university is immense. Take the Faculty of Science. One can devote an entire lifetime to the study of one sub-branch of one sub-specialty and still not know all there is in that field, never mind an entire branch. You could devote many lifetimes to study and still only scratch the surface. And by then what you learned would already be out of date. You see the problem?”

  “But surely a few intellectual giants have mastered all fields?”

  The man just shrugged. “Impossible. The best you can hope for is a shallow knowledge of a handful of sub-specialties.”

  Many lifetimes. He had started a new life, but the Resurrection was a one-off event. He could bank on, at most, another seventy years.

  “But if no one man can understand everything, how do you make critical decisions?”

  “We don’t. We rely on experts. And they, in turn, rely on other experts. Together, we can get a fuzzy picture of what’s going on. The human brain just can’t process all that information.”

  Maimonides’ hands trembled on the armrests. So much knowledge, and all beyond his reach!

  The President leaned over the desk and touched him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.” When he sat down again, his eyes brightened. “I have an idea.” He turned the computer screen toward his guest and typed away at the keyboard. “Let me introduce you to someone. Your new best friend.”

  Ten minutes later, Maimonides strolled along the stony paths of the campus grounds and sighed. Knowledge used to be the great leveler. Not everyone was born a king or priest, but the Crown of Torah lay waiting to be claimed by all who made the effort. But the days of mastering all the world’s knowledge were gone.

  Still, there was hope. He stared at the name scribbled on the square of yellow paper the President had given him. Even if he couldn’t know it all, he could at least learn something about everything, and all thanks to his new best friend. This friend was always available and would never get tired of answering questions. His name was Google.

  “Your Excellency!”

  He turned to the source of the greeting. A plump man in a suit waddled toward him, trailed by serious young fellows in black jackets.

  “Your Excellency!” The man stopped to catch his breath, mopped his forehead with a square of cloth, and brushed long strands of oily hair over his bald spot. “I’m so glad I found you.”

  “You’ve been looking for me?”

  “Yes, yes! Our great sage and teacher, Rabbi Moses son of Maimon.”

  Maimonides straightened and found his smile again. At least his works of Jewish law remained timeless. They would not go “out of date” to make way for some new discovery.

  He cleared his throat. “How may I help you, my son?”

  The plump young man turned serious. “A great sage such as yourself—isn’t it time you took up your true calling?”

  “Well, I’d be honored to join an academy for Torah study.”

  “Torah study?” The man laughed. “A sage of your eminence deserves far more than a mere teaching job. Do you know what they say about you? ‘From Moses to Moses, none compares with Moses.’ In other words, since the time of the Moses in Egypt, none has arisen like Moses son of Maimon. That’s right! And the first Moses wasn’t just a teacher; he was a leader.”

  “Oh.” A leader. “I suppose I did guide the Jewish community of Fustat in spiritual matters. And I answered questions on Jewish law and practice from the entire Jewish world.”

  “Don’t think small,” the man said. “Think big! Men like you belong at the very top—at the head of the Jewish State!”

  The head of the Jewish State. That did sound appealing.

  “And who are you?”

  The man gripped his hand and gave him a feisty, double-handed shake. “Isaac Gurion, at your service.”

  Chapter 25

  Thursday evening after dark, Moshe slunk home to the Prime Minister’s Residence on Smolenskin Street. He needed a hot bath and an early night; he’d get neither.

  Constructed in the 1930s by a wealthy Jewish merchant, the mansion known as Beit Aghion had at various times housed a Yugoslavian king and Jewish fighters wounded in the War of Independence. As Moshe trudged through the arched doorways, he felt like a battered soldier, not royalty.

  Galit stood in the hallway, a forced smile on her lips and a group of visitors at her back. Moshe’s hopes for that hot bath and early night died on the spot.

  “Miki!” Moshe said, extending his hand to his father-in-law. He hugged his mother-in-law too. “Ita!” Behind them stood another couple with three bored teenagers. “Dudu and Orit!” More handshakes and hugs for the brother-in-law and family. “What a surprise!”

  Moshe hoped he hadn’t overdone his display of excitement.

  “Yes, it is,” Galit said with a plastic smile. She hadn’t known about the visit either.

  “Join us for din
ner?”

  Henri, in his chef’s white formal jacket and hat, served up platters of roast meat at the dining room table of polished oak, usually reserved for entertaining foreign dignitaries. He’d done a phenomenal job on such short notice.

  “Miki, how long is your stay?” Moshe said, and sipped his red wine.

  With his balding head and roving eyes, Moshe’s father-in-law resembled a large rodent.

  “Now that you’re Prime Minister,” Miki said, a knowing sparkle in his eyes, “we’re back for good.”

  Moshe almost sprayed red wine over the embroidered tablecloth. He didn’t dislike his father-in-law. They got along very well at a healthy distance—in their case, a ten-hour intercontinental flight. Galit’s parents had not wanted their daughter to remarry her dead husband, and their sudden invasion of Moshe’s home raised red flags.

  “So, Israel’s not going to be wiped off the map anymore?”

  From across the table, Galit fixed Moshe with a chiding glare. After the Six Day War, Miki’s brother had moved to New Jersey, convinced that the Arabs would make good on their promise to “drive the Jews into the sea.” Soon after Galit and Moshe got married, Miki had joined his brother.

  Miki dismissed the comment with a chuckle. “Not with you in charge.”

  Was that a compliment? Moshe’s suspicions multiplied. “Where are you staying?”

  Galit answered for her father. “They were going to stay at our old house, but seeing that we’ve rented it out, I invited them to stay here with us.”

  Moshe almost choked on a chunk of roast meat.

  “Just for now,” Ita said. “Until we find something long term.”

  “Wonderful,” Moshe said. Just what he needed; a battle on the home front too.

  After dinner, the men retired to the library for a drink. Moshe poured Glenmorangie into three tumblers and collapsed into an armchair.

  “Everyone in the US is talking about the Resurrection,” Miki said. “You can’t imagine the excitement.”