The Story Never Told
By Jeffrey Goldberg
The Jerusalem Post, October 2, 1992
After much anticipation, the world will be happy to know that I have finally completed translating the three previously untranslated sections of the Dead Sea Scrolls assigned to me by the Israeli Antiquities Authority: “The Book of the Herring,” “Judaism: For Lovers Only,” and “Jesus of Nazareth: What’s With This Guy, Anyway?” I have also finished translating several fragments of letters found in the Kumran caves that were sent to the Essenes and the Sadducees by their enemies, the Jets and the Sharks, along with several recipes written by Essene gourmands, including excerpts from their famous 1001 Ways To Cook Sand.
Unlike the pseudo-scholars who have also been assigned translation duties, I did not spend months fretting over such details as grammar, structure or original intent. Instead, using the invaluable research tools Hebrew Verbs for Everyone and the concordances and dictionaries of the great Hebraicist W. Berlitz, I have come up with a free translation that reveals just how far Judaism and Christianity have strayed from their biblical roots. My findings could help change the course of Western religion for all eternity and also help me make my car payments.
Among the shattering findings I will reveal is the discovery that our ancestors did not intend to ban lobster bisque and bacon as unkosher, and instead warned the Jewish people against beef jerky and Pop Tarts. In addition, I will show that the borders of God’s promised land do not stretch, as previously believed, from the cedars of Lebanon to the the sandy wastes of the Negev desert, but from 60th to 96th streets between Central Park West and the Hudson River.
Without further ado, here is the first installment of the secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls:
From The Book of the Herring, 14:22—a new translation of the Revelations at Sinai:
And so, Moses and Aaron led the people called Israel to Mt. Sinai Hospital, and Moses did climb up said hospital, but being old and frail of back, decided to use the service elevator instead. “People of Israel,” he said, using that stentorian voice of his that he used to such good effect against Pharaoh, “Listen up. I’ve got here ten, count ‘em ten, Commandments, elegantly carved into granite slabs by yours truly with a little help from You-Know-Who.” And the people did gasp in wonder and shake in fear.
“What I’d like to do is read them to you and then we’ll break up into small discussion groups to go over them, okay?” And the people of Israel said, “Okay.” “So here goes,” said Moses. “Okay,” the people of Israel said as one. “Ready or not, here they are—the Ten Commandments,” said Moses, who was fond of repeating himself. And he did finally clear his throat and read unto the people the following commandments:
The First Commandment: Covet Thy Neighbor’s Wife, But Not His Oxen, Unless They’re Really Big Oxen
The Second Commandment: Wholesale, Wholesale, Wholesale
The Third Commandment: Resist Mermaids
The Fourth Commandment: I Am The Lord Thy God, So Watch Out
The Fifth Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Steal, Unless You Can’t Afford Whatever It Is You’re Thinking of Stealing
The Sixth Commandment: Will Someone Please Do the Dishes?
The Seventh Commandment: You Break It, You Buy It
The Eighth Commandment: No Cash Refunds Without Receipt; Undergarments are Non-Returnable
The Ninth Commandment: It’s Always Funny Until Someone Loses An Eye
The Tenth Commandment: Health Insurance Plans Shall Not Cover Dental Work
And the People Israel did scratch their heads in wonder, for the Ten Commandments did not make sense unto them, especially the part about dental work, which had not yet been introduced to the people of Israel. “Excuse me, Moses,” his general Joshua did say. “Speak, Joshua,” Moses did respond. “I think this stuff is going over the people’s heads, boss,” Joshua did say. “Yeah, I know,” Moses answereth. “I don’t get it myself, but what the hay, nobody said this stuff has got to make sense. We shall do and we shall listen, that’s what I always say.”
From a letter fragment found in cave four at the Kumran site:
Date: 16 BC, whatever that means
From: The Teacher of Righteousness
To: John the B.
John, will you please cool it with all the dunking? It’s getting a little out of hand. First of all, we’re running out of towels; you know how hard it is to find a nice towel around here; why, just yesterday, while I was taking a dip down at Ein Gedi, someone swiped my best towel, the one with Garfield on it. Me, the Teacher of Righteousness, having his towel swiped! Can you imagine?
Also, enough with all the repentance stuff. “Repent! Repent! Repent!” Really, John, isn’t that why we’re out here in the desert without women or cable TV in the first place? Frankly, all your yelling is giving me a headache. I know we’re fanatics, but can’t you be a little moderate in your fanaticism?”
An excerpt of a letter from the Essene High Priest to his brother-in-law, Harold Silverman of Teaneck, New Jersey:
Dearest Harold, I fear that the split between the Pharisees and the Sadducees is permanent, and I tremble when I think of the troubles this split shall cause our people, especially now that Herod Antipas and his idiot half-brother, Herod Antipasto, have taken over after the demise of their father, Herod the Great, and their mother, Shirley MacLaine. And to think that it all started with a softball game.
It was the last round of a best-of-five series between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness and the Sadducees were leading 8-2 in the bottom of the fourth when one of the Pharisees, I think it may have been the Wicked Priest himself, took a hell of a swing and knocked the ball all the way into the Dead Sea.
Granted, when you’re playing on top of Masada, it doesn’t take much to knock the ball into the Dead Sea, but the guy’s 142 years old, so we were all impressed, but then one of these Sadducees says the ball went foul, which is crap and we told him so, but he said that the Essenes weren’t qualified to serve as umpires because we were ascetics and theologically opposed to softball, and then I called him an Epicurean right to his face, and then it got ugly, all these angry words flying about the priesthood and ritual purity and chastity and then someone pulled out the Manual of Discipline—can you believe people walk around with that thing?—and started quoting about how we must split off from “the dwelling-place of the men of perversion in order to go to the wilderness to prepare the way of HIM as it is written” and on and on and I told them that there’s nothing about softball in the manual so they might as well stop reading but they wouldn’t listen to me so I went back to my cave and everybody else left in a huff.
Anyway, the long and short of it is that no one is talking to anyone else. Harold, I hope I’m wrong when I say this, but I really do believe that the fallout from this softball game will affect the course of Judaism for many years to come.