This may be the best thing I've written since beginning to try out this project seven years ago...
Shabbetai Zevi rosses the Sinai Desert to see Nathan of Gaza, an apothecary, about his meshuggas, (his obviously bipolar personality disorder). As he lies down on a bed as though at an old-school psychiatrist's office, Shabbetai again recounts his whole history. But this time with the added component:
Shabbetai, when six years old, was kidnapped by Ottoman jannisaries (soldiers) who set fire to his crotch. His penis and balls are so disfigured that he has no sexual organ of which to speak, and even going to the bathroom is always a cause of terrible pain. He can therefore only achieve gratification through 'the filth of self-mortification', and therefore must spend hours every day swimming in the sea to reclaim his purity. Furthermore, 'as a man who loves all people' he cannot help but be completely indiscriminate in attractions upon which he cannot act, and as he has always believed that the old laws of the Torah are antiquated, he removes all injunctions 'as I have identified them as the source of the world's rifts and disrepair, but I can never consummate the removal of any such taboos myself.' He knows that many people have come to him not out of any great belief in him but because of his removal of their limitations, "We have taken all fast days and made them into feast days. We have families who eat pork every shabbos. I have married brothers to sisters, I have married men to three women, I have married men to men and next month shall marry woman to woman, I have blessed temporary adulterous and pre-marital unions. The shabbos after every wedding I require every bride to come to my study and tell me of her first encounter with her husband. I have deliberately touched the intimate areas of thousands of my flock, it is even part of our priestly benediction - but only over the clothes because were I to truly touch them, I would become unclean and must clean myself again in the sea. The truth is, most of the time, I know that all this is an abomination before the Lord, and I can never render myself clean. I am the Lord's excrement, his most passionate blasphemer who has jeopardized the standing of thousands in the next world. And yet there is no turning back. I cannot repent, nor can I convince thousands they're wrong without destroying their lives as I've destroyed my own."
At the end of the confession, Nathan takes a pinch of a white powder through his nose. "What you say of yourself is surely not true. You are no more the Lord's excrement than the followers who see you as their teacher and leader in all things. I don't know if it counts as a prophecy since we've exchanged letters, but I've had visions every day that you would come here." Shabbetai: Really? Nathan: This, right here, is a substance that brings me closer to the Holy One, Blessed Be His Name. And like you, I find myself unable to keep my faith without it, but with it, I know Hashem believes in me as fervently as I believe in him." Shabbetai: Do you believe that I'm a decent person? Nathan: I believe that the greater the man, (they say together) "the greater his evil inclination." Shabbetai: Sukkah: 52a. Nathan: You of all people are said to know such quotes at the drop of a pin. Shabbetai: I'm no better than any talmid khakham. That's a lie my followers made up. Nathan: But surely... Shabbetai: In all these years I've never once written a book, can't organize my thoughts. Nathan: But surely you have ideas. Shabbetai: My ideas are notions, deep disgust; look, something is so deeply rotten in the State of Israel. Nathan: Is that a quote from somewhere? Shabbetai: I think Rabbi Eliezer... Did Hashem really put us on earth to be killed - to suffer century after century at the hands of country after country - to mourn our children more often than we do our parents - and just because we deny ourselves every pleasure in which the goyisher world feels free to indulge? Nathan: It's in no Talmud, but I believe there is no true rabbi who does not ask this question. Shabbetai: Well have they committed any thought as impure as mine? I have often thought other religions perhaps more accurate about the world than our own. Nathan: That is a heavy burden. Shabbetai: My Abouna neighbor, a true priest with no desire to convert me, told me a quote when we first moved to Cairo that's remained with me all this time: "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world but lose his own soul?" Nathan: Do you really believe your soul is lost? Shabbetai: I do very often, and I've come to you because you're said to cure people from notions like that. Nathan: I will tell you what I tell all my suffering patients. (pause) There is no known cure for your disease. Melancholia is a state given by God to those whom He wishes to experience it. But to everything there is a season, and a time and purpose for everything under Heaven. If the Kadosh Baruch Hu causes you to suffer, he causes you to suffer for a reason, and you owe it to yourself and all the people who depend on you to discover what that reason is. So I can only offer you two medications, one is the ancient Greek treatment for melancholia - plant called 'hypericum perforatum' which frankly does not work in cases as extreme as yours, the other is a biological euphoric which you've obviously seen me take myself. This is Erythoxylon Coca, a plant from South America commonly called 'cocaine.' It is incredibly powerful and incredibly addictive. You must ground it into a powder yourself, because if your servants do it for you, they will become addicted themselves and steal it. It can be used in mild doses as I'm sure you've noticed me doing as we speak, but in truly difficult moments you will require a much heavier dose, after which your most trusted confidante will have to keep it from you for over a week or else you will become so addicted that you could use up the entire supply in a lethal dose. Shabbetai: This sounds like exactly the sort of thing which people should keep away from me. Nathan: It can be used in moderation, but you will require the superhuman effort of will which your followers claim is yours by natural temperament. Would you like me to show you how it's done? Shabbetai: I don't know. Nathan: Do you have any trust left in Hashem at all? Shabbetai: Em.... Nathan (takes another pinch from his snuffbox): Hashem gave you such maladies as a gift, he knows that you experience such suffering and visions for a purpose beyond any that know yet for yourself. Shabbetai: I don't know... Nathan: He does! And thousands of people claim that you have seen further into the realms of God than anyone else on earth. Can they all be wrong? Shabbetai: I don't know! Nathan: Look at the world right now! Everybody talks about the Chmielnicki's massacres in 1648, but all the while we stopped thinking about it and they were still happening for nine more years! Your father came to Turkey from Poland, why? Was the treatment so great? No! He was what they call a Yiddisher Kop, he was Klug and he understood that Poland was about to send Jews to the next world. And now Poland is fighting Russia and all the Jews up there who weren't being killed then are about to be killed now. Shabbetai: I don't know.... Nathan (takes another pinch of snuff): Sometimes you have to take what God is giving you. Hashem gives hint after hint about what you need and want, all you have to do is reach out and take Hashem's gifts! Shabbetai: I don't want his gifts anymore! Nathan: Hashem does not care what you want and He can make you suffer until you accept His plan for you. Shabbetai: Cursed be my name. Nathan: No! Blessed be thy name! You have seen the blessings every day for how many years? HOW MANY OF THE NINE CELESTIAL REALMS HAVE YOU VISITED? Shabbetai: Six... Nathan: But not the ones with any physical manifestation! Shabbetai: No, not those. Nathan: THEN THIS WILL BRING YOU THERE! I'LL DO IT WITH YOU! (They both take a pinch of snuff, the first bump. NATHAN: GO TO THE REALM OF BINAH! Shabbetai: Waits 6 seconds.... Baruch Hashem, I'm in the Kingdom of Knowledge! I don't see it, but I FEEL IT. I KNOW NOW! The realm of knowledge tells me that Jehovah put us all on earth to be happy and broke divine creation by creating this world! Precisely so that we could heal it! Jehovah JEHOVAH JEEEHOOOVAAAHHH!!! Nathan: DO A SECOND LINE AND YOU'LL GET TO HOKHMAH! Shabbetai: I'm in the Kingdom of Wisdo... Wait a minute... zol gotter pitten... why am I doing all this? Why must I be the Moshiach? Why would I be the Moshiach when everybody before me wasn't? What are the chances this won't end with me and my followers dead like the Jews in Ukraine? How will the survivors live?... I've made a terrible mistake... I shouldn't take any more of this powder and should return home... maybe to Izmir if they would have me.... Nathan: Are you sure you don't want another bump? Shabbetai: Absolutely. Nathan: YOU'RE SO CLOSE TO THE CROWN OF ALL CREATION! YOU'VE COME THIS FAR ONLY TO TURN BACK FROM GOD'S THRONE?! WHAT HAVE YOU STRIVEN ALL THESE YEARS FOR? WHAT HAS HASHEM INFLICTED ALL YOUR TORMENTS FOR? Shabbetai: I CAN'T! I'M NOT WORTHY! I HAVE DESECRATED EVERY COMMANDMENT GOD HAS ISSUED! Nathan: LET THE HOLY ONE JUDGE THAT! BLESSED BE HIS NAME! (holds the snuffbox straight up to his nose, practically shoves it in.) Shabbetai: I'm in Keter. I SEE THE THRONE OF GOD! JEHOVAH! WHY?! God can make us see ANYTHING! I'm in the stars upon a cloud, in a CELESTIAL VERSION OF JERUSALEM! I'm in KING SOLOMON'S TEMPLE! Now I understand! The holy temple was a facsimile of where God sits in judgement! Nathan: THEN GO INTO THE HOLY OF HOLIES! Shabbetai: Alright I'm going in... It's empty... Nathan: WHAT? Shabbetai: There's a menorah in there but it's unlit. Nathan: THEN LIGHT IT! Shabbetai: With what?!? Nathan: Oh no... I don't know... (Nathan begins to cry) Shabbetai: I am unworthy! Judaism is a lie! Nathan: DON'T SAY THAT! Shabbetai: WAIT! HE'S HERE!!! [Shabbetai falls to the ground and weeps] KADOSH BARUCH HU I'M HERE! YOUR SERVANT SHABBETAI! Nathan: WHAT IS HE SAYING TO YOU! Shabbetai: HE'S NOT SAYING ANYTHING! Nathan: NOOOOO!!! Shabbetai: HE'S GESTURING AT THE MENORAH! Nathan: HE IS? Shabbetai: HE'S CREATED A CANDLE AND TELLING ME TO LIGHT GOD'S MENORAH! Nathan: THE KADOSH BARUCH HU IS TELLING YOU TO LIGHT GOD'S MENORAH?!! Shabbetai: I'M LIGHTING LORD! Nathan: YOU ARE THE MESSIAH! Shabbetai: HE'S PLACING A LAUREL WREATH FROM THE TREE OF LIFE ON MY HEAD! (Nathan kneels next to Shabbetai and bows down to him) Nathan: MOSHIACH!!!!
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