"plain man, dwelling in tents." [110]

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This then is the meaning of Esau

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As Scholem writes: "Frank's ultimate vision of the future was based upon the still unrevealed laws of the Torah of atzilut which he promised his disciples would take effect once they had 'come to Esau,' that is, when the passage through the 'abyss' with its unmitigated destruction and negation was finally accomplished." [111]

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But as a great Hasidic maxim reminds us: "The Messiah will not come until the tears of Esau have ceased." [112]

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and so returns to Tom and Will Navidson, divided by experience, endowed with different talents and dispositions, yet still brothers and "naught without the other."

As Ruccalla states in her concluding chapter: "While the differences are there, like the serpents of the Caduceus, these two brothers have always been and always will be inextricably intertwined; and just like the Caduceus, their shared history creates a meaning and that meaning is health." ²⁴⁷

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By the end of the first night, Tom has begun to feel the terrible strain of that place. At one point he even threatens to abandon his post. He does not. His devotion to his brother triumphs over his own fears. Remaining by the radio, "[Tom] gnaws on boredom like a dog gnawing on a bone while all the time eyeing fear like a mongoose." ²⁴⁸

Fortunately for us, some trace of this struggle survives on his Hi 8 where Tom recorded an eclectic, sometimes funny, sometimes bizarre history of thoughts passing away in the atrocity of that darkness.