The forthcoming beatification of Pope Pious XII, the Holocaust Pope, will place the formal seal of the Roman Catholic Church on the events of the early 1940’s. The sainthood of the powerful religious leader testifies to the church’s view of his great accomplishment as guiding hand of Catholic Europe in their most triumphal era in their millennial struggle against the House of Jacob. It was foretold in the Book of Daniel
Our sources tell us the struggle began in Rebecca’s womb. She sought counsel as to the reason for the commotion inside her, and was told by the sage she had two nations in her belly, and each would triumph at the expense of the other, such that when one would ascend the other would descend, but ultimately the greater one would serve the lesser. The first was named Esau and the second, Jacob. The twins are mortal adversaries, and when Jacob steals their father’s blessing, Esau vows to kill his brother, Jacob flees to Haran. On the way, legend has it, Eliphaz, Esau’s son, tries to kill Jacob, who fends him off with an argument that since a poor man is like a dead man, Eliphaz can take all his possessions instead. The brothers establish their respective nations, and at Jacob’s burial, Esau is killed and Eliphaz flees to Italy and founds Rome.
On his way to Haran, Jacob had a vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder to heaven. The angels are the heavenly officers that rule the nations. The first ascends 70 steps and descends. The second ascends 52 steps and descends. The third ascends 180 steps and descends. The fourth keeps ascending but Jacob is promised that this one too will descend and herald the redemption.
Exile and redemption, the twin fates of the Jewish People, are the themes of Biblical prophesy and characterize the unfolding of Jewish history. Along with the promise of peoplehood and the Land of Israel, Abraham is foretold the exile in Egypt, all of which came to be. Israel’ redemption from Egyptian servitude and deliverance at the splitting of the sea was soon followed by the Revelation at Sinai and the giving of the Torah. Four hundred years later the rise of the Kingdom of the House of David and the construction of the Holy Temple appeared to be the fulfillment of the promised redemption. However, as foretold in Leviticus, possession of the Land and the Temple was to be contingent on the behavior of the people, and the people ceased to merit them The Temple was destroyed, and the Babylonian Exile became the first of the Four Exiles of Jacob’s dream, further elaborated in the vision of Daniel.
Daniel’s dream occurs during the First Kingdom, Babylon. He sees a succession of four beasts, the first a winged lion representing Babylon, whose theme is glory and grandeur. The second a bear with ribs between his teeth, Persia, whose theme is extravagance and consumption. The third is a winged leopard, Greece, swift and diligent, whose theme is the wisdom of this world. The fourth is a most powerful beast with ten horns and teeth of steel, Rome, whose theme is destruction. A second vision has a man with a head of gold, arms of silver, a trunk of copper, thighs of steel and feet of steel and clay. The stone of Israel shatters the feet of clay to end the four kingdoms. The four metals are of diminishing value. The first, who took the crown from the House of David was gold, representing the power of spirituality, the second, silver, representing the acquisitive arms, the power of physicality, the third, copper, the power of the intellect, and the fourth, the strange great beast, steel, combining the powers of spirituality, physicality and intellect.
The Fourth Kingdom, by most accounts, is the Roman Empire, which destroyed the Second Temple, put down the Bar Kochba rebellion, and sent the Jewish People into their longest exile. When Rome fell, its role as Edom’s kingdom was filled by the Christian church, which continued to persecute the Jews through the centuries. The Fourth Kingdom thrives on destruction and negation. Its steel is made into swords, useful in killing but of much less value than gold and silver. It is alone among the kingdoms that rule the exile that does not drag a succeeding kingdom after it.
Maharal of Prague, Sixteenth Century thinker and leader of the Jews during a period of Christian persecution wrote a treatise on Jewish and world history based on the midrash of our rabbis, of blessed memory, called Ner Mitzva, part of his work on Chanuka. He cites scriptural references to link the kingdoms to four unclean animals. The first three, camel, hare and coney, have no external signs of purity, but they chew the cud, denoting the inherent and internal hidden connection with Hashem. The fourth, the swine, pretends to possess purity by displaying split hooves but has no inherent connection with Hashem. However , its divine destiny is to destroy, then be negated, then as its animal’s name, chazir, hints, return the kingship to Israel.
The four exiles are clearly a manifestation of Divine Will. It is law, say the sages, that Esav hates Yaakov. Esav cannot help it- it is theological necessity. Like Pharoah and Haman, Hitler was driven to triumph over Israel. The moral leader of Christian Europe presided over the era of annihilation. Until the Vatican archives are open to the world’s inspection, one can wonder if Pius was Hitler’s silent partner. Perhaps he couldn’t help it. Perhaps this too is theological necessity. Now Benedict wants to make Pius a saint and sanctify the Holocaust.
Four years after the Holocaust, the State of Israel was established. And the Church, despite its numbers, is a shadow of what was seventy years ago. Could it be that Daniel’s vision and Maharal’s insights foretold the events unfolding before our very eyes?
Postscript. Where is the Kingdom of Ishmael in all this? Rabbenu Saadia Gaon, who lived in Baghdad after the Muslim conquest, reinterprets the Four Kingdoms in his commentary on Daniel. Rome is an extension of the Third Kingdom, Greece, and Ishmael is the Fourth Kingdom. Maharal presents two further theories. Ishmael may be separate from the chain of kingdoms that originated with the Kingdom of Israel, having been granted its power in response to his father Abraham’s request. The second, preferred theory is that Ishmael is part of Persia, giving new life to the bear. Think of the Hamas- Iran alliance. Let us pray this theory is in error.
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