Chapter 10: In Writing

My baby spins

burnished gold 

etched in time

by the dying light.

Please don't uproot the rooted

don't forget the hope

the children sing, oblivious

as mothers weep into their hair.

Return me, and I will return

each word overripe with import.

The planes'  overhead whine

mingles with the oud's dirge.

when will we manage

full confession?

In this golden hour

I give chocolate.

In this golden hour,

I give juice

I give all the sweet

that is too sweet

unable to hold back.

Let us fall into the hands of God

for his mercies are great

the music beats

as the wide-wombed

evening embraces all of us. 

 

Judges: Chapter 10

 Who do you choose

and for how long?

Abandonment

[For full chapter, click here

After their disastrous flirtation with monarchy, the Israelites retreat from centralized authority. Leadership is provided by two minor judges, summed up in less than two lines each, each ruling for an uneven, non-symbolic number of years (23, 22), contrasting to Gideon and Deborah's sonorous 40 years of peace. The nation is reduced to begging someone--anyone--to lead: “Let whoever is the first to fight the Ammonites be chieftain.”

 The lack of leadership is spirtual as well military, as the nation descends to "serving the Baalim and the Ashtaroth, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines." Only one god is left out from this comprehensive list: the verse ends with the drumroll chiastic closing: "and God they did not serve." In losing leadership, the nation also loses the link to Moses, to Joshua his successor, and to God. 

The chapter is indeed structured as the dark mirror of the final chapter of the Book of Joshua, with its closing covenant binding God, Israel, and the two sides of the Jordan. Like that covenant, the chapter opens with the root y's'f,--to gather, to add. If Joshua is "ye'asef" (gathers) the nation, here the nation yosifu (continues) "to do what is evil in God's eyes" and God promises not to "continue (osif) to save you." The two sections are tied together with shared keywords: "Choose" (b'h'r); "worship, serve" (a'v'd), and "abandon, forsake" (a'z'v), as well as with a shared focus on the "alien gods" that are "in your mists." Both emphasize clear-cut boundaries, as embodied by the river: "On the other side of the river lived your forefathers," Joshua opens his address. Here, the chapter focuses on attacks on the far side of the river, which gradually move from the periphery inwards.  

"If it is bad in your eyes to worship God,choose this day which gods you are going to serve..." Joshua demands, in his final address to the people. After an overview of God's shared history with Israel, he demands a choice as clear-cut as the two banks of a river: either God or the alien gods must be abandoned.   “Far be it from us to forsake (la'azov) the Lord and serve other gods!" the people respond.

Yet here, in an exact inversion of their earlier promise, Israel "forsakes (va'yaazvu) God, and did not serve Him." If before,  Israel reviewed their shared history with God, here it is God that must remind them of all the prior salvations. "You have forsaken Me," He concludes, once again highlighting the inversion of the promise, "and served other gods." A different choice has been made.

Back at that definitive covenant, Joshua warned, “If you forsake God and serve alien gods, He will turn and deal harshly with you and make an end of you, after having been gracious to you.” And indeed, the end seems nigh. After a tepid repentance, with a partial confession ("We have served the Be'alim", Israel admits, with no mention of the plethora of other gods), God seems ready to "make an end": "No, I will not rescue you again," says God. Referring back to that primal choice demanded by Joshua, he tells the people "Go call to the gods you have chosen." 

The sacred stone of covenant inscribed by Joshua has been overturned, the oak uprooted. What will bind the people to the land now? 

Yet at the very moment that all seems lost, there comes a wildcard, overturning Joshua's vision of a jealous, relentless God. In a stunnigly anthropomorphic verse, God's nefesh (soul, breath, lifeblood) "cannot stand Israel's miseries." Almost despite Himself, God relents. Yes, there is the covenant, and its promises and curses. And then there are the deeper currents, the lifeblood stirring, the breath connecting God and humanity, beyond any local circumstance. Like a parent faced with a child's pain, God is carried away by overwhelming empathy. 

Though the chapter ends on a cliffhanger, with Isreal scrounging for leadership, this moving, strange and haunting verse gives the closing a hopeful cast. There are currents to the relationship between God and Israel that even Joshua cannot understand, a shared breath that reaches beyond the official bonds of covenant.]   

  

Deuteronomy 30: In Writing

When it all comes down

like rain, a storm,

when you drink it in

drowning droughts

you will hear the voice

within the fall of the drops

Don’t wait at the edge

of the breathing sea

that rises and falls

to the shape of your fears.

Don’t reach for the night sky

distant stars that pulse

to your longing.

The edge of the sky

gathered inwards

you will plunge, suddenly,

down the middle

to the base of your heart

and be pumped,

like the diluted blood in your veins

filled rich and salty again

charged with breath

to circle your hands

your legs

embracing your neck

lighting your skin

lick your lips

for the trace of sugar

for the remnant of salt

on your tongue.

Deuteronomy: Chapter 30

Sometimes, you can go back again 

and home is waiting

where it was left.

Just breath deep,

look in

And say... 

It's on your lips

[For full chapter, click here

This chapter brings together and closes the sequence of chapters dealing with the future covenant, with their attendant blessings and curses. As such, it repeats and intensifies many of the key words that have run throughout these chapters: "Look, I have set before you to do the life and the good, and the death and the evil. Choose life that you might live!" Once again, the focus on "seeing" (r'e'e), and on binary oppositions with a clear path running between; again, the focus on the wayward "heart" (lev); on what is given (n't'n); and on learning to hear. 

Yet there is a profoundly different ambiance to this chapter of reconciliation than those previous chapters of threat and imprecation. A kind of peace that comes after the storm: "and it shall be when all these things have come upon you, the blessing at the curse." No more dire warnings. It will all happen, regardless. What is important is that there is a way back. Again and again, the chapter repeats the root sh'a'v--"return," "reconciliation," which is also the root for the Hebrew word for repentance, teshuva: "you shall return (ve-shavta) to God, your Lord... and God your Lord will return (shav) you from captivity (shvut'kha)" . If in previous chapters, the land becomes a physical embodiment of the relationship with God, here the return to the Land is the direct correlation of spiritual reconciliation.

The focus on return is echoed in the literary form, which forms a chiastic frame structure, that returns us to the the initial threats and promises: if in chapter 28, the curse revolves around the "the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your animal," here, God will increase "the fruit of the womb at the fruit of your animal" more than it was in the beginning.

 What is discovered in this long way home is that the way back was no so far as what it seemed. It is not in the heavens, or over the see, but "it is very close to you, in your mouth and your heart to do." What is furthest in the end turns out to be closest, like the frame structure of the chapter,  which brings us back to the beginning.]

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