Book Information
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This podiobook is complete
The Tenth Cow by Aram Schefrin
Fiction
Click the arrow below to listen to the first episode of this free audio book:
When Teddy Kagan finds a pure red heifer (heifer: a young, virgin cow) on the Florida ranch of a TV evangelist, he knows - because he knows Scripture and biblical prophesy - that he has discovered the first step in a plot to speed up the bloody End of Days and the Second Coming of Christ - a plot which could lead to a nuclear Holy War.
And it's Teddy's job to stop it from happening.
Fantasy? Not exactly. The plot is actually under way.
"The Tenth Cow", the third podcast novel by Aram Schefrin, takes the story to its limits, tracing what has already happened - and what could happen - through a brilliant cast of characters in Israel and America. Add polo, Kabbala, the American President and a strange love affair into the mix and you get a rich stew of romance, satire and suspense and a scary look at what might come to be the most important event of our time.
To learn about the facts behind this book, go to http://www.tenthcow.blogspot.com and click on the links.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works- 3.0 United States License.
Audio Quality: 
Out of 20 ratings
Narration Quality:
Out of 20 ratings
Writing Quality: 
Out of 20 ratings
Overall Rating:
Out of 20 ratings
By: Byron Int
Episode number one at 22MB is empty -no sound (except for the ad about iFrogs). iTunes shows it is over two hours long, but upon playing, only the iFrogs ad plays and that's it. Have tried downloading it twice. Byron IntBy: Ramona Holliday(author)
This book WAS hard to follow and I lost interest in it at times. I had to re-listen to it, so I could put together certain items. It was hard. The reader sounded like he had taken a couple of Vicoden or took voice lessons from Sylvester the Cat. The music of Michael Jackson's Thriller was kind of annoying. It needed a different introductory tune. It really wasn't my cup of tea, so my comments can be thrown out if you like. The story just didn't flow fast enough for me. I agree a lot with what Andre said.By: Billy C
Really amazing story. Mr. Schefrin has an amazing knowledge of all things Israeli and Jewish. The details about the city and the history really drew me in. At times I did find the story a bit difficult to follow as there were so many characters and they were so intertwined. I just can't say enough about the details in the book though. I feel like I learned so much about Israel after finishing this book.
Chapters
| Title | Description | Date Created |
| Episode 1 (22.56 MB) | TEDDY - As far as his brother Arthur knows, Teddy Kagan is a recluse in Delray Beach, Florida. But when Artie visits Teddy out of brotherly concern, Teddy asks Artie to drive him out to the Everglades. On a farm owned by TV evangelist Mooney Brice, they find a pure red heifer in a pen. And they know they have found the biblical Tenth Cow. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 2 (21.19 MB) | SHAYA - Artie plays polo -- badly. One of the people he plays with is a beautiful bi-polar Israeli named Shaya. Artie is in love with her, but she hasn't been interested. In a match, Shaya, after a particularly bruising bump, attacks the player who bumped her, who then beats her senseless. Humiliated, Shaya returns to Israel, to the house of her father, who lives in a town called Tsfat. On the downside of her condition, she emails Artie that she is going to blow up the Dome of the Rock, a holy Muslim shrine. But when her father shows her a polo field he has built for her in Tsfat, she decides instead to challenge the Palestinians to a polo match - and the Palestinians accept. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 3 (15.16 MB) | SHAYA'S FATHER - Shaya finds horses at a kibbutz on the Golan Heights, which operates a winery and a cattle ranch. She asks Artie to put together a team of American Jews. Artie arrives in Tsfat with the team, and meets Shaya's father. As it happens, Tsfat is the historical world center of Kabbala. Shaya's father is a Kabbalist, and so is Artie -- though, like polo, he's not very good at it. Shaya's father takes Artie to the Ari Sephardic synagogue, where Artie makes a wish. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 4 (9.4 MB) | ZVI - Shaya takes the team to the Golan kibbutz for some practice chuckers. Zvi, an Israeli cowboy, leads them into the cattle range, and gets a taste of polo. Artie notices a cattle pen at the edge of the field - and in it, the red heifer he had seen in Florida. He calls Teddy, and the game is on. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 5 (14.17 MB) | ASHER - Teddy arrives in Israel, and Artie drives him out to the Golan kibbutz, where Teddy asks Zvi about the heifer. Zvi says he brought the heifer in from a kibbutz in the Jezreel Valley near Har Megiddo, and that the heifer is about three years old. When Zvi runs out of answers, he takes Teddy and Artie to Asher, the oenologist who runs the kibbutz. Asher refuses to answer any questions, so Teddy and Artie take a tour of the kibbutz winery and learn about the making of kosher wine. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 6 (11.62 MB) | THE SUIT - Teddy has checked with the Israeli Government, and no one has heard about a plane flying the red heifer in. Artie wants to know why they would tell Teddy anything. Teddy ignores the question, as he always has when Artie asks him about his work. Teddy has also found out that Asher is Swiss and had arrived in Israel six years before. Later, practicing at the Golan kibbutz, Artie realizes that the heifer is gone. In the woods, he spots Teddy and a man he calls "The Suit."¯ Teddy tells Artie the heifer has been moved to the kibbutz near Har Megiddo -- and that a stream of rabbis are coming out from Jerusalem to see it. That night, he invites Artie to dinner in his hotel room. With the dinner comes a bottle of pinot from the Golan winery. Artie demands Teddy tell him why he is involved with the red heifer. Teddy warns him the knowledge could be dangerous. Artie persists; Teddy, now drunk and exhausted, promises that tomorrow Artie will learn everything. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 7 (13.25 MB) | GOYISH FRIENDS OF ISRAEL - Teddy sends Artie and Shaya to Jerusalem. They check into the Holyland Hotel, where Teddy has booked them one room with one kingsize bed. Artie and Shaya are nervous about the accommodations; Shaya isn't ready to share a bed with anyone. In the hotel dining room, they meet the Goyish Friends of Israel, and Artie learns to his surprise - though he doesn't understand why - that there are Christians who are as eager to see the Second Jewish Temple rebuilt as any Jew. Artie knows the red heifer has to do with the Second Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. No Jew can step on the grounds where the Second Temple stood unless he follows an ancient ritual: he must be purified by the ashes of a pure red heifer, and there have been only nine of them in history until now. When they go back to their room, Shaya relents, and they make love. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 8 (15.29 MB) | Ch 8 -- JERRY STEINBERG -- Artie and Shaya join the Goyish Friends for a lecture at the Bar Kochba Institute. Jerry Steinberg -- an American ex-hippie, now messianic Jew -- tells them what the Institute is up to. The Institute believes that after the Six Day War Israel entered the period of the End of Days, and they are awaiting the coming of the Messiah. But the Messiah won't come until the Second Temple is rebuilt -- and that's what the Institute wants to do. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 9 (14.75 MB) | DANIEL BAR-ILAN - Teddy takes Artie and Shaya to meet Daniel Bar-Ilan, professor of comparative religion at the Hebrew University. Bar-Ilan tells them that the Bar Kochba Institute has gone farther than Steinberg had said: they have put out a law book based on the law in effect at the time of the Second Temple; they have reconstructed the courthouse of the Sanhedrin, the priestly court of those times, and they want the Sanhedrin to be reconstituted, and Israel to be governed by a court of rabbis, under a king. Not only that, they are using DNA testing to identify descendants of Moses' brother Aaron - the only people qualified to be Temple priests. They are teaching young boys who qualify the priestly rituals. Bar-Ilan lays out the bottom line: the Institute intends to sacrifice the red heifer and purify its members, then go onto the Temple Mount and rebuild the Second Temple. But to do that, they will have to destroy the Dome of the Rock, since it sits on the exact spot the Second Temple occupied. And that could provoke a worldwide nuclear Holy War. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 10 (12.52 MB) | THE OFFICER - Teddy and Artie drive to Har Megiddo. An Israeli soldier meets them there, and Artie learns that Teddy and the soldier plan to attack the kibbutz where the heifer is, and kill it so it can't be sacrificed. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 11 (8.23 MB) | NORMA JEAN - Artie reminisces about his ex-wife, Norma Jean, and what happened the day the World Trade Towers went down. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 12 (12.39 MB) | KFAR HAREDIM - Teddy dies when the raid on the heifer fails. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 13 (8.83 MB) | POE'S RAVEN - Artie sits shivah for Teddy. Buying liquor for the shivah, he selects the pinot that Teddy had served the night of their room-service dinner at the Ruth Rimonim. The old man who owns the liquor store tries to dissuade him, saying that the wine may not be any good, since pinot grapes do not grow well in Israel. Artie says he's tasted it and that it's excellent. The old man shrugs and gives him what he wants. At the end of the first day of shivah, a chasid appears at the front door. He is elegantly dressed, sharp-nosed and speaks with a Boston accent. He asks for Shaya's father. Artie tells him the old man is asleep. The chasid turns and disappears, as people do in Tsfat. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 14 (9.94 MB) | DAVID - Artie can't sleep - so he finishes a bottle of Asher's pinot, trying to figure out how it could be so good when the old man at the liquor store had said pinot grapes don't do well in Israel. He gets a call from his son David in New York, from whom he is estranged. David tells him there might be a war with Syria, and David wants him to come home. Artie gets a newspaper, and reads that the American president has announced that the WMD's supposed to be in Iraq had been trucked into Syria just before the invasion. He demands that Syria open to U.S. inspection. If they don't, the U.S. will invade. Later, Bar-Ilan drops by and warns Artie that Syria has threatened that any U.S. inspectors will be arrested and confined; and if the U.S. attacks Syria, Syria will attack Israel. Syria is close to Tsfat. Artie agrees to leave. Shaya won't go back to Florida, where she'd been humiliated. She decides to go to Manhattan to visit her daughter Chickie. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 15 (15.54 MB) | CLARISSE - Back in the U.S., Artie finds out he's been appointed executor of Teddy's estate, and that he and Clarisse Ward - the Jamaican girl - are Teddy's heirs. The probate lawyers ask him to inventory Teddy's condo. He drives down and goes through the apartment. Using a key given to him by the burial society in Tsfat, Artie enters the secret room. On the walls are photos of Teddy with notables and celebrities, people Artie had no idea Teddy knew. On a desk are five computers, still online. The first shows emails sent to Teddy from various parts of the country, reporting anti-Semitic incidents. The second has reports on anti-Semitic organizations. The third contains messages from Jewish groups, the fourth has emails from the people on Teddy's wall. The fifth is online with Mooney Brice's group, The Church of the Reborn Christ. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 16 (18.7 MB) | THE REPORTER -- Wanting the world to know what has happened to his brother, Artie calls a reporter and fills him in. Together they go to Brice's Florida megachurch. They listen to Brice's preaching, and learn why Israel matters to evangelical Christians - and that Brice is sending money to the Bar Kochba Institute. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 17 (12.32 MB) | THE END OF DAYS SCENARIO - NBC reports that Syria has arrested the U.S. inspectors; National Guard troops are being sent to the Iraq-Syria border, and Iran has said it is considering a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S. and/or Israel. NBC shows the President at an NSC meeting; one of the participants is Mooney Brice. Artie goes to Teddy's condo; the secret room is open, and Clarisse is gone. An email on one of Teddy's computers says that the sender can prove that the attack on Iraq was intended to trigger the End of Days scenario. Not knowing what the End of Days Scenario is, the reporter checks Brice's website and is horrified. | Mar 25, 2006 |
| Episode 18 (11.69 MB) | HAPSKY The reporter goes to New York with Artie and meets a Columbia University professor named Hapsky who has been emailing Teddy. Hapsky is a conspiracy nut; he believes the American president - a born-again Christian - attacked Iraq to provoke Iraq into attacking Israel (as it had in the 1991 war), beginning the process of the End of Days. Since Iraq fell quickly and failed to attack Israel, he says the president now intends, for the same reason, to invade Syria. As Hapsky puts it: "If Jesus is going to come for you if Israel is attacked, you're going to make it happen - isn't that clear?" | Apr 1, 2006 |
| Episode 19 (11.95 MB) | CHICKIE - In New York, Artie meets Shaya's daughter Chickie, who warns him not to expect love from her mother. With Artie's son David - who is fascinated by Chickie - they go to an art gallery in Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, for a show of homosexual art by one of Chickie's friends. The show is attacked by Chasidim enraged by the obscene paintings. Chickie, David, Shaya and Artie escape through a back door. The underscoring in this chapter is "The Loneliness of The Amoeba," by Amoebia, available at podsafeaudio.com. | Apr 9, 2006 |
| Episode 20 (7.09 MB) | 9/11 - Artie and David go to lunch, and Artie learns for the first time what David went through on 9/11. | Apr 9, 2006 |
| Episode 21 (11.64 MB) | THE SHEKHINA -Shaya runs through a manic New York shopping spree, then tells Artie that she is going back to Israel. She has realized that she can't escape from religious fanaticism, and wants to get involved in fighting it. Artie, Chickie and David go to Israel with her. Shaya's father says the Shekhina has left Tsfat for Jerusalem. It means the Messiah is imminent - but he doesn't seem happy about it. He tells Shaya he is still being contacted by old terrorist friends. Artie and Shaya demand again that Bar-Ilan tell them his relationship with Teddy. He insists they were only friends. He tells them they ought to leave Israel. They refuse. | Apr 18, 2006 |
| Episode 22 (21.44 MB) | THE CORNERSTONE - Russia, China and France announce that if the United States invades, they will send troops to defend Syria. Bar-Ilan foils an attack on the Dome of the Rock. | Apr 21, 2006 |
| Episode 23 (9.09 MB) | EZER LEIBOWITT: Bar-Ilan finally admits there is an organization which he and Teddy have worked for. The Raven - Rabbi Ezer Leibowitt - pays Bar-Ilan a visit. | May 7, 2006 |
| Episode 24 (13.12 MB) | MOSHE LUZZATTO - Shaya's father tells Artie that the institute has asked him to perform the ritual slaughter of the red heifer. He has refused because he does not agree with their goals, and explains his vision of Kabbala and the Messiah. He also tells Artie that he has seen the heifer, and that there is something wrong with it and it should not be sacrificed. | May 7, 2006 |
| Episode 25 (7.08 MB) | THE VETERINARIAN - When Shaya's father tells Artie that the heifer is unsteady on its feet, Artie asks the reporter to investigate cattle diseases. The reporter talks to a vet at the University of Florida and gets a list of the possible causes of the condition - including the chance that the heifer has been genetically engineered. | May 14, 2006 |
| Episode 26 (14.75 MB) | Jerry Steinberg announces plans to sacrifice the red heifer. Messiah Fever spreads over the world. At Bar-Ilan's urging, Artie, Shaya, Shaya's father, David and Chickie travel to Jerusalem, to find a huge crowd gathered in the Kidron Valley beneath the Mount of Olives. In the garden of the Armenian church on the Mount of Olives - the traditional setting for red heifer sacrifice - Steinberg is building an altar according to Biblical description, as well as a wooden causeway from the church to the Golden Gate in Jerusalem's eastern wall. Shaya's father collapses when he realizes that workmen are unblocking the Golden Gate, which has been sealed for 1300 years and is prophesied to be the Messiah's entryway into Jerusalem. | May 25, 2006 |
| Episode 27 (12.64 MB) | MENDELOWITZ - The reporter finds out about bioengineered wine. Shaya's father puts a curse on Ezer Leibowitt. | May 30, 2006 |
| Episode 28 (16.25 MB) | SHEKHINA TOURS -- With the help of Bar-Ilan and Professor Mendelowitz, Artie and the reporter put together the details on the cloning of the heifer, and pin the doings on Asher at Mitzia Golan. Chickie and David convince Zvi to copy the key to Asher's lab. | Jun 5, 2006 |
| Episode 29 (1.64 MB) | MACK -- The reporter convinces his editor to send him to Israel. Artie and Shaya join Bar-Ilan, the suit, the IDF officer and an MIT geneticist in a raid on Asher's lab at Mitzia Golan. | Jun 11, 2006 |
| Episode 30 (8.84 MB) | SAPERSTEIN - A settler kills Asher to keep him from talking - but Saperstein finds documents that prove the heifer was engineered. | Jun 13, 2006 |
| Episode 31 (9.49 MB) | NETUREI KARTA -- Our heroes travel to Mea Shearim to enlist Neturei Karta's help in stopping the sacrifice. | Jun 18, 2006 |
| Episode 32 (9.19 MB) | THE SATMAR REBBE - In the village of the talking carp, the Satmar rebbe agrees to help fight the Institute. | Jun 24, 2006 |
| Episode 33 (11.25 MB) | HARRY - "Harry" sets up a press conference in New York, and the world learns that the heifer is a clone. Steinberg decides to sacrifice it anyway. | Jun 27, 2006 |
| Episode 34 (16.18 MB) | FINALE - How it all turns out. | Jun 27, 2006 |
| Episode 35 (16.54 MB) | EPILOG - An interview of Rabbi Ezer Leibowitt on TV Arutz Shtaim. | Jun 29, 2006 |