Scene Three - THE NEW SEDER ORDER
AT THE CIRCLE OF THE PARSHANS. *
(The curtain rises. Twelve persons are sitting at a table of a complex form, somewhat reminiscent of a museum showcase. Upon the peripheral part of the table is inlaid "The New Jerusalem Diagram"** with lights circling within it. On the right-hand side of each person stands a goblet, from the center of which rises a harpoon-like rod as tall as a person. In the center of each "harpoon") is a large cube and the upper edge is like a trident.
At the middle of the table, under a glass plate, is fashioned a very accurate model of the Old City of Jerusalem, as it looked towards the end of the 20th century (before the wars of Gog and Magog and the Rasan take-over), which includes the Temple-Mount with the Dome of the Rock. Just outside the Temple-Mount precinct there are placed upon the table four tall supports upon which is placed a large cube, made of four screens upon which are displayed moving pictures which represent what is happening within the model of the city.
At the head of the table sits Teresh, and on his left the Great Parshan. Across from Teresh, at the "far" end of the symmetrical table sits Haki. In addition there are a dignified elderly lady sitting on Teresh's right, two men who sit on to the right of the lady and one to the left of the Parshan and six women sitting in threes between the men and Haki.)
GREAT PARSHAN: Dear friends. As is our custom for some thousands of years, we are honored to proceed with the ritual of the Seder , namely the Order. But since this time we occupy ourselves with the New Order, and in this time of trial and tribulation, we are forced to celebrate the holy days of Israel in hiding, we have added onto this Seder also the other feasts of redemption like Purim, and the hanukkah, the feast of Initiation. So we meet here to initiate, or inaugurate, the new Seder-Table of the HEJERA, of our Heavenly Jerusalem Association. Our friend the renowned master craftsman, Gepeto, has produced this table with great toil. Let's welcome him with thanks. (the man sitting next to the elderly lady bows his head and the other celebrants are applauding him). There is a long program ahead of us tonight, and all of us will take parts in it. The celebrated professor of linguistics, Jacob Tamimoff, will discuss an interesting thesis relating to the holiday, our eldest and most respected guest will conduct the Pass-Over Seder, and even the youngest of our members - Yoseph-Yitzhak - will ask, in the tradition of Israel from great antiquity, the four questions which he has prepared.
HAKI: (breaking in immediately with singing):
How does this Seder-order differ from all other Seder-orders; as from all usual constraints?
That all other Seders, refer only to our escape, from the old Mitsrayim-straits,
While in this Seder , like Purim, it's the "on the contrary", that we shall celebrate.
How does this Seder-night differ from all other Seder-nights; as from other dreamlike nights?
That in all other nights, we allow our chances to go bye,
But tonight we shall try, to let our whole souls to fly high.
PARSHAN: Your turn will come, young man. The Seder means order, and this is not yet your time.
GEPETO: I actually like this juvenile enthusiasm. But tell me, young man. Is this really all that you have to ask? Does nothing else bother you?
HAKI: That is true, there is a question which bothers me, and perhaps I should dare to bring it up. Will you tell me please: What point is there in discussing the Exodus from Egypt, and in dealing with the passage from slavery to liberty which took place thousands of years ago, without drawing conclusions about our situation nowadays? What about the Rasans? Who is going to stand up and tell them "Let my People free"?
PARSHAN: In the original version it does not say "Let my People free" but "Let my People go and work...". We all sympathize with your intention, but - go slow. Do not fall into the rebellious spirit of that lovely miss. Because preparation for redemption requires work. We must prepare ourselves for it. Only if we can eliminate the circumstances which brought the Rasans into authority - can we overcome their rule and establish the Order of Heaven on Earth. Reverent elder, please explain to this holy assembly the process of passing-over.
TERESH: Yoseph-Yitzhak has preempted the order, and already revealed to your ears that this Seder, or Order of Redemption, will include facets of the order of the Purim, the festival of "on the contraries". We shall try to use the tools of Purim - the disguises - to further the goals of the Pass-Over, which is not only a great spiritual exercise or excursion, but is also celebrated as a family feast. All of us present here, shall become a family, as indeed we are. We are the sons of Abraham, and thus also the grandchildren of Terah - and we shall feast as such. I must tell you, young people - if only the children of Abraham knew how to keep their family peace, if the sons of Isaac only practiced in bringing the Messiah, which was their vocation, then the Rasans would have never taken over the world. Therefore, tonight we shall all take the roles of the family of the children of Terah, and shall strive to restore our family business - that of fabricating the best idols in the world. I shall accept upon myself the role of the head of the family - the blind Isaac. This is a role with which I am very familiar... And you, my learned sir, please pass out the other roles, because I have nothing left to do but to laugh. (laughs to himself in a toothless mouth.)
PARSHAN: You have spoken well. Allow me then to arrange our Seder-order masque.
(The Great Parshan goes out and soon returns holding a sack. In the sequel, when he explains to those present their roles, he pulls from the sack and hands each person a bag containing a dress and some clothing and makeup articles for their costumes.)
PARSHAN: My gracious lady, you will be our matriarch Rebecca. And you, the master, who sit on her right - from now on you are Esau, the man with the skilful hands; whereas you, who sits in the opposite position, namely: in oposition or competition - will you be Jacob, the younger brother. And Yitzhak, there at the bottom of the table, I have already called you Yoseph-Yitzhak! so please be the grandson, Joseph. And you, my kind ladies, you are those who carry the seeds to the contents and discontents for this whole drama. The three of you sitting to the right of Esau, will you become his three wives. You, sitting next to him, you will be Mahalat, the daughter of Ishmael, whom mother Rebecca can somehow manage to stand. But you two, Basmat and Judith, the daughters of this land - you she simply cannot stand. Leah, who sits at your side Jacob, is - for this occasion - your one and only wife, as already fixed by our Rabbi Gershom. With you sits the daughter, Dinah, whom you try to hide from the roving eye of your brother Esau. And now, mark this Jacob: at the bottom of the table, between Dinah and Joseph - there sits another woman. What a longed-for surprise! Here is your old flame, Rachel. Before, she was a libertine hussy. Watch her now: a chaste penitent. She is the guest of her aunt, Rebecca. What will this dodim-relation do to you, and to your relationship with your wife, is something that we shall be able to ascertain this evening.
(The whole party disbands - each person holding a bag - to change costumes. The lights around the Seder table dim. When the lights turn on again - each person is dressed according to his/her role. Isaac - that is Teresh - is dressed as the Patriarchs are depicted in the classical paintings: with a robe and a Kefiyah to his head. Rebecca - in a gown-like blue dress with buttons in front, her hair made in "banana style". Jacob is dressed in a white shirt and black suit, with a large black velvet Kippah (skull cap) on his head. Leah is dressed as the modern Haredi (ultra-orthodox) ladies of Benei Brak - a fashionable dress with half sleeves and stylized wig. Rachel is dressed like the Benei-Akiva girls: a maxi jeans skirt and a long sleeved cotton shirt. Dinah is dressed in provocatively styled Haredi-style clothes and chews bubble-gum. Esau is dressed in well-worn jeans and a Lacoste shirt and his hair is tied by a rubber band to a pony tail behind his head. Mahalat is dressed as an orthodox Moslem girl, with a long grey robe and a matching kerchief which covers her brow and hair. Basmat is dressed in an extremely short miniskirt and tight knitted pullover, her legs are in high boots and her hair is died in several shining colors. Judith is dressed in a tailored suit in light colors, but very low cut, her hair very short and on her feet light colored high heeled shoes. Yoseph-Yitzhak is dressed in green Bermuda pants and a sweat shirt, with a Kippah made of shiny white fabric. The Great Parshan is dressed in an Academic robe with a matching hat.
PARSHAN: Now tell us, the erudite Jacob, what is the story of slavery and of redemption.
JACOB: The Lord has already told our grandfather Abraham that we face twenty-times-twenty years of exile and slavery, in payment for the blessing and the heritage that will come later. But I myself - I have already paid my dues. For twenty years have I slaved for Lavan in order to gain Rachel. So that if you are celebrating the salvation from Egypt, I should certainly celebrate the salvation from the slavery to Lavan and from the flight from Esau and exile in Haran-Aram.
PARSHAN: The great slavery that we should recall tonight, is the slavery of all humankind, which has been going on for three hundred times twenty years. This is the slavery to the soil, which is a harsh step-mother to us all. Because we are not really from this earth, but were cast down here from The Garden.
MAHALAT: Not again with you and your tales about flying saucers and Galactic navigators? Once it is funny, but enough!
PARSHAN: We are no longer only telling tales. Thanks to your gift-handed man, we now have with us this table, with the control panel of the HEJERA, as required for navigation between worlds. Our mate Jacob will surely explain to us how these goblets, which are in fact the joy sticks for the inter-space-ship, may return and connect us to the Trees of the Garden which we have lost.
JACOB: The making is by Esau. But the theory - the Torah of the Tree of Life, or of Spiritual Ecology if you like, is the jewel bestowed upon me. The wholeness was lost when we were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Because of the misdeed of eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and getting stuck with its constraints - we have also lost the way of the Tree of Life. But now - now at last the way of Tshuvah, of Return to Eden is opened. Four vast worlds are tied with the Tree of Life, not just the rationed and constrained Rasan world, each world higher and more free than the other. They correspond with the four "languages", the four terms for the redemption of the Passover - "and I shall get you out", "and I shall save..", "and I shall redeem..." and "and I shall take you for My People". What we have to do is to train ourselves to rise up and navigate through these worlds. Getting out from the fixed straights of the world of Action, we go up to the World of Yetsirah , of Formation, which is the spirit-world: of forms-tsurah, and also of emotions-yetsers and often of tortured minds. From there we may seek the way of salvation - to the World of Bri'ah, of Creation and of Health-bri'ut and of wholeness, even saved from the severance of death. Yet we may want to be still redeemed also from that world, whose limitations are eternal, and taken to the higher World of Atzilut-divinity , there we have made it, we are together with the Life of All Worlds, we become His People. How shall we do it? look at the goblets. Each will be offered to drink from them four times. Each time, can raise us to experience another world.
RACHEL: You spoke of spiritual ecology, and then of spirits and eternal souls, how are these all connected with your Tree of Life?
JACOB: The souls come from the Tree of Life, themselves tree-like combinations of mind-Nefesh, spirit-Ruah and eternal soul-Neshama, transpersonal anima-Haya and the common oversoul-Yehidah of the Messiah. That is a whole complex spiritual ecology, how they are all connected, and will take many terms to explain. But tonight we'll try to experience them among us.
ESAU: Enough of spiritualist speculations. Shall we move to action? What did I make all this magnificent table for? Not in order to grow on it potted seedlings of the Tree of Life.
PARSHAN: You are right. You were not trusted with building this particular model of the Tree of Life. I have built it, pa'amonim ve-rimonim - pomegranates and bells, lances and grails. But everything in its time. The table we sit around is designed to generate upon it the whole-show of Jerusalem - the Earthly and the Heavenly. And if we succeed in our mission, and find how to mend whatever needed mending in the House of Terah and in the idol factory which he founded, we may perhaps get to receive the face of the Messiah upon these screens (pointing to the cube above their heads) still tonight, before the break of dawn.
ISAAC: I have waited for so many years to gaze at the face, and now, when the revelation may perhaps arrive at last - again I have to play the blind man? The one who is not going to see the revelation?
PARSHAN: But your role is that of the blind seer. You are the one who can enlighten us and open our eyes! In order to understand the role that you are to play - I must first confess before all of you. Most of the means needed for building this special table came from the Rasans. It is because hardly anybody still remembers how and why they came to rule, they want to commemorate a few historic facts - those that suit them. Therefore they agreed to finance a program to develop aids for the teaching of history, which will recall how they took over the government of the whole world, of course in order to save it. The root of this dismal story is found here, in this part of Jerusalem modeled in this table. And this exhibit-table can be the heart of a museum which will reproduce how there rose from our tortured world the cry to install the Rasan order over. You, Isaac, are the last one who remained to remember those events, and we are sitted here to hear you.
ISAAC: It was towards the end of the so-called twentieth century. The whole world was sick and in need of medicines, of chemical aids and drugs. I am speaking not only about people in the margins of society who were killing themselves with hard drugs, but about the silent majority, the people who would go out every morning for their daily rote. They too could no longer withstand the stresses of life or the debilitating routine, and were consuming all kinds of drugs which stimulated them, or which kept them out of depression, or which made the world look rosier. Because you should know: the world was getting increasingly polluted then, was greying and getting darker. But the authorities found that it was cheaper to stuff the people with drugs that painted the world in a rosy color than to grow again all the trees that were felled, so as to make more room for housing and growing food for the billions of people who multiplied in the place of the rain forests.
BASMAT: But what has all that to do with Jerusalem?
ISAAC: In parallel with the global process of urbanization and population explosion, there started occurring here, in the land of Israel, an amazing process of resurrection of the dead. In the land of Israel there rose the Jewish People anew, goaded by the Zionist movement, and note that "Zionism" actually means "Jerusalemism". But these new Jerusalemites, these new Jewish-Zionists, did not come around to regard those living beside them, the natives of the land, Am ha'Aretz, as part of themselves. They assumed that only the Jews are the paragons of Zion and the Land of Israel, and none else. In doing so they have cut a branch off the Tree of Life and laid the foundations for the formation of another people: the Philistine People.
MAHALAT: But were not the Palestinians, whom you call Philistines, before them in the land?
ISAAC: The Philistine history is co-extant with the history of the People of Israel. Either word - Philistines or Palestinians - comes from the Hebrew Plishtim, which means "invaders", because that is what they were - overseas invaders from the West, who pushed the native Israelites to the hill regions of Judea and Samaria. Over the years, well after those Philistines were subdued and their offsprings got mixed with the people of the land, other overseas invaders from the West - the Roman occupiers - adopted their name and called the whole land "Palestina", because of their sitna, their Satanic hatred, for the legitimate sovereigns of the land, their desire to obliterate the memory of the Children of Abraham. In short, with these perennial invaders there invaded, Palash, also the spirit of the devil, Satan, and remained to either overshadow Zion or to brood in her shadow. So that later, the native people of the land, feeling humiliated and defeated by the Zionists - chose for themselves davka the Philistine identity, even though there is not the slightest support for this in their own sources. And the Philistine People, or if you like the Palestinian People, was transformed from a legend into a bitter and tortured reality. And this entity fought against Israel in every possible way, by politics, by terrorism and even by disseminating drugs into Israel.
At length they gained - through the pressure of the rational outside world which had enough of wars in this part of the world and the agreement of the rational majority of Israelis - a state of their own, which included Eastern Jerusalem. The Old City of Jerusalem was put under a Mandate of a shaky consortium of international religious organizations, the strongest of which was the Vatican. The Philistine/Palestinian State was held in a quagmire of economic problems, and the enlightened mayor of East Jerusalem, a pharmacist by profession, obtained no-interest loans of billions from the Vatican's "Banco de Espirito Santo" in order to establish the world's most advanced industries of psycho-active drugs. This native industry soon conquered the world's markets and brought an economic boom to Palestine.
ESAU: All this sounds quite good. So where is the catch?
ISAAC: The president of that company, Ibn-Arafat, displayed great talents in developing markets. He managed to manufacture both hard drugs which were distributed in all the Third World countries as well as the urban slums of the Western countries. The sophisticated drugs, on the other hand, which passed all the tests of the authorities in the developed countries, helped to keep in check the buttoned-up populations of the industrialized nations. The catch was that every drug has its unforeseen and sometimes undesirable effects. People would operate a week long in efficiency and would manage to disregard their intolerable environment, but during the weekend they had to vomit and clean their system a bit, and suffer hellish agonies, or else their bodies would not hold together. But primarily, the global drug addiction had tremendous religious effects. The scriptures of the partners of the consortium which held the Old City were read with abandon, and their congregations and places of cult were overflowing. At first- this development seemed highly desirable. The appeal of Jerusalem was growing among the congregations of the churches, mosques and synagogues, and multitudes of drug-inspired pilgrims thronged the alleys of the Old City and pushed to go up to the Temple Mount, each group for their particular ritual. But then there started outbreaks of quarrels and fights among the various sects, and eventually it became instituted - three times a year the gangs of all the sects came up to Jerusalem, and the gang that succeeded to slaughter the guards of the Temple Mount, who were the members of the former gang which ruled it for one term, they took over the Dome of the Rock until the date of the next pilgrimage. And those who ruled the Dome of the Rock had dominion over the world, because they controlled the secret formulae of the products of the factory, and could amplify the sentiments to their own sect.
REBECCA: This sounds very bad, but not like something that could have destroyed the world.
ISAAC: With your permission, I would not go now into details, but this odd arrangement did not last, especially as the fanaticism grew and the basic contradiction between Christians and Moslems increased. After the destruction of the El-Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock - there broke a total world-war whose declared aim was "to liberate Jerusalem", and which destroyed most of the population surplus of the Earth. After the war there rose to power the Rasans, who restored the Temple Mount and released the world off drug-dependence, but also took care to eliminate all scriptures. As they see it - these were the scriptures which damaged human sanity. And since then we have Rational-Socialism instead of scriptures and the rule of the accursed Rasans.
PARSHAN: And your magic table, my dear Esau, should be able to represent in the Rasan museum the circumstances which prevailed before the Rasans came to cleanse the Temple Mount. They only know about the model. They do not understand the diagram, of course, and will regard it as a mere decorative light-show. But this is the New Jerusalem Diagram, a control device which would enable us to examine whether we are able to bring the world a salvation which will not be inferior to the one brought by the Rasans, yet will not constrain the human spirit to merely the most restricted part of the mind. If this is born out - it will become evident that the Rasan rule has never been necessary.
ESAU: The table is prepared and ready for your command, including all its hosts. But what do we need all these fancy dresses for?
PARSHAN: In order to return to those far away pre-Rasan days. The system which you have constructed is geared for playing the once-famous game "The Temple Mount is in Our Hands". This is a simulation of the situation which prevailed in Jerusalem in those days. The goal of the game is for the winner to insert his kind of Messiah into the Temple Mount. The game is thus played competitively - but it can also be played cooperatively, to formulate agreements between the players. Or they can even build understandings between them, so they are no longer tied to their fixed positions and dogmatic opinions, but can formulate a common vision which includes both their aspirations. Thus we can do as was done in those past days - send our flocks to be slaughtered in the alleys of the Old City and be sacrificed on the Temple Mount as they kill and slaughter each other. But we can also assist them to build understandings and cooperation, which is certainly our vocation. For we are the family of the Children of Abraham, producers of the Jerusalemite religions, the most successful of the world's religions! Our role is to build a religious enterprise which will be no less successful than the drug business of Ibn-Arafat. Because if we cannot succeed in this - it will be evident that the world had no choice but to empower the Rasans.
ESAU: Religion against drugs? This is a sensible competition, for the sake of which I am even ready to cooperate with Jacob.
MAHALAT: Wait a moment. How can you play "The Temple Mount is in our Hands", without the landlord himself, without Ishmael?
PARSHAN: With all due respect, my lady, you should remember, Ishmael has been cast out of the family. So will you, fair daughter of Ishmael, who joined the Seder as a part of the family, please become his trusted representative. And if this would entail friction between you and your husband - I apologize.
JACOB: But what does this mean, that he is even ready to cooperate with me? I have the seniority in the family business. It's long ago that I bought from him the seniority, along with the controlling interests.
ISAAC: I am sorry, my dear son. But you will have to talk to him, not to me. I have already given you everything you wanted. If you had been unfair to him - you must receive his forgiveness. It is already some thousands of years ago that I told him that he can cast off your yoke, when he rebels. Now you must receive his agreement.
JACOB: All right, my dear brother, in order to avoid any problems, let us begin the game fifty-fifty, and see how each one carries on.
ESAU: Forget it. You will not deceive me again. We shall start the game in precisely the ratio of powers that prevailed in the period which we are reproducing.
JACOB: And what is it. Please tell us, father, what was then the ratio between Jews and Christians among those who could regard Isaac as their father?
ISAAC: I estimate that about ninety-nine point four percent were Christians, and the rest Jews.
BASMAT: Just a minute. Esau is not just a Goy . He is also a culture hero. In fact, almost all of the Israelis identified with Western civilization and were thus Esauites.
JACOB: And in how much does this effect the scales?
PARSHAN: This adds almost another half percent. So we can say that you start the partnership with one promille to you, and the rest to Esau.
JACOB: If so, this is a sold game, I do not agree.
LEAH: You are all wrong in your calculations. We are not dealing here with just any Christians and Jews, but with lovers of Zion and Jerusalem. Among these, the percent of the Jews is far higher and they may well be the majority, even though there were always some lovers of Zion among the Sons of Esau, the Christians.
RACHEL: And what about me? Have I not contributed father's household idols to monotheism? To this day my spirit dwells within Judaism, I brought there all the sex-appeal!
JUDITH: I can supply this stuff much better than you, you religious prude.
PARSHAN: Please, please. You will have plenty occasions to quarrel in the course of the game. But first we have to assign the rules to begin with. You are ten persons, each with her or his religion, each with his or her sect. I propose to apportion equally, ten percents to each person participating in the game, whereas I and father-Isaac shall be the umpires, and perhaps also the arbitrators.
ESAU: And what is the real property that we are dividing, what are our flocks?
PARSHAN: Sixty myriad ewes, sheep and goats. All Kosher beasts, of course.
ESAU: I would rather have also horses and hunting-dogs. A few fierce Dobermans could be very handy in these alleys. I would have also liked to handel the Baskerville hound.
PARSHAN: I am afraid this is a bit outside of what the Bible allows. What saith your honor?
ISAAC: Jacob had already bestowed upon Esau, upon his return to Cna'an, she- and he-goats, ewes and rams, cows, bulls, asses and donkeys. If so, then all these beasts, Kosher and non-Kosher, will suit our purposes. We can harness them to chariots, or load explosives upon their backs, or choose to use them in whatever way. But we can come with them only to the threshold of the Temple Mount. Beyond its walls there would enter only Kosher beasts without any blemish. Ewes, rams or bulls which got wounded in the course of the fights - would not enter within the gates.
ESAU: And how many warriors can I take with me?
ISAAC: Four hundred in all, for you and your two wives and to Mahalat the Ishmaelite - one hundred soldiers for each. Jacob and his wife and his daughter will receive three hundred soldiers, whereas to Rebecca, Rachel and Yoseph-Yitzhak will be given hundred soldiers each. You can choose whether to go with them against the other players, or in league with them.
ESAU: That's all right. And I shall not squander all my assets in one go. I shall use just five percent of what I have, as trial balloon, if I may say so.
PARSHAN: Let us begin then. Let each one array his or her troops, and then we shall drink the first Seder glass and start with the Seder proceedings and, God willing, we shall come to say the traditional "Pour Thy wrath.... " if needs be.
(The wine pitcher is passed from hand to hand, and the wine is poured into the goblets. All raise the lances, so that the goblets are raised to their face level, and bless:)
ISAAC: Barukh Ata, YHVH-Adonai Elohenu melekh ha'olam bore' pri hagefen. (Blessed be Thou YHVH our God, sovereign of the Universe who created the fruit of the vine).
Barukh Ata, YHVH-Adonai Elohenu melekh ha'olam asher bahar banu mikol am veromemanu mikol lashon ve'kidshanu bemitzvotav. Va'titen lanu YHVH-Adonai elohenu be'ahava mo'adim le'simhah, h agim uzmanim le'sason. Et-yom hag hamatsot hazeh et yom tov mikra kodesh hazeh zeman herutenu, mikra-kodesh zekher li'yetzi'at mitzrayim. Ki-banu baharta ve'otanu kidashta mikol ha'amim, u'mo'ade kodshekha be'simha u'be'sason hinhaltanu. Barukh Ata YHVH-Adonai mekadesh Yisrael ve'hazemanim. (Blessed be Thou YHVH our God, the sovereign of the Universe, who chose us of all people and singled us out among all other languages by sanctifying us with His commandments. And thou have lovingly given us, YHVH our God, times for gladness, festivals and set seasons for rejoicing this day of the feast of unleavened Bread, the season of our Liberation and a holy assembly, as a memorial of the exodus from Mitsrayim. For thou hath chosen us and sanctified us above all people, thou hath given us the heritage in joy and gladness thine holy festivals. Blessed art Thou, YHVH our God, who hallows Israel and the festive seasons.)
(All drink from their goblets. When people pour the wine into their mouths and then return the goblets to the table - the attached lances move, as if it was a group of gladiator-warriors preparing to go on the arena. When the lances are placed on the table, each within the circle of the person among the peripheral lights, the lances light up, as if caught by Saint Almo fire (much like as in the movie of "Moby Dick", when captain Ahab makes the harpooner swear to chase Moby Dick and the lightning caught on the crossed harpoons), and light balls issue from the six sides of the cubes, appearing and disappearing, forming a different pattern for each person and thus looking like his/her special standard.)
PARSHAN: And now, let each one key in the number of beasts and warriors assigned for the first act. Each one can move his or her armies, whichever way they want, by means of the cube on the lance. Pressing on the forward face of the cube - and the armies move forward. pressing the backwards face - and the armies retreat, and likewise pressing the right or the left. It is, of course, also possible to press up or down, because this should be remembered: the city is built in layers. It is possible to climb up to the roofs or down to the gutters. The keepers of the walls of the Temple Mount at the first stage are the people of the Moslem Wakf, who hold only minimal military equipment. But remember that as long as you have not come to agreements and understandings with your brothers and sisters, each one of you faces up to nine other different armies. When we finish this first act - we shall resume the usual Seder rules, we shall wash our hands (Re'hatz), bless over the herbs (Karpas) and come to breaking the bread (Ya' hatz) and recounting the stories (Magid). Then we shall pour the second glass, and the youngest will ask the four questions (Qoosh'yot). Good luck.
(Lights turn on in the model of the Old City, which becomes a battle display. From the side of each player there comes a small holographic knight-like figure mounted on a donkey, followed by scores of little lights, representing the fighters and the flocks. On the screens are seen the "knights" and the flocks in moving computer-generated pictures. The figures are dressed with bullet-proof vests and helmets (much like those of the Rasan anti-riot squad earlier on) with plastic visors and are each holding a lance with a standard on top, each standard bearing some symbol - a cross, a "Star of David" or a crescent, but as would become apparent when we see them enough, each symbol is a partial aspect of a more complex, Tree-of-Life-like, image which includes all the particular symbols as components.
We see on the screens the flocks of Esau and his troops, as they advance in two columns. One band is guided by a figure that, with all these trappings and the symbol of the cross, looks very much like a Medieval crusader, apparently Esau himself. This band is advancing up the valley, staying very close to the Eastern Wall of the Temple Mount, and thus avoiding the hurled stones and some gun-fire of the guards of the Temple Mount. Then going through heavy fighting, the band succeeds to penetrate through the Lion's Gate and to conquer some positions near the Islamic college on the Temple Mount. There the band meets with heavy resistance which checks their advance, but some of the ewes manage to scale up to the Temple Mount and are caught captives there. The other band, commanded by three feminine figures on donkeys, apparently Esau's wives, enters through the Jaffa Gate on the West and is going down David Street and the Chain Street, the straight market streets. At the Chain Street, the band divides. Some, led by the standard with the Crescent on, turn to the Chain Gate of the Temple Mount, and some go to face the flocks of Jacob, which are arrayed by the Western Wall. But Jacob has placed snipers at the window of a house overlooking the street, and they slay both parties.
On the screens are now seen horrid scenes of ewes being butchered with horror their eyes and bellowing in agony without savior. The remnants of the warriors are trying to shoot to the window, but a hand grenade tossed at them kills them too. More horror pictures. The blood is flowing down reaching almost to the Chain Gate.)
to be continued . . .