his hand was a large ring, from which hung four keys. But they were unlike any keys I had ever seen. At one end of each key was a precious stone of different colors. At the other end, the part that was to be inserted into a keyhole, were shapes or symbols. One resembled an X; another, something of a Y; another had three prongs; and another I couldn’t liken to anything I had ever seen before. I watched as the man wandered across the earth and through the ages, searching for the doors his keys would open. He journeyed to ancient temples, medieval cathedrals, and the buildings of modern cities. But no door would open. Finally I saw him standing on the shore, overlooking a modern-looking city. He approached one of its buildings and inserted one of the four keys—the door opened. He walked inside and came to a second door, inserted a second key, and the door opened. He did the same with a third door and finally a fourth. When the fourth door opened, it revealed a room filled with people gathered for what appeared to be an official event. A man with white hair was speaking. On seeing the man in the dark-brown cloak enter the room, he said to him, ‘And so it is as it has been written; by these keys you shall return.’ And the vision ended.”
“The ram continued its journey until it reached a city by the shore. It was the same city I had just seen in the vision of the man in the brown robe. The ram’s appearance had now returned to what it had been at the beginning, on the mountaintop, white with black spots. It turned away from the sea and headed toward the city, where it disappeared. And the vision ended.”
Chapter 25
HERZL’S COUNTDOWN
I SAW THE vision at night. The next morning, he appeared at my tent . . . the boy. He smiled at me, then motioned for me to follow. He led me on a path along the side of a small mountain chain, gradually ascending until we came to a cave. He then urged me to go inside, ahead of him. So I did. I looked back, and he was gone.
“Slowly I made my way through the darkness until coming to a chamber illuminated by the reddish-golden light of ancient-looking oil lamps. There, sitting by the wall, was the Oracle. I joined him.”
“I hope you don’t mind caves,” he said.
“No.”
“It will be here that we will open the next of the mysteries, those of the third door. Now tell me your vision.”
So I did.
“Did you notice that it was different? When you saw the ram in the other visions, it was Moses who sent it down the mountain, and the mountain was in the desert. But now it happened on a very different landscape and with a different person.”
“I did notice. Why was it different?”
“Because this vision would reveal a Jubilee unique from the others.”
“Not connected to them?”
“Very much connected but of a different nature and of a different cycle and timetable.”
“Not based on a fifty-year cycle?”
“Very much based on a fifty-year cycle but on its own. It would be a Jubilee of the political realm and of the domain of nation-states.”
“A political Jubilee?”
“In a sense. Did you recognize the man on the mountain?”
“Herzl, the founder of Zionism. Why was he dressed that way?”
“Because that was the clothing of the First Zionist Congress, the gathering he convened in Basel, Switzerland, to begin the political movement that would lead to the creation of a Jewish state. It was an unlikely movement, based on faith as much as anything else.”
“Switzerland . . . That would explain the landscape.”
“Herzl sent the ram down the mountain because he was the one who set the movement in motion. He would spend the remaining seven years of his life laboring for that cause, dying exhausted at the age of forty-four.” The Oracle paused before continuing. “There was a boy who had a dream in which the Messiah lifted him into the clouds, where they encountered Moses. The Messiah said to Moses, ‘It is for this child that I have prayed!’ Then he turned to the boy and said, ‘Go and declare to the Jews that I shall come soon and perform great wonders and great deeds for my people and for the whole world!’” 1
“Why did you share that?” I asked.
“Because the boy was Theodor Herzl. He had the dream when