Letter from Hiram Abiff

Dear Worshipful Brother Damien

טקסט ברכות אחוה or should I say fraternal greetings. 

I would not normally respond to, and hereby dignify a letter such as the one that you published from one of the three Ruffians, Jubelum, in your last Newsletter.  However, it deals inadequately with arguably the most important topic in Freemasonry, the reason why I was murdered. 

I can ignore his hitherto undocumented comments about my management style and personality traits: what are his credentials for such comment?  I was held in sufficiently high esteem to be made a Grand Master and look at what I achieved in the building of the Temple despite all my alleged failings and “help” from people like the Ruffians. 

He fails to demonstrate in his letter remorse for his cowardly actions when he and his two fellow armed Ruffians set upon me while I was alone and attacked me.  As I recall unarmed.  Perhaps he has been talking to St Peter at the Pearly Gate and thinks that he has said enough to have his sins forgiven.  I do not know how long he can stay in the Vestibule. 

He fails to acknowledge the masonic importance of what he failed to achieve.  They had no right to what they demanded.  I will not go further as some of your brethren have not as yet traveled this far in their masonic journey.  As a seeming minority seems to argue in your society today, curiosity is not the same as public interest. 

He does not like the way I write.  He has a simple solution: do not read it.  He advocates in writing being “Clear and forthright” and “straight shooting”.  Some regard this approach as close to lecturing whereas allegorical writing allows a complex issue to the explained in simple terms.  Because of its lack of definition it can promote readers more widely on an issue.  It is a perfectly legitimate way to communicate ideas and is used extensively in our Torah and other Sacred Volumes.  One wonders if this Ruffian is himself not resorting to using the allegory of me, Hiram Abiff in making a comment about the way you practice Freemasonry today.  

He did not mention it but he probably does not like subliminal writing either where underneath the words being read there is another meaning – perhaps he is just plain dumb. 

Then he gives advice on how we should treat and support the Grand Master, factionalism and all of that.  What a hypocrite!  He had a faction; the Ruffians.  And how can you be less supportive of a Grand Master than to murder the Chief Architect before the Temple was completed? 

I really do not have time to go through the rest of his letter and see what I can make of it, if anything.  I think that your editor needs a closer look at any further material submitted by Jubelum.

Shalom Aleichem

חירם