The Eternal Jew’s Tale, #162, Abarbanel 2

In this episode, pig-headed kings, agunahs, and mystic ascents.

The Eternal Jew’s Tale
Twentieth Era, Part 3, ~1480 C.E., Portugal
The Abarbanel Cycle, 2

One minute he’s layin’ out places and routes, and sendin’ out tax collectors to farm. The next he’s hearin’ the desperate plight of an agunah* or a tradesman in debt. Then he’ll turn on me and demand a report on expected incomes or current expenses, to be sent to the king before the day is done. Then back to that agunah who won’t leave til he poskins** what the law demands; then whisperin’ thoughts in Batkol’s ear, some allegory he derives from this, or a mystical insight that flashes his mind.
* a woman whose husband is missing but not confirmed dead, or whose husband won’t give her a bill of divorce; either way, she is thus unable to remarry.
** make a legal ruling in Jewish law

It’s as if, in his body two or three men compete, each of them living a demanding life.

Just before sundown he leaves off work, gathers his family, children and wife, and rushes to the central esnoga* to pray. ’Course, Batkol and me, we’re expected, as well. Mincha, then Maariv, then we stroll home in the cool of evening after sunset, for a long, extended dinner and prayers, and then some hours explorin’ ascents. Don Isaac been partic’ly interested in Batkol’s experiences up in the hills with that Lilith, healer and sorceress.
* ‘synagogue’ in Ladino; literally, splendor, dawnlight
** afternoon prayers; *** evening prayers; usually Mincha and Maariv are done together

At first he dismisses them angelmen and incubi that stole the key to open her doors and slip into her dreams while she been weak with fever and drugs. But the talkin’ plants and expansion of time, and superposin’ people and worlds been things he never heard of before, and resist as he might, the facts pervail, and he has to admit that Batkol seen some upper rooms in the Hekhalot*, and he wants to learn how to get there himself.
* mystic palaces

Months on end we work on it. When Batkol is talkin’, I’m takin’ notes. When it’s Isaac or me, Batkol has the quill. Pages of scrawl and jibberish, which later we have to decipher and mine and extract what sense we can make of it.

Oh, and I forgot, in our hustle and work — tax arrears and orphan’s homes, mystic ascents and pig-headed kings — Abraham Zacuto barges in on us. One minute he’s in a furious fit; the next despondent and sick unto death. In spite of Isaac’s strong endorsement, it seems, the king has rejected him as trade minister. And then he goes off on a rant — ‘what kind of job is that?’ His visions of grandeur turn out to be an opium dream. He now must return to Cartagena, to a dreary classroom full of sops, livin’ in a shabby one-room flat. Poor Rav Isaac. The whole day long he’s workin’ all his politic skills to shore up Zacuto’s crumpled pride.

But for the record let me just say, Zacuto weren’t the type of hapless guy to drink someone else’s sour milk, or drown his sorrows in a skinful of wine. He kept up a correspondence with us, and probably every prince from England to Rome, toutin’ his tools and almanac, and declarin’ a new age of fearless men would discover lands vast and strange, and riches to pauper the Pope’s horde.

But like I been sayin’, most every night we’re workin’ on learnin’ the rungs of the soul, and once we expose how many there be and how to find and recognize them — their entrance gates and angel guards and the holy codes they need to hear to let you enter and cross their realms — once we’ve collected and organized that, just like sailors with Zacuto’s charts, we’ll be ready to traverse the heavenly seas and sail our souls to the Throne of God, to make our case before the King: to lift our world from its fallen state.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the next episode, a new king who knew not Isaac.