Between Torah and Tumah: The Adventures of Bihar,Tarkan of the Khazari, Son of the Kagan

Bihar of Balanjar, a great healer who used acupuncture needles acquired on the Silk Road from a wise one of Cathay, Bihar, the great grandson of a former Tengri shaman, accepted his son's rites of passage into Judaism on the same day that the Rus Prince, Svyatoslav conquered the Khazar white fortress at Sarkel.

The people scattered in the midst of a war that continued to escalate. Khazari widows whose husbands had died in the war accepted the little pillows to catch their tears. Bihar's soldiers carried into battle the Khazar Kagan's standard as a round, polished silver mirror on a long pole, hung with variously colored horsetails and other ornaments.

Bihar, now all dressed up as a Khazarian Kagan with no place to go, raised his skullcap over his wife's oil lamps and stared through his tattered hat. His voice had a cold, slick quiver of peace. He turned to the wise rabbi who traveled all the way from Persia. Bihar's voice grew louder. "Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha'olam oseh ma'aseh vereshit." We praise You, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe, Source of creation and its wonders.


"None beneath the Kagan of the Khazars and his fine horses can take this Torah to Kiev," decreed the Persian rabbi, opening the ark to show Bihar sacred scrolls safely hidden in the walls above a chest of frayed skullcaps. "Yet I don't think you're going to Kiev. If I know you, you'll find your way toJerusalem in the garb of what, this time, my Kagan?" Inside the shattered white fortress of the Khazars at Sarkel, by the Don River, the Kagan, Bihar began to daven to and fro, praying as the Persian rabbi guided a pointer at the letters Bihar long before had copied into his own language.

Ref: associatedcontent.com