SCP-1348-ICL-8
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FINAL INCIDENT REVIEW: SCP-1348-ICL-8

BACKGROUND: On ██/██/████, three days after his interview with O-9142 and five days after the death of Director ██████, Site Director Kahn compiled a new instance of SCP-1348-02 and entered the inner containment area. After performing external portions of SCP-1348-02, Dr. Kahn entered the central region of SCP-1348-03.

In accordance with Foundation protocol for investigating security breaches by senior staff, Foundation internal security personnel sequestered all electronic devices, paper files, and personal effects related to prior or present assignments by Site 93 personnel. After detailed forensic review, internal security's preliminary conclusion was that Dr. Kahn, motivated by personal distress in the aftermath of the death of Director ██████, spontaneously and unilaterally decided to deviate from containment protocol and enter the central region.

On ██/██/████, the following letter was returned, unopened, to Dr. Kahn's primary residence in Haifa, Israel.

Judith,

It is strangely simple to be writing the last letter I will ever send. As long as I can remember, the truth has had consequences. So I have withheld as much as I could. But now that the consequences are so very imminent, I will be departing beyond their reach.

I have a confession:

When you were ten, I told you that I was a linguist for the Institute. When you were very young — three, perhaps? — this was true. By the time you were old enough to ask, I was wise enough to lie. And I had other duties.

Before you retreated into the Torah, when you were still rebellious, you once told me that I loved my country more than I loved you. Why did I have to be a spy, and not your father? I could not answer, because I could not tell you that you were wrong. I served the world, not Israel. I served out of fear, not love.

Before the Shoah, your grandfather was a typesetter in Danzig. The Germans burned his presses and took him to Monowitz, and he worked in the printer's shop. After the Americans came, he went to Israel. He fought at Jaffa, and after the war he came to Barkai, and then I was born. These were the great and terrible events in his life, and I only met him after they had passed.

Because I only saw the outlines of the events which had shaped him, I could not understand why he was such a hard man. Eventually, I gave up: I came to understand that I could never understand; I could only cast my forgiveness into the dark, not knowing what it was that I was forgiving.

When you were sixteen, Eleizer told me that he wanted to marry you, and to study Torah at B'nei Brak. I screamed at him that there was nothing in the Torah, and that he was a fool. I told you that if you married him, I would never speak to you again. I knew then that if there was a G-d, he was vast and terrible and blind. You cannot know how I knew this.

But I was wrong, Judith. What does the Torah tell us? That the Name once moved upon the water; that He broke bread with Abraham, that He wrestled with Jacob and broke his thigh, that He buried Moses in the clay beside the Jordan. But now the Temple is a ruin, the people of Moses are scattered, and we have lost even the Name. For so long, I have stood on the edge of the chasm which separates us, demanding that He explain.

When you married Eleizer, and you covered your hair, I thought you were abandoning me. But you were seeking after the Name which I had abandoned, unafraid to cast your forgiveness into the depths of the mystery. If you were unafraid, even as a child, why have I hesitated for so long?

It is late. I am tired. Tomorrow, I will anoint myself with oil, I will bathe in the font, and I will speak His terrible name. When the sun rises, I will stand before my broken father, and the fathers who were broken before him, as someday you will stand before me, as someday you will stand before Him.

I will be held to account for my absence.

I will hold the Name to account for His.

And I will forgive Him.

I love you, I love you,
Father

In light of this new information, on ██/██/████, the Incident Review Board altered its conclusion and recommendation: prior to entry, Dr. Kahn was suffering from religious mania brought on by exposure to SCP-1348-02. As a result, the Foundation now concludes that haplotype CMH-6 does not provide effective protection to ritual-associated memetic effects.

CONCLUSION: Per O5-07, C-1348-B containment procedures are suspended. Remaining C-1348-B personnel are to be treated with amnestics and quarantined until verifiably cleared of all memories related to SCP-1348-02. Upon retraction of the veil, C-1348-A is to immediately execute Protocol 228-MELECHAH.

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