Joshua: Chapter 19

Count the cities

and  what sourounds

to weave an inheritance 

your plot of land

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This chapter continues allotment, the "lot / destiny" (goral) "falling" in an order that moves from the children of Leah, to those of the maidservant, Bilhaa and Zilpa. 

There is a fundmanetal difference between the inheritence of Simeon, and the allotments that came before. No trancing of a border that rises, falls, goes out and come in like a living thing. Instead, Simeon is swallowed "in the midst of the inheritence of Judah," and his inheritence consists of a list of cities "and the fields around these cities. This is the inheritence of the tribe of the Children of Simeon." Simeon's inheritence seems closer to that of Levi--"who does not inherit within the land", but is rather granted cities and fields--than to that of the tribes whose allotment preceded his. The early history of the family of Israel in Genesis which so impacted the inheritence of Judah and Joseph continues to resonate in this  return to the land, as Jacob's final curse of Levi and Simeon is expressed in their scattered inheritence.

This focus on cities continued to play out in the rest of the allotments , which all close with an enumeration of cities and villige which make up "the inheritence of the tribe." Cities, and the uber-cities-- fortresses--are at the center. The "writing" of the landscape by the surveyers who set up to walk and divide the land  has transformed it to a human space, with a focus on its  acculteration, the shaping to human needs. 

The focus on cities and kings, that has accompanied this book since its opening, here seeps into the until-now nomadic Children of Israel. In thedenumoix, the Children of Israel grant Joshua his inheritence: a single city of his very own]. 

Joshua: Chapter 18

Held in place on both sides

write yourslef into the land

with your feet

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"How long will you be slack in going to possess the land that God, the Lord of your fathers, has given you?" Joshua demands, when the nation finally "assembles" to recreate a national center. Ostensobly, this is a criticsm that reflects back on Joshua himslef--why has he been slack in completing the allotment that he began?

He continues, "Appoint for yourself three men for each tribe, and I will send them, and they shall rise, and walk through the land, and write it according to their lot, and come to me." Inheritence, it seems, is not passive. Like Abraham, the father to whom the land was promised, the tribes must "rise and walk" (hithalkh--a reflexive form of the verb, iimplying a self-reinforced walking, becoming walkers). And--as in Michel de Certeau "Walking in the City"--this walking becomes a kind of  language, the appointed men "writing" the land. The inherited land is not nuetral territory, but a textual landscape.

Judah's inheritence begins with Caleb's personal connection to Hebron, and the gifting of his daughter to the one who could conquer Kiryat Sefer (lit. "The City of the Book"); Joseph's inheritence holds within it all the painful history of favoritism and usurpation, as well as Jacob's choice of Ephraim. Now the other tribes must find their own viceral connection to the personal tract of land that "God, the Lord of your fathers, has given to you." Only then can the land be their own lot.]

Joshua: Chapter 17

Two or one

One or two

Who gets counted

Why does not

Who is seen

Who disappear? 

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This chapter continues the allotment of the tribe of "Joseph" begun in the previous one, this time detailing the inheritence of the children of Menasseh, "the first-born of Joseph". The themes of the previous chapter continue to resonate, becoming more explicit and extreme. The strange doublness of Joseph--both a single tribe given a single inhertence, and a double tribe receiving a dual inheritence, here comes out into the open. The inheritence of Josph is framed by this question of singlness and duality: the previous chapter begins by defining "the lot for the children of Joseph" before breaking off to define the detailed inheritence of Ephraim; this chapter follows the details of the inheritece of Mennasseh with the "sons of Joseph" coming to complain "Why have you given me one lot and one plot for an inheritence?" The schitsophrenic split between individuality and group identity is reflected in the syntax: even as the tribe of Josph demands a dual inheritence, they speak of themselves in the singlular--"Why did you give me". The utter intertwining of these two tribes is emphasized in the details of Menasseh's inheritence, which is punvtuated by cities that belong to Ephraim. We cannot detail his allotment, without detailing his brother's as well.

On the other hand, the dulaity of Josph's inheritence is here further exsaserbated by the fact that Menasshe is split in two, effectivly inheriting two different sections--one on the west side and one on the east side of the Jordan. The eastern section goes to "Menasseh's first-born", drawing attention to that strange insistence in teh opening verse: "Menasseh, the first-born of Joseph." Indeed, biblically, the first-born is meant to inherit an extra portion. Jacob, in his love to Joseph, gave that double portion to him.  We return to early history of the tribes in Genesis, which has been resonating in teh background since "tribe of Judah" first "approached Joshua-of-Joseph. When Joseph brought his two children to be blessed by Jacob, Jacob gave preference to Ephraim over Menasseh, and Joseph protests, insisting on Menasseh's promigeniture. Both elements continue to resonate here, in the allotment of these tribes. Ephraim is indeed given presedence to Mennaseh, but then the text return to insist that Menasseh is the first born. This contested promigeniture is central to the tribe's identity: this is the only place where the "first born" of a tribe gets a serperate inheritence, neighboring Reuben, another displaced eldest.

Yet in addition to the continued agon with Ephraim, Menasseh's inheritence introduces a completly new element: the question of female inheritence. For the first time, when counting the "children" of Menasseh, the chapter goes out of its way to explicate that they are "male." This is because for the first time, females are also inheriting. The daughters of Tzolphad rise from th ebackground, and break the default story of exclusivly male inheritence. 

In doing so, they also allow for the recollection of the one child of Jacob who receives no mention in this story of inheritence: Dina, daughter of Jacob, who was raped in Shechem and then disappeared from the story of the family.  Menasseh's inheritence begins in "Shechem" (17: 7) and one of his sons is named for that city (and for Dina's rapist), "Shechem" (17 :2).   In the acknowlegment of daughters, her story begins to rise as well],   

Joshua: Chapter 16

Are we one or two

Emeshed in each other

We have no seperate space

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This chapter continues the allotment of the Land to the tribes. From the inheritence of Judah, we move on to detail the inheritence of Joseph. The loaded word "approach" (g'sh), which introduced the interaction between he tribe of Judah and Joshua-of-Joseph in chapter 14 sets into place the allusion to the historic reapproachment of the brothers back in Genesis, which continues to resonate.Alotting the Land is returning to the issues of competition and jealousy that drove apart the brothers in Genesis. Joseph and Judah dominate that story, and it is they that lead the inheritence, in the dual figures of Joshua and Caleb, each of who leads the Land to "rest from war."

"This is the lot of the children of Joseph" opens the chapter, seemingly presenting a single inheritence. Yet Joseph was given the gift of a dual inheritence, and this tension of two-in-one drives the chapter. The chapter begins by presenting a single boundary, "going up from Jericho" (a fitting inheritence for Joseph, the only one of Jacob's sons to never "takes" what is not his).   Yet then it splits, "This is the border of the children of Ephraim." While this might seem to create a clear demarcation within the single block of "Joseph," Ephraim retains "the cities and their villages set aside for the children of Ephraim in the midst of the inheritence of the children of Menasse." The two brothers remain intertwined,  swallowed one within the other. This lack of seperation is echoed in the fact that Ephraim does not completly conquer their territory, but rather ingest the Canannites inhabitants, who "dwelt in the midst of Ephraim, unto this day, and became servants to do taskwork".

If the tribe of Menasse is split, its two sides becoming the sinews holding the two sides of the Jordan together, the tribe of Ephraim also lacks a unified contiguity. There is something in Joseph, beloved, desired, that evades the strict boundaries of self-and-other.]

Deuteronomy: Chapter 33

from word

to blessing

draw it together

Waters above

waters below

pain of not-love

lack 

of knowledge

let us live and not die

let us be one in You

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We come to Moses' final address to the Children of Israel. After a whole book of "the words that Moses spoke"--a book of exhortation, rebuke, warning, promise--Moses "made an end of speaking all the words" (32: 45), and begins is another kind of address: blessing. "And this is the blessing that Moses the man of God blessed the Children of Israel before his death."

In closing with a blessing, the final book of the Torah takes us back to the closing of the first book. Genesis also closes with a blessing before death--Jacob's final blessings to his sons.

These two closings are indeed linked by multiple intertextual allusions. At the opening of the blessing, Moses declares that we are dealing with the "inheritance of Jacob," and closes by declaring Israel "the spring of Jacob." As in Genesis, these blessing combine a focus on the future with a look back on the past. As in Genesis, the blessings are performative, and interweave a whole from the disparate parts. As in Genesis, the leitword is asaf, to gather, to bring together: "And there was in Yeshurun a king, when the heads of the nation were gathered, all together, the tribes of Israel,"

Like Jacob, Moses brings "together, all the tribes of Israel"  by interweaving the children of the various mothers, erasing the painful divisiveness of Jacob's family by creating new connections. Jacob created his new whole by cross-hatching the liminal surrogate children of the maidservants,  not quite Rachel's, not quite Leah's, making them the binder for the two sides of the family, interlinking Rachel and Leah's children through their proxies. Moses follows in Jacob's path, interlinking Bilhal's Dan with Zilpa's Gad through the imagery of the lion; and Zilpah's Asher with Bilha's Naphtali, through the key-word "ratzon" (desire, will). Yet Moses is more ambitious, and actually creates a matrix that unites Rachel and Leah's children directly: Levi, who has renounced all particular loyalties serves as the glue, allowing Benjamin and Joseph to be couched between Judah and Zebulun. 

Once again, Joseph seems to act as a primal binding force, as he merges the waters above and the  "deeps lurking below," reconnecting the split "waters above, and the waters below" that have not merged since the Deluge. Gad also returns to the primal "beginning" (Reishit) that opened the Bible. Throughout, the blessings bind through returning to "the eternal hills," "the ancient earth." Bringing "together, all the tribes of Israel" is tied to going all the way back to the primal divisions of creation, bringing together air, water, seas, sand and hills--all the natural phenomena that define these blessings. 

The centrality of Joseph in the blessing serves as a reminder that the question of redemption in Genesis is linked to bringing Joseph back, to undoing his sale and exile. 

Return to central. In the end, it is the Land itself that will  will act as a binder. In living within the "everlasting hills" Israel will actually, metaphysically, be living living within God: "The eternal God is a dwelling place, and beneath are the everlasting arms... and Israel dwelleth in safety, the spring of Jacob alone, in a land of grain and wine, and his heavens drop down dew."]

Numbers: Chapter 32

What you see

And what is given 

to be taken

We separate

even as we connect

the bonds that tie

Reflected, refracted 

We reach across waters

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After the bringing of the booty in the previous chapter, this chapter highlight the cost of possession. The key word is "mikne"--commonly used as "cattle", but literally "possession, that which was bought": "Now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle (mikne); and they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, and behold, the place was a place for cattle". As is thematic in Genesis, the increase of possession leads to a break between "brothers" (a'h--another key word of this chapter). The tribes of Reuben and Gad of-the-many-possession desire to split from the rest of the children of Israel: "we will not inherit with them on yonder side of the Jordan or forward, because our inheritance has fallen to us on this side of the Jordan to the east". Not for nothing is the tribe of Menasseh, that eventually joins them, suddenly identified as "Menasseh son of Joseph": the chapter is raising the specter of the primal split between "brothers" : the sale of Joseph for "profit".
 In a book for of echoes and recreations, this is the most dangerous reverberation yet. Much of the Book of Numbers recreates the earlier books of the Torah: The complaints about the Manna; the demand for meat; the lack of water. Often, the tale of the first generation that left Egypt is retold within the second generation. This is especially accentuated here, when Moses literally re-tells the saga of the wilderness (ba-midbar--the Hebrew name for this book), fearing a twice-told tale, in which the children repeat the sins of the fathers: "behold, you have risen up in your fathers’ stead, an increase of sinful men, to add to God's flaming toward Israel.  For if you turn away from Him, He will yet again leave them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all this people.”
Moses seems to be right on mark in identifying a danger here. There are indeed echoes of the sage of the spies: if the spies were sent to "see the land," and end up  rejecting the "place" (makom--another key word) that "God has given"; Reuben and Gad "see the land" that isn't theirs, and ask for it to be "given" to them: an inversion between seeing, and not wanting what is yours, to seeing and wanting what is not yours. 
Disaster is averted, however, by making the eastern tribe's inheritance contingent on that of their "brothers'. If they bind up their fate with the rest of Israel's, then the nation itself will "give" them the land.]

Goodbye to Exodus

“And these are the names of the children of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family… Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, and the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, and increased in numbers” Those opening verses set into place the themes of the Book of Names (the Hebrew name of Exodus) as a whole. We have moved from the primordial, archetypal Genesis, that deals with the creation of the individual identity, of the self. Now we must find a name for the nameless masses, the meaning of the self within the context of the many.

The book of Genesis deals with the “chronicles of Man as he was being created.” It revolves around the interrelationship of the individual with the world. Its central metaphor is hands: how do we  handle and manipulate our environment. The key repeating phrase is “ve-yishlach yado—to send forth the hand”: “And now, lest he send forth his hand and eat from the tree of life” introduced the exile from Eden; “Do not send forth your hand against the boy” closes the demand for the sacrifice of Isaac; “I told you not to send forth your hand against the youth” Reuben cries after the sale of Joseph. Letting go versus holding on; learning how to relate to Other. The book revolves around ever-intensifying painful relations between sibling and sibling, and man and woman: the two main patterns of Otherness. It closes with Joseph’s acceptance of the wrong his brothers have done him; balanced by Judah’s acceptance of the fact that Rachel—and only Rachel—holds Jacob's heart. The self has learned to accept the independence of other.  

Exodus is the next stage. Having moved beyond the placement of  self within family (Genesis), we now begin to deal with the birth of a nation. And it is a unique story of nationhood that begins in being stripped of all elements of identity. This is the faceless generation that has no land and has no name, birthing “like animals.” It is a story of nationhood that begins in powerlessness.

 Yet the painful acceptance of otherness that introduces this story opens the possibility of a different mode of identity. Not the certainty of power and choice, but relationship to absolute Other—God.  The key images of this book are “eyes” and “ears”; to “see” “hear” “smell”: from a focus on the hands, we move to a focus on the face. This is the book of learning to communicate “face to face.” Moses, the liminal figure who is “drawn from the waters” remaining always “on the banks” between heaven and earth ,God and man, is central for this connection.

For it is not a simple process. Rather, it requires transformations on both sides. “What shall I say Your name is?” Moses asks, and God changes names within communication—from the impersonal “powers” (Elohim) to the “Almighty power” (el shaddai) to the God of history who will “be what He will be”, and who bears a  personal Name. Israel also is transformed, in a protracted year-long process. The Exodus is dominated by birth-imagery: from the preternatural fecundity of the opening chapter, to the bloody doorways that birth the nation, to the passage through the waters that spits the despairing slaves out on the other side as a free people. “My firstborn child, Israel” “opens the womb,” and all that “open the womb”, whether human or animal, are consecrated.  Birthing a child begins a process. The opening of the womb of the Sea of Reeds is followed by the “testing” of the  terrible twos: tantrums about food  and attention, doubts about love.

The parent-child imagery becomes entwined with metaphors of infatuation and young love (maybe they are not so far apart as we think…) Not for nothing did the prophets describe the Exodus as “the grace of your youth, the love of your bridal days. You followed Me through the wilderness, in an untamed land.” The passage through the wilderness is a dance of approach and retreat, closeness and distance. The lead-up to Sinai is accompanied by a demand for greater and greater closeness, coupled with existential uncertainty: “Is God amongst us or nothingness?” Again and again, God imposes boundaries, which Israel “test”: “and they gazed upon God and ate and drank.”  Yet consummation (both meanings) breeds not certainty, but the need for distance and escape. The relationship is too overbearing, a complete crushing of the self. “Speak you to us, but let not God speak to us lest we die.” In the aftermath of Sinai, we begin the translation of God to humanity, bringing God down to earth.

The creation of the Dwelling is a myse-en-abyme for the book as a whole, a point-counterpoint of self and other, closeness and distance,   the accommodation (in both senses!) of God an humanity. We begin with God’s “pattern,” his “command” to Moses. This is vision dominated by the unified keruvim, locked together, but forever apart, each on a separate side. This must pass through the prism of Bezalel, who will translate it into physicality. Yet the translation of revelation into material brings a counter movement from Israel, who rush in to create the Golden Calf—an attempt at complete closeness, without the burden and threat of Other.

Moses once again steps into the breach.He brings God to acknowlege that “no man can see My face and live.” The relationship to humanity must be slant, to the back, rather than direct revelation. Thus, He accedes to Moses' request for forgiveness “You must walk within us.” God will indeed “be what He will be,” revealed in the walking, in the process, rather than directly.

This opens a space for human action, and in the next chapter, the people begin to build the Dwelling, transforming God’s vision with their own desires and “hearts.” Moses stands at the center, uniting their disparate parts back to the initial ideal that “he had seen on the mountain.”

The book closes when the pieces come together, and the Dwelling suddenly ignites, “a pillar of fire by night.” There is a synergy in the growth of a nation. In the end, the whole is greater than the sum of separate parts, greater than the individuals who dominated the Book of Genesis. Moses cannot even enter the Dwelling that he created. This allows a new unity of God and humanity. Not the painful separated unity of the keruvim, who are of “a single mass,” gazing at each other, but divided by the breath of their wings. Rather, it is a unity that comes of  “walking together”: “when the cloud rose, the people would rise and travel.” In the year that followed the birthing of the nation in the womb of Egypt, a new relationship has been built. "For the cloud of God  dwelt above the Dwelling by day, and fire was over it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys." God and humanity journey together, within "sight" of each other, essentially unknown and Other, but fully present.

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

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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.]

Genesis 49: In Writing

To entangle

hold together

the still calm on the face of the deeps

while predators prowl within

between world mountains

gape the cracks

spewing wrath

too sharp to swallow

The more the is

the more escapes

open your arms

is anything left?

Wavering water

reflecting the looming dark above

the lurking deeps

the flick of the dove wing

brooding, prey in beak

if only we could merge,

mingle in my waters

without breaking forth

to drown the earth

Genesis: Chapter 49

To gather
and be gathered in


bless
and stream out
the simmering tensions

spreading above
lurking below
















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The focus on the future introduced in the last chapter gains prominence here, as we move to eschatological poetry about "the end of days." Yet s the focus on the past, on "gathering in" the threads of a life,, is heightened as well. Erich Auerbach's characterization of the biblical text as "fraught with background" is particularly apt here, where years worth of tension suddenly emerge from hiding. Reuben's sin with Bilha was presented baldly and passed over without commentary. Yet it simmered in the background, in Reuben's desperate need to atone, his offer of his two children in place of Benjamin. Now, nearly four decades later, Jacob finallyspeaks: "Reuben, you were my firstborn; my strength, the beginning of my might... wavering as water, you shall exceed no longer." There is no true forgiveness. Likewise, comes the response to the massacre of Shechem, fraught with implicit accusations regarding the attack on Joseph. "Let my soul not come in their council," Jacob declares, "scattering" Levi and Simeon throughout Israel.
Yet the leitword remains the opposite: "to gather" (asaf, yosef): "gather together" "group, oh Sons of Jacob" "gathered to his father" "gathered his feet" "gathered to his people" and of course, the beloved Yosef, the "gatherer."  This final address is an attempt to weave the family together. The blessing intrelink not only by animal imagery, and the relation to food and drink,and repetitive words (teref, rovetz), but also by their order. Jacob does not bless his sons by order of their birth . Rather there is a nested chiastic structure, framed by Leah/ Rachel, with Bilha (Rachel's surrogate) and Zilpa (Leah's surrogate) nestled between. The liminal surrogate children, not quite Rachel's, not quite Leah's, serve as the binder for the two sides of the family. Jacob interweaves  them: Bilhal's Dan is paired with Zilpa's Gad, interlinked by the imagery of the akev, the heel, and a focus on public life; Zilpah's Asher is paired to Bilha's Naphtali,  united by the key-word "giving" (latet), and a focus on  the mouth, with Asher providing food to balance Naftali's "sweet words."
The centerpiece is the gatherer, Yosef, who acts here as an almost cosmic force, reuniting Creation's primordial divisions. He is given "The blessings of the heaven's above, the blessings of the tehom lurking under," reconnecting the split "waters above, and the waters below" that have not merged since the Deluge. Male and female also reunite, as he is given the phallic bow and arrows, and the blessing of "breasts and womb" (a crystallization of Joesph's leitmotif of androgyny). The book closes by returning to its primordial openings]

Genesis: Chapter 46

A return to dreams

Once again, I am here

what goes down
will come up


hands and eyes
grow tender














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Jacob's return to life, is a return to dreams. After the protracted mourning, he suddenly has "visions in the night." The alienation and dissolution of the missing years begin to heal. Jacob is once again "hineni", fully present. God is once again the God "of your father", and Jacob's sons are once again his sons, the dead and lost included in the total, gone,but not forgotten. The dead Rachel is resurrected, at last acknowledged as "the wife of Jacob."
Yet the hints of darkness in the last chapter become here explicit. The "going down" to Egypt is fearful. God must promise that there will be a rise, and ability to escape this pit (e'ale, gam ale). Reverberating is the covenant: "You will know, surely know, that your children will be strangers in a land not their own, and they will be enslaved and afflicted (ya-anu)..."
Here, God makes Joseph's redefinition of the narrative in the previous chapter definitive: the darkness of the "going down" will be the source of life: "I will make you there into a great nation." Or, in Joseph's words: "God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction (oni)" The continuity between generations offers comfort. God promises Jacob that Joseph will be there at his death to "lay his hands over your eyes". Instead of an agonizing decent into the Pit mourning his son, a peaceful sleep, and an eventual "rise." Death--an exile--are  no longer fearful: "I will die now, after I see you face, for you are still alive."
In a final knitting together of the shattered family, Jacob "sends" Judah forth forth to Joseph, as he had once "sent" Joseph to look for his brothers, in a chiastic closing that gives Judah a place in his father's trust.)

Genesis 45: In Writing

To make the night soft

loose my hands

and let the cavernous cry free

to roar outside

reverberate

and come home

To clasp you

neck on neck

lip to lip

feel my skin by yours

tears meeting in a murmur

that fills the silence

shadows solidify

to the shape of your heart

Turn the depths 

to rest

save the remnant,

what  survives the searing winds of life

For life God has send me hither

Do you hear me

make the world with my voice?

present in your gaze?

Speak to me

And in the vibrating voices

The fallen begin  to breath

Genesis: Chapter 45

A return to life
before death




To be seen
to be heard




The reverberating cry











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The denouement, and another closure.
The chapter once again continues seamlessly from the previous one, with no break in the Masoretic text. The leitwords are the same, with a focus on the gaze, seeing, eyes, and the face (panim). 
Yet if Joseph had previously controlled himself (ve-yitapek) and the situation, here he can no longer be restrained (lo yakhol le-hitapek).  In recreating--and reversing--his sale into slavery through the confrontation regarding Benjamin, Joseph breaks something loose. His cries, which were ignored and silenced by his brothers at the time of the sale, echo throughout Egypt, shaking Pharaoh's house. Once unheard, he is now heard; unseen, he is now seen.
Emotions are now pushed to their outer limits. If Joseph cannot control himself, his brothers also "cannot" (lo yokhlu) respond to him--an echo of their initial inability (lo yokhlu) to speak "peace to him". Yet even if the relationship is not fully resolved the brothers have at least discovered one thing they care about in common: Jacob.
Joseph regains control be redefining the narrative, turning what was bad to good. If Joseph was "dead" he is now "alive" (another key word in the chapter). The sale was  not a breakdown, but rather a continuation, of Jacob "sending" him to seek the peace of his brothers.God Himself "send me here to bring life (lemihya shelahani)." Following this reversal, the verb "to go down" (laredet) which previously indicated imprisonment, slavery, and  the Pit, now becomes a source of hope and peace: "quickly bring my father down."
The chapter closes with a final undoing of the sale: First Joseph was let out of the pit, and now Jacob at last emerges from his living hell, as his spirit "revives".
Yet this reversal of evil  to good, of death to life, is fragile: " I will go and see him before I die" says Jacob, indicating a temporary resurrection,  and indeed, the chapter is rife with hints of the enslavement to come. "Going down" might have come to mean reconciliation and peace, but  it retains the threat of "we will all remain here as slaves.")

Genesis 44: In Writing

“Why have you exchanged evil  for good?”

How can you exchange at all?

The isolated moment

we perish, each alone

the hidden escapes

the stranglehold

Let me go

for morning comes

and ghosts scatter

with the coming day

I will not let you go

but follow

night shadow

into the gaping hole

at soul-center

the agony that beckons

I will not let you go

without a name

the moment of acceptance

sans struggle

or healing wound

first born

last chosen

stand in place

my life for yours

dark-hued core

pulsing love

there is only one

we are the periphery

the fading edge

step in, bring the beloved

not be

so they can be

What to say?

What to do?

What to justify?

The blood screams from the earth

Swallows my cries

No good, no evil

futility of possession

I cannot be present in your face

Can only make him present

I am the proxy

soul bound to soul

enwrapped in both

unseen binder

that at last looks into your face

Genesis: Chapter 44

"What is the deed you
have done?"



Reiteration
Recreation



Who is exposing whom?
What is the exchange?












[for full chapter, see here
The issues set into place in the last two chapters come to a head. The issue of exchange and commodification is highlighted ad absurdum. Once again, the money (kesef) is returned; this time, with the addition of the silver (kesef) cup planted in Benjamin's bag. "Why have you exchanged bad in place (tahat) good?" thunders the steward, utterly ignoring the glistening money sitting at the top of all the opened bags. Only the personalized cup (gevi-i) matters. The full power of Judah's bond is the counterpoint: not value, but an existential bond, a life for a life: "Your servant-slave (avdeha) has bound himself for the youth to his father...Let your slave/servant stay in place (tahat) the youth as a slave to my master, and he shall go up with his brothers."
 "With this you will be tested," Joseph informed his brothers, "when your youngest brother comes here." The hidden issue resonating since Joseph saw "his brother, son of his mother" now comes to the open. The jealousy and breakdown has always been about Rachel--most beloved, always hovering on  the edge of "nothing". "Is it not enough you have taken my husband?" Leah had accused, denying her sister any place in the family. The sale of Joseph reflected the same impulse. Now Joseph recreates the situation with Benjamin, who becomes the "enenu"--the one "that is not," in a thrice-repeated echo of Reuben's despairing cry upon finding Joseph gone.
A change has taken place in the "many days." Judah's matter-of-fact, unemotional approach comes is defense of the relationships he had attempted to reduce to commerce. "He remains alone from his mother, and my father loves him" "My father had said: 'You know that my wife birthed me two sons." This bald re-iteration conveys the emotional truth powering Reuben's desperate offer of killing his two sons--Joseph and Benjamin are the only ones who matter. Yet even as Judah conveys what had driven the brothers to sell Joseph in the first place, he also repeatedly denounces himself: "we will send our father's old age in agony to the Pit."  The attempt to save Benjamin is the acceptance of guilt and a responsibility beyond emotion, rejection and pain.]

Genesis: Chapter 43

 

What do you ask for
and from whom
do you ask?


money returns infinity
can be doubled
redoubled
worth nothing















[For full chapter, click here
This chapter follows seamlessly from the previous. We are still dealing with the recreation of the sale, and its aftermath, with a play on the same key words "return" "to take" lakaha; hands; "slave/servant"--and most of all, "money" (kesef, repeated a dizzying 9 times ). We at last come to the central issue of commodification and possession: "What is the profit in killing our brother?" Judah asked, reducing brotherhood to commerce. This was a move that was to play out with devastating results throughout his life, until his discovery of responsibility-within-exchange in his "bond" (eravon) to Tamar.
Here, Joseph attacks the concept of money. Payment is returned, as though useless. When the brothers bring back double money, it is waved away. Is it their money? any money? Can there be any meaning in something so unspecific as to lack any markers? It is not enough to get them the food they need for life. Only the sight of their brother will do so.
 Judah also has moved away from the "taking" that has so defined him. "I will be his bond (e-arvenu)" he says, when asking to take Benjamin down to Egypt. There is no violent shelihut yad--"sending forth the hand"--but rather responsability: "seek him from my hand (miyadi tevaksheno)." For the first time, Judah can also conceive of a quest, a bikush, a desire that requires seeking, not buying.
Within the darkness are hints of reconciliation. Joseph was sent to "seek" the "peace" of his brothers; the word "peace" moves center stage at the the closing of the chapter. "Perhaps he will send you your other brother" Jacob says, as he sends Benjamin down. Within the context of the conflation of Simeon and Joseph that was set into place in the last chapter, this seems a reference to Joseph himself, who was "sent to you" with such disastrous results.
Yet still, each eats "alone," separate even as they begin t o draw together.]

Genesis 42: In Writing

What do you fear
What haunts your night
When you fall down, down, down
to dreamful sleep?


We are the sealed ciphers
the gaping hallows
of where you don't look
don't hear
don't see
the black shadows
you trail
on the naked land
the thickening ink
that grabs your feet
on the path you walk

Genesis: Chapter '42

who is heard?
and who is seen?
who is recognized?




to go down again
return
reverse



Be the dreamer,
not the dream

[For full chapter, click here
The two strands of the story begin to come together, as the brother's follow Joseph's footsteps "down." Here, we begin to feel the deep reverberations of the sale, how the family has been shaped and poisoned by it: Jacob fears to "send" Benjamin (as he had originally "send" Joseph). Joseph is the constant hole that "is not"--present and mentioned in his absence. The depth of the rift and alienation becomes heartbreakingly clear at the closing of the chapter, when Reuben offers: "You will kill my two sons, if I do not bring him [Benjamin] to you. Give him to me, and I will return him." Here is a desperation to undo his greatest failure--the inability to "return" Joseph to his father. Yet this desperation also reveals how far Jacob has withdrawn. Reuben, the one who was most concerned for their father, actually believes that this offer would appeal!
 The leitwords are "return" (ve-yeshev, ho-shev, a-shiveno), "see" and "hear," as well as that terrible word that ended the story of the sale of Judah's story: "recognize" (haker).
Joseph "recognizes" his brothers, though he is unrecognized by them. He remembers what he has been thankful to forget, and sets out to force the recognition his brothers do not give him by making them experience his experiences.He "sees" them, as they had seen him from afar. "You have come to see the nakedness of the land" he accuses them twice, an echo of the double stripping of his clothes. He places them "under guard."
There is a response. "I told you not to sin with the boy, and now his blood is being demanded," Reuben says. We should have listened, the brothers acknowledge, we should have heard. The brother whose very name means "hearing" ("Shimon") is separated, and placed in prison, as Joseph was imprisoned. He becomes an echo of Joseph, his cast shadow: "Joseph is not, and Shimon is not." Like Joseph, Shimon becomes "the one"--nameless, separated, alone. ]

Genesis 39: In Writing

Into the gaping silence
of my hands
falls everything
nothing held back

to want nothing
but not to be
here
take off
like a hollowed bird
rising in the air

Unseen
unheard
ungrasped

buoyed by the warmth
of your Being
with me