Nick Bones Underground by Phil M. Cohen

Author:Phil M. Cohen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Koehler Books
Published: 2019-09-26T09:23:09+00:00

CHAPTER 21

END OF ETERNITY

THOUGH I HAD NO further personal contact with the Rebbe, he sent me brief handwritten notes in Hebrew mailed to my university address whenever I published something about his crowd or their philosophy. He’d always congratulate me on the article. Along with the letter, he’d include a piece he’d recently written, a biblical or talmudic commentary, or a speech delivered to his Hasidim on a Friday night after the Sabbath meal. I came to expect his letters within a week after a piece saw the light of day, regardless of the journal, obscure or popular, and I was never disappointed—always a few sentences on a small card, always ending with the Hebrew words heneini b’nee: I am here, my son.

An old friend from my yeshiva days, Leibel Berliner, now the Samuel Rattner professor of astrophysics, joined the Kobliner Hasidim during his college days, having made a practice of frequenting the Kobliner Center on campus while an undergraduate. We occasionally ran into each other, sometimes by accident crossing campus or at an event, and, sporadically, by design. He’d keep me abreast of day-to-day Kobliner adventures, directing me to an event, article, or Internet site I might otherwise have missed.

About three or so years ago, he visited me at my office. He entered with great melodrama, shoulders hunched, as if he were fleeing someone pursuing him and he needed a hiding place. He quickly shut and locked the door, grabbed a chair at a table, pulled it to my desk and sat hard upon it with a loud grunt.

He had a high forehead atop which sat the fedora Kobliner men always wore. He pulled at his graying beard, untrimmed and wild. As I sat behind my desk fascinated by all of this odd movement, from his shirt pocket Leibel extracted a pack of unfiltered Camel cigarettes. Without permission, and against university rules, he lit one with a cheap lighter and took two deep drags that burned the cigarette nearly halfway down. He pushed his hat back, revealing the full height of his forehead. Smoke poured furiously from his mouth and nose, and the aroma of burning tobacco filled my office.

“NB,” he whispered, using the name that had become current among some of my colleagues. “You’re not going to believe this.” He took another drag. “They’re starting to say the Rebbe is the Moshiach, the Messiah.” He leaned back and once more pulled at his beard, his eyes wide as if delivering revelation from the heavens. He sat puffing his Camel, awaiting my reply. When I didn’t answer straightaway, he added, “I mean so many of them it would blow your mind.”

To me this came as no surprise. “About time,” I answered. “I’ve been waiting years for this.”

My studies had taught me never to be surprised by anything in the evolution of any religion. In the name of God or the gods or stars or trees or water or fire or rocks or doorjambs, people invent the most dim-witted concepts and elevate them to the heavenly heights, or the satanic depths.

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