[from a manuscript]
And it came to pass in the days of the war, the days of the dreadful carnage, that I was praying, crying bitterly all through the night. And behold, at the break of dawn, it seemed as though all the people in the world have gathered in a group before my mind’s eye. And a man was hovering among them with his sword over their heads, lashing at their heads. The heads soared upward, and their corpses fell to a great basin and became a sea of bones.
And a voice called out to me: “I am the Lord, God, who governs the whole world with great mercy. Reach out your hand and grip the sword, for now I have given you power and might.” Then the spirit of God clothed me, I held the sword, and that man vanished instantly. As I looked unto his place, and he was gone, and the sword—in my possession, my own possession.
And the Lord said unto me: “Go out from your country to the pleasant land, the land of the holy fathers, where I will make you a great sage, and all the sages of the land will be blessed by you, for I have chosen you for a righteous sage in all this generation, to heal the human suffering with lasting salvation. Take this sword in your hand and guard it with your heart and soul, for it is a token between Me and you, that all those good things will happen through you, for until now, I had no such faithful man as you to give him this sword. For this reason, the evildoers did what they did, but from now on, every saboteur who sees My sword in your hand will promptly vanish and be uprooted from the land.”
And I hid my face, for I was afraid to look upon He who was speaking to me. And the sword, which seemed to me like a simple iron sword that was a horrible destructor, has turned in my hands into glimmering letters of the holy name Shadai whose luster is filled with light, contentment, tranquility, and reassurance for the whole world. And I said to myself: “May I grant all the dwellers of the world a drop of the purity of this sword, for then they will know that there is pleasantness of the Lord in the land.”
I raised my eyes, and behold, the Lord stood over me and said to me: “I am the Lord, God of your fathers. Raise your eyes from the place on which you stand before Me and see the whole of reality that I have created existence from absence, upper and lower together, from their very creation in the unfolding of reality through their continuous evolution to their completion, as befits the work of My hands by which to be glorified.
Then I saw and rejoiced over the glorious creation and all that is in it, and the delight and pleasure that all dwellers of the earth enjoy. And I was grateful to the Lord.
Then, I said unto the Lord: “We will serve You with tremor and fear and forever be grateful to Your name, because from You neither bad nor good emerge, but a long succession of pleasantness set before us from beginning to end. Happy are they who stride in Your world, which You have prepared for them, for pleasantness and gentleness and abundance. There is no deviousness or obstacles in all Your deeds, upper and lower together.” And I was filled with wondrous wisdom, and atop them all, the wisdom of His absolute private Providence. And so I have gained wisdom day by day for many days—one hundred and eighty days.
In those days, I contemplated praying to the Lord saying, “Behold, I have been filled with wisdom more than all my predecessors, and there is nothing in the world that I do not know. Yet, I do not understand a word of the sayings of the prophets and the sages of the Lord. Also, I do not understand most of the holy names. And I thought—the Lord has promised me such wisdom and knowledge as to become a paragon among the sages and the created beings, yet I still do not understand their sayings.”
And before I called, the Creator came over me and said, “But behold, your wisdom and attainment are far above all the sages who have lived on earth thus far. What have you asked of Me which I have not given you? Why torment yourself over understanding the words of prophecy, which you know for certain are uttered from a degree inferior to yours? Would you want Me to bring you down from your degree so you could understand their words as do they?”
I was silent, and I was jubilant, and I answered nothing. Afterward, I asked the Lord, “Thus far, I have not heard a thing about the persistence of my corpse; all the benefits and destinies that have come to me are solely from the spiritual, and there they all aim. What if some illness or bodily harm confuses my mind and I sin before You? Will You cast me from before You and lose all this abundance or punish me?”
And the Lord has sworn to me in His great and terrible Name and in His eternal throne that He will never let His mercy off me for eternity. Should I sin or should I not, His mercy and holiness will never part from me. And I heard and rejoiced. (For you have already achieved your goal, and I have pardoned all your sins, and this mercy.)
And after all these days, I listened attentively to all the promises and destinies I have been chosen for by the Lord, yet I found in them neither satisfaction nor the words by which to speak to the dwellers of this world and lead them to God’s will, as He had told me. I could not stride among the people, who are vain and slandering the Lord and His creation, while I was satiated and praising, and walking merrily as though mocking those wretched ones.
Matters have touched me to the bottom of my heart, and I resolved that come what may, even if I descend from my sublime degree, I must make a heartfelt prayer to the Lord to grant me attainment and knowledge of the prophecy and wisdom, and the words by which to help the forlorn people of the world, to raise them to the same degree of wisdom and pleasantness as mine. Although I knew that I must not sadden my spirit, I could not hold back, and I poured my heart out in prayer.
In the morning, I raised my eyes and saw the Dweller of heaven laughing at me and at my words. He said unto me: “What do you see?” and I said, “I see two people struggling—one wise and perfect and strong, the other small and silly, like a newly born child. And the other, the weak, small and tasteless defeats the strong and the perfect.” And the Creator said to me: “This little one is destined for greatness.”
And the little one opened his mouth and told me some words I did not sufficiently understand, yet I felt in them all the treasures of wisdom and prophecy that abide among all the true prophets, until I knew that the Lord had answered me and gave me ways among all the prophets and sages of the Lord.
Then the Lord said to me, “Rise up, and look to the east.” I raised my eyes and saw that that little one has at once rose and equaled himself and his level to the level of the big one, although he still lacked taste and reason as before. And I was bewildered.
Afterward, the Lord spoke to me with a vista, saying, “Lie down on your right-hand side.” And I laid down on the ground. And He said to me, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see many peoples and nations, rising and falling, and their faces are deformed humans.” Then the Lord said to me, “If you can give form to all these nations and blow into them the spirit of life, I will bring you to the land that I have sworn to your fathers, to give to you, and all my goals will have been fulfilled through you.”