Contents

INTRODUCTION

Into the Wind

This book was not planned. It was not born in the cozy quiet of a writer’s study, amidst the aroma of coffee and leisurely reflections on high matters. It burst into my life on a gust of gale-force wind on March 16, 2020—the very day my life split into “before” and “after.”

That day, I lost the one I loved more than anyone in the world: my bulldog, Zi. To some, he was “just a dog.” To me, he was a son, a teacher, and a guide.

When he left, I was left standing on the ruins of my own heart. I was filled with pain, anger, and questions for Heaven. I looked for someone to blame. I sought justice. I wanted to find a magical weapon to punish the evil that, as it seemed to me, had invaded my world.

But instead of a weapon, I was given a Ladder.

This book is the chronicle of an ascent. It is an honest account of how a man, trying to outrun pain, found God.

My path ran through the night streets of Tbilisi and the sun-drenched beaches of Eilat, through the ancient texts of the Avesta and the mysteries of the Zohar, through the white interior of a Jaguar and the silence of a synagogue. I met teachers where I least expected them: in a Persian sage communicating via email; in a former cancer patient rescuing dogs; in a young man behind a Judaica counter; and, of course, in a black panther named Sarah, who came to teach me how to love again.

I wrote this book not as a guru who has grasped the Truth, but as a traveler who has worn his feet to the bone yet still found his way to the Light.

There is no fiction here. Every tear, every miracle, every coincidence of dates and names is real. This is a story about how to unite two great traditions — the wisdom of Zoroastrianism and the depth of Judaism — within a single human soul.

It is a story about how to turn Fear into a Navigator. It is a story about a Meeting with Greatness and finding the Unity of the Soul.

If you are holding this book in your hands, it means you, too, are searching. Perhaps you have lost your footing. Perhaps you want to understand if there is meaning in the chaos of life.

I invite you to walk this path with me. From the shattered vessel to the Planet of Elohim.

Welcome home.

PART I. LOSS AND THE SIGN

Here the old world collapses, and the first shoots of the new one appear.

CHAPTER 1. FAREWELL TO ZI

The world will remember 2020 as the year the planet pressed pause. News feeds were speckled with headlines about the virus, borders slammed shut with the clang of falling iron curtains, and people panic-bought buckwheat, locking themselves in their concrete cells. A sticky, electric fear of an invisible enemy hung in the air. The streets of Moscow emptied, resembling the set of a post-apocalyptic film.

But for me, the true end of the world did not arrive in WHO reports or on television screens. My personal apocalypse unfolded in the silence of my apartment, to the heavy, rhythmic sound of the breathing of the one who was dearer to me than most people. For the world, it was the beginning of a great calamity; for me, it was the finale of a long, exhausting war.

His name was Zorro. Or simply Zi.

If you have never loved a bulldog, it will be hard for you to understand the nature of this bond. This is not just a dog that wags its tail at the sight of a leash. A bulldog is a personality encased in a powerful, stocky body. In his heavy gait, his broad chest, in the way he grunted as he settled at my feet, there was something fundamental. Something ancient.

To say “pet” is to insult our connection. To say “favorite” is to reduce everything to the level of a toy. Zi was my son. My silent companion, the witness to my rises and falls. We had our own language — a language of glances, sighs, and touch. When he rested his heavy head on my knee, looking up at me with his dark, all-understanding eyes, I felt it: I was accepted. Completely. Without conditions.

His name was no accident. He bore it by right of birth. Zi was black and white, like an old film, but nature-the-artist had placed accents on him with mystical precision. There were exactly seven black spots on his body — the number of fullness and mystery. And on his face lay a perfect black “mask,” which is why he became Zorro. A hero in a mask, come to save my world.

His coat was velvet to the touch. When I buried my face in it, I sensed a scent impossible to confuse with anything else. It was not the smell of “dog.” Zi smelled of warm milk. It always seemed to me that he smelled not simply of earthly milk, but of starlight — as if he had just returned from a walk along the Milky Way, carrying the fragrance of galaxies on his fur.

He loved this world with a fierce, almost reckless passion. I remember our car rides. For most dogs, a car is merely a transport to a park or a vet. For Zi, it was a cinema. He would sit by the window, propping his paws on the door, and watch. He especially loved the evening city. The streetlights, the bustle of people, the flickering shop windows — he absorbed it all with the air of a philosopher. There was no predatory interest in his gaze, only pure contemplation. It seemed he understood something about this city that even I did not.

He came into my life thanks to Lena — a woman who became, perhaps, the brightest flash of love in my destiny. It was she who found this miracle. I remember him as a tiny, four-month-old puppy. I remember how he first saw himself in the mirror: funny, clumsy, barking at his reflection, trying to goad “that guy” into playing.

At home, he had his own “sworn enemy” and his own ritual game — the vacuum cleaner. As a joke in his childhood, I once “suctioned” him lightly with the hose, and from then on, cleaning turned into a ceremony. It was war and a game of tag all at once. Zi attacked the roaring monster, defending his territory, growled, jumped back, and attacked again. There was so much life in it, so much energy, that it seemed this battery would never run out.