The Hei

By Bernard Amador

Ethan is a religion professor at Columbia University obsessed with Jewish mysticism whose Muslim lover, Yaqub, has been falsely accused of terrorism. Ethan's struggle to clear Yaqub's name leads him to the Holy Land where he attempts to open the ancient gates to the Temple Mount

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456615215

Book preview

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Contents

Prologue

Part I: Visionary Thinking

Part II: A Portal

Part III: The Gates

Part IV: Tikkun

Epilogue

About the Author

Prologue

Sing Sing, 2025

A single bolt of lightning touched down in the Hudson River as I awaited my fate. The clouds crackled followed by a roar of thunder. There I was shackled in a bright yellow jumpsuit wearing teffilin and tallit. The walk I was about to take to the prison infirmary and my reason for going were giving me vertigo. I’ve walked this earth for forty years but this afternoon I felt like the thirty-three year old Christ walking the Via Dolorosa. It really doesn’t matter that I’m a Jew, so was he. It does matter, however, to my chest-protruding over-confidant Israeli watch keeper Moses Sahid who has been by my side since I was extradited to the United States from Jerusalem and housed in Sing Sing.

Sing Sing sits in the town of Ossining , New York , approximately thirty miles north of New York City on the Hudson River . I am one of the two thousand inmates the maximum security prison houses. The name of the prison was taken from a Native American tribe from whom the land was purchased. Its name is appropriate for my circumstances. Sing Sing literally means stone upon stone. When this day is all said and done stones will be piled upon one another on my grave so that my soul will be bound up in the bonds of eternal life. It is my mantra that my beloved Palestinian mate Yaqub Abad be with me.

Muslim hip hop music flowed through the long corridor of cells as I took my final walk. Ali’s arms rested on the bars as I passed. Like Christ I took a moment to rest and press my hand above the concrete wall. The sweat on my palm left an imprint beside the steel metal bars. When I arrived at Sing Sing, Ali made my acquaintance and tried to convert me to Islam. This was the last time I wished him well.

Peace be with you, my brother!

Ethan, praise Allah in your journey, said Ali as he turned off his radio playing the hip hop music and grabbed a metal cup.

Ali took his metal cup and started to bang on the steel bars. Other inmates followed his lead and rhythmically banged. The bangs continued for six hundred and fifteen times marking me as the six hundred and fifteenth prisoner executed at Sing Sing. The last inmate executed at Sing Sing was Eddie Mays in 1963. The practice of execution at the prison was discontinued in 1972 after the United States Supreme Court ruled in Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty was unconstitutional. The death penalty returned to New York in 2008 through the back door when it was reinstated for those outcasts of society who took it upon themselves to kill a federal law enforcement officer.

Three court officers escorted me and Moses into the prison infirmary. A medical doctor dressed in a white coat and black rimmed glasses motioned to a nurse wearing a green surgical gown to prepare the room. The doctor checked the needles attached to tubes leading to intravenous bags. The nurse passed by me and headed for an adjacent room. I could see her through a glass window. She lifted a phone receiver off a desk and dialed as she held the receiver to her ear. The doctor sat on a padded stool. His face was hidden behind a surgical mask. The doctor got up and walked over to me. He did not say a word. Moses removed the shackles from my feet. The doctor went over to the wall and pressed a button. A screen rose to reveal spectators as they filed into the room next door, quickly taking a seat as they entered, eager to see the spectacle of which I was the star.

As I was mentally preparing myself to take my last breath, my thirty year old Palestinian beloved stood in his jail cell three floors above. My sixty-five year old Papa, Ira Hammond stood outside Yaqub’s cell waiting for the door to open. The door clicked and opened. Yaqub exited the cell carrying tefillin and walked up to Papa. Both men stood outside the cell looking at each other in awkward silence. Papa looked at the tefillin in Yaqub’s hands and spoke.

You seem to have come to your senses.

No thanks to these, said Yaqub as he lifted the tefillin.

Those are not for play.

You don’t have to convince me.

Do you know those were designed in the image of the first and second temple? An aerial view tells it all.

Aerial view? asked Yaqub.

Of the temple that housed the Holy of Holies.

I h aven’t seen it.

Quite telling, said Papa as he took a tefillin and lifted it up to Yaqub. It’s the image of a minim. A direct link to the song of the universe.

Do you mean half note? Silence for two beats.

Yes, only the sound of the universe, said Papa.

At peace with the one, said Yaqub.

Rests of the heart, said Papa. It’s like the fifth letter Hei symbolizing half. It’s where thought and breath join. The point where time and space begin to form.

Thank you for getting me out of here.

I couldn’t have done it without my son’s help.

Is he back?

They extradited him. Got back the day before yesterday, said Papa. He risked his life for you and even though he found the people who were responsible they are blaming him. He’s three floors below on his way to be executed as we speak.

That’s not what he went there for, said Yaqub as he handed Papa the other tefillin and ran down the hall away from Papa.

They won’t release you without my signature!

I have to stop it!

I’ve spoken to the Feds!

In that case you better hurry, shouted Yaqub as he disappeared down the hall.

Papa ran after him. It wasn’t Yaqub’s fault that I was in this predicament. I brought this all