The End-Time Foretellers

by Ran Weber

  “If they try to bring about redemption themselves instead of merely thinking about it, let’s suppose such a thing exists, then their souls should not be blown out because they act instead of merely talk?” I asked.

  “It’s possible,” said Binyamin, “it is definitely possible.”

  Binyamin went inside the house. Donnie rose and said that he had to leave. Only Aharon remained by the table and played by placing letters on the board. The English ones this time. He looked at me for a moment and then returned to look at his board and arranged some letters on it. I drew closer to him. Aharon looked at the board, then at me and again at the board. “What does ‘ let’s lie for me tender’ mean, dad?”

  Binyamin didn’t answer.

  68

  The Valley, L.A.

  I waited for the Shabbat eve Kiddush. I thought it would be trivial and boring, but Binyamin said he had invited Donnie for Shabbat. “And things are never boring when Donnie is around.” I couldn’t understand whether he was being cynical, or merely stating a fact.

  I found myself sitting at the Shabbat table, with Donnie Milstein, the certified accountant who knew all there was to know about taxes and how to avoid paying them. He was perched in the chair between Binyamin and me.

  “So you have an independent business in Israel, yes?” asked Donnie with interest.

  “Yes,” I answered dryly.

  “Donnie, it’s Shabbat,” said Binyamin, “you can talk to him about all your financial scheming on Sunday.”

  Donnie went quiet, then asked from Binyamin, “Could you pass me the wine?”

  “I think you’ve had enough, Donnie.”

  “Lay off of me. It’s Shabbat, let me be happy.” Binyamin hesitantly passed the wine to Donnie and Donnie gulped two glasses one after the other.

  “That thing with four glasses of wine, didn’t we have enough of it during Passover?” I tried to be humorous.

  “Oh… you’re a clown, a little clown,” Donnie started giggling and drank another glass of wine before Binyamin was able to snatch the bottle away from him. “Wow,” Donnie muttered in Binyamin’s direction. “Don’t smack me now, doctor, I’m just trying to have some fun here.”

  There was tension in the air; I noticed that Binyamin’s neck stiffened. “Take it easy, Donnie.”

  “Don’t threaten me! I’m not your slave. I’m not some Arab from Hebron you can kick around until he’s half dead and then claim you’ve never seen him in your life. Do you hear me?”

  I began to feel uncomfortable. Donnie looked at his wine glass. He raised it in the air and tried to look at the ceiling lamp through it. The red, semi-transparent wine gave out a twisted reflection of the room. “This is the end!” Donnie announced, “soon, an end will come to all this corrupt world. To all the lies, the governments, the evildoers, the end of the world!” he roared.

  Binyamin closed his eyes.

  “The end of the world?”

  “Yes!” said Donnie, “the Gog and Magog war. The gates of heaven will open up soon. Do you know that Hashem, has hidden burning stones in the sky for the war of Gog and Magog? Ancient crystals. Algavish stones. Do you know what I think?” he asked and began to speak more slowly. The alcohol drenched his brain and his fine motor skills weren’t so fine anymore. “You know what I think?” he repeated.

  “No.” It became very embarrassing to be sitting by the same table with him. Binyamin was already burying his face in his hands.

  “I’ll tell you what I think!” said Donnie. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you all right! I’ll tell you what these celestial Algavish stones are, nuclear missiles, I say. Yes, yes, that’s what I’m saying. Why do you think the Almighty has hidden Algavish stones up there? What would he do with Algavish stones? These are missiles, I tell you. Nuclear missiles. This it is written.”

  “Where is it written, Donnie?” asked Binyamin in a tired voice, “where exactly?”

  “I will tell you. I will tell you!” squealed Donnie, ran to the book cabinet and took out a few volumes. He nearly stumbled on the way, but somehow managed to balance himself. “Here, see what the Malbim says in his interpretation of the Prophet Jeremiah: ‘And there the enemy shall rise and soar like a vulture with great seed and spread its wings over Basra to bring about its ruin.’ And then…” he paused for a moment and leafed through the pages of the book, “oh, yes… ‘For Rome is the city of Basra mentioned in the books of the prophets, and their allies who share their religious faith are Edom, over which the prophets had prophesied.” He paused again, looked at me and continued to read aloud. “And they would make war at the end of time with the sons of Ishmael, and that war would be the Gog and Magog war prophesied by Ezekiel.”

  Donnie closed the book with a contented smile. “Isn’t this exactly what I said? How will the enemy soar like a vulture with great speed? These are missiles, my dear, this is what they are. You need a little sense to understand the Bible interpreters, a little sense in your head. He is talking about Rome. Which country is the Rome of our time? It is America, my dear. And the sons of Ishmael? They are the Arab nations. They will fight each other, we only need to help them.”

  “Donnie,” said Binyamin, “I think our guest has had enough learned teachings of the Torah for one Shabbat. Perhaps you could continue some other time.”

  “It’s all right,” I tried to calm things down, “this is actually interesting.”

  Donnie smiled and started reading. “Ezekiel, chapter 38, ‘And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord, that my fury shall come up in my face. For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel.’ And then, and then!” said Donnie excitedly, ‘And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great Algavish stones, fire and brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord…”

  “Donnie…” said Binyamin.

  Donnie raised his hands in the air, pushed the books aside and sipped of his wine while muttering to himself, “Algavish stones, it is expressly written.”

  69

  Balboa Park, Los Angeles

  “Want a flag?” a ten-year-old asked me and handed a plastic flag of Israel to me.

  “No thanks,” I answered.

  Even back in Israel I’ve always hated Independence Day, so here? In Los Angeles? How did I let Schetritt convince me into coming here? What does he have to do here on Independence Day? I thought he hated Israel, what happened to make him such a patriot all of a sudden?

  The place was teeming with people. Two small children walked by me holding cotton candy. They were in a hurry. In the background, I heard their mother shouting, “Davidy, don’t go too far, daddy is going to be angry. Come to the main stage in five minutes, they have this singer performing, what’s his name? The one from Ashdod. Don’t go too far, it’s very crowded here.”

  The fair was held by a sandy parking lot full to the brim with cars and jeeps. In one corner, a stage had been set and oversized speakers were placed on it. The various stalls were scattered all over the rest of the complex, lots and lots of stalls; thousands of Israelis and Jews walking between them. I bought a falafel and a Coke. The falafel made me nauseous, I threw it away and finished my Coke. I thought about getting out of there, something felt wrong.

  “Having fun?” asked a voice from behind me.

  I turned around and saw Ben. “No,” I answered sincerely.

  “Me neither, but...” he pointed at the lectern. Avi Schetritt was standing there in all his glory, dressed in an elegant suit, smoothly shaven and wearing a maroon tie. He wore small reading glasses and held several pages in his hand
. This was about to be a long speech. He took the microphone in his hand.

  Ben whispered to me, “I got you the pistol. Glock 19C, good enough?”

  I smiled and took a brown “Starbucks” bag from him. I peeked inside. “Totally.” Finally, I thought, a little professional pride.

  He took out something else from his pocket and handed it to me. Two plastic cards. I looked at them. The first was a local California driver’s license bearing my picture, but not my name. “Joe Davis?” I asked him.

  He shrugged and whispered, “The Mexicans forging these IDs aren’t familiar with too many American names.”

  I looked at the second one, it was an FBI ID card. Special Agent David Peterson. Looking good.

  “My dear friends, my brothers and sisters!” Schetritt opened his speech, “it is a wonderful day to be celebrating Israel’s Independence.”

  A silence settled and everyone turned to the stage.

  “Friends, brothers and sisters,” Schetritt repeated, “especially my Jewish brothers and sisters of Moroccan origins, Yemenite origins, actually, all Sephardi Jews. Today, we are celebrating the Independence Day of the State of Israel, a country which had crushed and is still crushing and grinding you to dust. But you do not feel it any longer, because we are here, in America. America that embraces us, while draining all the money from our pockets. Soon, this will all change. I am no prophet, but soon, this will all change. We will regain our dignity.”

  A few people cheered, most of the listeners remained silent. How could this be? What was going on here?

  I gave Ben a questioning look. He got closer. “He financially supports most of the organizations here, so they give him the stage and just hope it will be over as quickly as possible. This is how things work here in America, money buys everything.”

  70

  Manhattan beach, California

  Sunset. A sea breeze caressed my skin, its scent filled the air. I momentarily toyed with the idea of relocating here. I could open a little gaming store on Manhattan Beach Boulevard. Lead a good, easy life. Far from the grimy, crowded conditions of Tel Aviv, far from the constant race for financial survival. Just forget everything and start over.

  I climbed up the outer staircase to the second floor and knocked on the door. Ehud opened the door with a bright smile. “Yoav, I’m glad you came.”

  “What did you want?” I asked.

  He suggested that I sit on the sofa overlooking the sea. “What do you say about the view from here?”

  “Impressive,” I said, while looking at the sun coloring the sea orange.

  “Would you have liked to trade places with me?” he asked, opened a beer and handed it to me. I took the beer and sipped from it. “Maybe.”

  He opened another beer and looked at the sunset. “I would have liked to trade places with you too, hotshot, but not everyone has connections in all the right places.”

  I looked at him. “What are you talking about, Ehud?”

  “You’re the success story, the project’s big hope.” He paused for a moment. “You do it all by yourself, eh? You never need any help from anybody.”

  I didn’t answer. I took a quick look about the room. On the left wall, I saw two surfboards. I tried to change the subject. “You surf a lot?”

  “I try to,” he said. “Why, you want to go surfing sometime?”

  “Maybe.”

  “We’ll go together some day, but that’s not why I called you.” He took out a brilliant plastic folder and tossed it in my direction. “You should thank me for having your back. This is information about Schetritt and his latest arms deals. You won’t find it in the digital files, it comes straight from Schetritt’s hideout. I needed to pull a lot of strings to get to this printed file. Pay attention to the parts underlined in yellow.”

  I looked at the data. “Classified components,” I said. “He’s selling them to the Iranians. Where’s the news there?”

  “Take a closer look.”

  I looked at the data rows and saw one in which the words “Software Licenses” appeared. Further down the line appeared the words, “Pillar of Fire System – Codes.” “Wow.”

  “Wait,” he said, “read on to the next page of the same listing, take a look at the signature.”

  I skipped to the next page and nearly choked on my beer. “Y. Sharff.”

  “What is this?” I asked in terror. “I have no idea what this is about. I’ve never signed the...”

  Ehud took a long sip of his beer and looked at the sunset. “Take this folder and get out of here. I don’t want to have anything to do with this filth.”

  Confused and frightened, I put the folder in my bag. I placed the beer on the table and hurried to get out.

  71

  The Valley, L.A.

  Binyamin said something about dinner and made me realize I hadn’t eaten anything since the morning. Their door was open. I tapped it lightly and went inside. Scents of garlic, oregano, olive oil and baked dough filled the house.

  “Smells good!” I said while entering the kitchen. Binyamin and Aharon were busy with loading one tray with pizza, taking out the previous tray from the oven, then reloading it anew. “I see that you’ve opened a pizzeria here. Impressive.”

  “You’re here just in time,” said Binyamin. “Aharon, set the table.” Aharon turned to the cabinet and took out plates and utensils for the three of us. After that, he carefully placed the plates and utensils on the round kitchen table. “A few more minutes and Aharon would have gobbled up all your pizza, right, Aharon?”

  Aharon smiled and pushed his glasses into place. “Dad is using me as a cover. He’s the one who is always eating all the pizza and only asks if I want more when he prepares another batch.”

  “That’s true sometimes,” Binyamin sighed. “Go wash your hands, Aharon.”

  I joined them and we ate the pizzas. The taste was just as wonderful as the smell. Aharon got tired after a while. “I’m quitting while I’m ahead,” he declared. Binyamin and I wished him good night. “Espresso?” asked Binyamin.

  “Of course,” I answered. I thought of going for a night run, a short espresso would help me uproot myself from the chair.

  Binyamin came back with two short espressos. “You have been chosen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have been chosen for a mission, Yoav.”

  I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Binyamin. Today you are a little…” I felt uptight and nervous.

  Binyamin laughed. “Take it easy. We were all chosen, we’re the chosen people. Did you forget?”

  I felt anger welling in me. “I’m sick and tired of all that talk about the chosen people.”

  “Hold on,” said Binyamin. “What are you getting riled up about? If you were French and I told you that you were the chosen people, would you get angry like that too? Or if you were Italian or German?”

  I thought about it for a moment. It still ticked me off. “This has nothing to do with it. I don’t…”

  “You’re right!” he said and his eyes lit-up, “you are absolutely right. Do you know why it wouldn’t have bothered you?”

  “No.”

  “Because it has nothing to do with you, that’s the reason it wouldn’t have bothered you, and… because it doesn’t require anything from you. The moment a Jew hears about ‘the chosen people’ it bothers him, it reminds him about something deep in his soul. You don’t feel like hearing about it now, that is why you are resisting it.”

  “I’m not resisting it!” I almost screamed. “I really don’t.” I stopped for a second contemplating, “Well, maybe a little,” I said. “So, what’s my mission?”

  It reminded me of how this entire mess had started in Israel, with Rami and the fat man who had sent me to this land of plastic to look for… I don’t know what, and do… who knows what exa
ctly. This whole mission was starting to feel like a rat maze.

  “You need to find out,” said Binyamin.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You need to discover your mission in the world, Yoav. You need to discover why the Blessed Lord has sent you down to the world, what the specific ‘Tikkun’ – correction, you need to perform. Following the beaten path is not enough, you need to understand what you need to do.”

  “Could you give me a hint?” I smiled.

  “Me? How should I know? I’m still trying to discover what I myself need to do on this planet.” He paused for a moment, “but perhaps I could still give you a little hint. It is comprised of your destiny and your Tikkun.”

  “Destiny and Tikkun?”

  “Destiny is the part that is easy for you, it is what the soul draws you to do, holy wills that are inherently imprinted in you. ‘Tikkun’ – the correction, or repair – that is what is truly difficult for you. My hint is that your mission is comprised of both of them. You have arrived here to correct that which you do not feel like correcting and fulfill the destiny your heart yearns for.” He paused for a moment, then added, “actually, I’ve never thought about it, but in Hebrew numerology, soul – ‘neshama” equals mission – ‘mesima.’”

  I thought about his words for a moment.

  “And Yoavi,” said Binyamin and paused for a moment, “just know that I believe in you. I completely believe in your goodness and I believe you still have a lot to do in this world and contribute to it. I believe that you have powers that you yourself do not believe in, and that your goodness will triumph over all those parts in you that are trying to escape your destiny, the goodness in you. I believe that you will be successful in your mission.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  He looked deep into my eyes and said, “Yes. Sure. You’ve known me long enough, Yoav. Do you think I’m lying to you?”

  Actually, I don’t, I thought to myself. If there was one person in the world that I felt I could count on, it was Binyamin, and this made me feel even worse.