The Jerusalem Parchment

by Tuvia Fogel

  The day after visiting his father’s grave, Yehezkel explained to Avraham the importance of finding the letter from the Jerusalem rabbis on the Parchment of Circles, which he’d been told was in the geniza.

  “You’re joking, Heski!” said Avraham. “Even if you manage to enter the room with no one stabbing you, can you imagine what three hundred years of books and parchments thrown in through a hole will look like? A needle in a haystack would be easier to find than that letter!”

  “I know, Avi, I know. I’ll very likely spend three days in there, cover the inside of my lungs with dust, and come out empty-handed. But I trust in help from above. And you know, Kabbalah is teaching me to recognize that help.”

  Avraham smiled and authorized his friend to discreetly enter the geniza.

  When she heard that Yehezkel would go in there but would not be allowed to remove a thing from it, Galatea demanded to go also.

  “I dressed as a man to leave the Christian camp, so I can pretend to be a Jewess to see the letter!”

  “And just what Jewess will you be, madame? How will you answer questions from other Jews in the synagogue? Your disguise wouldn’t hold up for a minute,” said Yehezkel, knowing he couldn’t win.

  Galatea pondered his objection, an embarrassed smile slowly spreading on her face.

  “I’ll be your new, very shy Italian wife,” she finally said, grinning. “A wife who never speaks to strangers.”

  For a moment, Yehezkel speechlessly entertained the fantasy of her converting and really becoming his wife. Then he resigned himself to force majeure, not before thinking, “Go on, admit it, anyone else looking for a needle in a haystack would be grateful for the presence of a prophetess with the visionary powers of this nun.”

  “If you open your mouth in there, you will ruin what’s left of my reputation as a rabbi,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, Rabbi, in the presence of others I’ll be as talkative as a tomb, but if we find the letter, I’ll expect you to read it to me immediately, in Latin, in the geniza. A later summary will not do.”

  Yehezkel grunted agreement, thinking that, after all, Jewish prophets had all been grumpy, too.

  When the day came, Yehezkel decided not to disturb the hole in the wall that tradition elected as the geniza’s only access and to look instead for the door leading to the attic that must once have existed and later been walled up. He examined every mite of the wall, scratching away plaster where he thought it hid something, and eventually found it. Avraham’s servant kept women out of the upper floor as Yehezkel took down a section of the wall, one brick at a time, until he could crawl up the mercifully well-preserved wooden steps behind the proper door, followed by Galatea, and at last enter the geniza.

  The mountain of books crumbled slowly away from below the hole and into the center of the attic, as Avraham predicted. But on the opposite side of the room, in the dim light from the hole, Yehezkel saw some shelves up against the external wall of the synagogue, also full of books. He guessed that an attempt had been made early on to store parchments and books in an orderly way, perhaps even archive them, before the process degenerated into a lazier “throw them in the hole” practice.

  He pointed at the shelves; Galatea nodded and followed him over. She lit the safest source of light they had thought to bring, a small slipper-shaped bronze oil lamp, and by its weak but steady light, Yehezkel began to look for indications of what was on the shelves. The help from above Yehezkel counted on was punctually delivered.

  Sections of the shelves had labels nailed to them bearing names of cities, presumably those from which the rolled-up parchments on the shelf had come. Baghdad, Jerusalem, Tiberias, Trani, Marseille, Cordoba, Toledo, Pumpedita . . . here was a collection of four centuries of missives from rabbis in every important center of Jewish study and legislation in the world. A veritable treasure trove!

  Yehezkel whispered something to Galatea, sat by the shelf marked “Jerusalem,” and began to carefully unfurl the parchments on it, one by one. A few crumbled in his hands as he opened them, but most were readable. He rolled each one up again and replaced it on the shelf as soon as he understood it was not what he was looking for.

  After an hour of repetitive work, Galatea had just refilled the oil lamp when Yehezkel let out a muffled cry and gestured to bring it closer. He was holding a parchment rolled up inside another one, the inner one visibly much older and frayed than the outer one. He gingerly put the older one on the shelf and started reading the newer one, the letter from the rabbis. As he read, his eyes darted to the older parchment on the shelf with what to Galatea seemed almost a look of fear. When he finished, he let out a deep sigh.

  “What does it say? Come on, you promised you wouldn’t make me wait!” blurted Galatea.

  “Rav Nachman of Jerusalem writes that he and his companion brought with them the page from the Book of Ezekiel”—he looked at the scroll on the shelf again—“that Hanina bar Hezekiah hid in Jerusalem after removing it from the version in the collected Holy Writings.”

  “That’s exactly what Elisha ben Abuya accused him of doing,” whispered Galatea in the semidarkness.

  “That’s not all,” said Yehezkel. “Father Makarios was right . . . Rav Nachman writes that the rabbis used the Parchment of Circles to find the page but refused to explain the map to the Abbasid governor, who confiscated it, and two of them had to escape to Tulunid Egypt.”

  Yehezkel peered into the letter to find the passage again. “You see, madame, he writes, ‘The man who made the map was a heretic, so it was dangerous to reveal the place to the authorities, but we found it and took the page to safety from Christians. But the other two things we left in their hiding place, for when Messiah comes.’”

  “‘The other two things?’” gasped Galatea. A detail of the story that Don Sancio recited on board the Falcus was escaping her, and she knew it was important.

  “Im ha-Shemen,” said Yehezkel. “Elisha said Hanina had hidden the page with the oil, remember?”

  “Now I do. I never asked you about it, Rabbi, but what oil was Elisha speaking of?”

  “I have a hunch about that, but it would be too fearsome a thought . . .” murmured Yehezkel.

  “Go on, you can say it. It’s not as if I’ll go and tell the rabbis here that I think you must be crazy!”

  He laughed. “Well, somewhere in the Temple was the Holy Oil of Anointing, made in the desert at the time of the Exodus ‘after the art of the perfumer.’” Yehezkel looked incredulous himself. “Moses anointed Aaron with it; Samuel anointed two kings with it, Saul and David. The Talmud says it was inexhaustible, that it was always the same oil.”

  “But the rabbi says ‘the other two things.’ One is the oil, and the other? It could be the confession.”

  Yehezkel changed the subject. “Here’s another interesting passage. Listen: ‘Rumors in Jerusalem say that the Parchment of Circles is a map leading to an object that belonged to Yeshu ha-Nozri.’”

  “Madre Santissima!” exclaimed Galatea, barely repressing a little shriek. “The Holy Grail!”

  They’d rarely mentioned it, but both knew Chrétien of Troye’s chanson, and Galatea had spoken about the meaning of the tale with Brother Francesco. Her head spun. Francesco was the returning Christ, and they were going to find the hiding place in Jerusalem of the Cup of the Last Supper!

  “Rabbi, is the frayed parchment you put back on the shelf the page from Ezekiel?”

  Yehezkel nodded, put down the letter, and reached for the twelve-hundred-year-old rolled-up skin.

  EZEKIEL CHAPTER 43

  Canonical Ezekiel Censored Ezekiel

  Quotes from Ezekiel and Bible (1:1)

  1 Then the man brought me to the gate facing east, 2 and I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. His voice was like the roar of rushing waters, and the land was radiant with his glory. 3 The vision I saw was like the vision I had seen when he came to destroy the city and like the visions I had seen by the Kebar River, and I fe
ll face down. 4 The glory of the Lord entered the temple through the gate facing east. 5 And in the vision that I saw, the glory of the God of Israel (43:1) was in the Prince himself (44:3), and the Prince was a Son of man (2:1), as I am, but clothed in white linen (9:2) and with a golden sash around his chest (Ap. 1:13), and upon that man was the Spirit. 6 And the radiance around the Prince was like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, 7 such was the appearance of the likeness (1:28) of the Prince, when he entered the temple through the gate facing east. 8 And the Son of man sat down to eat bread in the presence of the Lord inside the gateway (44:3) facing east, and while he ate bread in the presence of the Lord a woman approached him. 9 And the woman spoke to him and said: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23). 10 And the woman anointed his head with the sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer (Ex. 30:25). 11 She poured some of the same sacred anointing oil that anointed God’s servant David king over Israel (2 Sam 5:3) on the Prince’s head and anointed him, to consecrate him. 12 The oil flowed down to his feet, and the woman wiped it lovingly with her long hair (John 12:3). 13 The glory of the God of Israel was upon him, and he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire (1:27), while the woman anointed him with the sacred anointing oil and wiped the flowing oil with her long hair. 14 This was the vision I saw of the Prince, the man anointed by the God of Jacob (2 Sam 23:1), sitting in the gate facing east. Then the vision I had seen went up from me (11:24) 15 and the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. 16 While the man was standing beside me, I heard someone speaking to me from inside the temple. 17 He said: “Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place for the soles of my feet. This is where I will live among the Israelites forever.

  A long silence followed Yehezkel’s translation of the missing page. He was a little disappointed, not having recognized what he’d just read, but Galatea’s eyes were wide open in surprise and awe. “Elisha was right, Rabbi! Elisha was right. . . . This page was hidden because it speaks of Jesus Christ!”

  “You mean the woman anointing the Prince?”

  “Yes. The very words you just read were used by the Evangelists to describe the anointing of Christ by Mary Magdalene. ‘The woman wiped it lovingly with her long hair.’ God, how I know those words!”

  Yehezkel looked piqued. “Don’t forget, madame, that the Evangelists knew the Book of Ezekiel.”

  “But it was one of your sages who thought the prophecy was authentic!” retorted the abbess. “So much so that he removed the page!”

  “Exactly, madame. Because the Evangelists knew the prophecy, they made Jesus fulfill it word for word in their tales. Hanina hid the page because it would convince thousands of desperate and gullible Jews of Ezekiel’s ‘endorsment’ of Jesus as the ‘Prince’ of prophecy.”

  Galatea reflected for a moment and saw the point. She said, “And the use the Evangelists made of the prophecy could still be made today. Couldn’t it, Rabbi?”

  “That, madame, is probably why the Jerusalem rabbis came to hide the page in this geniza.”

  “It must also be why Elisha made the map in the first place,” mused Galatea. “You told Don Sancio that Elisha abandoned Judaism, didn’t you? Well, if he had become a Christian, he would want this to be found again, wouldn’t he?”

  “You’re no longer my disciple, madame. You’re working this out as fast as I am!”

  Galatea blushed. “A woman and a Jew will solve the enigma in Jerusalem, said the hermit.” Then, fixing her eyes on his, “Will you destroy it, Rabbi, so it can never be used to convert Jews again?”

  “What? Me, destroy a page of my namesake’s book? Never! Mmh . . . how much oil is left, Madame?”

  “Maybe a half hour’s worth.”

  “Excellent. I brought what I need to write. I’ll copy both pages now, and then we’ll be out of here.”

  Two days later, when the excitement of their find stopped plaguing their conversations, Yehezkel suggested that they take two donkeys—being dhimmis,*54 they couldn’t ride horses in Ayubbid Egypt—and ride to al-Kahira. But not in the daytime—at night because he wanted them to see the mosque of Ibn-Tulun, and that was something that had to be seen at night.

  Part Four

  The Sixth Day

  CHAPTER 24

  NEFESH HAYA

  Living Creatures

  FUSTAT, 12TH OCTOBER 1219

  The odd couple discussed whether, in al-Kahira, Galatea should pretend to be Yehezkel’s European wife, as she’d done to enter the geniza, or reveal that she was a Christian nun. Avraham had made inquiries and been told that, despite the war in the delta, the Venetian funduq*55 in the capital was not closed. The news caused Galatea to opt for traveling as her true self.

  “But madame!” Yehezkel cried out. “People in Fustat have seen you dressed as my wife. If now you go out dressed as a nun, I dread to think what rumormongers will dream up to explain it!”

  “Mmh . . . I was hoping I wouldn’t have to bring this up, Rabbi,” said Galatea coyly, “but what will you tell your Jewish hosts in al-Kahira, when they find out your ‘wife’ needs a room to herself?”

  Yehezkel looked flustered, but only for a moment, and then smiled and said, “I’ll say it’s your time of the month. A Jew cannot touch his wife during those days.”

  “Really? Not even to beat her?” jested Galatea. “And what if we stay more than a few days?”

  “That shouldn’t be necessary. I want you to see the Pearl of Egypt, of course, and to buy us a passage to Syria in a Bedouin caravan I’ll have to find Maître Chalabi, a merchant in the souk I used to know—if he is still alive, that is. My guess is that we’ll be back in Fustat in three or four days.” He paused, and then added, sympathetically, “A long time, I fear, for you to refrain from opening your mouth in public, since my wife, of course, would speak Hebrew.”

  Galatea acknowledged the jab with a smile. She considered the problems that being a Christian in a land at war with Christians would cause and compared them to the tranquility that Avraham ben Moshe’s knowledge of her identity afforded her in Fustat, and then gracefully conceded the round to her teacher.

  After rising from recalcitrant donkeys in Crete to an Arab stallion in Cyprus, Galatea was demoted to riding a donkey again between Fustat and al-Kahira, and being a Venetian abbess wouldn’t have made any difference, since a Christian and a Jewess are both dhimmis. But at least this time Aillil had his own donkey and didn’t have to ride behind her. Egyptian donkeys turned out to be placid, almost philosophical beasts, so the countess made light of the umpteenth humiliation.

  Leaving Fustat at dusk, as Yehezkel insisted on, they trotted into the sweet countryside. The huge sun was setting into fields of rice and cotton dotted with fruit trees and palms. Aillil and Galatea remarked on the wonderful mélange of fragrances that Yehezkel remembered so well from his youth.

  After a while, they got to know their mounts and assumed more relaxed postures. Suddenly, in the last light, ghostly ruins rose from the vegetation. Yehezkel told them the massive stones were all that remained of el-Askar, the capital of the Abbasids of Baghdad, and of el-Qata’i, the capital of the Tulunids, who had broken free from Baghdad. Plants swarmed over stones that had been palaces. The two adults, as darkness mercifully engulfed the ruins, mumbled the first words of Sancio’s beloved Qohelet, “Vanity of vanities.”

  They resumed the ride in the semidarkness, and soon the magical shafts of light around the mosque of Ibn Tulun, the reason Yehezkel wanted to travel at night, came into view. The mosque built by the founder of the Tulunid dynasty had no equal in all Dar-al-Islam. Walls made of well-fired red bricks, four hundred feet long, enclosed an enormous courtyard and were pierced, every three or four feet, by small windows with pointed arches. Grates carved in stucco in decorative geometric shapes filled each window.

  As the reddish light from hundreds of torches in the courtyard passed thr
ough the windows, the grates splintered it into myriad shafts that beamed out in all directions before fading into the night.

  Galatea and Aillil stared for several minutes, bewitched by the beauty of the sight.

  “Three hundred and sixty-five windows, and no two grates have the same design!” exclaimed Yehezkel, as proudly as if he’d designed the building himself.

  “I’m grateful to you, Rabbi,” said Galatea, “for not letting me ride past this wonder during the day.”

  From there on, the road was called Shari el-A’dham, and as it approached the southern gate of the city, the Bab-ez-Zuweyla, it gradually filled with stalls, shops, and small mosques. The sugar and spice traders along its length had given the Shari el-A’dham its new name: Sukkariah.

  Bab-ez-Zuweyla, like the other gates built by the Fatimid sultans a hundred years earlier, consisted of massive, foot-thick wooden doors, flanked by two powerful square towers, closing access to an arched passage through the walls. The towers were connected by an arch above the passage, and inside were three floors of lodgings for archers, with arrow slits on each floor.

  With the evening crowd strolling around, Yehezkel asked his companions to dismount and lit a torch, as prescribed by the Law to attest the honesty of his intent in entering the city.

  They proceeded along an almost deserted al-Ghuriya, with the Greek haret on the right.

  The mamluk guard had already closed the gate of the haret Yahud for the night, and Yehezkel had to pull out some baksheesh. It was a different man from the one who’d stood there fifteen years earlier, he thought, but uniform and haughty attitude to dhimmis were the same. The guard pocketed the money, shot a look at Galatea, and asked where they were headed. Yehezkel mentioned Nissim ben Nahray, and the mamluk pulled the gate ajar and waved them through.

  Yehezkel had sent a note to Nissim from Fustat, conveying his need for a few days’ hospitality in the city, telling his old friend of his marriage to a taciturn French Jewess, and adding a line to explain the presence of his Cathar friend’s son. When they reached his house, Yehezkel tied the donkeys to rings in the wall in the street—knowing that no one who had any use for his right hand would dream of stealing them—and reminded himself to arrange for someone to feed them.