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The Kabbalist
The Kabbalist
The Kabbalist
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The Kabbalist

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Satanic rituals, a wedding of the dead, young lovers threatened by eternal damnation... and a conflict between three rabbis who immerse themselves in 16th century Jewish Mysticism – Kabbala – in the battle for the future of mankind. One's faith is challenged when his son and his son’s fiancé die. Another must pass on secrets of Kabbala for use in the war with Satan. And the third becomes Satan’s disciple.

The battlefield is Safed, the birthplace of Jewish mysticism, a hilltop town above the Sea of Galilee in Israel.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherDov Silverman
Release dateOct 5, 2012
ISBN9781301656073
The Kabbalist
Author

Dov Silverman

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Dov Silverman has served as a U.S. Marine in the Korean War, worked as a Long Island railroad conductor, been an auctioneer, and even established the Autar Microfilm Service. While working so hard on the railroad, he earned his high school diploma and went on to graduate from Stony Brook University, Long Island, New York, cum laude, at the age of 39. He and his family settled in Safed, Israel in 1972. He credits a spiritual meeting with God and a Tzaddik (righteous man), Jules Rubinstein, in the Brentwood (New York) Jewish Center, with setting him on the path of study, religious involvement and settlement in Israel. His novel, FALL OF THE SHOGUN, appeared on the London Times Best-Seller List and has been published in multiple languages. He also won a 1988 Suntory Mystery Fiction Award, Japan, for REVENGE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERDS.

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    The Kabbalist - Dov Silverman

    Introduction

    To The Kabbalist

    THE KABBALIST tells of Satanic rituals, a wedding of the dead, young lovers threatened by eternal damnation, and the conflict between 3 Rabbis living in the 20th century, who immerse themselves in 16th century Jewish Mysticism – Kabbala – in the battle for the future of mankind. Reb Caspi’s faith is challenged when his son and his son’s fiancé die. Chief Rabbi Amrusi must pass on secrets of Kabbala to Reb Caspi for use in the war with Satan. In exchange for wealth, fame and power, Reb Gorman becomes Satan’s disciple and attempts to destroy Rabbis Caspi and Amrusi. The heads of the Muslim, Catholic and Protestant religions meet with the United Nations Secretary-General and quote Prophets predicting the War of Gog and Magog. Because of Kabbalistic interpretations by Rabbi Caspi, the war is no longer believed to be between nations, but between the forces of Satan and the world's religions. Satan is about to be freed from his confinement in Safed. The battlefield is Safed, the birthplace of Jewish mysticism, a hilltop town above the Sea of Galilee in Israel.

    Contradictions between Biblical promises of reward and punishment are argued in Heaven and Hell and resolved on Earth in a Kabbalistic solution that challenges the reader's concepts of GOOD- EVIL AND LIFE AFTER DEATH

    The story offers a solution to the historical controversy between religions and the age-old question of human beings, Why are we here?

    Other Works

    By The Author

    The Fall Of The Shogun

    The Black Dragon

    The Shishi

    Tairo

    To The Gates Of Hell

    Legends Of Safed

    Revenge Of The Good Shepherds

    The Kabbalist

    Amphitrite

    The Central Avenue Boys And The Palmetto Street Tigers

    The 5th Marines

    Top Shelf

    Gold To India

    The Poor Farm

    Ametropia

    The Eighth Day Of Creation

    The Prophet And The Priest

    Jewish Short Stories

    Night Train To Ronkonkoma

    Frank Crowe, The Dam Builder Who Changed The Face Of The Earth

    God's Dancer: A Search For Identity

    Table Of Contents

    INTRODUCTION TO THE KABBALIST

    INTRODUCTION TO THE AUTHOR

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    CHAPTER 1 THE UNITED NATIONS

    CHAPTER 2 THE KABBALIST

    CHAPTER 3 PRECURSOR OF EVIL

    CHAPTER 4 THE INVITATION

    CHAPTER 5 THE RABBINICAL COURT

    CHAPTER 6 THE CONUNDRUM

    CHAPTER 7 THE WADI AMUD

    CHAPTER 8 SABBATH EVE

    CHAPTER 9 SABBATH MORNING

    CHAPTER 10 THE MAIL

    CHAPTER 11 THE STORM

    CHAPTER 12 THE CHIEF RABBI'S DECREE

    CHAPTER 13 RENDEZVOUS AT SATAN'S ARCH

    CHAPTER 14 JOURNEY TO HEAVEN

    CHAPTER 15 HEAVENLY TRIAL

    CHAPTER 16 CONFRONTATION

    CHAPTER 17 THE FRAILTIES OF MAN

    CHAPTER 18 SATAN THE CHOSEN OF GOD

    CHAPTER 19 VIOLENCE IN THE HOLY CITY

    CHAPTER 20 DEATH OF A TZADDIK

    CHAPTER 21 A TZADDIK RETURNS

    CHAPTER 22 OPENING BATTLE OF GOG AND MAGOG

    CHAPTER 23 CONFORMATION OF A TZADDIK

    CHAPTER 24 THE PROVING OF A KABBALIST

    CHAPTER 25 THE TZADDIK'S GUILT

    CHAPTER 26 A WEDDING OF THE DEAD

    THE AUTHOR

    ALSO BY DOV SILVERMAN

    THE KABBALIST

    By

    DOV SILVERMAN

    IN LOVING MEMORY

    OF MICHAEL DAVIDSON

    and

    JEFFREY SILVERMAN

    who were taken from us in the flower of their youth.

    Acknowledgements

    To DEBORAH DAVIDSON

    For her loving friendship

    *****

    BARBARA SHER

    *****

    ANAV and LORIEL

    Genesis VI, Verse 5:

    And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the Earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only Evil…

    Chapter 1

    The United Nations

    Friday, July 13, 2012, New York City:

    The Italian Cardinal scrunched his toes in the new leather shoes, wishing for the comfort of his sandals and robe rather than the silk, hand-made, Bordilini suit. It's a Liar's Spring in the hills of Galilee, he said. Parishioners in Nazareth report buds opening, but claim all will die when the rain and cold wind blow from the north.

    The Secretary-General of the UN smiled. Monsignor, what does a weather report in Israel have to do with you three distinguished clergymen and this secret meeting?

    The Cardinal looked first at the gray-haired Bishop from the Church of England also dressed in civilian clothes; then to the young, bearded Saudi Prince staring out the window at Manhattan's East River. The long, flowing, white linen robe could not hide the lithe body and aristocratic stance.

    Prince Akhmed Husseini turned from the window and fixed the Secretary-General with his penetrating dark eyes. He motioned at the Cardinal and Bishop. "Each of us has lost a respected clergyman in the hills of Galilee. For me, the loss is more personal. The Mullah sent to the Wadi Amude was my uncle, the younger brother of my father, King of Saudi Arabia. A wadi is a dry riverbed. Amude in Hebrew means pillar. The Wadi Amude runs from the ancient city of Safed, 3,000 feet above sea level, to the Sea of Galilee, 240 feet below sea level. In my uncle's place, I am now Mullah of Saudi Arabia and Keeper of the Holy Seal to the Kaaba in Mecca."

    The Bishop leaned forward in his chair. "Mr. Secretary-General, the Cardinal's term, Liar's Spring, is appropriate to the situation. The Elders of the Church of England find it difficult to believe that three brutal murders occurred within a month in the Wadi Amude and the Israeli police claim to have no clues."

    Are you charging Israeli authorities with covering up these murders? The Secretary-General's face paled. Did…. Did the…. the Jews really do it?

    I can't believe it is murder, the Cardinal said. It is inconceivable that one human being could mutilate another like that. He shuddered. Arms torn from sockets; bones crushed without a pattern. It had to be wild animals.

    The Anglican Bishop opened his mouth, but could only choke back the bile rising in his throat.

    The Secretary-General leaned over his desk toward the Bishop. Sir, I couldn't hear what you said.

    They were all sodomized, the Bishop mumbled. The blood was drained from their bodies.

    The Secretary-General fell back in his seat and spread his hands. Animals don't sodomize their prey.

    The Israeli police censored the news, the Bishop said. Local authorities and residents of the Galilee are unaware of the ugly details.

    'This matter must be cleared up, the Cardinal said. The Vatican demands it."

    The United Nations is not usually consulted on religious matters. The Secretary-General's eyes opened wide at sight of the blood dripping onto the carpet from the Saudi Prince's clenched fist.

    The young Prince stroked his beard with his other hand. Officially we are not here. Neither Saudi Arabia, the Vatican, nor the Protestant Council of Churches recognizes the State of Israel. To register an official complaint with you would mean defacto recognition of the Jewish State. That we cannot do. He dabbed clean the bloody fingernails of his left hand as he spoke. It has been three weeks since the last murder, and the Jews have uncovered nothing. I believe that is what the Cardinal really meant by a Liar's Spring.

    I find it difficult to believe Jerusalem would attempt to sweep something like this under the carpet, the Secretary-General said.

    The only clues were cloven hoof-prints in the scorched earth around each of the bodies, the Anglican Bishop said. There is no cloven-footed animal on Earth that is carnivorous. And as you said, only humans sodomize their victims. He raised his hand and ticked off names on his fingers: Scotland Yard, Vatican Secret Service, Saudi Military Intelligence. All agree that the perpetrator or perpetrators were human. Also, that criminal profiling in brutal murders of such unconscionable ferocity severely limits the number of suspects. The Israeli police have not arrested nor even detained one suspect.

    May I remind you that Scotland Yard never found Jack the Ripper, the Secretary-General said.

    Because one of the royal family was involved, the Bishop said. Scotland Yard believes it was a cover-up then and that the Israelis are covering up someone or something important now.

    If your religions have no official relations with the Israeli government, what were your clergymen doing there?

    We're hesitant to tell you, the Cardinal said.

    You'd better, the Secretary-General said. I don't intend to get involved in an international scandal unless without all the facts.

    Excuse us a moment. The Bishop led his two associates to the farthest corner of the office.

    The three men talked quietly at first, they soon grew visibly agitated.

    The Roman Catholic Cardinal threw up his hands and shook his head. No! No! No!

    Will you at least call the Vatican? the Saudi Prince demanded.

    Reluctantly the Cardinal returned to the desk. Mr. Secretary, may I use your security telephone?

    The Cardinal talked rapidly into the phone in Italian. He listened and then replaced the receiver. I have permission, he said to the Saudi Prince. It was from your father the King that the Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury learned of the murders in Galilee. The story should come from you.

    The Prince nodded. Facing the Secretary-General, he paused to organize his thoughts. My people are sometimes superstitious, but the men in my family have been educated at Harvard, Oxford and the Sorbonne. At first we didn't believe reports coming out of Galilee. They were from primitive Bedouin, Druse shepherds and peasant Arab farmers. Then the Mullahs in the mosques around Tiberias and Nazareth began reporting to Mecca.

    Unable to restrain himself, the Cardinal burst in. Rome heard it from Armenian and Coptic priests in Bethlehem! They broke a thousand year old ban on communicating with the Vatican to send word.

    Word of what? the Secretary-General demanded.

    Pagan rituals, the Bishop whispered. We heard about them from our missions in Nazareth and around the Sea of Galilee. Then the King of Saudi Arabia, the Prince's father himself, contacted the Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury with the facts.

    The young Princes' robe swirled as he strode away and then back to the desk. The flowing movements of his hands matched his soft, even voice. "In this case, the amude in the Wadi Amude is a prehistoric stone column 50 feet around and 500 feet high. It stands in the center of the wadi flanked by thousand foot cliffs, and forms a stage for the natural amphitheater below."

    The Dead Sea Scrolls reveal that three thousand years before Christ, the Bishop said, "Canaanites and Philistines included the amude as a phallic symbol in their religious rites. They worshipped the gods Baal, Astarte and Moloch, all of whom are mentioned in the Bible. To this day, no one can understand how the Priests ascended the 500-foot high amude carrying living human sacrifices to perform their rituals before thousands of idol worshippers. There were sex orgies and bloodletting as well."

    My uncle, as the Senior Mullah in Saudi Arabia, was assigned to investigate a recent renewal of these ancient pagan rites, the Prince said. "His body was found near the base of the amude."

    Before that, the Bishop said, the Saudi King sent us word of a child being sacrificed and its heart eaten.

    The Prince pointed at the Cardinal. At first, we Muslims assumed the Catholics were celebrating their mass by eating Christ's flesh and drinking his blood. My uncle's only report from the Galilee negated that assumption. He was killed shortly thereafter.

    Satanic rights are known in other parts of the world, the Secretary-General said. Even in New York City's Central Park. What is it really that made your churches send such important representatives to the U.N.? You're risking defacto recognition of Israel? Security for these operations must have cost millions of dollars. And now you three appear together before me, when for centuries neither one would speak with the other? Come now. What is the real problem?

    You scoffed at my reference to the weather in Israel, the Cardinal said. But please remember that everything in the Holy Land has two interpretations, the real and the metaphysical. Our three religions originated from Judaism. Anything touching the House of Israel affects us all.

    The Bishop pulled a worn pocket Bible from his jacket and leafed through to a well-thumbed page. "Since the foundation of the modern State of Israel, there has been a philosophical reevaluation of the Bible through intense study of Jewish mysticism - Kabbalah - by non-Jewish scholars. Kabbalah was once considered an obscure and esoteric literature in England, the Vatican and Mecca. It is now regarded by some as a rule and guide for our faith and practice in the third millennium. Two passages we are concerned with are from Ezekiel. In the first, the Prophet foretold the Valley of the Bones. The Jewish People would be crushed, which happened in the Nazi concentration camps. Then they would rise from their graves and become a nation, which was validated in 1948 with the establishment of the State of Israel.

    It's also written that four heavy snows shall fall in one year on the holy cities of Jerusalem and Safed. High winds and rain shall cleanse the Judean hills and mountaintops of Galilee in preparation for the coming of the Messiah.

    The Secretary-General drummed his fingers on his desktop. It has snowed four times in Israel this year. He looked around at the three grim faces. You should be pleased; it's obvious you're not. Why? Which leads me to another question? Everyone knows Jerusalem, but I never heard of Safed.

    The Bishop leaned forward. Neither did Ezekiel. The town didn't exist by that name until centuries after the Prophet's death. Its first mention is by Josephus Flavius in Roman Chronicles, and by Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount.

    Safed is the birthplace of Jewish mysticism, the Prince said. Even most Jews are unaware that there remains a small community of mystics, or Kabbalists as they're called, in the Old Quarter of the town. I once visited there incognito. It's like a monastery without walls. People live almost the way they did in the sixteenth century, which is considered the Golden Age of Jewish mysticism. You'd never believe that old, run-down town was once the dynamic spiritual center of world Jewry. Now the old Jews sit, waiting for the Messiah who is heralded to come first to Safed, then to Jerusalem.

    Incredible, the Secretary-General said, A member of the Saudi royal family in Israel. He laced his fingers together. You still haven't explained why you three aren't overjoyed at the coming of the Messiah? Should I say the Second Coming? And why, since thousands have martyred themselves for your religious beliefs every year for centuries, should three more deaths, admittedly bizarre, bring you together before me?

    The Cardinal pointed to the Bible in the Bishop's hand. According to the Prophets, the Messiah's coming will be preceded by a war between Gog and Magog; interpreted to mean war between East and West.

    The Saudi Prince opened his left hand, unaware he was exposing the bloody nail marks in his palm. We've recently learned from Safed that the war of Gog and Magog won't be fought by conventional armies, or by chemical or nuclear weapons. The final battle between Good and Evil on Earth will pit the human forces for God against Satan and his emissaries. If Satan wins, humanity is doomed.

    But if God wins, mankind is redeemed, the UN Secretary-General said with a smile. As an atheist, which is an unwritten requirement for my position, I've never met God or Satan. Nor can I personally relate to your concern about Armageddon, prophecies, or the Messiah. However, I'm pleased to see you three gentlemen coming together, even if it is in such an uncommon cause. The office intercom blinked and he snapped a button down. I'm not to be disturbed!

    Sir, the voice said, an urgent hand-delivered message from the Saudi King for his son.

    Pass it under the door! Keep your office and the corridors outside clear! No one is to know who my guests are!

    The four men watched an envelope slide under the door.

    The Prince bent to retrieve it. He pressed the wax seal to his heart, lips and forehead before breaking the seal. Unfolding the heavy papyrus paper, he went pale as he read the message. "Bedouin from an encampment near the Wadi Amude report another body drained of blood."

    Whose? the Cardinal whispered.

    The senior Israeli police inspector of the Northern Command.

    Now the Israeli government will put some effort into solving these crimes, the Bishop said. One of their own has been slaughtered.

    In all fairness, the Prince said, I think this death shows they have been investigating at the highest level. Bedouin saw vultures circling and found the body. Neither the scavenger birds, rats, nor even snakes had approached the mutilated corpse. The area was scorched as if by lightning. Boulders had cracked from the heat, and the same cloven footprints surrounded the body. The entire Bedouin tribe abandoned their settlement and is fleeing south.

    It's like the other murders, the Cardinal whispered.

    Gentlemen, I don't know about the Messiah, the Secretary-General said. But I'm convinced there is a killer loose. What is it you want me to do?

    Contact the Chief Rabbi of Safed or, better yet, Rabbi Berel Caspi, the Bishop said. Rabbi Berel Caspi is the man who made public the new Kabbalistic revelation about the war between Good and Evil.

    A Rabbi cannot solve such crimes, the Secretary-General said.

    Neither can the police, the Cardinal snapped.

    What would you have me say to this Berel Caspi?

    The three clergymen stood shoulder to shoulder, each one stepping forward in turn to speak.

    The Church of England and our Protestant brethren the world over will render all necessary assistance.

    The Vatican and Catholic Clergy around the world are on 24 hour standby with every resource available for the Rabbi.

    The Prince held up the letter. My father, the King, is prepared to stand before the shrine of the Kaaba in Mecca and command one billion Muslims to march against Evil, if it is truly the beginning of the war of Gog and Magog.

    +++++

    Chapter 2

    The Kabbalist

    Friday, July 13, 2012 the Hills of Galilee:

    Air brakes hissed and the old bus stopped at a sun-drenched street.

    Last stop, the driver announced in Hebrew, French and English. This is the closest we get to Safed's Old Quarter.

    Rabbi Berel Caspi waited at the rear of the bus until the other passengers were off. He heaved his large frame out of the seat, navigating sideways down the aisle, and lumbered off the bus. Passengers waited outside to shake his hand and ask his blessing. He rewarded each one with a prayer and a smile.

    Two young people stood nearby, speaking English. The young man's arms were tattooed and his brown hair stood up in sharp peaks. The girl wore tight fitting slacks, rings through her nose, ear and navel. Her hair was colored rust and purple. Tattoos also decorated her arms.

    May I help you? Berel asked.

    We'd like to see some mystics, the girl said.

    Berel smiled and pointed up the street. Walk two hundred yards that way until you reach the first alley on the right. That will take you into the Old Quarter.

    Thank you, Sir, the young man said, and they hurried off.

    Berel walked a dirt path behind the bus terminal. He sauntered through the beloved lanes and cobblestone alleys to his home in the center of the Old Quarter. Although he hadn't eaten since

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