The 13th Tablet

Eli stopped and said, ‘This is extraordinary. A tablet…in the Temple in Jerusalem! If it survived the Romans, he means that the tablet was still there after the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 7 °C.E. This next part is illegible.’

‘… that night. There was our beloved Ari, my holy master Rabbi Chaim Vital, myself and…’

‘That’s strange,’ Eli said, ‘A name has been crossed out. I’ll continue.’

‘[XXX], who we all thought had lost his mind, was sitting on a chair at the back of the room as he always did. On the main table, my master had spread out for all to see the remains of Tudela’s letter. After a while seven other rabbis came to join the session. There was…’

‘Illegible’ said Eli, sighing with frustration.

‘… in his letter to this Mordechai, Benjamin of Tudela entrusts his friend with a secret. In the archives of a synagogue in Nineveh, he read about an enigmatic clay tablet that had been sent from Nineveh to Yerushalayim and hidden… in the Kodesh Hakodashim.’

Eli murmured, ‘that’s the name for the holy of holies, the most sacred part of the temple in Jerusalem.’

‘As soon as my master uttered these words, the room seemed to bustle with energy. All the rabbis started talking at once. Our beloved Ari stood up…’

‘I can’t read any of the following. Let me jump to the next paragraph,’ said Eli.

‘… all eyes focused on his radiance, as he seldom speaks and his words inspire our every thought. He said ‘Thank you Chaim. Rabbi Benjamin’s letter describes a tablet written in the old language of the Sumerians, from a time preceding the destruction of the first temple. The Babylonian King’s advisers recorded odd discoveries while trying to read omens of floods and earthquakes. According to this letter, the tablet is a Babylonian rendering of Noah’s Mabul.’

‘Mabul means a flood or a river, but here it means the deluge,’ Eli explained.

‘It enables its possessor, if he can decipher its inner knowledge, to observe nature’s secrets, and prepare for the next…’ Eli stopped for a moment and said, ‘I’m not sure how to translate the next phrase, but “Godly changes of nature” is about as close as I can get.’

Eli stopped for a moment and said, 'I'm not sure how to translate the next phrase, but "Godly changes of nature" is about as close as I can get.'

‘… Godly changes of nature. We were all in shock. I shuddered, as I half-envisioned the mystical consequences of our beloved Rabbi’s last words: ‘The next Godly changes.’