Jubilee of 1917 it was also in late spring, in the beginning of June, that Allenby was appointed commander of the campaign that would liberate the Promised Land. And in the Jubilee of 1967 the events that would set in motion the Six-Day War began in May and the beginning of June. And in the Jubilee of 2017 it was at the beginning of June that the United States Senate passed the resolution that would lead to the Jerusalem Declaration. And that first Jewish settlement that began Israel’s restoration was inaugurated in May, the month of the destruction. And in that same month, in May of 1948, the nation of Israel was reborn.” “So the timing of the ancient calamity,” I said, “determines the timing of the restorations.”
“Or the timing of the restorations,” he said, “is joined to the ancient calamity. Each Jubilean event is the redemption of that which began in the spring of AD 67.”
“And it was all there from the beginning.”
“What was the next revelation?”
“The secret that lies at the center of the age . . . and that sets the stage for the end.”
“And what is it?”
“The mystery of the sandal.”
Chapter 56
THE RETURN
I RETURNED TO the Oracle’s tent on a windy afternoon.”
“In my vision where everyone was fleeing the land, there was a sandal on top of the mountain. What did it mean, and what did it have to do with everything else?”
“If you had to sum up the Jubilean mystery,” he said, “in one word, its essence, its power, and its consequence, what would it be?”
“Return,” I said, “and restoration.”
“Those are two words, but let’s focus on the first: return. The Jewish people return to their ancient land; the priests return to their Holy City; the soldiers return to their ancient fortress; the farmers return to their ancient fields; the Nazir returns to his ancient court; each returns to his own possession.”
At that he took out a piece of parchment. I knew enough now to recognize the writing on the parchment as Hebrew.
“The Jubilean ordinance,” he said, “Leviticus 25. And this,” he said, pointing to one of the words on the parchment, “is the central command in Hebrew, tashuvu, you shall return. It comes from the Hebrew root word shuv. . . which begins with the letter shin. That’s what you saw on the sixth door and on the golden ram. The word shuv is filled with meaning. It can be translated as ‘to return, to turn back, to recover, to reverse, to recur, to relinquish, to receive back, to restore, and to come home.’”
“All those things describe what happened in the Jubilean years.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle, “and yet there’s a deeper dimension to the word and to the mystery. According to the ancient covenant, if the people of Israel remained joined to God, they would remain joined to the land. But if they departed from God, they would depart from the land. The physical realm was bound to the spiritual. Physical separation from the land would be a manifestation of a spiritual separation from God.
“But it was also written in that same covenant and foretold by the prophets that if they returned to God, they would likewise return to the land. So then their physical return to the land would be connected to a spiritual return to God.
“Do you know what the word shuv also means?”
“No.”
“To repent.”
“The same word for return also means repent?”
“That’s the point,” he replied. “For to repent is to return . . . and to come home . . . and to be restored. For the people of Israel it’s all joined together. So then, we have a mystery,” he said. “According to the Law and the Prophets, if the nation turned away from God, the people would be taken into exile and scattered to the ends of the earth. And it happened exactly as it was prophesied. The Jewish people were led captive into exile and scattered to the ends of the earth.
“But according to the covenant, before a physical departure of such magnitude could have taken place, there had to have been a spiritual departure. But then what was it? It would have had to have taken place at the time of the physical departure, thus in the first century, when the exile of two thousand years began.”
“So there had to have been a spiritual departure,” I said, “colossal enough to have transformed Jewish history. So what was it?”
“The Scriptures prophesy that at the end of the age,