The Mystery of the Shemitah (21 page)

Chapter 18
The TOWERS of HEGEMON

The American Apogee

T
HE YEAR WAS
1945. America had emerged from the Second World War having attained a unique position described in the Scriptures over three thousand years earlier as “the head of nations.” Its navies patrolled the world’s waters, its currency undergirded the world’s financial system, the fruit of its commerce and culture saturated the earth, and its military carried out America’s assumed role as the “world’s policeman.” It had achieved a level of relative power and global hegemony unprecedented in world history.

The ancient connection between a nation’s greatness and the building of towers would now argue for the erection of a new edifice that would embody America’s role as the head of nations and the central pillar of the new global order. Could there now arise a tower or towers linked to America’s new apogee of world power?

The Conception

In July 1944, anticipating the end of the Second World War, representatives of forty-four nations gathered in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to lay the foundation for a new global economic order based on the American dollar and for the reconstruction of national economies devastated by the war. The answer, they believed, was to expand international trade. And America would be the world trade center of the new era.

In 1945, the year of the war’s end and America’s rise to superpower, David Scholz, former governor of Florida and real estate developer, first proposed the concept of “a world trade center” in Lower Manhattan near Wall Street to encourage trade and port activity in the city. The plan was part of a series of projects aimed at encouraging world trade and solidifying America’s role in the new world order.

In 1946 the New York State legislature authorized the creation of the World Trade Corporation to develop the World Trade Center. That same year funds were given to purchase land along the East River on which to build the United Nations Headquarters, also in New York City. Both projects would affirm America’s new position as world center.

The World Trade Center was conceived in 1945 at America’s apogee of power—1945 was also the Year of the Shemitah.

The Construction

In 1958 David Rockefeller produced a master plan for the transformation of Lower Manhattan. The plan included an office complex dedicated to world trade. In November of that same year Nelson Rockefeller was elected governor of New York. In 1961 the World Trade Center bill was signed by Governor Rockefeller and New Jersey governor Richard Hughes. A new site was proposed for the trade center, a sixteen-acre lot of land along the Hudson River.

In March 1966 the New York State Court of Appeals dismissed the last legal challenge to the World Trade Center. This cleared the way for the construction to start. According to the plans, the World Trade Center would consist of two central towers. On March 21, 1966, demolition began to clear the thirteen square blocks of low-rise buildings in Radio Row. On August 5, 1966, a giant concrete wall was sunk into the ground as part of the groundbreaking—1966 was also the Year of the Shemitah.

The Shemitah began on September 27, 1965, and reached its conclusion on September 14, 1966. In the middle of the Shemitah the work commences on what will be the ground of construction. And before the Shemitah draws to its end, the building begins.

Thus the construction of the World Trade Center is begun in the Year of the Shemitah.

The Completion

Steel work began on the center’s North Tower in August 1968 and on the South Tower in January 1969. On December 23, 1970, the final columns of the North Tower were set into place on the 110th floor. In July 1971 a topping-off ceremony was held on the South Tower.

In 1972, with the upper stories of the North Tower now completed, the Empire State Building’s forty-year reign came to an end. The World Trade Center became the tallest building on the earth.

The World Trade Center and its twin towers were officially finished and inaugurated in a dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony held by the Port Authority on April 4, 1973—1973 was also the Year of the Shemitah.

The Shemitah had commenced on September 9, 1972. It would conclude on September 26, 1973. That same year the World Trade Center surpassed the Empire State Building to become the tallest building on the earth. As for 1973, it was the year the twin towers were officially completed and dedicated, in April, in the center of the Shemitah.

Thus the World Trade Center was finished and dedicated in the Year of the Shemitah.

The Destruction

On a warm and nearly cloudless day in September 2001 at 8:46 in the morning, American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767, struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Nearly seventeen minutes later, at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175, another Boeing 767, struck the South Tower. At 9:59 a.m. the South Tower collapsed into a vast rolling cloud of dust, and at 10:28 a.m. the North Tower collapsed.

That which had once stood as the tallest building on earth was no more. That which had been conceived at the same moment in history in which America assumed its mantle of world superpower now had vanished in a cloud of white dust. And that which had stood as a monument to America’s global preeminence and to the American-led world order now lay in ruins. The year 2001 marked the fall of the World Trade Center—2001 was also the Year of the Shemitah.

The Shemitah had begun on September 30, 2000. It would conclude on September 17, 2001. September 11 took place on Elul 23 on the ancient calendar, in the last climactic week of the Shemitah. Thus the World Trade Center was destroyed in the Year of the Shemitah.

The Two Mysteries

We have the mystery of the Shemitah and the mystery of the towers converging in the World Trade Center and leading up to the day on which the towers fell in September 2001. The connections linking the World Trade Center to the ancient mystery are remarkable in their consistency. The World Trade Center was:

•
  Conceived in the Shemitah of 1945

•
  Begun in the Shemitah of 1966

•
  Built in a seven-year period beginning and ending in the Year of the Shemitah

•
  Finished and dedicated in the Shemitah of 1973

•
  Destroyed in the Shemitah of 2001

But what is behind this phenomenon? And what is its meaning and its message—or its warning—to America and the world?

Chapter 19
The MYSTERY of the TOWERS

The Vow

W
HAT IS THE
connection between the mystery of the Shemitah and that of the towers—and what is its meaning?

For the answer we must return to the ancient vow spoken after the attack on the land, Israel’s first massive warning of coming judgment. Here now is the context of that vow:

The LORD sent a word against Jacob, and it has fallen on Israel. All the people will know—Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria—who say in pride and arrogance of heart: “The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones . . . ”

—I
SAIAH
9:8–10

The vow is introduced with the words: “
Who say in pride and arrogance of heart
. . . ” What does this have to do with the mystery of the towers? The connection isn’t visible in English. But it appears in the original Hebrew.

The Godel Connection

In the original language the word translated as “arrogance” is the Hebrew
godel
.
Godel
can be translated either as “greatness” or “arrogance.” It comes from the root word
gadal
. We have seen this word before.
Gadal
is the same word from which we get
migdal
, the Hebrew word for tower. Likewise, the word
gadal
not only speaks of magnitude, enlargement, and greatness, but also of arrogance, boasting, and pride. So a tower can symbolize a civilization’s magnitude, enlargement, and greatness—but it can also symbolize its arrogance, its boasting, and its pride.

This is doubly striking since the mystery of
The Harbinger
connects the ancient vow of Isaiah 9:10, spoken in the wake of the ancient attack, with the destruction of the towers in the attack on 9/11. And in the original Hebrew the word describing the arrogance in which this vow is spoken is linked to the Hebrew word for tower—the very object destroyed on 9/11.

The Spirit of Babel

The connection between towers and pride was there in the very first tower recorded in Scripture and in the words by which its rising began:

Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves . . .

—G
ENESIS
11:4

This is the third theme embodied by towers—the theme of pride. The Tower of Babel’s purpose was to enable its builders to “make a name” for themselves. How? By erecting “a tower whose top is in the heavens.” The Tower of Babel was man’s endeavor to ascend to heaven by his own will and powers, his striving to equal God. Babel was man’s attempt at godhood. It was built in the same spirit of defiance as that which infused the rebuilding in Isaiah 9:10.

But this brings up another theme. The building of the Tower of Babel brings judgment. The rebuilding of Isaiah 9:10 will also bring judgment. A tower may become the embodiment of pride and arrogance. And in such a case a tower may become the focal point of judgment.

The Tower and the Shemitah: The Meaning of the Mysteries

What is the connection between the mystery of the Shemitah and that of the towers?

Towers are symbols of greatness and often of pride.

The Shemitah acts to break man’s pride, humble a nation, and bring humility.

Towers stand as monuments to the power and glory of man or of a civilization.

The Shemitah reminds man of his weakness or a nation of its total dependence on God.

Towers stand as testaments of a nation’s prosperity and wealth.

The Shemitah reminds that nation that the source of its blessings come from God, and without Him those blessings cannot remain.

Towers boast of man’s claims of dominion and sovereignty.

The Shemitah calls man to relinquish his claims of dominion and sovereignty before the sovereignty and dominion of God.