In 1983, NSWAS opened a huge building, later capped with a white dome and set apart, within a landscaped garden environment, called the Doumia ("silence" in Biblical Hebrew). Hussar made a precise semantic distinction in Hebrew between "sheket" (absence of noise) and "dumia" (profound silence), associating the latter with the 'freshet of air, the voice of a subtle silence' Elijah heard in the desert according to the Book of Kings (19:12). In his later years, Hussar withdrew there, returning to his foundational notion of a place where prayer and meditation would play a formative role within his community, as the point of conjunction between the three Abrahamic faiths. He was even more culturally eucumenical, learning from a Japanese priest how to perform mass while practicing zazen. He was to break his retreat into silence on hearing of the news of the Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, which struck him as putting an end to illusions created by the peace previously envisaged as a result of the Oslo I Accord. He interpreted the assassination biblically as a sign of "aharit ha-yamim", the end of days, and