One Hundred Philistine Foreskins (57 page)

That night the media was foaming at the mouth with righteous indignation and condemnation of the misuse and trivialization of Holocaust language and imagery by cult groupies of a woman guru no less, squatters in a “leper” colony of all places that had been harboring a homicidal maniac terrorist; this was nothing but a desecration of the memory of the six million martyrs of the Shoah, which was an unprecedented genocide to which no other atrocity could ever be given moral equivalency. But in my
woman's naked voice I say, with all my authority as director of the school for prophetesses, that if a “leper” colony can be reclassified as occupied territory or an illegal settlement outpost, why not also as a ghetto, why not a death camp? The Holocaust belongs to all of us Jews, it is our communal birthright, no Jew has exclusive rights over it, we all own it to use as we see fit.

Also that night a delegation of top cabinet officials made a preemptive secret pilgrimage to our holy mother's private quarters in the northern garden of our “leper” colony to negotiate a deal for a relatively peaceful and orderly disengagement, providing for only a controlled token protest by our people so that we could save face while also guaranteeing no further embarrassment or trauma for those on the government-enforcement side taxed with doing the dirty work. In exchange for this concession on our part, a quota of select visitors and supplicants would be allowed to continue to enter the radiant orbit of HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, and those evicted from the grounds of the “leper” colony along with other followers would be granted the right of return during daylight hours in order to be in physical proximity to our holy mother to whom they were in any event always spiritually connected as by an umbilical cord wherever they were in the world, day or night. But when darkness fell they would be obliged to depart from the grounds of the settlement outpost “leper” colony ghetto death camp and go into exile, leaving only the remnants of the chosen people within, and the gates would be sealed.

The next morning, however, the news was once again hectic with reports of an underground raid on Yad Vashem carried out by “psychos” and “nuts,” a happening, it was conjectured, that must have taken place in the early hours of dawn before the Holocaust remembrance museum opened for business, during which an unauthorized exhibition was put up entitled Remember Munich! Pullout Equals Appeasement Equals Shoah!, which showcased images and videos and artifacts from the confrontation of the previous day between our persecutors and our “leper” colony's ghetto fighters and death camp inmates; the floor surrounding the display billowed with concentric half-moons of
hundreds of flickering memorial candles, a very effective installation, I might note, which let's just say I was privileged to view myself with my seer's eyes. But because of this so-called trespass and violation, a much larger police contingent than had originally been allocated was dispatched to execute the pullout later that morning, padded with an extraordinary number of female officers to physically manhandle our women, along with ambulances, fire trucks, military support and vehicles, including tanks and helicopters, plus armored buses standing ready with engines churning to haul away the evacuees, not to mention those usual feeders-on-carrion who swoop down and swarm to any public spectacle—the press, bigshots, thrill-seekers, idlers, gawkers, and other assorted lowlife.

I can only say that as I stood on the elevated landing of the “leper” hospital beneath the J
ESUS
H
ILFE
inscription and bore witness to the tremendous dignity with which our people faced their oppressors, it was as if my heart shattered from sorrow into millions of cells that soared up to the heavens and became recombinant in joy. Row upon row of police fully equipped with anti-riot gear, helmeted and masked, advanced in formation into our “leper” colony bearing body-length transparent bulletproof shields in front of them and emitting apelike grunts with each choreographed step forward. On our side, every woman stood fearless and inert, frozen in place cloaked from head to toe in a great white talit, awaiting her fate (how well trained we women are at staying put and waiting, as if this acquired trait had become a mutation in our genetic code); our men, fewer in number, were also garbed in white prayer shawls, each one blowing his shofar. Visually, from where I was standing, it was black versus white, a metaphor for the war between evil and good.

As the ranks of police goose-stepped nearer, discharging their barks and roars, not one of our people flinched or cowered. Nor did they resist, but neither did they collaborate or participate in their own extermination or corroborate the canard against the Jews by going like the proverbial sheep to the slaughter. Instead, as the police shields came up against them like a barrier wall they let their bodies slump and go limp in the time-honored
posture of Ghandian passive resistance, Dr. M.L. Kingian, Jr. nonviolent protest, necessitating that each one be lugged out like a deadweight by a minimum of two male officers or four females in a respectful manner avoiding all physical contact with any tender or vulnerable or private body part, especially in rounding up and transporting and uploading our women. As they were being carted out (I must insert here that each time I recall this moment a lump forms in my throat forcing me to consciously stop myself from raising my woman's naked voice and bawling) they were singing with such heavenly sweetness it was as if tears of honey were falling from the clouds—I believe with full faith in the coming of the Messiah, and even if she tarries, despite all that I believe.

F
IVE MONTHS
after these events, in the first week of Adar, word spread beyond our walls that a coronation would take place inside the “leper” colony at which HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, would be anointed the queen the messiah. The faithful arrived in the morning, first a trickle but as the week built toward its climax and the news rippled out they converged in increasing numbers to claim a spot facing the hospital in anticipation of this end-of-history eschatological event. All day they would remain fixed in place to be among the first to greet the queen the messiah, their eyes focused on a hopeful point of light in the distance until darkness descended and they were banished from the grounds. No one knew exactly when the coronation would be carried out, speculation abounded, it could take place with no forewarning at any moment, in the blink of an eye, even behind closed doors or at night, yet the general consensus was that it would be a public ceremony with a multitude of witnesses to affirm that the redemption was already underway, and the likelihood was, it was agreed, that it would come to pass on the seventh day of the month, also the birthday of Moses Our Teacher, another messiah contender according to certain kabbalistic calculations.

The plan was to spread the news beyond the “leper” colony, to broadcast the coronation via satellite TV throughout the world, beam it across the planet, even more mystically into the universe,
for it was rumored that the blessed oil would be decanted in a golden stream from the four angels in the upper spheres surrounding the heavenly throne, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel, directly to earth to anoint the head of the designated messiah, HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita. This is what I heard only after plans for the coronation had been set in motion, for I had no part in it, I fought against it with every fiber of my being when I learned it was in the works, there was no doubt in my mind that in its grandiosity and vulgarity it would be contrary to the spirit and teachings of our holy mother who, with rare exceptions, was no longer favoring us at that time with the personal expression in words or through body language of what was to be considered desirable and what loathsome.

During that entire first week of the month of Adar I remained hypervigilant, on high alert in order to prevent this grotesque carnival from unfolding, I did not shut my eyes for a second, and yet despite my opposition, the procedure was carried out in the shadowy light of a deep purple dusk late on the fifth day, when it was almost dark. It lasted two minutes at most, even some of the assembled still dragging their feet in the courtyard blinked and missed it. Our holy mother (or perhaps it was our holy mother's double), shrouded from head to toe in what resembled a bedsheet like a ghost (though it might have been a prayer shawl or maybe a chador or maybe a hood drawn over the head of a condemned person about to be executed) was pushed in a wheel-chair by an individual who looked like an Arab but was, some maintained, an original Canaanite, out through the main door of the “leper” hospital onto the elevated landing that served as a kind of stage or platform against the setting of the J
ESUS
H
ILFE
inscription (ironically, an invocation of a false messiah reduced to the background role of helpmeet for the anointment of the true chosen one who happened to be a woman). The Canaanite with a white keffiyeh pinned across the lower portion of the face like a bandit in a cowboy movie so that only the large aviator sunglasses were visible and robed in a white jellabiya trimmed with gold embroidery along the edges pulled out a half-liter bottle of Two-State-Solution Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil produced in
a joint cooperative grassroots venture by Palestinian and Israeli farmers and poured all of its contents over the blanketed head of the person in the wheelchair alleged to be Ima Temima, though it could just as easily have been a bump on a log (no comparison intended, God forbid) for all anyone knew.

At a certain point in the proceedings a hand emerged from under the wrappings in the wheelchair which, according to the testimony of some witnesses, seemed to wave sedately from side to side like the queen of England acknowledging her subjects from the balcony of Buckingham Palace and by implication endorsing their adoration. But others who also saw the hand come forth from under the layers of drapery asserted that it was gesturing in agitation as if to ward off the sludge and slick of the oil and everything it signified spilling all over the place and making an awful mess.

Assuming that this is not an urban legend and that the apparition under wraps in the chair was actually HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, being anointed as the messiah, I am of two minds about the hand that appeared—either it was raised in defiant rejection of the entire idolatrous farce or it was offered in resignation to the inevitability of the ritual that flowed from having been chosen—our holy mother has gone into hiding and has declined through silence to elucidate the mystery. There is, however, universal agreement that at a certain point a cry rose up, nor is there any dispute as to the words of the cry, everyone could make them out loud and clear: Long Live Our Master and Rabbi the Queen the Messiah Forever and Ever—Long May She Live! May She Live Forever!
Tekhi! Tekhi! Tekhi!

It is no secret that it was I who had raised my woman's naked voice and bellowed out that cry for all to hear. The truth is, we of the inner core circle, with the exception of the nomad who worshipped in his own way as was his right and privilege, had over the preceding excruciatingly difficult months taken to singing out this phrase at various points during our devotions to affirm that the redemption had already begun. I had set it to music so that we could chant it over and over again, like an hypnotic refrain, a mantra, a chorus, breaking out in ecstatic
dancing, whirling in a trance until we either took off to outer space from spiritual uplift or melted down from physical exhaustion. The verse was a variation based on the salutation spoken by Bathsheba to her husband, King David, as he lay dying, probably with the exquisite Shunamite virgin stretched out naked in the bed under the covers alongside him warming him up like a human hot water bottle. Years earlier, when Ima Temima and I were still in apprenticeship to Abba Kadosh, a'h, as we bathed in the spring of Ein Feshkha, our holy mother had addressed me as My Batsheva, adding that every human being, regardless of gender, needs a wife. On the first level, this was a reference to what would eventually become my official appointment as secretary, traditionally a woman's role, gal Friday, among other duties perpetuator of the legacy of HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, with the responsibility to preserve the teachings and stories and history that otherwise would have been lost by raising my woman's naked voice through speech, song, and above all through writing, a medium our holy mother personally shunned for mystical reasons. Writing is murder, our holy mother would sometimes cryptically say—and yes, I could not have agreed more, writing is very hard, it's hell, it's torture, which is why I procrastinate so much and avoid it for as long as possible and am always pounding as with a sledgehammer to break down my writer's block. So unshakable was Ima Temima's refusal to write, as it happens, that had we been dealing with an ordinary mortal here I would have diagnosed this aversion as an extreme case of graphophobia or another anxiety disorder of some sort. But given the stature of the personage in question, I have concluded that this acute negative reaction to the act of writing was a further teaching from our holy mother concerning how a leader's time might be most optimally allocated. Important leaders, world class celebrities, major public figures, and the like, do not waste their time writing. For that they have support staff, chroniclers, scribes, official biographers, secretaries, speech writers, ghost writers, assistants, aides, clerks, and other such wives like myself.

On a deeper level, though, I also understood intuitively that, like Batsheva, I was first and foremost being impregnated with
prophetic powers capable of envisioning the messianic line destined to manifest itself through the coveted neighbor's wife scooped up from her bath, Batsheva, the name by which our holy mother captured me, down through the generations to the end of time culminating in HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, and that I was being charged above all with protecting and enabling its full realization. Not for a single moment has my faith wavered in the redemptive mission of HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, who except for the irrelevant gender factor is a perfect candidate for the messiah according to the traditionally accepted definitive arbiter Rabbi Dr. Moses son of Maimon, known as Rambam; in an open equal-opportunity nondiscriminatory job market Ima Temima fulfills the Maimonidean messianic qualifications—that's the bottom line. Our belief in the arrival of our holy mother as the full-fledged messiah was, and remains, so strong that even as we ministered daily to the weakening and deterioration of the physical vessel that housed the messiah, and even now after the concealment of the physical instrument, the cry of
Tekhi!
May She Live On And On! still bursts out of our throats spontaneously, not only during prayer but also in the absence of any apparent external stimulus, as if we are gasping for breath—
Tekhi!
And I cannot even count how often our cries of
Tekhi!
were greeted by nods or even on occasion a confirming smile under the veil from our holy mother prior to the concealment, a clear sign to us that the messianic materialization we foresaw and all of our aspirations for salvation were acknowledged and approved by our holy mother. Ima Temima was supportive. Our holy mother would deliver. Our holy mother would deliver
us
—when and how as yet to be determined.