The 13th Tablet

‘I understand. It is as if one had stumbled on a sacred gathering and felt still under its spell. I know I feel this way.’

‘Yes but there is a detail you don’t know yet.’ Speaking quietly and slowly, she said, ‘I have the tablet they speak of. I have it here, in my bag.’

‘You have what?’ Eli dropped all the papers in the snow.

He got slowly to his knees and started gathering them with Mina’s help. She went on, ‘I have one of the tablets. It’s actually a stone tablet, but that’s a story which I’ll tell you some other time. I believe there is more than one tablet. I think that the one described by the Safed rabbis was a clay tablet sent to Israel long ago, maybe even before the building in Jerusalem of the first temple of Solomon. I suppose we’ll never know how Tudela found out about all this’.

Eli looked at Mina in amazement and then sunk deep into thought. Suddenly his face lit up. He seemed relieved as if he had finally understood something but was reluctant to share it. He turned to Mina and confessed ‘I haven’t been entirely truthful with you either.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Mina.

‘Let’s wait ‘till we’re out of the cold and in Josh’s van.’

As they drove off, Mina looked at Eli. She felt miserable about lying about their identity. She was about to tell him her real name when he spoke.

‘Miriam’, he began slowly, ‘Over the years I’ve collected many documents relating to the Ari. Among them I found a short letter which only makes sense to me now. It’s in my bag, which I left at your place. It dates back to 1755. It’s a letter from a Jewish gentleman in England to his brother living in Safed. I know it by heart.’ The old man began to recite,

‘Dear brother,

I hope the printing business is picking up as you hoped it would when you left for Safed. I am writing to reassure you. As you probably know by now, we had to leave Lisbon in a hurry. Everyone is alive and well. As for the clay tablet, I followed father’s instructions. I keep it with me at all times. Let’s hope that when the time is right, our sons or their descendents will receive a sign from G’d, and return this burden to its rightful place, wherever it may be. I miss you brother and I pray G’d we can be reunited before long. If you wish to write to us, we’re now in Cambridge. Hildersham’

I remember thinking it was a rather odd letter, but not until now did it make any sense’.

‘Well, I still don’t understand…’ said Mina.

‘I do’, said Jack, ‘the tablet which was found by Ari’s search party was entrusted to this guy or his family in Portugal, and the tablet’s now in England’.

‘Exactly’, said Eli, ‘or at least it was there in the 18th century.’

‘But where in England? And what were their names?’ asked Mina.

‘The man signed his letter ‘Hildersham’ from Cambridge, so I guess we have the answer.

Eli sighed. ‘I am too old for all this. But you should continue.’

‘We will,’ said Mina.

‘Then go to Cambridge at once. A number of scholars from Cambridge came to visit Safed years ago. They worked at a Research centre in the University Library. I’m sure they could help.’

Suddenly, Jack braked hard and the van juddered to a halt. A car was blocking the road up ahead and because the road was very narrow he could not do a U-turn. Three men had jumped out of the car and were flashing their torches up the road in their direction. They were armed and pointed their guns at the van.

‘Oh my god,’ said Mina.

‘Maybe it’s the plain clothes police,’ said Eli.

‘I don’t think so’ hissed Jack, ‘Stay still!’

The men slowly approached the van. Jack waited until they were almost at arms length from the passenger door, then suddenly reversed at full-throttle. One of the men fired his weapon, but the van was already out of range. Mina and Eli cringed in terror, as Jack drove the car backwards at high speed into the darkness, scraping against the walls on either side of the road. The men had run back and jumped into their car and were driving fast down the alley after them. They were almost back to the cobbled stone path that led to the Ari shul. There was no way out.

‘I’ll stop the van in the middle of the road, and we’ll have to run for it,’ yelled Jack, ‘Eli, go back to the Ari synagogue and find a place to hide. We’ll hide in the old cemetery.’

The poor man, still clutching his papers, hobbled out of the back of the van and Jack and Mina watched him hobble as quickly as he could back to the synagogue.