Theodor Herzl, the visionary Austro-Hungarian Jew is often seen as the “founder” of the secular Jewish State of Israel. This Op-Ed by Natan Natan demonstrates clearly that his life and motivation were far from secular, though he was not conventionally religious. I wanted to pass it on as it contains much of interest in terms of setting the historical record straight. As David Horowitz, a pioneering Zionist of the next generation, said so often, “HaShem moves in mysterious ways.”
A Blessed Rosh Chodesh and Rosh HaShanah to all!
Op-ed : by Natan Natan
“ARBEIT MACHT FREI” & THEODOR HERZL’S “ULTIMATE DREAM”
Theodor Herzl wrote in his diary (September 1, 1897) :
“Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in one word, it would be this : at Basel I have founded the Jewish State. If I were to say it publicly today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years and certainly in fifty, everyone will recognize it.”
Theodor Herzl’s grandfather, Simon Loeb Herzl, was a fervent disciple of Rabbi Judah Alkalai (1798-1878) who, for most of his life, had been a preacher in Semlin, near Belgrade. This Rabbi astounded his congregants when, among other pronouncements, he published a textbook declaring that establishing Jewish colonies and a Jewish State in the Holy Land was the necessary prelude to the Redemption of Israel and to the Restoration of the Temple of Jerusalem for the coming of Messiah. Thus, this Sephardic Rabbi Judah Alkalai, along with, for instance, the Ashkenazi Rabbi Zvi Kalischer of Prussia were representatives of a very tiny minority of European and American Rabbis who supported the religious concept of the Jewish people returning progressively to Palestine in order to recreate Israel and to restore the Temple.
However the vast majority of Rabbis (and religious Jews) opposed violently this view and were divided (to simplify matters with modern vocabulary) between “Reform Jews” and “Orthodox Jews” :
- The “Reform Jews” insisted that the Jews must integrate as loyally as possible any Nation where they found themselves, and that they do not need their own Land because they are, exclusively, a religious community.
- The “Orthodox Jews” and “Hasedim” (=”ultra Orthodox”) insisted (to summarize) that the Jews could not have a State of their own and rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem, until Messiah comes (although the Jews did not wait Messiah to rebuild the second Temple (Joshua and Zerubbabel) after their return from exile in Babylon (520 BCE), and although, also, the Jews did not wait Messiah to restore (20 BCE) the third Temple, rebuilt by Herod after he had completely destroyed the second Temple (including its foundations).
The Orthodox Jews’ belief of the necessary waiting of Messiah before recreating Israel and restoring the Temple of Jerusalem was mainly based on a Midrash Aggadah “The three Oaths” which is found in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ketubot 111a ( a tractate dealing mainly with the laws relating to marriage and married life). “The three Oaths” are a mystical Aggadic interpretation of a refrain in the Biblical carnal love Poem Song of Songs (2/7 , 3/5 , 8/4) :
I adjure you, O Daughters of Jerusalem,
By the deers and by the gazelles of the field
Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.
The Rabbis in Tractate Ketubot 111a gave the following mystical interpretation of this refrain :
(R. Jose son of R. Hanina said :) ‘What was the purpose of those three adjurations (oaths) ?
- One, that Israel shall not go up [to restore Jerusalem all together as if surrounded] by a wall, the second, that whereby the Holy One, blessed be He, adjured Israel that they shall not rebel against the nations of the world ; and the third is that whereby the Holy One, blessed be He, adjured the idolaters that they shall not oppress Israel too much.
This Aggadic interpretation of Ketubot 111a became progressively the steadfast cornerstone of the mystical leitmotiv of the diasporas Rabbis and their communities :
For instance, the Maharal of Prague (Rabbi Betzalel Lowy who lived in the 17th century) declared :
“Even if the nations wanted to kill the Jews with terrible torture, the Jews are forbidden to change the applicability of the “three Oaths’. This is relevant to every one of these ‘three Oaths’ and must be understood. Therefore, not only is it forbidden to leave the Exile even with the permission of the nations, but even if they force the Jewish People to do so under pain of death, it is forbidden to violate these ‘three Oaths’ in the same way it is required to give up one’s life rather than accept another religion.”
And one of the most renowned German Jewish leader of the nineteenth century, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch wrote :
“During the reign of Hadrian when the uprising led by Bar Kochba proved a disastrous error, it became essential that the Jewish people be reminded for all timesof an important, essential fact, namely that the people of Israel must never again attempt to restore its national independence by its own power : Israel has to entrust its future as a nation solely to Divine Providence (to the Messiah).” Incidentally, the Rabbis had also to resort rather laboriously to a similar Aggadic interpretation of the same Biblical love Song of Songs, in order to explain why the Jews stand in the wrong axis (west to east) when mourning and praying at the “Wailing Wall” in Jerusalem…)
In August 1897 , at almost the same time as the First Zionist Congress organized by Theodor Herzl took place, the Central Conference of American Rabbis adopted a resolution totally disapproving of any attempts for the establishment of a Jewish State. And in the same spirit this Conference of American Rabbis, which met at Richmond, Va., on Dec. 31 1898, declared itself as opposed to the whole Zionist movement on the ground (as one of the members stated) “that America was the Jews’ Jerusalem and Washington their Zion…” The “Reform Advocate” in Chicago even suggested editorially that the real object of Theodor Herzl was to possess himself of the savings of their poorer brethren.
Isaac M. Wise, president of the Hebrew Union College, thought that the Zionists were “traitors, hypocrites, or fantastic fools whose thoughts, sentiments, and actions are in constant contradiction to one another” (Hebrew Union College Journal Dec., 1899) ; while Rabbi Samfield wrote in the “Jewish Spectator” that “Zionism is an abnormal eruption of perverted sentiment.” Prof. Louis Grossman held that the “Zionistic agitation contradicts everything that is typical of Jews and Judaism,” and that the “Zionistic movement is a mark of ingenuity, and does not come out of the heart of Judaism, either ancient or contemporary” (Hebrew Union College Journal, Dec., 1899). In fact, the Rabbinical authorities had led the Jewish communities of the World for nearly 2,000 years.
The rise of Zionism was (as they wrongly thought) a distinct threat to their authority, power, revenues and their teachings. Besides, the prominence of secular Jews in the movement and the emphasis on settlement in Palestine made them (wrongly) fear that the center of Judaism would move away from their local Yeshiva and Synagogue. Moreover, the entire world’s incredulity at Theodor Herzl’s dream was such that an anecdote cited by Theodor Herzl in his Diary gives the full scope of the uphill battle he had engaged. In the Neue Frei Press (The Viennese newspaper where Theodor Herzl worked as journalist) they had a feuilleton by Flammarion: “Is Mars Inhabited ?” At the office they were discussing Mars. Bacher said to me in a superior tone : “Maybe you can set up your Jewish State on Mars.” Laughter among the smart boys.
(Hertz Diary, 28 January 1897)
For all these reasons (Jewish and non Jewish), one can understand that, despite all the superhuman organization efforts and the phenomenal diplomatic activity of Theodor Herzl -aimed at recreating politically a State of Israel which would have been recognized by the main international Powers- it took (after ceaseless pogroms and other similar anti-Semitic persecutions) the immense revulsion of the civilized world caused by the Shoah-Holocaust to convince a core of the secular Jewish community that, in order to survive, the Jews definitively needed their Jewish State, whatever the price would have to be paid for it.
Meanwhile, in this crucial History of Judaism, and although Theodor Herzl had lived as a secular, largely assimilated Jew and had been fluent in neither Hebrew nor Yiddish, his main mystical motivation and inspiration have been singularly and scandalously eclipsed. According to the account which he gave to the Hebrew writer, Reuben Brainin, less than a year before his death (which makes his confidence most significant), Theodor Herzl was attracted to the Messiah legends of the Jews from early adolescence. At the age of twelve, he had a “wonderful dream,” which he recounted as follows :
The King-Messiah came, a glorious and majestic old man, took me in his arms and swept off with me on the wings of the wind. On one of the shining clouds we encountered the figure of Moses. The features were familiar to me out of my childhood in the statue by Michelangelo. The Messiah called to Moses: “It is for this child that I have prayed !” And to me he 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 !”
That Theodor Herzl had been, all is life, emotionally guided by his grand-father’s imprint is also revealed, for instance, by the following experience which he confided in his Diary, 6 September 1897 : In deference to religious considerations, I went to the Synagogue on Saturday before the Congress of Basel. The head of the congregation called me up to the Torah. I had the brother-in-law of my Paris friend Beer, Mr. Markus of Meran, drill the “brokhe’’ (traditional Blessing recited upon reading the torah) into me. And then I climbed the steps to the altar : I was more excited than on all the Congress days. The few Hebrew words of the ‘’brokhe’’ caused me more anxiety than my welcoming and closing address and the whole direction of the Congress proceedings.
But most of all, is is The Old New Land (or Altneuland in the original German) is autopian novel published by Theodor Herzl in 1902. which outlined specifically Herzl’s vision for a Jewish State in the Land of Israel. Altneuland became, in fact, Theodor Herzl’s intimate Legacy to the Jews.
Altneuland was translated into Yiddish by Israel Isidor Elyashev. and translated intoHebrew as “Tel Aviv” (Hebrew: תֵּל־אָבִיב) by Nahum Sokolow – which directly influenced the choice of the same name for the Jewish-Zionist Jaffa suburb founded in 1909 which was to become the major Israeli city. Hereafter is the conclusion of this premonitory Vision and Dream of the State of Israel by Theodor Herzl :
Altneuland – Book Five- Jerusalem (extracts)
They (the heroes of the visionary novel) reached the Temple (of Jerusalem). The times had fulfilled themselves, and it was rebuilt. Once more it had been erected with great quadrangular blocks of stone hewn from nearby quarries and hardened by the action of the atmosphere. Once more the pillars of bronze stood before the Holy Place of Israel. “The left pillar was called Boaz, but the name of the right was Jachin.” In the forecourt was a mighty bronze altar, with an enormous basin called the brazen sea as in the olden days, when Solomon was king in Israel.
Sarah and Miriam went up to the women’s gallery. Friedrich sat beside David in the last row downstairs. “When the places were assigned,” said David, “I chose the very last row. I wanted nothing else.”
Jews looked different now simply because they were no longer ashamed of being Jews. It was not only beggars and derelicts and relief applicants who professed Judaism in a suspiciously one-sided solidarity. No ! The strong, the free, the successful Jews had returned home, and received more than they gave. Other nations were still grateful to them when they produced some great thing; but the Jewish people asked nothing of its sons except not to be denied. The world is grateful to every great man when he brings it something ; only the paternal home thanks the son who brings nothing but himself.
Suddenly, as Friedrich listened to the music and meditated on the thoughts it inspired, the significance of the Temple flashed upon him. In the days of King Solomon, it had been a gorgeous symbol, adorned with gold and precious stones, attesting to the might and the pride of Israel. In the taste of those days, it had been decorated with costly bronze, and paneled with olive, cedar, and cypress,-a joy to the eye of the beholder. Yet, however splendid it might have been, the Jew could not have grieved for it eighteen centuries long. They could not have mourned merely for ruined masonry; that would have been too silly. No, they sighed for an invisible something of which the stones had been a symbol. It had come back to rest in the rebuilt Temple, where stood the home returning sons of Israel who lifted up their souls to the invisible God as their fathers had done upon Mount Moriah.
The words of Solomon glowed with a new vitality:
“The Lord hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.
I have surely built Thee a house of habitation,
A place for Thee to dwell in forever.”
Jews had prayed in many temples, splendid and simple, in all the languages of the Diaspora. The invisible God, the Omnipresent, must have been equally near to them everywhere. Yet only here was the true Temple…
At last Friedrich put a question, and every man answered it after his fashion. “We see a new and happy form of human society here,” he said. “What created it ?”
“Necessity!” said Littwak the elder.
“The reunited people !” said Steineck the architect.
“The new means of transportation !” said Kingscourt.
“Knowledge !” said Dr. Marcus.
“Will Power !” said Joe Levy.
“The Forces of Nature !” said Professor Steineck.
“Mutual Toleration!” said the Reverend Mr. Hopkins.
“Self-Confidence !” said Reschid Bey.
“Love and Pain !” said David Littwak.
But the venerable Rabbi Samuel arose and proclaimed: “God !”
EPILOGUE
But, if you do not wish it, all this that I have related to you is and will remain a fable…
Now, dear Book, after three years of labor, we must part. And your sufferings will begin. You will have to make your way through enmity and misrepresentation as through a dark forest. When, however, you come among friendly folk, give them greetings from your father. Tell them that he believes Dreams also are a fulfillment of the days of our sojourn on Earth. Dreams are not so different from Deeds as some may think. All the Deeds of men are only Dreams at first. And in the end, their Deeds dissolve into Dreams.
“If you will it, it will not be dream but reality”
Theodor Herzl
February 2010, the author, Natan Natan, a French Jew, is the Author of “The Real History of the Temple of Jerusalem” on-line at http://www.jerusalem-4thtemple.org/
There is a fascinating article on Lincoln and the Jews in Jewish World Review today:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/herb/geduld_lincoln.php3
This entire topic is most interesting in the light of Ross Nichol’s message yesterday at Temple Sinai, which I hope you will all download and listen to if you missed it:
http://rootsoffaith.org/2010/02/13/mishpatim-exodus-211-2418-2.htm
Also, our theme this year at the April 16-18 UIWU meeting here in Charlotte is the Torah/Hebrew Heritage of our American Founders and Culture. United Israel Senior VP Ralph Buntyn has lectured on George Washington in several of our past meetings but there is much more to come, from him and other speakers. Details will be posted at our main Web site here:
One of the so-called “minor” festival days within Jewish tradition falls today, January 30th, which also happens to be a Sabbath day this year of 2010. It is called in Hebrew Tu b’Shevat which literally means “15th of Shebat,” referring to the 11th month/moon on the Jewish/biblical calendar (called Shevat, see Zech 1:7). We are not certain of the origins of all the names of the Jewish months, since in the Hebrew Bible months are normally just numbered, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so forth. However, the Hebrew word shevat does mean a staff or rod, and thus by extension a “tribe.” One of the more interesting references to the 11th month is Deuteronomy 1:3 where Moses gives his final message to the assemblies of Israel east of the Jordan on the 1st of Shevat, which would have been the New Moon.
In Hebrew numbers are expressed by letters, Alef=1, Bet=2, Gimmel=3 and so forth. By such a system the number fifteen would be “ten & five” which is Yod Heh–however, since Yod Heh is an abbreviation for YHVH, the Divine and Holy Name of God, a substitute combination of Tet (nine) and Vav (six) are used–Thus the designation TU. The 15th of any lunar month is also the Full Moon and since Shevat, or the 11th month, often falls in late January/early February, it is the biggest and brightest moon of the year, sometimes called the “Wolf Moon,” see National Geographic story “Biggest Full Moon.”
In Jewish tradition this festival of the Full Moon of Shevat is also called the “festival of the Trees” and it marks a “new year” in terms of trees and their fruit, based on the Torah command in Leviticus 19:23-24: “When you come into the land and plant any kind of tree for food, then you shall regard its fruit as “uncircumcised” (i.e., forbidden). Three years it shall be forbidden to you; it must not be eaten. And in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, an offering of praise to the Yehovah. But in the fifth year you may eat of its fruit, to increase its yield for you: I am the Yehovah your God.” This passage is viewed as having great significance, both practically and mystically, and it falls within the Holiness Code of the Torah (Lev 19), one of the more inspiring and universal collections of mitzvot or teachings.
In Israel and throughout the world it is a day of the planting of trees. It is also said that on the 15th of the 11th month the sap in the trees begins to rise signaling the end of winter, and the almond trees blossom by this day. I heard from a friend in Israel just this week that indeed the almond trees are out in full all over the Land. Since trees as so often used in the Hebrew Bible to represent human beings, their lifespan, and their potential to “bear fruit,” both the planting of a tree and its eventual growth and gifts are understood to represent symbolic meaning as well (see Psalm 1:3; 92:13; Eccl 12:1-7).
This day is also connected to the ma’aseror “tithe” of produce, as related to trees, fruit, and other produce.
In terms of the Torah text itself just as a tree is planted with future hope of fruit, but without any immediate result until at least three years of growth, plus a 4th year of dedication to YHVH, and then only in the 5th year the fruit is eaten–humans have similar experiences of new beginnings or “plantings” that do not yield immediate results but one must “wait” for the results to appear. Fruit trees continue to represent to most of us a picture of pardes or Paradise, as well as the original diet of human beings (Genesis 1:29; 2:9). Such a diet (called in Hebrew zeor’im or “seeds”) was seen as ideal and conducive to spiritual development. Daniel and his three companions in Babylon separate themselves from the food and wine of the king and for three years of “testing” eat “from the seeds,” experiencing health and spiritual insights and power far beyond their peers (Daniel 1:14-15).
A story is just breaking tonight around the world regarding the text found by Prof. Garfinkel at Elah over a year ago. It has apparently now been deciphered and dated and can be reliably put in the 10th century BCE, the time of the “Monarchy.” This is a major breakthrough in terms of the debate between the “minimalists” who argue the Biblical narratives are post-Exilic and those who maintain that we have texts at least 500 years earlier.
See the Eureka press release with photos here.
The incredible story of the late NFL football star Reggie White, who turned in his last years from preaching Christianity to a quest for Torah faith, as powerfully documented in this ESPN video:This particular Torah reading, Vayigash: Genesis 44:18-47:27, taken from the first word “to draw near,” where Judah DRAWS NEAR to Joseph, has great meaning to United Israel World Union and its history.
It just so happens that on January 1st, 1943, the weekend that United Israel World Union was officially formed in upstate NY by David Horowitz, that the Torah reading was indeed Vayigash! David had no idea of this at the time, and never noticed it years later when it was pointed out to him around his 90th year.
There could have been no more appropriate date or reading, in that Horowitz at that time represented the ONLY significant person of the House of Judah who was determined to do something to “DRAW NEAR TO JOSEPH.” Is this not rather incredible!! Indeed this Joseph cycle of readings has proven very significant in our own time. Allenby took Jerusalem on December 9, 1917 (just “happened” to be on Kislev 24!), and the reading with Mikketz (Gen 41). The UN Partition vote was on November 29, 1947 and the reading was Vayeshev. In both cases, the nations that I would associate with Joseph come to the aid of Judah and his companions, saving their LIVES in a great time of trouble, and there is a kind of “uniting” of the two houses even then, but in a preliminary way.
It is obvious that the Rabbis who complied the Haphtorah readings from the Prophets saw more than an ordinary meaning in this phrase, in that they chose Ezekiel 37:15-28, the passage about the two “sticks,” one for Judah and the sons of Israel his companions, and the other for Joseph, and all the house of Israel and his companions. Those sticks are UNITED, thus the whole idea of UNITED ISRAEL which David Horowitz has pioneered for over 50 years now. One stick IS the stick of Joseph, but it is in the hand of Ephraim–and we learn why in next weeks Torah reading where the aged Jacob adopts the two sons of Joseph, but puts the younger Ephraim, BEFORE the older Manasseh, and gives Joseph the birthright, taken from Reuben, the firstborn son. You might have expected it to go to Judah, since Judah is clearly next in line since Simeon and Levi were eliminated for their cruelty (see Gen 49:5-7), as well as being one of the strongest and most prominent of the twelve tribes, but Jacob rather chose his beloved Rachel’s son Joseph. Joseph is also given the special plot of land in Shechem, where he was later buried, and the site of such contention now with the Palestinians (Gen 48:22; Josh 24:32). YHVH declares that these TWO sticks will become ONE in His Hand (Ezk 37:20) and the following verses explain how that will happen:
I will take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; and I will make them ONE NATION in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and ONE King will be king for all of them; and they will no longer be two nations and no longer be divided into two kingdoms.” This chapter of course opens with the vision of the Valley of Dry Bones.
So the children of Israel end up in TWO COMPANIES, as was already hinted at the previous Torah reading Vayishlach (Gen 32:10).
The whole Joseph story seems to echo this history of the Lost Tribes. Joseph is sold into slavery, as was ancient Israel, the Northern Kingdom. He is effectively given up for DEAD (thus the valley of Dry Bones), and forgotten by his brothers, here represented mostly by Judah, who remains in the Land and returns to the Land after the Babylonian disaster. He marries a GENTILE woman, an Egyptian, and eventually reaches a great position of power and prominence, the highest of the kings of the earth–and for all practical purposes completely loses his identity–but all this time YHVH was with him. He is the DREAMER, the one who did not fit in, the one rejected by his brothers. According to Genesis 49:22-26 the descendents of Joseph will achieve great blessings and incredible wealth, and Moses adds his own details to the prophecy in Deut 33:13-17–Joseph is to push to the ends of the earth, and have the favor of “the one who dwells in the Bush,” achieving great favor and prominence. We should expect then, at the time when Judah returns to the land (the prophets declare: I will save the house of Judah first), which we have seen the this past century, that Joseph will exist someone on the earth, looked upon as Gentile, but somehow oriented to the God of Israel and the Bible, but with incredible wealth and power. The key then would be that large portions of such “Gentile” populations would begin to feel an irresistible pull toward Judah and the Land of Israel, and be drawn home. There is a preliminary return, spoken of in Jeremiah 3 and 16, but also that massive return that will pale the Exodus in size…we seem to be living in such days, and have for the past 50 years, but especially I think we have seen the return of large pockets of Joseph to God, Israel, and Torah in the past 25 years. It can only increase not decrease, and it is one of the strangest phenomena on the earth today, as thousand of “Gentiles” seem suddenly interested in discovering their Hebraic “roots.”
There appear to be some incredible parallels between the Joseph story, the Lost Tribes saga, and the story Jesus tells in Luke 15, most often referred to as the Prodigal Son. One son stays “home,” the other becomes “lost” and forgotten among the Gentiles, but eventually returns home…
Both Houses of Israel, that is Judah and Ephraim (usually called Israel in the prophets, in contrast to Judah) are chastised and rebuked, but the language of Jeremiah 3:6-14 is most important and interesting. Judah is called treacherous while Israel is called faithless (lit. turned, slidden away), but v. 11 says that “Faithless Israel has proven herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.” That, no doubt, becomes the source of the jealous that Isaiah 11 speaks about, and it is echoed in the Prodigal son story. Judah is very reluctant to give up her privileged place of “faithfulness” to a backslidden Israel–but it is Judah’s attitude that has to change. In the end, though falling into great apostasy, Joseph is proven MORE RIGHTEOUS, and returns home. Also, based on the words of Jacob in Gen 49 it does appear that the Scepter departs from Judah and eventually goes to Joseph also–from him comes the Stone, the Rock of Israel–or Shiloh…This will surely be a surprise to all the world, both Jews and Christians, who are so focused on a Davidic Messiah figure.
The story in the Torah today is itself so very moving. What a scene, and yet there is such power in the grace and love that he ends up showing his brothers. It is easy to forget that the sons of Israel are a very diverse mix, born of four different women, and with very different temperaments and characteristics, as are outlined by father Jacob in next Sabbath’s reading.
Tis the Season” love it or not but for an alternative take on Jesus’ birth, December 25th, and a different kind of “Silent Night” see my essay, just up on the Web at Bible&Interpretation, a site well worth a bit of browsing:
http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/xmas357921.shtml
I love this wonderful Armenian portrayal of the meeting of Miriam with her kinswoman Elisheva in the region of Ein Kerem in the “hill country of Judea,” west of Jerusalem. Note that the unborn babies are shown in situ as if by ancient ultrasound. According to Luke’s gospel the women were separated in their pregnancies by six months and Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months, implying that she was attending at the birth of John/Yehochanan.
Does God ever dream? Not literally, as we humans do, but in terms of a future vision? Ross Nichols, teacher at the historic Temple Sinai in St. Francisville, LA, presented an exceptionally powerful, inspiring, and insightful teaching on this whole subject of dreams yesterday, tied to the weekly Torah reading Miketz (Genesis 41:1-44:17). You can listen to it here:
http://rootsoffaith.org/2009/12/19/miketz-the-dream-genesis-411-4417.htm
The “Tomb of the Shroud” which was discovered and investigated in 2000 by Shimon Gibson, Boaz Zissu, and me, with a team of our UNC Charlotte students in the summer of 2000, continues to yield up many scientific secrets about life and death in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. I related the basic story of the exciting discovery of this freshly robbed tomb in the Introduction to my book The Jesus Dynasty in 2006 and Shimon Gibson has recently provided a more thorough analysis in his new book, The 
Final Days of Jesus: The Archaeological Evidence (HarperOne, 2009). We published a preliminary report in the journal Hadashot Arkheologiyot (vol. 111: 2000, pp. 70-72, figs. 138-139) but a major monograph is ShroudDrawingplanned for 2011 and various aspects of the research are beginning to appear in scientific journals. Although the burial shroud itself continues to receive great public interest (see the latest in today’s The Daily Mail), other aspects of research on this tomb are quite notable. DNA profiles were done on all the bones in the tomb, so far as we know for the first time in an ancient tomb in Jerusalem from the Herodian period. We also have the only substantial example of male hair from the period (lice free, cut reasonably short, and well groomed), and most important, the earliest case of leprosy ever found–in the Holy Land or elsewhere. The significance of the latter discovery is a major contribution to our understanding of ancient disease and has recently been published in the current issue of the Public Library of Science Journal. Yesterday’s Jerusalem Post had a nice feature update on the tomb and its secrets, highlighting the leprosy finding:
Remains in tomb near Old City show first known case of leprosy
Dec. 15, 2009
Judy Siegel-Itzkovich , THE JERUSALEM POST
DNA taken from the shrouded remains of a man discovered in a tomb next to the Old City of Jerusalem shows him to be the first human proven to have suffered from leprosy, according to Hebrew University researchers and North American and British collaborators. They published their findings in the December 16 issue of the PLoS One – the US Public Library of Science journal.
Prof. Mark Spigelman and Prof. Charles Greenblatt of the Sanford F. Kuvin Center for the Study of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at HU in Jerusalem, along with Prof. Carney Matheson and Kim Vernon of Lakehead University in Canada, Prof. Azriel Gorski of New Haven University and Dr. Helen Donoghue of University College London performed the molecular investigation. The archeological excavation was led by Prof. Shimon Gibson, Dr. Boaz Zissu and Prof. James Tabor on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
The burial cave, known as the Tomb of the Shroud, is located in the lower Hinnom Valley near the Jaffa Gate and part of a first century CE cemetery known as Akeldama, or “Field of Blood” (mentioned in the Book of Matthew 27:3-8, and Acts 1:19 in the Christian Bible). It is located adjacent to the spot where Judas is said to have committed suicide.
The tomb of the shrouded man is also located next to the tomb of Annas, the high priest (6 CE to 15 CE), who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest who betrayed Jesus to the Romans. It is thus believed that this shrouded man was either a priest or a member of the aristocracy. Gibson suggests that the view from the tomb would have looked directly toward the Second Temple.
The tomb is very unusual because it is clear that this man, whose remains are dated by radiocarbon methods to 1 CE to 50 CE, did not receive a subsequent burial. Secondary burials were common practice at the time, when the bones were removed after a year and placed in an ossuary (a bone box made of stone). In this case, however, the entrance to this part of the tomb was completely sealed with plaster. Spigelman believes this is because the man had suffered from leprosy and died of tuberculosis, as DNA of both diseases was found in his bones.
Historically, disfiguring diseases such as leprosy led to the sufferer being ostracized from their community. However, a number of indications – the location and size of the tomb, the type of textiles used as shroud wrappings, and the clean state of the hair – suggest that the shrouded individual was a fairly affluent member of Jerusalem society, and that tuberculosis and leprosy may have crossed social boundaries at that time.
This is also the first time fragments of a burial shroud have been found from the time of Jesus in Jerusalem. The shroud is very different to that of the Turin Shroud, until now assumed to be the one that was used to wrap the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. Unlike the complex weave of the Turin Shroud, this is made up of a simple two-way weave, as textile historian Dr. Orit Shamir was able to demonstrate.
Based on the assumption that this is representative of a typical burial shroud widely used at the time of Jesus, the researchers conclude that the Turin Shroud did not originate from Jesus-era Jerusalem.
The excavation also found a clump of the shrouded man’s hair, which had been ritually cut before he was buried. These are both unique discoveries because organic remains are only rarely preserved in the Jerusalem area owing to the soil’s high humidity levels.
Spigelman and Greenblatt state that the origins and development of leprosy are largely obscure. Leprosy in the Jewish Bible may well refer to skin diseases such as psoriasis. The leprosy known to us today was thought to have originated in India and brought over via bacteria to the Near East and Mediterranean countries during the Hellenistic period. The results from the First Century Tomb of the Shroud fill a vital gap in our knowledge of this disease, they said.
Furthermore, the new research has shown that molecular pathology clearly adds a new dimension to the archeological exploration of disease in ancient times and a better understanding of the evolution, geographic distribution and epidemiology of disease and social health in antiquity.
The co-infection of both leprosy and tuberculosis here and in 30 percent of DNA remains in Israel and Europe from the ancient and modern period provided evidence for the postulate that the medieval plague of leprosy was eliminated by an increased level of tuberculosis in Europe as the area urbanized.
As sundown fell across Israel, Europe, and the United States last evening millions of Jews and many others who care about the history of Israel are marking the advent of Hanukkah, the Festival of Dedication. What might be lost is the historical grounding of the feast of Hanukkah itself, which seems to actually derive from Friday’s date: Kislev 24 or the 24th day of the 9th month of the Jewish calendar. Notice carefully this historical background:
The book of the prophet Haggai comes to us from the 2nd year of the Persian King Darius, late summer, August, 520 BCE. It is one of the most precisely dated books in the Hebrew Bible, much like its sister Zechariah, and its twin Malachi. The three go together, like peas in the pod, both coming from that crucial time of the “restoration” of Judah to the Land following the Babylonian captivity. Collectively they are our LAST WORD from Yehovah in terms of how the redemption is to unfold. It is very likely, based on Haggai 1:12, where the Prophet is called the “messenger of Yehovah,” that Haggai is in fact the author of the book we call Malachi, as this book is just named “My Messenger,” and the name of the prophet who wrote it is not given. Both Haggai and Zechariah address their contemporary situation, as one would expect, and are concerned that the Temple be rebuilt and that the constitution of the new state of Judah be ordered according to the Torah. However, if read carefully, both clearly understand that this restoration of Judah is only a preliminary, even symbolic step, to a coming GREAT restoration of Judah and ALL Israel. Even though there is a Priest (Joshua), and a Governor (Zerubbabel) of the Davidic line, there is no anointing of the BRANCH figure of whom both Isaiah and Jeremiah had spoken. One way of putting this is to say that Haggai and Zechariah are working in the tall shadow of JEREMIAH (see especially chapters 30-31), and they know, from his clear and powerful prophecies, that the final days have not come with this tiny little beachhead return of a portion of Judah to the land. But they do believe that this return of Judah is a “sign” of things to come, and a guarantee that the Plan of Yehovah, to fill the earth with justice and righteousness, through Abraham’s seed, is not to fall to the ground.
And that leads us to the curious and fascinating references to the 24th day of the 9th month–Kislev 24 in modern Jewish parlance.
Notice, reading the book of Haggai is sequential, it takes you through the last months of the year. It begins with the Rosh Chodesh of the 6th month (August), takes you through the 21st day of the 7th month (2:1), which is the last day of Sukkoth (October), and then into December–with the 24th day of the 9th month. Haggai’s third and fourth messages come on this very day. It is a short book, and if you skim it through you will see the building sequence.
Kislev 24 is mentioned FOUR times in the second chapters, verses 10, 15, 18 and 20. Twice it is emphasized that “from THIS DAY FORWARD I will bless you,” and twice Haggai gets a special Word from Yehovah, on this very day. You have to read the whole chapter to get the context, but the message is basically that Yehovah will “SHAKE the heavens and the earth and ALL NATIONS,” overthrowing their power, anoint the chosen one (symbolized in that day by Zerubbabel), and essentially make Jerusalem the new world capital. For the DETAILS you need to go back, of course, to Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah in particular, as they set forth the entire agenda to which Haggai only briefly alludes.
This message is addressed to the two “messiahs,” the Priest and the “King” or Governor, Joshua and Zerubbabel, respectively (2:4-5). They become “signifiers” of things to come. They are not the final anointed ones, and Zechariah picks this up in his visions, especially chapters 4 and 6. These symbolic figures, as well as the promised presence of the Holy Spirit (see 2:5 and Zech 4:6!), are the guarantee that Yehovah will bring about these promises.
Notice, Zechariah begins getting his visions and messages in the 8th month of that same year (Zech 1:1), or mid-November. He has EIGHT night visions, they are all quite difficult to follow, but prophetically important in forecasting the redemptive future. There is much more detail in Zechariah, but the two, Haggai and Zechariah, should be read in tandem, as one explains the other. Now, note carefully, Kislev 24 is not specifically mentioned in Zechariah, but it is alluded to in chapter 4:8-10. It is the famous “day of small things,” that one might be led to “despise,” because after all, this tiny little remnant of Judah, beginning to lay the foundation of a nondescript temple, under the mighty thumb of the Persian empire, was hardly even worthy of the name of a city-state, much less a world kingdom, and yet had HOPES and DREAMS and promises of world dominion!
Chapters 7-14 of Zechariah, which he gets two years later, are quite different. They are straightforward and fairly plain, laying out, likely in some sequential order, both the preliminary events, and the detailed climax, of the “time of the end.”
So, what about Kislev 24? It seems to have a three-fold meaning. First, in the time of Haggai and Zechariah, it was the day MARKED for the promise that the redemption would ultimately come about, not by power, nor by might, but by the Spirit of Yehovah–but “in its time.” Second, subsequently though history, this day seems to be one upon which key events take place, perhaps only a few of which have been recognized down through history. And finally, it might well turn out that on some Kislev 24 in the future, that date will serve as a “countdown marker” for the unfolding of the mysterious 1260/1290/1335/2300 days of Daniel’s visions, which interested Sir Isaac Newton so much.
During the period of the Maccabees, when Syrian ruler Antiochus IV unleashed his great persecution against the Jews of Judea/Palestine, it was on Kislev 24 that the enemy was defeated and the Temple freed from its desecration. That is why the festival of Chanukah is celebrated beginning at sundown, at the end of Kislev 24. In other words, it is NOT so much Chanukah that is important, as its marker date: Kislev 24. It seems to become a kind of banner date in history that marks any kind of “signal” of future redemption.
Fast forward to December 9, 1917. General Allenby, leading the British forces (remember Lawrence of Arabia), liberates Jerusalem for the first time in centuries from Turkish/Muslim rule. The date on the Jewish calendar–you guessed it: Kislev 24! That evening the Jewish soldiers in the British army celebrated Chanukah and went to the Wall in openness and freedom. The Torah reading that week was Mikketz (Gen 41), where JOSEPH is raised to power and saves Judah. And the Haphtorah reading, for the special Sabbath of Chanukah, as it is today, is the fascinating Zechariah 2:14-4:7! Note how it begins: “I have returned to Zion,” which seems to be the essential meaning of THIS DAY.
It is doubtful that Allenby was aware, during the heat of the battle, of even Chanukah, but certainly he knew nothing of Kislev 24.
If we begin checking in history over the past 2520 years (remember that number), there have been numerous times when Kislev 24 has played a large part, and even a smaller more symbolic part, in the unfolding of redemptive history. For example, no matter what one’s view of Yeshua might be, it seems in all likelihood that Yeshua was conceived on this day, nine months before his birth in September 3 BCE.
Some UIWU officers also noticed some years ago that the encounter David Horowitz had at the cave with his teacher Moshe Guibbory, as recounted in his autobiography, Thirty-three Candles, was on Friday night, December 16/17, 1927–and again, you guessed it, this was Kislev 24th. The Torah reading was Vayeshev, which begins the Joseph cycle, and the Haphtorah was Amos 2:6-3:8, which seems quite appropriate. Horowitz had no idea of this until over 50 years later when it was pointed out to him by others.
Now, a tiny bit on the numbers. Note, these important visions came in the year 520 BCE. The year 2000/2001 marks 2520 years since that first Kislev 24 vision of Haggai. The number 2520 is interesting, it has several mystical mathematical properties, but one most obvious one is that it is 7 x 360, or seven “prophetic years.” A prophetic year in the Bible is 360 days, thus we get in the books of Daniel and Revelation the period of 1260 days for 3.5 years. There are a number of indications, both in the Torah and Prophets, especially Ezekiel, that a kind of “day for a year” principle applies in Prophecy, and accordingly, the official “Exile” of Joseph and Judah would last 2520 years. Perhaps this is the meaning of the phrase “after two days” and “on the third day” references in Hosea 6. Now Judah was essentially “restored” in type at least, in the year 520, but the full restoration, and the union of things between Judah and Joseph is yet to come, “after two days” according to Hosea (a day is a “thousand years” in these prophetic texts). The point is, based on this chronology, we are “in” the third day, as of the year 2000. And indeed, it does appear we have begun to experience a “shaking of all things.” Whether this is the ultimate upheaval to which Haggai refers remains to be seen.
It is also worth noting, in terms of Kislev 24, that if you add 2300 days (the figure in Daniel 8) to that day, you always, on the Jewish calendar, come to the last day of Unleavened Bread, oddly something like 6.3 years later. In other words, it is sort of a strange figure. And there are then various interesting ways, too complicated to go into here, that the periods of Daniel (1260/1290/1335) fit in, taking one to Shavuot of any given sequence of years. We do know for certain that the 2300 “days” was fulfilled as a “day for a year” running from Alexander’s defeat of Darius in 334 BCE (June 7), to the day, to June 7, 1967–when Jerusalem was liberated by the Israelis in the Six Day War. The point seems to be that Alexander’s march to Jerusalem began a period of 2300 days/years of the trampling of Jerusalem. So what this seems to indicate is that there is a larger (day for a year) fulfillment of these periods, as well as a shorter “day for a day” fulfillment, once the “countdown” begins.
One might conclude then, from these indications, that on some Kislev 24, at some year “on our days and in our time” (whether past or future), people will come to recognize that Haggai’s “shaking” did indeed begin. It does not seem likely that time has quite yet come, but every year at this time one’s thoughts go to this date, given such an important designation by Haggai and Zechariah. On a personal level, it seems it can always be a date of “renewal” for any of us, and a time of new beginnings, looking to both the past and to the future.