The Final Testament of the Holy Bible (11 page)

I understand.

Has he spoken to you about his communications?

I don’t discuss conversations between me and members of my synagogue.

Even if it may affect their health?

I understand your position and your concerns, and if they come up with Ben, I will address them with him.

Thank you.

I stood and left and went back to Ben’s room, where his brother and Jeremiah were praying at his bedside. He was asleep, on his back, and looked as if he was
at peace. Jacob looked up at me and I knew I was not welcome. Wanting to avoid an unnecessary confrontation, I decided it was best to leave. I said a prayer outside the door and went home.

After dinner I went to my study and turned on my computer and started researching epilepsy, and more specifically ecstatic epilepsy, on the internet, which I find a wonderful, though sometimes confusing and contradictory source of information. The diagnosis was perplexing to me. While Ben had clearly suffered major trauma to his head and body, and the epilepsy might have been a direct result of said trauma, if there wasn’t a spiritual element, a true spiritual element to what he was experiencing, there was no way he would know the religious books he claimed to know. He had also, since before he was born, depending on who you believed, shown signs of messianic potential, which had grown stronger and more absolute following his birth and his childhood. On the other hand, I did not know if he actually knew the books, and he himself had stated that the words of God meant nothing in the face of science, and that he might well be a delusional fool. I found myself, until I knew more and spent more time with him and had more time for reflection and prayer, in the same place I was with God, which is a place of faith. I either had faith in Ben or I didn’t. I either believed him, and in him, or I didn’t.

My research proved to be very enlightening, and epilepsy turned out to be far more fascinating
than I’d imagined it could or would be. Over the course of recorded time, some of the world’s most important historical figures either were or are thought to have been epileptic, including Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Hannibal, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Petrarch, Dante Alighieri, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ludwig van Beethoven, Lord Byron, Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Vincent van Gogh, Alfred Nobel, Thomas Edison, and Vladimir Lenin. Many scientists and researchers believe that the genius these people possessed was either directly caused by, or most certainly related to, their epilepsy. The number of religious figures I found who are thought to have had it was astonishing, among them the Priestly source of the Pentateuch, Ezekiel, Saint Paul, the Prophet Muhammad, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther, Saint Birgitta, Saint Catherine of Genoa, Saint Teresa of Ávila, Saint Catherine of Ricci, Saint Margaret Mary, Ellen G. White, and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Among those who either definitely had or are thought to have had ecstatic epilepsy are Saint Paul, the Prophet Muhammad, Joan of Arc, Beethoven, and Dostoyevsky. The effects those moments, those brief moments before their seizures hit, had on their lives, and on the world at large, are astonishing: on the road to Damascus, Saint Paul had his vision of the resurrected Jesus, which led to his conversion to Christianity; the Prophet Muhammad is thought, by some, almost always non-Muslims, to have spoken to the archangel Gabriel and to have received the
Qur’an from him during those moments; Joan of Arc is believed to have received the instructions from Saint Margaret, Saint Catherine, and Saint Michael that inspired her to lead the French Army into battle and resulted in its victories against the English in the Hundred Years’ War; Beethoven is thought to have conceived of his symphonies in their entirety, which is perhaps how he was able to compose them even when he was deaf; and Dostoyevsky is believed to have conceived of his novels in their entirety. In thinking specifically of Saint Paul and the Prophet Muhammad, who, while I do not worship in the same way as them or the followers of the religions that one preached and one founded, are certainly the two most important religious figures who have appeared on earth since the death of Jesus Christ, I was heartened in my belief that Ben might be divine, that his visions might be of God, instead of a false apparition of God, and that his condition might be a requirement of his potential rather than an impediment to it.

I returned to the hospital the next day, stopping first at the synagogue to ask my assistant rabbi to handle those responsibilities that are normally mine. When I entered Ben’s room, Jacob and Jeremiah were sitting across from Ben, who was cross-legged on his bed. They both had their Bibles open and were giving him book titles with chapter and verse numbers, and as soon as they finished saying them, Ben immediately recited the text, in what I assume was a word-for-word rendering, back to them.
Jacob looked up at me and started to speak, but Ben told him he wanted me to stay. There were no other seats, so I stood a few feet away from the foot of Ben’s bed.

What I saw was absolutely amazing. Jacob was using an Old Testament, the first five books of which, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, also known as the Five Books of Moses, constitute the Torah, and Jeremiah was using the New Testament, the primary focus of which is the story of Jesus Christ. For over an hour they drilled him. They’d quickly flip through the pages, the book, chapter, and verse they landed on, and each time Ben would recite the corresponding text correctly. Near the end of it, while Jeremiah was visibly awed and excited, and I was silent and, in a way, very proud, Jacob seemed very anxious and nervous. He stopped Jeremiah, closed his Old Testament, and spoke. How do I know you didn’t memorize these while you were away?

Because I told you I didn’t.

Why should I believe you?

It doesn’t matter to me if you do or you don’t.

Why won’t you tell me what you did for all those years?

Because it doesn’t matter.

Where were you?

I was drifting.

Where?

Doesn’t matter.

It does to me.

Let’s end our conversation. I’d like to spend some time with the rabbi.

Tell me what you did and I’ll end the conversation.

I lived and felt and learned and hurt and fell in love once and most of the time I wasn’t happy but some of the time I was and I never stepped foot in a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, or any other kind of religious establishment and I never picked up a book of any kind, much less memorized one.

You didn’t answer my question.

I just didn’t give you the answer you wanted.

Jacob stood and said he’d be back in an hour, and he and Jeremiah started to walk out of the room. Ben spoke.

I love you, Jacob. And I appreciate how much care and concern you’ve shown me.

Jacob stopped and looked back and he almost smiled, which would have been the first time I had seen him smile since he visited me in my office, and he said thank you, and he and Jeremiah left.

Ben looked at me.

You spoke with my doctor.

Yes, I did. It was very interesting, and very informative.

What do you think?

Words of science mean nothing in the face of God. Ben smiled.

It could just be a malfunction of my brain.

What do you know about Messiah?

The Messiah?

Messiah. Not everyone believes it will be a person. Many believe, as they do with large sections of the
Torah, that the story, and the prophecy, of Messiah is symbolic, and not about an actual person who may have lived, may currently be alive, or may at some point walk among us, but about a period of time, a Messianic age, when Jews, and the rest of the world, will live in peace.

Is that what you believe?

No.

You believe in a person, an actual Messiah?

Messiah, or Moshiach, means anointed, or the anointed one, in Hebrew. It is a word that has been used to refer to many things and many people in the Torah, including kings, prophets, priests, and warriors. Some believe we may have seen many Messiahs already, the most prominent being David, Solomon, Aaron, and Saul. In at least three points in our history, a great many Jews believed the Messiah was among us. In 132
CE
, a Davidic soldier named Shimon Bar Kochba united the armies of the tribes of Israel and led a revolt against Roman rule, which freed Israel. He established a new government in Jerusalem, and he started rebuilding the Temple of Solomon. Rabbis made proclamations naming him Messiah and stating that the Messianic age had begun, which lasted for two years, at which point the Romans returned, crushed the Jewish armies, and killed a large portion of our population, including Bar Kochba. Fifteen hundred years later, in 1648, a Turkish rabbi named Sabbatai Zevi proclaimed himself Messiah, basing his claim on a prophecy set forth in the Kabbalah text of Zohar, which predicted the Messiah’s arrival in that year. Though he was
not Davidic, and possessed none of the requirements of Messiahship, by 1665, when he proclaimed himself Messiah again, he was able to convince eighty percent of the world’s Jewish population at the time that he was indeed Messiah. He ultimately converted to Islam before Sultan Mehmed iv of Constantinople, humiliating his followers and embarrassing Jews around the world. Against all reason, there are people today who call themselves Sabbatians and believe he was Messiah, and that in order to herald the Messianic age, they pray for his return. The most recent individual thought to be Messiah was Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Rebbe of Chabad Lubavitch in Brooklyn, who lived from 1902 until 1994. He was undoubtedly a great man, and spent his life spreading Orthodox Judaism and working to unite Jews, but his call for prayer to hasten Moshiach was not a proclamation of his own Messianism, despite the belief of many of his own followers, which he neither supported nor rejected. You ask what I believe, and as you know, as an Orthodox Jew, and as a rabbi, I am required as part of my belief to subscribe to the thirteen principles of faith set forth by Maimonides. The twelfth principle states: I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah. How long it takes, I will await his coming every day. I also recite the Shemoneh Esrei, the eighteen prayers, three times a day, at morning, afternoon, and evening services, and in that prayer, I pray for the conditions of the Messiah to be met: the return of Jewish exiles to Israel, a return to religious courts and God’s system of justice, an end
to evil and the humbling of sinners and heretics, rewards to the righteous, the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the restoration of a king descended from David, and the building of the Third Temple of Solomon.

And when that happens, the Messiah arrives?

Or he arrives and then it happens, or some of it happens before and some after, no one knows, and the prophecies aren’t specific about it. We only know, or believe, the Messiah will arrive, and that the arrival could be at any time, or it could have been and we missed it, or it could be now, or it could still be coming, and that’s part of the beauty of Messiah, the fact that no one knows. There are, though, beliefs that specific events will herald the arrival of the Messiah: if every Jew on earth observes a single Shabbat, or if no Jew on earth observes a single Shabbat, if the world is good enough to be deserving of Messiah, or if the world is bad enough to need Messiah, if an entire generation of Jews is born innocent, or if an entire generation of Jews loses hope. None are likely, though, so instead of waiting for them, or trying to bring them into being, rabbis, or at least some of us, myself included, have looked for specific signs, which have been known for centuries, that Messiah, or the potential Messiah, will possess.

Such as?

The Messiah, or potential Messiah, will have been born on Tisha B’Av, the day of the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. The Messiah, or potential Messiah, will have been born circumcised, as were Adam, Noah, Joseph, Moses, and David, and some believe Jesus, though
Jews do not believe that particular myth. The Messiah, or potential Messiah, will be able to judge people, whether they are good or bad, whether they are honest or deceitful, whether they are deserving of Heaven or undeserving, with his sense of smell. The Messiah, or potential Messiah, will also perform miracles; though the exact nature is not revealed, the most common miracles are related to health and medical issues, and having the ability to heal either themselves or others. I watched Ben to see if he would react to what I said, as he knew he had been born on Passover. I knew, though I did not know if he did or not, that he had been born circumcised, which is one of the reasons I had tried, for the entirety of his life, to be close to him and his family, and to watch, guide, and counsel him when I could, and I believed, based on what I had seen, that he had acquired the ability to judge people using his sense of smell. The fact that he was alive, given his traumas, was an obvious miracle, though I did not know, at the time, whether he was able to heal others, or perform any other type of miracle. I doubted, because I did not, and do not, believe the Christ story as it is written, that he would ever have walked on water or turned water to wine. He did not react, which surprised me, because surely he knew he possessed three of the traits, and must have, given the difficult situation within his family, which had revolved around the circumstances of his birth for his entire life, suspected that he possessed the fourth and that he had been born as he was.

He stood up and looked at me and spoke.

I need to do something.

Shall I wait here for you?

It would probably be better if you went home.

Is everything okay?

He smiled and nodded.

Yes.

He turned and walked out of the room. He was wearing his robe and a pair of hospital slippers and I could see glimpses of the scars on his back, and large scars on the back of his head. I think often of that moment, if perhaps I said something wrong, if I should have withheld some of the information I gave to him, if I was too forward, or if perhaps I should have sensed something when he told Jacob that he loved him. I think often of that moment, and I wonder if I should have known when he stood and smiled at me, that he was going to walk out of the room, and walk out of the hospital, and disappear again, and if I had known, would I have done anything to stop him.