Éditions Gueoula · Jerusalem, Israel
Crude
Awakening
A Geopolitical Thriller
✦
David Goldberg
Éditions Gueoula
Jerusalem, Israel
gueoula.com
contact: david@gueoula.com
First Edition, 2026
Copyright
Copyright © 2026 by David Goldberg. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Published by Éditions Gueoula, Jerusalem, Israel
www.gueoula.com
contact: david@gueoula.com
First Edition, 2026
ISBN: [to be completed]
Legal Disclaimer. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or places is purely coincidental.
The geopolitical scenarios described in this novel, including references to Iran, Israel, oil infrastructure, and intelligence operations, are fictional constructs for narrative purposes only and do not represent the views or positions of any government, organization, or institution.
Dedication
To Myriam —
the blessing of this house,
the light that makes everything possible.
This book, like all the others,
begins and ends with you.
Epigraph
"The earth holds oil.
Truth holds Torah.
Dig deep enough,
and you will find both."
— David Goldberg
Acknowledgments
This book would not exist without Myriam, whose patience, wisdom, and unwavering faith have shaped every chapter from the first word to the last. She read before anyone else, asked the questions that mattered, and believed even when believing was harder than doubting. She is the pillar of everything I build.
To the city of Jerusalem, which teaches every day that the most important battles are fought in silence, in conscience, and in the small hours of the night when no one is watching.
To the readers of Éditions Gueoula — in France, in Israel, and now in the English-speaking world — who believed that a Torah-inspired thriller could change the way they see the news and the wisdom of their ancestors: this book exists because of you.
Am Yisrael Chai.
— David Goldberg, Jerusalem, 2026
Author's Note
The oil economy described in this novel draws on real geopolitical dynamics. The vulnerability of Middle Eastern pipeline infrastructure to hybrid cyberattacks is a documented concern among energy security analysts. The financial incentives to engineer artificial oil price shocks are real. The characters who pursue them are fictional. The world in which they operate is not.
The Torah's influence on this thriller is not decoration. Every halachic concept, every Talmudic reference, every spiritual principle cited by Yonatan Eliyahu is authentic, sourced, and accurate. A glossary is provided at the end of this volume for readers unfamiliar with Jewish law and mysticism.
The story you are about to read takes place across nineteen days. It begins with a signal in the dark and ends with a light being lit for the first time. Between those two moments, everything that could be built between two people is built — against a clock, across three continents, inside an architecture that neither of them designed.
The architecture held.
Glossary
Akara
A woman who is unable to conceive. In Torah tradition, several of the greatest matriarchs — Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel — were akara before they were blessed with children. The word carries no shame in the original. It carries history.
Baruch HaShem
Literally: "Blessed be God." An expression of gratitude or acknowledgment used in everyday speech and at significant moments. The two words a man says when the thing he has been working toward for nineteen days is finally done.
Emunah
Faith — but not the passive, waiting kind. Emunah is active: the decision to keep moving when the ground is still forming. It is not the absence of doubt. It is the response to doubt that chooses motion over paralysis.
Grama
Indirect causation of damage — a central concept in the Talmudic tractate Bava Kama. You do not harm someone directly; you set a chain of events in motion and the harm occurs as a consequence. The tradition spent centuries asking how many steps can exist between an action and its harm before moral liability ends. It never fully resolved the question. It understood, however, that intentional indirection does not diminish moral responsibility.
Hadlakat Hanerot
The lighting of the Shabbat candles, traditionally performed by the woman of the house eighteen minutes before sunset on Friday. After lighting, she covers her eyes, recites the blessing, and then uncovers them — seeing the light for the first time. Every week, for a fraction of a second, the familiar is encountered as genuinely new.
Hala
The mitzvah of separating a portion of dough when baking bread — one of the three commandments traditionally ascribed to the Jewish woman. The portion is separated, a blessing is said, and what was ordinary flour and water participates in something larger than the making.
HaKadosh Baruch Hu
"The Holy One, Blessed be He." A traditional designation for God used in rabbinic literature and daily speech.
Huppah
The wedding canopy under which a Jewish couple is married. A four-posted structure, open on all sides — a new home, symbolically built in public, that the couple walks toward together.
Maariv
The evening prayer service, the third of the three daily prayers. Recited after nightfall. Non-negotiable in the life of an observant Jewish man, regardless of what else is happening.
Mikveh
A ritual immersion pool used for purification. Central to the laws of family purity: after the niddah period and seven clean days, the wife immerses in the mikveh, which marks the renewal of the physical relationship. The act is hers — her preparation, her transition, her consecration.
Niddah
The laws of family purity governing the physical relationship between husband and wife according to the wife's monthly cycle. During the niddah period, husband and wife live in a different register — close, present, fully partners in everything except physical contact. The suspension is not deprivation. It is the price of the renewal, and the renewal is worth the price.
Pikuach Nefesh
The principle that saving a human life takes precedence over virtually every other commandment in Jewish law. Two words spoken in the back of a Dubai taxi at 02:51 in the morning, to name precisely the line between a field dressing and everything that is not a field dressing.
Shacharit
The morning prayer service, the first of the three daily prayers. Recited after dawn. A man who prays Shacharit every morning has, by the time he arrives at a briefing room, already had one conversation with something larger than the briefing.
Shmirat Neguiah / Shomer Neguiah
The observance of not touching members of the opposite sex outside of marriage. Shomer (masculine) / shomeret (feminine). Not fear of the body — reverence for what the body is capable of doing without permission. The decision to reserve the most intimate channel of human contact for the person with whom one has chosen to share everything.
Tehilim
The Book of Psalms, recited in times of difficulty or danger. A small worn book, carried in the inside pocket of a jacket, against the chest. Present at every threshold.
Tsitsit
Fringes attached to a four-cornered garment worn by observant Jewish men, visible at the waist, as a reminder of the commandments. The detail you notice first about a man who is everything you did not expect to meet in a Mossad briefing room.