Nexialistics: Palimpsest

[Translator’s note: The following document, partly in modern Hebrew, partly in classical Aramaic, was found sealed in a twentieth-century earthenware jar in a cave in the hills east of Jerusalem. The passages originally in Aramaic are printed in Italic type. I thank Professor Hobart Brindsley for his help with the Aramaic.]

11 Tishri 5739

12 October 1978

I am a double-minded monster. In my body lives again Johoshua ben Aram, a young zealot and former Temple priest who hid and thus preserved his Teacher’s writings. But Johoshua’s reincarnation has not erased my gentle modern self, Levi Aaronblut, whose mind is filled with effete Hellenist doubt. Closer than Siamese twins, each of us is horrified, bemused, touched, astonished, shamed, amused, and maddened by the other; each is aware of the other’s every thought, every nuance of often disgusting feeling; each wrestles with the other for control.

What caused this monstrous association? It was my exposure to the Dead Sea Scrolls. I first heard of the Scrolls in 1967. Reader, I do not know who you may be. Possibly, you are as remote from me in time as my contemporaries are from the era when the Scrolls were written. I shall shortly tell what befell me when I first viewed one of those ancient Scrolls. First, however, I provide the setting for that extraordinary occurrence.

Reader, again G-d is about to punish the Jewish people for their lack of observance of His commandments. The punishment will make the so-called holocaust seem mild. I have come to warn the Jews and the rest of the world of the destruction to come. Do you dare read on?

The times when I write these words are times when people like to consider themselves skeptics, and so question much inherited Wisdom, while they credulously accept much current folly, blind to how often they unthinkingly mistake for fact what is actually foolish opinion. In these times, nearly all would disbelieve what I am about to report. Most would regard it as the ravings of a deluded old man. Reader, if you, too, are of such an unbelieving bent, it is better that you stop reading now and, I beg you, restore this manuscript to its innocent waiting. Let it continue to be preserved until one comes who will believe.

My wife, Sarah, and I, Levi Aaronblut, lived then in a snug, sun filled Jerusalem apartment that lacked mezuzahs. We had immigrated to Israel in 1951, when ill health forced my early retirement from my position as senior brewmeister for a Shanghai brewery. To Shanghai I had come as a gangling youth, accompanying my parents. They were moderately prominent German intellectuals and literary figures seduced by the Epicurean heresy, wise or lucky enough to flee Nazism before it was too late. In Shanghai, my father found a position as assistant instructor in a fashionable French school for European children; my mother worked part-time as a voice teacher, rubbing her patience threadbare against the spoiled daughters of diplomats. We lived modestly but comfortably, though more quietly – I surmise – than my parents would have liked. Our one luxury was the size of our home, which was large enough not only for spacious living quarters but also for my parents’ study. In that lovely airy studio they carried on their endless correspondence with literary and academic personages worldwide, correspondence largely devoted to furthering their cognate ideologies of liberalism, pacifism, and vegetarianism. And what of Jewish observance?

The years in that peaceful household run together in my memory. Despite war and economic turmoil, my home was always quiet and calm, like my parents. If my childhood and youth were a bit lacking in emotion or excitement, they did provide a core of stability I have sorely needed in this, my life’s strange finale.

Unlike many other Jews, my parents were not embittered by the holocaust, but it did reinforce their rejection of the absolute religious dogmas of our ancestors. Who were they to dare to judge G-d’s will? If my parents’ emphasis on ethical relativism, if the lack of moral rigidity in my upbringing left me unable to burn intensely for any cause, perhaps the flexibility this gave me has saved my sanity, so beset since my exposure to the Dead Sea Scrolls. See how they ruined his capacity to be devoted to G-d!

My marriage to Sarah hardly altered the regularity of my life. My parents’ health had begun to fail, and so Sarah and I shared their home, where we could be available when, as happened increasingly often, they needed care. Our marriage brought my wife and me contentment, albeit not much in the way of passion. If there was a paucity of intimacy, it was not for lack of mutual respect. We were both reserved, gentle people. We liked each other for being that way. We had neither desire nor need for more.

That first fateful mention of the Scrolls came in a letter from my father’s old friend, Professor Brindsley of the University of Auckland. The kindly old scholar wrote: “I hesitate to presume upon a relationship so remote and tenuous, but the wonder and excitement of the occasion, I confess, has overwhelmed my poor defenses of conscience and reticence. I trust you recall how years ago, when I visited Shanghai, your dear departed father so ably and generously assisted me in my research on the possible Semitic roots of the Ainu language. In return for that help, alas, I was never able to secure for him the academic appointment at the University he so richly deserved. I had to content myself and – I hope – him with the expression of gratitude I placed in my book, Lost Tribes or Hidden?

“Now, again, I turn to your family for help in a scholarly endeavor.” He then recounted the wondrous story of the discovery, after nearly two thousand years, of Scrolls hidden from the Roman infidels by members of a Jewish sect who fled the urban depravity of cosmopolitan Jerusalem for the rude simplicity of life in the, then as now, desolate region to the east. He begged me to try to get photocopies of the Scrolls – or at least to view them myself and send him “as complete a description” as I could. He explained that his most urgent pleas to both Israeli and Jordanian authorities had been of no avail. This did not surprise me. I had long been familiar with how bureaucracy amplifies collective stupidity while suppressing collective wisdom. Professor Brindsley hoped that I might do better than he had, since I was at least close to the scene and acquainted with the local languages and customs.

Though I have inherited a bit of my parents’ scholarly diathesis, my erudition has necessarily been limited by the exigencies of earning enough to support not only myself but also, for many years, my elderly parents, whose poor health necessitated ongoing expenditures. By 1967, moreover, I had begun to face much the same continuing demand on scarce resources because of my own increasing debility and that of my dear Sarah.

For many years I have felt chagrin that I have contributed neither to the world of letters nor to scholarship, despite the fond hopes and fine example of my parents. The preceding few words anent my personal situation seek to explain and, in a way, apologize.

I should explain that Professor Brindsley was too discreet to be explicit in a letter that, in this war- and intrigue-ravaged region, might be read by others than to whom it was addressed.

Professor Brindsley had often been a guest in my home when I was a child, and he had taken an interest in me. His letter spoke of a “tenuous” relationship, but this was an understatement. He had helped with my ancient history homework, and he had encouraged me to tell him my childish speculations about my people’s past, my childish notions about what was real and what was myth. He knew, therefore, that he could count on the affection that had grown between us. Moreover, early in my childhood, I had demonstrated to him that, like my father, I have a photographic memory. Therefore, in his request that I transmit as complete a description of the Scrolls as possible, I inferred a suggestion that I endeavor to memorize them, should I be permitted to view them but be forbidden to take photographs. Further, I considered his mention of both the Jordanian and the Israeli authorities as an indirect reference to my contacts with both sides of the conflict between the descendants of Abraham’s two sons. Despite my genetic connection to one side, I have no sympathy for the jingoism of either side in this fratricidal struggle. Disgusting! When Jews strive to reclaim the Holy Land, they are obeying G-d’s will. As my father would have said: always to side with Jews because I was born a Jew would tend to make Hitler’s lies seem true. Therefore, I was one of the few Jews who had access to and friendships with both Israeli and Jordanian authorities.

Thus, several months after my receipt of Professor Brindsley’s letter, the great archaeologist, Professor Yadin, allowed me to view the few Scrolls in Israeli possession; and the very same week, a certain Jordanian functionary permitted, for a modest remuneration, a brief but sufficient glimpse of certain priceless copper Scrolls that dated from before the destruction of the Second Temple. Note how the descendant of Ishmael demanded a bribe, while the descendant of Isaac cooperated out of natural generosity.

Perhaps by chance, the first ancient document I viewed was “The War between the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness.” G-d leaves nothing to chance. I had scarcely read the first few lines when I remembered having read the Scroll before. It seemed to me that with my photographic memory I could see beyond the first copper panel; I could recall the panels not yet uncovered. Yet, I knew, this was not possible. Mortal eyes had not viewed these Writings for two millennia. Moreover, what my inner vision saw was not today’s crumbling copper. Rather, I saw the glistening metal as it was when I inscribed those words; it was as if a long sealed door in my mind had swung creakily open, and my inner eye gazed into an antique room where ancient furnishings were preserved, uncorrupted by the centuries.

Are you still reading? I repeat: I saw in my mind the glistening copper on which I transcribed the words of our Teacher, the Teacher of Righteousness. I remembered how I humbly prayed for Divine aid. I remembered searching out a hiding-place for the Scrolls, to preserve them from the idolatrous Romans. Thus, when – as our Teacher prophesied – a future generation of Jews would one day reconquer the land, they would find my Scrolls and realize that G-d writes the script of history.

As I read the thundering, bone-rattling poetry I inscribed so long ago, the Faith, the Certainty of 2000 years ago reawakened. Suddenly, I was no longer a hyper-intellectual modern skeptic; another self looked through my eyes, scanned my memories, and was sickened by my debasement, by how far I had fallen from the True Path of Light.

I marvel at the grim appropriateness of the awful chastisements the stern Master of the Universe has wreaked upon the neglectful descendants of Jacob. They whine about the holocaust, but forget that they had ceased to observe the strict laws of the only true G-d. How does the holocaust differ from the plagues and wars He visited upon us when we were disobedient in the days of the Prophets?

I also feel joy and awe that I have been granted this second life in the future, this Confirmation of my Faith. How wondrous this confirmation of the truth of Prophecy, how awesome my private miracle, and how generous the Judge who granted me this glimpse of the mighty machinery behind reality!

The past decade of struggle between us has been for both of us a time of agony. Only when we both will the same act do we get respite from our exhausting wrestling. For example, we both cooperated in sending Professor Brindsley a full translation of the Scroll Johoshua wrote. Better to spread the Word through a gentile than not spread it at all!

We have also cooperated in hiding our double-mindedness. I am a dybbuk, a soul who occupies another’s body. I fear exorcism if I am discovered. I suppose that I, Levi, have roughly the same fear. I am unsure what I am, but it seems not unlikely that I am insane. I fear psychiatric treatment, involuntary incarceration in a place inhabited by madmen; demeaning, even destructive probing of my private feelings. Also, until recently, I feared to leave Sarah alone and uncared for.

G-d placed me in this modern, decadent time to help bring the Jewish nation back to the ways of my Teacher. Resisting the sinner, Levi, I have struggled to devote our body to G-d’s service, to bring the word of the L-rd to the Nineveh that this modern land of Israel is, to preach of the destruction sure to come unless Jews return to the strict, ancient ways.

And what do I, Levi Aaronblut, want? Proof, perhaps. Is Johoshua the shadow of my guilt for failing to live up to my parents’ ambitions for me? Is the Scroll a replacement for the literary work, the social criticism I should have published? Was there a day in my childhood when I screamed and kicked and smashed a toy or struck a playmate, and felt my parents’ disapproval and rejection? Is Johoshua a djin escaped from a bottle long filled with childhood rage? Are Johoshua’s fanaticism and certainty my long suppressed emotions, suppressed by my parents’ demand that I, like they, always be calm, always be rational?

Johoshua demands that we be fully observant. It is G-d’s will. The observance he demands is not even that of modern Judaism, but rather that of his cult. His calendar does not even correspond to that of today’s Jews. The religious holidays, the celebrations, the fast days all fall on different dates. As my Teacher taught, the beginning of Israel’s straying from G-d was miscalculation of the calendar, mistakenly following the rhythms of the lesser light, the moon, rather than those of the greater light, the sun. We could not even explain our observance by pretending that Levi, in his old age, has become religious.

Moreover, men and women may come together in conjugal union only after the most careful rites and ablutions. Therefore, I insisted that we avoid any contact with Sarah. Fortunately, such intimacies were already rare between us, and in her ill health, she mistook this avoidance for consideration and sensitivity.

I am a habitual compromiser. For example, I offered to arrange for Johoshua to give a series of public lectures, at which he could set forth his doctrine. I hoped, thus, to put an end to the sudden diatribes that would erupt at passers-by, shopkeepers, bank tellers, bus drivers, postal employees, the family physician, and others. I simply tried to persuade the physician to implore G-d to forgive his patients. How else could they recover? As for the others, I merely tried to help them avoid sinking deeper into sin. For example, I explained to bank tellers that each time they handled money they contaminated themselves with the taint clinging to the coins and bills because of the abominations on which they had been spent. Their only hope, I explained, was to wash their hands and say a prayer of contrition after each transaction. But though Johoshua eagerly made use of the opportunity to lecture publicly (shocking – I must add – those liberal, cultured friends of Levi who came to hear him speak), he nevertheless would not control himself at other times. Why should I forgo any opportunity to spread the Word? Only my strongest exertions of will, coupled with our shared fear of incarceration in an asylum, have more or less restrained Johoshua from extreme outbursts.

Last month, Sarah finally passed away. How patient she was these past few years as her strength ebbed, as she endured her husband’s increasingly erratic ways. Poor thing, she thought it was due to my grief over her illness. Like a pagan, Levi arrogantly refuses to accept G-d’s will about her death. He ignores the fact that she was just one more unobservant Jew, undeserving of the gift of life!

We both now recognize that our decrepit body will soon follow Sarah to the final resolution of all mysteries. Today, the day after Yom Kippur, Levi and Johoshua do not wrestle. Together, we have written this document and shall hide it much as 2000 years ago I hid others.

In this life, there can be no resolution for Levi Aaronblut of the question: Is this madness or miracle? But, for you, reader, this document may be the door to faith and redemption. Is there a Third Temple in Jerusalem? Are there still Jews in the world? If the Messiah has already come, if there is a Temple, then Johoshua and Levi agree: there is no need for this document – Faith is triumphant.

However, if there are still Jews in the world, but they are still in exile, if the Messiah has not yet come, then this document may serve a high purpose. The Scribe of the Great Scroll may have placed this manuscript here for you, to return you to the True Faith – a sufficient reason for any miracle. Consider: Is it reasonable that by chance alone Jews could have survived until your era, that this most ancient faith could have outlasted the rise and fall of empires and dynasties, the slow crumbling of ancient hills, the slow spread or shrinkage of desert and forest? I, Levi, think: “Perhaps; it is possible.” But even Levi recognizes how unlikely it is, how it can only be miraculous (Levi: almost miraculous).