Where the Bird Sings Best by Alejandro Jodorowsky

made of books, there was an open coffin where the body of the great master reposed, as if in sleep.
    While they were moaning, the disciples enumerated again and again the merits of the Vilna Gaon or sage:
    “You who were a teacher starting at the age of seven.”
    “You who in order to study more only slept two hours a day.”
    “You who in order to obviate laziness never lit a fire and kept your feet in a pail of icy water.
    “You who protected us from the Hasidim, that lying sect that believes in ecstasy and visions, you who studied seven thousand books and taught us to reason.”
    Salvador, without anyone’s stopping him, made his way to the dead man; echoing in his ears was not the desolate chanting of the students but Estrella’s last words: “When you find the Truth, you will see next to it the woman who befits you.” Next to Elijah Ben Solomon Zalman, wearing a dress so white it seemed silver to him, was his daughter. Once and for all, even beyond the day of his death, his pounding heart revealed to him, repeating it myriad times, the girl’s name: Luna, Luna, Luna, Luna. Queen of night, essence of all the Estrellas, from woman to woman, the Salvadors had moved toward her, and now, he, face to face with the incarnate dream, could do nothing but give thanks to God for leading him to the end of the road. He walked toward her, clasped her hands and removed them from the casket to draw them to his chest, which was bursting with each heartbeat. Luna immediately knew his name, and when she said it, erasing the pain caused by her father’s death, there arose within her a tremendous joy that brought heat for the first time to that cold world: “Salvador!” In a single glance, they fused their souls, and that meeting, sought after for a thousand years, made the world change.
    Another chorus of voices flooded in from outside, bringing with it a jubilant song mixed with laughter and ecstatic shouting. More than two hundred Hasidim, smelling of alcohol and tobacco, followed by robust women and their children, made their peasant boots echo in the lecture hall. The glow from their torches chased away the shadows, and the gray walls became golden. A warm air dissolved the clouds emanating from the open mouths of the rabbis, who were paralyzed by this sacrilege.
    The euphoric horde was led by a small but muscular old man crowned with a huge fur hat. Smoking a pipe and staggering, he stopped opposite the Vilna Gaon, waved his arms around, guffawed so loudly the pews shook, rolled back his eyes, and, leaping up, made a kick that sent several of the coffin boards flying.
    “Enough with this comedy, Elijah! Through my mouth the voice of Israel Ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, he who knows the secret name of God, speaks to you! I can do nothing; he can do everything. Riding on me, his mount, he has come to show you that you’re mistaken.”
    This possessed man raised his hands: the coffin rose in the air and stuck to the ceiling. The peasants applauded, but a painful sigh shook the rabbis. The chief of the drunken mystics paid no attention whatsoever to them and went on hectoring the dead man.
    “You anathematized us by having the horn wail as you put out the candles in your school so that our spiritual life would be extinguished along with them. You decreed us cursed by day and night, when we retired and when we got up, when we entered and when we left. You asked God not to pardon or know us. You asked Him to erase our names from the Earth. You forbade people to speak to us or write to us, to help us, or to live under the same roof with us. You insinuated that we should be denounced to the Christian authorities so they could eliminate us. You forgot that we were brothers. You locked the windows and submerged yourself in cold and sleeplessness. You murdered the language of dreams. You gained intelligence, but you lost love. For a month now, you’ve been lying here pretending to be dead. You don’t rot because you are alive