White Fire: Angels Flying from Holy Letters

By Mitchell Chefitz

Allison, blocked from realizing her stories, visits her mentor Reuben, who takes her to his synagogue, opens a Torah scroll, and begins to read not from the Hebrew letters, but from the white space. "The Torah is written in letters of black fire on a background of white fire," he says. Within the stories he brings from the white fire she discovers the secrets needed to unlock her own stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mitchell Chefitz
• Release date: Oct 29, 2009
• ISBN: 9781102466598

Mitchell Chefitz

Mitchell Chefitz is the author of two novels published by St. Martin's Press, the LA Times best-seller "The Seventh Telling: The Kabbalah of Moshe Katan" and "The Thirty-third Hour.""Blood Covenant" is the third volume of his Moshe Katan trilogy.His story collection, "The Curse of Blessings," was published by Running Press and is translated into German, Korean, and Mandarin.He writes and teaches primarily on matters related to Jewish spirituality.

Book preview

WHITE FIRE is a stand-alone novella that continues the spiritual process of The Curse of Blessings.

Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, writes of The Curse of Blessings: Chefitz audaciously claims that he can tell us stories that will burrow into our souls and remain there. And then he proves it.

MITCHELL CHEFITZ is also the best-selling author of The Seventh Telling: The Kabbalah of Moshe Katan.

Jack Riemer, co-editor of So That Your Values Live On: Ethical Wills and How to Prepare Them, writes of The Seventh Telling, I never thought that anyone could write a novel based on kabbalistic themes and make it work, but Mitchell Chefitz has pulled it off! I was spellbound from the first page on.

. . . and of The Thirty-Third Hour, sequel to The Seventh Telling, The Washington Post Book World comments, Brilliant . . . a refreshing excursion into the realm of the Infinite.

You are invited now to enter a world where ANGELS FLY FROM HOLY LETTERS.

Mitchell Chefitz

Smashwords Edition

© 2009 Mitchell Chefitz

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For my students,

who have taught me more

than I ever imagined.

Contents

Prologue

The Earthling

Eve and Adam

Lifeboat

Babble

Sarai and Abram

The Unbinding of Isaac

Jacob’s Angels

Joseph’s Tailor

The Daughter of God

What Burns and Is Never Consumed

The Reed Sea

Sinai

The Trial of Joshua

The Most Difficult Commandment

Time Flies

The Never-ending Torah

The Angel of Moses

Epilogue

Postscripts

1Prologue

It was my privilege to assist Reuben in the editing and publication of his collection of spiritual stories, The Curse of Blessings. I did not name myself in the introduction to that collection. I thought to remain anonymous among the four who used to sit with him in Central Park, entranced by one story after another.

After Reuben moved to Florida, I tried to write my own stories without success, taking pen to paper, hours at end, to no avail.

Over the phone Reuben told me I was afraid to risk, afraid even to expose myself by name. Names are not to be taken lightly. We’ll see that soon enough.

But a name alone is not a story. Allison was all I had at the top of the page, no title above, nothing beneath. So I traveled to Florida to be with Reuben, hoping he might connect my name to my stories.

"It’s a matter of angels, he said. If you can see your angels, you can write your stories."

I did not see angels and told him so.

"They’re not that difficult to find," he said.

"Where should I begin to look?"

"In stories."

"Which stories?"

"Most any story of lasting power, but we can look at the originals. You know them. Come, I’ll show you."

He took me to his synagogue. He said it was not a time for religious service, so we would likely be alone, except for the angels.

The synagogue was an old building, not much more than a house in a residential neighborhood. One might walk by it and not know it was there.

"You can learn a lot from what isn’t there," he said.

In the synagogue, long tables and chairs, not pews like my church. He led me to a raised platform and a cabinet in the wall. From the cabinet he withdrew a Torah scroll draped in a velour cover.

"The originals, he said as he laid the scroll on a table, uncovered it, rolled it open. Genesis through Deuteronomy. The beginning of the world to the death of Moses. It doesn’t get more original than that."

He encouraged me to come forward. I saw black Hebrew