by Katz, Yoram
The Kabbalist
A Novel
by
Yoram Katz
…
..
.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and events portrayed in this book are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 Yoram Katz
All rights reserved
ISBN-10: 1484946448
www.yoramkatz.info
Printed copy: https://www.createspace.com/4279961
1. The Monk – January 16th, 2006 (Monday)
2. Shimon – Galilee, 149 AD
3. Yaakov Ben Shlomo – Acre, May 18th, 1291
4. Pascal de Charney - Normandy, April 19th, 1798
5. Philippe de Charney - Acre, May 18th, 1291
6. Pulsa Denura - Jerusalem, January 5th, 2010 (Tuesday)
7. On the Galley - May 18th, 1291
8. Yossi Luria – Haifa, Israel, January 19th, 2010 (Tuesday)
9. North of Acre – May 18th, 1291
10. The de Charney Letters, 1799
11. Pierre de Severy - Acre, May 18th, 1291
12. Aryeh Luria - Haifa, January 21st, 2010 (Thursday)
13. The Templar Fort - Acre, May 22nd, 1291
14. Jeanne de Charney - Haifa, January 24th, 2010 (Sunday)
15. The Lurias - Haifa, January 26th, 2010 (Tuesday)
16. The Next Phase - Haifa, January 28th, 2010 (Thursday)
17. The de Charney Letter Revisited
18. Gaston de Chateau-Renault – Cairo, June 28th, 1799
19. Roland de Charney – France, August 1799
20. Yuval Eldad – University of Haifa, January 31st, 2010 (Sunday)
21. Stella Maris – Haifa, January 16th, 2006 (Monday)
22. Haifa Police – January 17th, 2006 (Tuesday)
23. Ben Shemen Woods, January 17th, 2006 (Tuesday)
24. Brother Pedro – Stella Maris, Haifa, January 18th, 2006 (Wednesday)
25. Ze’ev Srur – Downtown Haifa, January 18th, 2006 (Wednesday)
26. Yuval Eldad – University of Haifa, January 18th, 2006 (Wednesday)
27. Chief Superintendent Ehud Arnon – Haifa, January 19th, 2006 (Thursday)
28. New Findings – February 3rd, 2010 (Wednesday)
29. Stella Maris – February 8th, 2010 (Monday)
30. Lorenzo Molinari – Ben-Gurion Airport, February 9th, 2010 (Tuesday)
31. Rendezvous in Haifa, February 10th, 2010 (Wednesday)
32. Yeshayahu Orlev – Jerusalem, February 14th, 2010 (Sunday)
33. Kabbalah
34. Naphtali
35. Jonathan Bennet – Jerusalem, February 16th, 2010 (Tuesday)
36. Jonathan Bennet’s Kabbalah
37. Rachel Porat - Haifa, February 18th, 2010 (Thursday)
38. Yeshayahu Orlev – Jerusalem, February 21st, 2010 (Sunday)
39. Death in Jerusalem – February 23rd, 2010 (Tuesday)
40. An Old Friend - Jerusalem, February 25th, 2010 (Thursday)
41. Orlev’s Hypothesis - March 2nd, 2010 (Tuesday)
42. Lorenzo Molinari – Ben-Gurion Airport, February 23rd, 2010 (Tuesday)
43. Rendezvous in Jerusalem, March 3rd, 2010 (Wednesday)
44. Farewell – Ben-Gurion Airport, March 5th, 2010 (Friday)
45. Father and Son - Jerusalem, March 6th, 2010 (Saturday)
Afterword
Maps
Author’s Notes
1. The Monk – January 16th, 2006 (Monday)
It was late. A lone monk, clad in a brown habit from head to toe, was making his way down the stairs, cautiously clinging to the railing. Having reached the end of the stairway, he opened the heavy library door, entered and flipped a switch, flooding the spacious hall with light.
The library walls were densely covered with book laden shelves. A rectangular timber table stood at its center, surrounded by wooden benches.
The man pulled back his cowl and unveiled a wrinkled face with a high forehead that sent deep inlets into an otherwise full shock of white hair. He blinked to adjust his vision to the light, advanced toward the end of the hall and stopped by one of the book shelves. He pulled out a few heavy volumes and placed them upon the table, exposing a metal safe behind them. Putting on a pair of glasses, he started turning the small dial mounted on the safe door. After a while, the dial clicked and the door opened.
Very carefully, he removed from the safe a thick notebook and a dozen or so rectangular objects, and laid them gently upon the table. He then returned the volumes to their original position on the shelf, concealing the safe behind them once more. He lit a small reading lamp, went back to the entrance and switched the main lights off.
The hall was almost dark now, illuminated solely by the reading lamp on the table. With heavy steps, he moved back on the thick carpet, stopped by a wooden bench beside the table and closed his eyes.
This was his favorite place, and this was his preferred hour. He was now finally free from his daily chores to investigate, meditate and absorb himself in the profound. His lips moved silently in prayer, thanking the Lord for bringing him here, to this place, so close to the fountainhead.
Outside, thunder rolled. The monk shuddered, crossed himself and then sat with some difficulty on the hard bench. He pulled out a fountain pen and laid it on the table, leaned forward and opened his notebook. He proceeded to arrange the rectangular objects upon the table in two separate groups. These turned out to be written parchment pages sandwiched inside thin glass casings.
The old man gazed at the pages arrayed on the table for a long time, still finding it hard to believe the miracle that was lying there on the table before him. Once again, he realized in wonder that he was one of the few people in the world, if not the only one, to have access to it and to understand its significance.
He took a deep breath and progressed to study the pages, going from one group to the other, patiently comparing the texts and occasionally scribbling notes. Despite his excitement, he felt a bit frustrated. Although he had long ago accepted the fact that he would never be able to share this knowledge with anyone, it was still a dispiriting thought for a scholar.
A full hour went by. The old man was still immersed in his work. So immersed was he, that he did not notice the stranger who walked across the room, with the heavy carpet swallowing the sound of his steps. When he finally perceived movement and turned his head, the stranger was already standing right behind him. Adrenaline rushed into his bloodstream, causing his heart to palpitate wildly. He tried to stand up and turn around, but did not quite make it.
The last thing he saw was a masked face and then something heavy came crashing down against his skull. His field of vision blurred and started to shrink rapidly, until it was reduced to a bright and shining dot of light.
Then, the light went out and everything was blank.
2. Shimon – Galilee, 149 AD
Two lean figures crawled out of a cave. The first, a young man in his twenties, supported an older man as they fought to rise and stand on their feet. Both were dressed in rags, pale and almost unbelievably thin. For a long while, they just stood there, between the carob tree and the fig tree that concealed the entrance to the cave, blinking to adjust their eyes to the blinding daylight and shivering in the morning chill. Suddenly, the older man started swaying on his feet like a drunkard. The young man put his arm across the other’s shoulders to stabilize him, but the older man’s legs were quivering like stalks of straw in the wind.
“Let us sit down for a while, father,” said the young man tenderly. He cautiously guided his father to a nearby flat slab of rock and helped him get seated. He
removed a small leather pack, which was strapped to his shoulder, and took a seat next to the old man. They sat together in silence.
The solar sphere appeared above a near mountaintop, sending a blinding flash into their faces. The two men closed their eyes and enjoyed the warmth. When they opened their eyes again, they noticed the magnificent view surrounding them. Green hills rolled around, covered in oak and terebinth trees, among which violet pink patches of blooming cistus occasionally shone through. The earth, green with grass, was spotted with pink, red and yellow wild flowers. Bushes in purple, white and yellow were in bloom all about them, their perfume filling the air. In the distance, they could see the silvery green of olive trees and in the horizon rose green mountaintops, illuminated by the morning sun.
The young man was first to break the silence. “Have you ever seen a lovelier sight, father?”
His father looked at him. “We are blessed to have been granted this privilege, Elazar, my son.”
“Is this paradise?”
The old man gave a rare smile. “No, my son, yet this is a day of genesis, of birth and creation for us, and I indeed feel much like Adam.”
They fell silent again. Silence, it seemed, came natural to them.
“Why are you looking at me this way, father?” asked Elazar after some time. Another long spell of silence followed.
“You have grown so much, my son… I wish your mother were here to see you… when we descended into this dark pit, you were not yet Bar Mitzvah[i]… and now you are a man amongst men…”
The young man did not answer; the memories of another life, abruptly cut off thirteen years before, were too vague in his mind. “Don’t we need to fear the Romans anymore?” he inquired.
A spasm of rage crossed the older man’s face. “May the names and memory of the destroyers of the Temple and the murderers of Rabbi Akiva be blotted out forever. They are still the masters of the land, my son.”
“So why are we leaving the cave, father?”
“It has been a long time. The dog they call Caesar has by now breathed his last foul breath.”
“And what of the death sentence against you?”
“The sentence is annulled with the death of that vermin, Hadrian. They will not bother us now, son. Don’t worry.”
“And how do you know about Caesar’s death, father? We have been recluses, out of touch with the world for thirteen years now.”
His father did not answer.
After thirteen years of living together, isolated from the rest of the world, Elazar knew his father as much as a man could know another, but he also learned to accept the fact that he would never be able to understand him fully. At least once a day, his father would retreat into himself, close his eyes and cease communicating for hours on end. Upon emerging from his trance, he would mumble words the boy could not comprehend. Most of the time, his father would burrow into his ’books’ or write. The ‘books’ and some writing material were the only items they brought with them to the cave when they fled Yavne in haste, after his father had decided it was no longer safe there.
Within a few years, young Elazar became well-rehearsed in the art of writing. In time, his father learned to appreciate his skills and allowed Elazar to put in writing the content of some of the strange and wonderful ideas they were discussing during those long years.
Apart from carob fruits, figs and the water from the spring which flowed inside the cave, writing materials were perhaps the only other commodity that was always in supply. In spite of the risk involved, the father would leave the cave every so often to bring groceries, candles and writing materials from the nearby village of Peqi'in, returning after a few hours. The locals, who considered him a saint, provided for his needs and never asked for payment, satisfied with the blessings and talismans he would sometimes grant them. Upon his return, the father used to bring some bread or cooked food for his son and occasionally even meat or cheese, while he was content to live on carob fruits and figs. It was not only the art of writing that the son had acquired; his father also let him in on his visions and revelations, and with the passing years, the two became a closely-knit team, sharing their own unique language and insights of the wonderful abstract worlds they were discovering together. And yet, Elazar knew there were things his father would not share with him.
Elazar pulled out of his pack a small clay jar of spring water and some dry carob fruits, which he proceeded to share with his father. They ate in silence and drank from the jar.
The sun rose high in the sky and noon was approaching, with the two still sitting on the rock.
“Where shall we go from here, Father?”
* * *
A small caravan of three men, leading ten heavily laden donkeys, was strolling along. It was past noon, when the first rider identified two figures stepping out of the mountainside into the dirt path. He raised his hand and the convoy came abruptly to a halt. The three men on their donkeys huddled closely together and conversed hurriedly. They then dismounted, gathered their donkeys into a tight group and drew small daggers from their robes.
The father and son approached them. When the merchants saw them at close hand and understood that these two famished shadows of men presented no threat, their suspicion gave way to relief. A bearded fellow, apparently the leader, burst into thundering laughter and signaled to his friends to put away their daggers.
“Shalom,” said Elazar. “Peace be upon you.”
“Peace be upon you, my friend,” replied the bearded man. “Please forgive the unfriendly welcome. We have encountered bandits on this route before, and that may have interfered with our good manners.” He removed a water skin from the closest donkey and handed it to Elazar, who promptly passed it on to his father. The two men drank thirstily one after the other, while the merchants looked at them with obvious curiosity. “It looks as though you have been through hard times,” observed one of them. “Can we help you in any way?”
The father looked at him gratefully. “You are a righteous man, sir; all of you are righteous men. Old Hillel taught us ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself’ and you indeed have in you the capacity to give. Blessings be upon you all. Where are you heading, my friends?”
“We are on our way to the village of Meron,” answered the leader.
“Can we join you?”
The bearded man smiled. “Of course you can,” he extended his hand in friendship. “My name is Abba and these are my friends Hizkiyya and Yissa, and you are…?”
The father grasped the extended hand with both his bony hands. “This is my son, Elazar, and I am Shimon. Shimon Bar Yochai.”
3. Yaakov Ben Shlomo – Acre, May 18th, 1291
Yaakov Ben Shlomo threw open the doors of the synagogue and rushed inside. For a moment, he stood mesmerized in front of the deserted Ark, his lips moving in desperate prayer. He then shook himself free, as if awakening from a bad dream, and surveyed his surroundings.
The synagogue was empty.
Yaakov passed through a side door and entered the adjacent area of the Yeshiva - the Rabbinical Academy. He walked quickly through a narrow corridor with rooms on each side. He opened the last door to the right and entered the room, which in ordinary times served as his office and place of study. Yaakov was the treasurer and administrative manager of the glorious Yeshiva of Acre, renowned for its great rabbis.
The Yeshiva was founded about thirty years before by the sage Rabbi Yechiel, who was famous for participating in a big public debate in Paris, where he argued against Christian priests who were advocating the burning of the Talmud[ii]. When the trial ended, with the gentiles declaring themselves the winners and with Talmud books being burned all over France, the disgusted Rabbi Yechiel left Paris and made his home in Acre, the crusaders’ capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1266, Rabbi Yechiel passed away and was replaced as the head of the Yeshiva by the legendary Rabbi Moshe Ben Nachman - The Ramban[iii]. The Ramban was a fugitive from the town of Girona in Catalonia, who, like Rabbi Yechiel befo
re him, was persecuted for having participated in a similar debate in Barcelona.
Yaakov was acutely aware of his position in the Yeshiva and in the community. He was well read in the Bible and the Talmud, but was no prodigy. He never ranked with the great rabbis and scholars, yet was universally respected for his organizational and political skills, without which the big Yeshiva could not have survived in the heart of a Christian and crusader stronghold.
Yaakov’s wife, Lea, whom he still loved with all his heart, had passed away two years before. Lea was an innocent victim of the riots facilitated by an army which had been dispatched by the Pope to support Christian Acre and consisted of prisoners and adventurers. The bored, no-good thugs began picking on peaceful Saracen[iv] civilians, aggravating tensions and destroying the fragile balance between Saracens and Christians in the city. The ensuing riots cost many Saracen lives, as well as the lives of a few bystanders like his unfortunate Lea. The two never had children and when his beloved Lea died, the Yeshiva, the synagogue and the community, became Yaakov’s entire world.
But right now, his thoughts were focused on saving his life. Outside all hell was breaking loose. As if the arrows and flaming missiles, which had been pouring like rain on the city during the past week, were not enough, it now looked as if the Day of Judgment had arrived. The Accursed Gate and the Gate of St. Nicholas fell that very morning and the Saracens of the Mamluk Sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil raided the city, wreaking havoc and leaving death and destruction in their wake. Yaakov saw many of his community members massacred. Others scattered in all directions, most fleeing to the port in a desperate attempt to board a ship and save their lives and the lives of their families.
Yaakov was on his own now. Every second counted. The port was his only hope, but he knew it would be useless for a Jew to get there empty-handed. Yaakov always liked to plan ahead.
He made his way to the corner of the room, put his bag on the floor and touched the wall, fumbling for the hidden recess behind the library. A light push and a shift, and a tiny opening appeared in the wall. With trembling hands, Yaakov pulled out a cash box and swiftly moved its content into a small leather purse, which he shoved under his coat. He was going to put the box back in its place and run away, when he remembered something and his right hand reached again into the dark gaping hole.
