The 13th Tablet

Eli had the keys to the synagogue. Yet, they still felt as if they were trespassing and being sacrilegious, but then again, nothing could have stopped them now. The old man walked right through the main area to the Ari’s room. It was still illuminated by dozens of candles that had been placed there during the day. The old man knelt at the very bottom of the furthest wall and using a small penknife, began to scratch the old mortar all around the only protruding stone in the recess’ masonry.

‘You want to pull out that stone?’ asked Jack.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll run to the van and get a crowbar,’ he ran back through the synagogue.

The old man continued clearing the stone’s mortar.

‘Can you tell me what you dreamed of, Eli?’ asked Mina.

‘I dreamed that the Ari came to me. He was pointing at the inscription affixed to the facade, outside.’

‘I didn’t pay much attention to it. What does it say?’

Jack had returned with the crowbar. Eli stood up to let him do his work and continued his conversation with Mina.

‘It says the original synagogue dates back to the 14th century but that it was damaged in an earthquake in 1759 and then destroyed in 1837 after a much stronger earthquake. The building was restored and rebuilt in parts a few years later thanks to a donation by Rabbi Yitzhak Guetta of Trieste. The inscription on the facade refers to this Italian rabbi. Recently, a team of surveyors started a restoration project here and one of the specialists showed me which parts of the building pre-date the two earthquakes. This stone I am trying to loosen is the only original stone from the Ari’s room. I just thought that maybe someone stumbled on documents among the rubble and respectfully put them back behind the new wall when it was reconstructed.

‘We’ll know soon enough,’ said Jack.

With a strong pull he managed to prise the stone out of the wall. Eli and Mina joined Jack on their hands and knees. Eli brought a candle a little closer to the empty space and pulled out a bundle of papers wrapped in an oil skin. The old man was trembling all over and kept repeating, ‘It’s a Chanukah miracle, it’s a Chanukah miracle.’

Eli was so excited he immediately proceeded to translate the text written in a mixture of Aramaic and Hebrew to his two avid listeners. Mina jotted as much as she could from his live translation in her own notebook.

‘Safed, 2 Kheshvan 5332.’ Eli thought for a while and said ‘I may be wrong, but that would approximately be October 1571.’

‘I will recount here faithfully the events that occurred during the last week, so that these extraordinary events do not come to pass into oblivion.

‘The opening words of the text clearly identify it as a chronicle.’ Eli said, ‘I have to skip a few lines; the document is illegible.’

‘…months ago, I was putting some order in the archives of our synagogue when I came across a bundle of papers which seemed much older than the documents I usually deal with. As I opened the bundle, the typical musty smell of old paper momentarily took me aback. I delicately prised open the papers and to my astonishment realised it was a lengthy letter written by the eccentric traveller, Benjamin of Tudela three centuries ago, to Morderchai of Safed. I could not understand what these letters were doing there. I felt much enthusiasm at the discovery of such a correspondence. It has always been my dream to travel to faraway lands, and I looked forward to reading some of Tudela’s accounts, from his own hand. After the usual civilities, and business issues, the tone of the letter became very enigmatic. And, when I got to Tudela’s description of an ancient and spellbinding tablet kept in the Jerusalem Temple that had survived the coming of the Romans I immediately brought the whole bundle of papers to my master.