Lives of Elijah Brooks

Think of it as a political gambit-holding forth for an office that has lain vacant for millennia-a title once well defined, and recognized, but now, long since, abandoned, mystified and mythologized to absurdity because, for so long, it was just too dangerous even to imagine. And then, one day, the Children of the Covenant-the ones for whom, and by whom this office was ever created, reconstituted their sovereign nation, and elected a leader from their midst who gave state sanction of that title to someone here, in the Land of the Free. Maybe it was just a fluke gesture. Maybe the Angels conspired. One way, or the other, one day this one holding that title, published it on the cover of a book and said, "Dare you not pay attention when I speak, oh Israel." Dare you not, indeed. Look what happened when the descendants of Isaac let the last Anointed be taken and murdered. And now, here is another so brazen. Look on the cover of the book, my fellow Jews. Yeah. You heard me. The time has come at last.

One other thing: Just like George Gershwin (bless his soul) had us to know: "The things that you're liable to read in the Bible, they ain't necessarily so." Sometimes, not even close.