Israel’s prime minister in the Jubilee of 2017, the year that saw the first recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel since ancient times and that marked the one-hundred-year anniversary of Patterson’s leading of the first Jewish army into the land of Israel since ancient times.”
“I see another connection.”
“Tell me,” said the Oracle.
“The Jubilee of 1917 was the year that the Jewish soldier first returned to the land of Israel. Fifty years later, the Jubilee of 1967, was the year that the Jewish soldier returned to Jerusalem.”
“Yes. Every Jubilee is connected to all the others, each fulfilling another part of the same mystery. So all these events had their origins in the Jubilee of 1917 with the unlikely soldier from Ireland. But what about his origins? When was he born?”
I was silent, having no idea of the answer.
“He was born,” said the Oracle, “in the year of Jubilee.”
“In 1867?”
“Yes, in the first Jubilee of Israel’s restoration, in the Jubilee of the stranger and the man with the measuring line and the releasing of the land. So the man who birthed all these things was himself birthed in the year of Jubilee.”
“That would mean that 1917 was his fiftieth year.”
“Yes. He was born in the Jubilee of 1867 to play a central role fifty years later in the Jubilee of 1917 . . . when another child would be born, Shlomo Goren, to play a central role fifty years later in the Jubilee of 1967.
“And do you remember Eliezer Sukenik?”
“The man who discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls on the day Israel was voted into existence.”
“Yes. He too was a soldier in Patterson’s Jewish Legion. Sukenik had a son.”
“Yigael Yadin, the man who unearthed Masada.”
“Yes, and the head of operations in the war of Israel’s rebirth. Yadin was also born in the Jubilee of 1917. And when he turned fifty years old, he would likewise play a central part in the next year of Jubilee, 1967 . . . in the Six-Day War.”
“In the meeting with the prime minister when the decision to go to war was made.”
“Yes, and in his serving as the prime minister’s counsel throughout the war. So in each case the child of the one Jubilee ushers in the next. Everything is joined together in the mystery. Everything and everyone, even their words.”
“Even their words . . . What does that mean?”
“At the central moment of the Jubilee of 1967, the moment of Jerusalem’s liberation, Rabbi Goren stood with the soldiers in the Holy City and spoke the word of an ancient prophecy. It was from Isaiah: ‘“Comfort my people. Comfort them,” says the Lord your God.’ 3 The prophecy goes on, ‘Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended. . . ’ 4
“The rabbi had no idea that fifty years earlier, at the central moment of the Jubilee of 1917, in Allenby’s liberation of Jerusalem, the word from The Book of Common Prayer appointed for that moment was the prophecy: ‘“Comfort, yes, comfort My people!” says your God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended. . . ’ 5
“The morning after Rabbi Goren uttered those words would mark the first time the sun had risen on a Jerusalem under Jewish sovereignty in two thousand years. It was June 8, 1967. If you remember,” he said, “the mystery began as the steamship Quaker City set out from the harbors of New York with a young American journalist on board.”
“Mark Twain,” I said, “the stranger.”
“Yes, the stranger’s journey. And when did it all begin? It all began on June 8, 1867. Thus it was all set in motion one hundred years earlier on the exact same day.”
The Oracle was silent for a few moments. Then he spoke.
“Now,” he said, “I believe we’re ready for the sixth door.”
“There’s something I don’t understand. 2017 was the last of the Jubilean years. It hasn’t been fifty years since then. And yet there are more doors.”
“To each vision,” he said, “was a mystery. Each mystery in turn was the puzzle piece in a larger mystery, represented by each door. But the mystery represented by each door is part of a yet larger mystery. What lies behind the sixth door concerns that larger mystery.”
“How could it be larger than what you’ve already shown me?”
“The sixth door will take you behind everything you’ve seen thus far, and then beyond it . . . to where it all leads . . .