The Sacred Blood

beard. The man discreetly presented a dolphin-and-trident talisman before asking Aaron to do the same. The Egyptian then escorted him to a beat-up pickup truck and insisted on blindfolding him for the ride to the warehouse—a scary episode for a young Jew in a hostile, foreign land less than a year after the Yom Kippur War.

The first thing he recalled about the warehouse was its grimy odor. When the blindfold finally came off and he found himself in the back office of a huge garage surrounded by a group of similarly dressed Egyptians, confusion and anxiety racked his thoughts. He remembered wondering how this place could possibly be the sacred ground Grandfather had spoken of.

“Sorry for this,” one of the men said, dangling the blindfold. “I’m sure you understand that precautions are necessary.”

Though Grandfather had told Aaron that the Diaspora had scattered the bloodline all over the world, he’d been nonetheless taken aback when he first saw the Egyptian man’s dark skin. Later in life he’d recall the episode when he learned that 99.9 percent of the human genome was identical, despite any outside appearances. The priest’s amazing aquamarine eyes and the gleaming silver talisman hanging over his heart on the front of his white tunic, however, further confirmed a distant yet distinct familial bond.

“You look just like your father, Mr. Aaron. A bit taller, perhaps. He was a very, very good man. God’s light will shine perpetually upon him.” The man’s English was nearly perfect. “My name is Khaleel.” He’d offered a warm handshake. “It is an honor to have you here.”

Aaron was speechless, though Khaleel’s kind words had eased his anxiety. He watched as one of the men worked on opening a door built into the floor.

“I trust your trip was comfortable?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please, Aaron, call me Khaleel.”

His tone was remarkably calm. Aaron nodded.

Khaleel grinned. “Well then, come. Let us begin,” he said, pointing to the dark opening. “We have so much to discuss.”

In the cramped, dank basement, Khaleel had unlocked a crude, dented metal door with a skeleton key. Its hinges groaned grittily when he opened it. On the other side, he groped for a light switch that brought to life a string of work lights dangling along the center of a tunnel. “Not great,” he admitted, looking up at the dull bulbs, “but it’s a huge improvement over the torches we’d been using up until the twentieth century.”

That managed to bring forth Aaron’s first smile. Khaleel, he’d quickly determined, was a gentle, wise man.

Aaron watched the Egyptian swing the creaking door back into place, his long fingers turning the dead bolt. Realizing he’d been locked in an obscure pit in the Egyptian no-man’s-land, he felt his hands begin trembling. He stuffed them into his pockets. Grandfather wouldn’t have liked it, but even God would have trouble seeing his hands (or his head) down here.

Khaleel placed his right hand on Aaron’s shoulder and extended his left invitingly down the tunnel. “It may not look like much, but what it leads to is very special. Come.”

They walked abreast, the tunnel just wide enough to accommodate them.

Aaron flinched when he saw a scorpion darting along the earthen floor. Khaleel, however, paid it no mind as it skittered over his sandal.

“Your grandfather has told me you’ve learned quite a lot. ‘An excellent student,’ he says.”

“I know it is very important to study our history,” Aaron replied.

“Our history is the doorway to our future,” Khaleel agreed. “You have read about Onias and the tell?”

“Yes, sir ...I mean, Khaleel.”

To calm his anxiety, Aaron told him what he’d learned from reading Josephus’s detailed accounts in The Jewish War. In the second century b.c.e., Onias had been the high priest at the Jerusalem temple. He’d vehemently opposed the pagan sacrifices being allowed on Yahweh’s sacred altar. The temple had been poisoned by Hellenic culture—defiled. When the Syrian king Antiochus threatened war against the Jews, Onias fled to Alexandria to seek refuge under Ptolemy (who detested Antiochus). Onias was granted this land in what had then been the nome of Heliopolis. And here Onias had constructed a fortress city atop a man-made mound. Upon its highest point, he’d built a new sanctuary—a new temple to God, modeled after the one in Jerusalem, but on a smaller scale, and free from any pagan influences.

“It happened just as Isaiah prophesied,” Khaleel added. “The prophet told us that in a place called the City of the Sun, the language of Canaan would be spoken in the land of Egypt, and an altar to the Lord would rise up. And just as Isaiah had said, here is where the Savior came to begin His mission to rescue the Israelites.”

They walked further down the passage in silence. Halfway down the tunnel, they turned along a slight bend. The lighting remained dim, so Aaron could barely make out what lay at the tunnel’s terminus—a rectangular outline of some kind.

“You know what happened to Onias’s temple, yes?” Khaleel asked, testing him.

“The Romans burned it down. Not long after they destroyed the Jerusalem temple in seventy c.e.” Josephus, Aaron recalled, had been very explicit about that too. “The Romans were looking to destroy any hope of another Jewish rebellion. Not only was Onias a priest, but he had his own army here in Heliopolis. The Romans considered this the last Jewish stronghold—a rallying point for further sedition.”

“Excellent, young Aaron,” Khaleel said. “And since the days of Onias, time and nature have colluded without hindrance to reclaim what little remains of his grand temple city. Up there”—he pointed through the five meters of earth that hovered overhead—“we’re left with only ravaged foundations. But down here, Onias’s real legacy has been preserved. Are you ready to learn about it so that you may truly become a Son of Light?” “Yes.”

“Are you ready to see it? To see what Onias’s army was protecting?” See it? “I ...I think so.” When he looked into Khaleel’s eyes, he experienced the same rush he’d felt when his father was about to bring him into Grandfather’s secret room—two men embarking on a journey. “You cannot be a Kohen without first going to Egypt,” Grandfather had told him. “There, everything you have learned will become clear.”