Exodus: Chapter 4

To send forth
put words in someone's mouth
can you be another's mouth?


Complex identities
strange meetings

learning to listen

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The chapter seamlessly continues the battle by the bush. Now Moses emerges not only as the one who "turns to see" but also as the one who fights. The same Moses who did not hesitate to smite the Egyptian and to reprimand the two Hebrews, now openly contradicts God: "they will not believe me, they will listen to me." The linkage between sight and sound that dominated the previous chapter, develops to a connection between faith and listening.
And the central leiword: sending forth. How does one act in another's stead? Moses is to act for God; Aaron is to act for Moses. A merging of identities, and for the first time in the Bible,the primal  threat of "sending forth the hand" (shelihut yad) is used in a positive sense. There is a way to extend identity without grasping what is not meant for you.
Edenic themes abound: Sending forth the hand; the serpent, and the words shared between Aaron and Moses' mouths--an echo of the creation of Man, where God "breathes in" life, and Man begins to speak)

Exodus 3: In Writing

To see and be seen

fire-flicker in the wild

pulsing to the silent beat of the heart

Take of your shoes

Stand naked on holiness

Can one call-called

And be unconsumed?

        ***

Eternity in change

burning but uneaten

blazing but still

seen in disguise

I will be

as I was

my name

in generation

turn to see

and see you looking

cover your face

for fear of sight

through water and flame

I am here

 the pressure bearing down

What is a name

to be what will be

the force that bears you

the eternity in your ear

I am your past

the names you've spoken

the words you know

the inner silence

the carrying hand

the arching arm

I am

what always was

what makes you here

Exodus: Chapter 3

To be seen
to be heard
to be known

What is in a name?

Entering history
the future is here

burning, but not consumed














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This chapter continues with the leitwords of seeing and being seen, and the thematic emphasis on naming.
Moses is first saved by being seen by his mother and Pharaoh's daughter. His first act as an adult is to go out "and see" his brothers' suffering. Here, at this definitive moment, an angel "shows himself" (va-yera) to Moses, and Moses "turns aside to see" (ve-ereh). When God "sees" that "he has turned aside to see (lirot)", he calls to Moses by name. The encounter by the burning bush is a mutual, intimate gaze, with all the danger that implies: "and Moses covered his face, for he was afraid to gaze." Moses can be defined as the one who turns aside to look, by that extra awareness and care.
As in the introductory paragraph, gaze turns to listening,and  listening turns to knowledge, an intertwined related trio: "And God  saw...and God knew" "and God heard...and God saw...and God knew" "I have seen...and have heard their screams...for I know..."
In the intimate mutual gaze, the quest for freedom turns into a need to give the redeeming God (who until now speaks as the impersonal power, elokim) a name. : "I will be with you" turns into "I will be what I will be," which becomes " I will be" and finally turns into the personal Name of God, placed within the context of history: "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob." This local relationship turns into "this is my name forever, and my memory for every generation." God is the God if covenant, defined by the relationship to humanity.]

Exodus 2: In Writing

space between
time between
many days
where names and faces fade

on the banks
between water and earth
earth and sky
future and past
being and death
us and them

floating on the deeps
beneath watchful eyes
soft hands
I am
yours, and yours, and yours

the hidden of things
carried within
buried in the reeds
open it up
call me by name
see me,
and know

Exodus: Chapter 2

On the banks
between

drawn from the waters

between knowledge and seeing


called by name















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We continue the strange links to the blessings that closed Genesis. Joseph's blessing were defined by incredible fertility ("blessings of breasts and womb"); and the bringing together of the upper and lower waters that flooded the world in the Deluge. Now, out of that fearful fecundity comes a single child who is laid in an ark to traverse the deeps. He echoes Joseph in his "cries". The preternatural fecundity of the previous chapter now narrows to a specific marriage, pregnancy, and birth. The drowning dangers of the Nile waters now become a source of salvation.
 The chapter opens with a mysterious, mythic no-name sequence is dominated by women: the nameless Hebrew mother who then nurses and raises the child; the "sister" (somehow older than the child that seemed to come immediately in the wake of the marriage); the "daughter of Pharaoh" with her bevy of maids. There seems to be a conspiracy of silence to save the child, whose cries tie the women together:" ve-hine naar bohe--and behold, a weeping boy"--echoing in the language used to define Joseph, the "naar" who consistently "weeps". The "daughter of Pharaoh" knows that the baby is "of the children of the Hebrews" and must suspect the identity of the Hebrew woman who offers herself as a nursemaid. Yet all she says is "take this child and nurse it, and I will give you your wages."
The child remains in an un-named liminal state, between two mothers, between water and earth, floating "on the banks" of the river.
Moses is defined as "growing" twice, two separate elements of maturity, each of which seem to define a different element of liminality. He first "grows" and is brought by his birth-mother to "Pharaoh's daughter".  This bringing is the beginning of definition: he becomes the son of "Pharaoh's daughter"--rather than floating between two mothers--and  is finally given a name (a re-introduction of names to the hitherto anonymous narrative).
The second "growing" defines him as being between two nationalities. He is "an Egyptian man," yet he goes to be with "his brothers," still seeing himself as a Hebrew.
Moses remains "in between," on the cusp of the thematic waters ("for I have drawn him from the waters"), not truly belonging anywhere)

Exodus 1: In Writing

the open fecund womb
laboring ceaslessly
we are the floating, fleeting fish
forgotten and forgetting
how to swim
falling down, down, down
under the weight of many waters
teaming with bottomless being

Exodus: Chapter 1

Blessing and curse

drowning in the deeps

wild animals
fish-like herds

turned to death
















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Exodus continues directly from Genesis, the two books bridged by the re-iteration of the names of the sons of Israel. And then the fanality: "And Joseph died, and all his brothers, and that entire generation."
The tolling of death sets the tone for a chapter that is marked by an almost preternatural fecundity on the one side, and the presence of death on the other: "the girls let live, but kill every boy."The chapter keeps developing the motifs of Jacob's final blessings in Genesis, but here they are turned to curses. The animal imagery turns into a hate of the children of Israel, who "swarm" (ve-yishretuzu) and are "like wild animals." The blessing of the "waters below" and fish-like fertility given to Joseph ("Let them be like fish in the bowels of the earth") here turns  into death by casting into the river. The ability to birth the future (nolad, yalad) is directly attacked by the order to kill "on the birthing stool" (me-yaldot, be-yaldehem, ha-yeladim), an attampt to turn the teaming womb to death. The dark undertones of the closing of Genesis come out to the open)

On to Exodus...

Basked in the warmth of completing Genesis for a day. Want to do a siyyum summing up my thoughts about the book, but think that--in time honored tradition--I will push that off until a more auspicious day, when I have enough time to breath and articulate it properly.

In the meantime, i don't want to break the momentum, so onward to Exodus it is. The truth is, I can't think of a better way to go in to Pesach, and it is a fitting end to  a day that included matzah baking...

For Exodus, I've chosen a small spiral notebook filled with brown newsprint. something in its simplicity feels right for a book that begins in slavery.

This time, I will be drawing in conte pencils. I liked the sketchy, erasable quality of pencil for Genesis, which is about a world in formation, not quite gelled into itself. For Exodus, I wanted something that continued with that primal feel, but had more permanence and complexity. I like the fact that the conte continues in monochrome, but that the addition of the white adds another level of density.
So onwards we go!

Genesis 50: In Writing

We fall

down, down, down

fronting gaping guilt

To be carried

Up, over, through

fall on your face

crags and crevice

of absence

sink in the weight of weeping

How can we carry the past?

the salt flow

bears you down the river

and up from here

I sink in a box

in a pit, in loss

reduced to essence

earth-bone

earth-borne

Can we return

a heavy camp

laden with years?

carry our load

carry our blame

 Come and come back?

solitary

I birth the future on my knees

can’t stand in place

just let the salt waves carry me

down, down

There will come a time of calling

of deeds enduring

unfurling down the road

 promise to carry me

bear the weight of account

what was sent down

must be brought up

hear my call

raise your hand

take mine

bring me forth from hence

Genesis: Chapter 50

Oaths
and future oaths


the lurking deeps



Who will go up?
Who falls?


Carry me

[For full chapter, click here
This closing of Genesis also serves to introduce Exodus. A chapter full of closures, but also hints of slavery and redemption. The oath fulfilled is followed by an oath left unfulfilled, demanding answer.
Jacob is born in state back to Canaan, to be gathered in a moment of homecoming. Yet Joseph promises Pharaoh: "I will return." His hesitant request is a reminder of the fleeting of power, and a dark intimation of things to come. Though Joseph was "put" over Egypt by Pharaoh, in some ways he is still the passive object of Pharaoh's will, bound to Egypt unless granted permission to leave. And indeed, the verse specifies "The children and the animals remained behind"—in a foreshadowing of the later Pharaoh's demand for hostages.
With Jacob’s death, the binding holding the family together dissolves. “We will be your slaves,” the brothers beg, in another intimation of the awaiting enslavement. Joseph’s response not only closes this dark chapter in the family history, but also offers hope for future failures to come. The brothers ask, “Please bear (sa na) the sins of your brothers”—a prototype of Moses’ prayer in the aftermath of the Golden Calf “Please bear (sa na) the sins of this people”. Joseph responds “Do I stand in the place of God?” Failure is not irrevocable. In the end it can “be thought for good, to give life to many people."  Transgression is not erased. As in the case of the Golden Calf, there will be a process of accounting. Pakod yifkod, a precursor to God’s response to Moses: Be-yom pokdi u-pakadeti. Joseph asks a promise of restitution: you send me down here, now take me up. Undo what was done.
The book ends with this promise on hold: Joseph is put in a box, in Egypt. A reverberating cliffhanger. Going “up” from Egypt will not only be a national redemption, but also a spiritual one. Bringing Joseph up is a proof that there is restitution, that sin can be undone.]