“That’s okay. I’m sure I’ll see him at the Rockefeller Museum. It’s nothing urgent.”
“Your name?”
Amit wasn’t about to give his own. “If you could tell him Yosi stopped by?”
“Certainly.”
“We came to see the museum as well,” Jules tactfully cut in, as if reminding Amit. She pointed to a sign above a door to Mt. Sinai’s left side— an arrow next to the word museum.
“That’s right,” Amit quickly agreed. “I heard you’ve recently remodeled the galleries?” He could tell this lightened Mrs. Cohen’s mood.
“We just reopened two weeks ago.”
“Then two tickets, please,” he cheerily replied, reaching for his wallet.
35
******
The spacious gallery was bustling with tourists, many of whom, Amit could tell, were American Jews eager to decipher their heritage. “Do we really have time for this?” he protested.
“Do you really want to draw more suspicion to yourself ?” Jules quickly rebutted. “Why didn’t you just go ahead and wrestle the woman? Besides, we might learn something here. And it’s certainly safer than walking the streets.”
In the main exhibit hall, the walls were covered in wonderfully detailed oil paintings—a virtual storyboard going back to 1300 b.c.e. to trace Moses and the Israelites along their grueling trek out of Egypt, through the forty- year desert pilgrimage and the centuries-long Canaan wars, to King David’s conquest of Jebus in 1000 b.c.e.—the capital city he’d renamed “Jerusalem”—and Solomon’s construction of the first temple shortly thereafter.
In a separate room, the Babylonian invasion and subsequent exile of the Jews was recounted on twelve framed canvases, and over three dozen more bridged the Jewish dynasties and occupying empires leading up to Rome and its destruction of Herod’s temple in 70 c.e. A large display table in the room’s center sat beneath a sign reading, in English and Hebrew, the third temple. Encased in a Plexiglas cube was an elaborate architectural model showing the Temple Society’s vision for a new Temple Mount, absent all Islamic buildings currently on the site, including the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque.
“What do we have here?” Jules asked, stepping up to it.
“That,” Amit said, “is what these guys think should be sitting on top of the Temple Mount—in place of the Dome of the Rock.”
“That’s one ambitious building project,” Jules whispered.
“Mmm.” Amit studied the model more levelly now, something clicking in his thoughts. This wasn’t the re- creation of Herod’s temple that many of Cohen’s conservative predecessors had imagined, but a modern complex of glass and stone set in three concentric courtyards, each with twelve gates. The design seemed vaguely familiar. But he couldn’t place it.
They moved on to the next exhibit room, where rectangular glass kiosks housed authentic replicas of the sacred vessels to furnish the Third Temple. Amit explained some of them to Jules: the gold-plated ceremonial shofar ram’s horn, the handled gold cup called the
“Seems like they’re ready to move in,” Jules said in a hushed tone.
“Indeed.”
“And what do we have over here?” she asked, eyeing a life-sized mannequin wearing a cobalt robe interlaced with gold thread, a gold breastplate encrusted with twelve gems, and an elegant turban with a gold tiara. “Who’s the genie?”
Amit chuckled. “Those are the vestments for the temple’s high priest.” “Snazzy,” she said, shaking her head.
Amit read the placard aloud: “And to Moses God said”—he took the liberty of saying “God” where the placard read “G-d” in compliance with the Jewish law forbidding the writing out of God’s name—“ ‘Have your brother Aaron, with his sons . . . come to you from the Israelites to serve Me as priests . . . You are to instruct all the skilled craftsmen, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, to make Aaron’s garments for consecrating him to serve Me . . .’ ” The excerpt was noted as Exodus 28.
But Jules was already moving on to the next display.
“And this?” She crouched to get a better look at a massive limestone block etched with ornamental rosettes and hatch patterns.
He walked over to her and read the Hebrew placard. “Apparently, that’s going to be the Third Temple’s cornerstone.”
“These designs . . . ,” she said, pressing her face closer to the etchings. “Look familiar?”
Drawing nearer, he saw what she meant. “Same as the ossuary I showed you today. Amazing.” More gears clicked in Amit’s mind. Jules’s suggestion of a tour was actually paying off.
Passing beneath a sign reading the holy of holies in Hebrew and English, they entered a final exhibit room and stood before the display that was its focal point. Dramatic orchestral music played low through hidden speakers. Here, a raised platform sat in the room’s center—empty.
“Not much to see
Amit put his hands on his hips, assessing the space. “Well, before Herod’s temple was destroyed by the Romans,” he offered, “its most sacred room, the Holy of Holies, actually
