Exodus 12: In writing

Between the eves

Between the watches

At the splitting of the night

Between the days

Between the jambs

At the dripping first light

Between your teeth

a cracking bread

a bitter burst

between you lips

the yeast unrisen

the sent not sent

pressed in bloody passage

till I am heaved

mewling,

from the womb

tumbling into the milky glow

See me now, between your lids

Guard me at your fingertip

Gather me in

Exodus: Chapter 12

stand in the doorway

the space and the time
between


Guard what you
care for
within
without


The birth of a nation












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A chapter of new beginnings--"This month for you shall be head of all months, first of the months of the year." With new beginning, a change of tone. We have entered the realm of history rather than intimate personal stories. God now speaks to the collective, the "entire congregation of Israel" (kol adat yisrael). In place of declaration and discussion, detailed instructions of what should be done and not done, in order to preserve memory and identity "for generations."
Yet also a culmination and accentuation of the gradually escalating plagues. Pharaoh's plea "only remove this death from me!" now becomes literal death. The emphasis of "coming" (bo) and "leaving" (vayetaze) becomes here a focus on the actual doorway, the space between inside and outside. We are at the liminal transition, literally in the doorway, between past and future; night and day; slavery and nationhood.
Now Israel takes responsibility for their own redemption. It is they--rather than God--who make the "sign", they who cause a separation, they who make their own version of the first plague, painting the doorway in the "blood" that has run through the narrative since the opening of Exodus.
Yet we also have the  introduction of a new keyword:  "guard"  (hi-shamer, mishmeret). At this moment of change, a need to guard and preserve what matters; time and memory need to be held close....]

Exodus 11: In writing

There will come a time

when I’ll see your face

when our eyes will meet

and the hard space between

will rain in bitter-sharp shards

where we stand

hands open

Would I be I without you?

Exodus: Chapter 11

The end from the beginning

Intimacy of conflict
locked together

friend and face

differentiate
and close


Divorce


We cried
now you will cry








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An interlude. A strange, abrupt chapter, in which nothing actually happens. Rather it serves as a bookend, closing Moses' protracted interaction with Pharaoh, in preparation for the final blow (to be be delivered by God Himself). There is a chiastic closing to the story of Moses' mission. If God appointed Moses in response to Israel's "scream," now, at this final plague, Egypt will "scream." In this final warning, we return to Moses initial declaration to Pharaoh:  "My firstborn son, Israel. I say to you, send forth My son that he may serve Me, and if you refuse to let him go, I will kill your firstborn son."
What stands out here, in this final confrontation before the "complete" (11:1) severance,  is a strange intimacy between Israel and Egypt, the oppressors and the oppressed. Moses and Pharaoh fight each other in an exchange that--in contrast to their earlier, formal, conversations--is personal, with Moses storming out. God says: "he will send you out complete (kalla)" which can also mean "bride"--a connotation that is reenforced by the language garesh ye-garesh: "he will divorce you."   Moses, we now learn, "is great in the land of Egypt, in the eyes of Pharaoh's servants and in the eyes of the people." Israel finds "favor" in the eyes of Egypt, in an echo of the earlier intimacy between Joseph and Pharaoh. Suddenly, the children of Israel can ask of their Egyptian "friends" for silver and gold. Friendship and favor enter a relationship that seemed to consist only of blood, murder and slavery.
At this final parting of ways, the full divorce that will "separate the children of Israel", there is a bittersweet awareness of how intertwined the two nations are]

Exodus 10: In Writing

cover your eyes

block your ears

annihilate answer

but upswells 

the  rasp that haunts 

the dark that seeps

till your eyes swarm

your ears burst

an open deathhead scream

Exodus: Chapter 10

Who is seen
and who sees?

cover your eyes


darkness becomes tangible
the effect the cause
















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the implicit attack on Pharaoh's will and identity becomes explicit. "For I have strengthened his heart" says God, undermining Pharaoh's act of willful denial. We have entered the realm of narrative--"So that you will tell your sons and sons sons how I plotted (hitolalti--lit. made happen) with Egypt"--and God is the plot master, Pharaoh his character. The leitwords are "Come" and "go"--a veritable screenplay, with entrances and exits.
The plagues continue, yet gain force. We return to the swarms that opened the series (the frogs and lice), once again battering the very "boundaries" (gevulha) of Egypt. Once again, the Egyptian fears of the "rising" (va-yaal) hoards of Israelites is given concrete form in the rising swarms of locus. But now the locus "cover" the very "eye of the earth". From being a "see-er", with the plagues done before his eyes, Pharaoh becomes something to be seen: "to show (le-harot) My greatness." The locus are a living death: "Only remove this death from me."
We also move closer to the inner circle. God spoke to Moses, who spoke to Aaron, who spoke to Pharaoh. Now Moses raises his hand instead of Aaron, causing the plague.
We move from tangible plagues to the intangible, and the insidious attack is the more frightening. Pharaoh will indeed "know" that there is a God that he did not know, attacking the senses directly. The hail was characterized by beating, unbearable noise. Only when the "voices" stopped, did Pharaoh rediscover his will. The locus brought darkness as they covered the land. Now the darkness itself becomes "tangible (va-yimash)". The pressure on the senses, the attack on the self, without intermediary]

Exodus 9: In Writing

hold tight as you fall

losing the name you held

fingers fisting your heart

an icy fire

stand on a cliff, crumbling

sound exploding your ears

root your feet

to the floundering earth

and say

I will not

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

Fleeing to yesterday

Dangling from a crook

Where will you put your heart?

Exodus: Chapter 9

Earth, water, sky
all turn against you


nothing is yours


weigh down your heart
against the terrible
lightness of being
















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If the earlier plagues attacked the underlying justifications for the crimes against the children of Israel, these middle plagues seem intended to attack Egypt's very sense of identity, "as had not been seen since Egypt became a nation."
The leitworts are "stand" "heart" and "send."
 "Go strand before Pharaoh,"  Moses and Aaron are told, and Pharaoh must watch as the very sky rains down curses. If before the water and earth turned against him, now the sky does as well, followed by fire--all four elements.
The plagues move from the outside in. The Egyptians' bodies are struck, so they can no longer "stand." Invisible, insidious death strikes their animals. Next, God promises to "send (shalakh) all my plagues on your heart," attacking your very sense of self and will. You will "know," God says, that "I have only allowed you to stand to show My power." In reality, you have nothing. This is not a battle, but a play in which you are acting a part of My choosing.  And the demonstration: the Egyptians for once are given a chance to escape the devastation of the plague, by "giving heart" to God's warning. Those who do not "give heart" leave their "servants and cattle in the field" to be destroyed. Their very will is what destroys them.
In the wake of this thundering attack, Pharaoh gives way, and promises to "send (e-shkakh)" away the children of Israel, so they will no longer "stand" in place.
But once the pressure of the incessant noise ceases, Pharaoh "hardens his heart"  and his hear becomes reflexively "strengthened." This final act o of will is also the final devastation, as Pharaoh simply fulfills "God's words in the hand of Moses."]      

Exodus 8: In Writing

water solidifies

takes feet

invades our air,

our sleep

our dreams

earth shifts

roiling beneath

raids our skin

our blood

in swarming seethe

banks of our bodies

solidified

erupting

blanketed in otherness

strangers to ourselves

Exodus: Chapter 8

Within your borders

Your deepest fears

The swarming hoards
of Otherness

you,
alienated from your earth















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Consequence continues to become incarnate, as the basis of slavery is exposed, and given literal form. The stinking Nile now swarms the very hoards the Egyptians feared. If the "children of Israel" were described as "swarming (ve-yishretzu) and increased abundantly," frogs and lice now truly swarm (ve-yishretuzu) the earth. Pharaoh's fear that Israel would  "rise" (va-yaalu) and threaten the integrity of his boarders now takes literal form, as the frogs "rise" and spread throughout "your borders." This is no exodus, but rather an invasion of every inner space.

The "stench" of the children of Israel ("You have made us stink before Pharaoh, to give him a sword to destroy us"), becomes the "stench" of the dead Nile, which now spreads to the entire earth (va-tivash ha-aretz--"the earth rotted"). And the rotting earth also swarms, the very dust turning to lice.Self and non-self are mixed as the arov, the "mixed multitude," invades the Egyptian "homes." 

Pharaoh's original desire to separate Israel as an alien element, now becomes reversed,  as God "sets apart the land of Goshen" for protection: "I will put a division between your people and my people," not for slavery, but for care.]

Exodus 7: In Writing

Rising, welling between the reeds

the rocks

the trees

Blood will have blood

all you buried in the deeps

a gaping maw

from which you cannot drink

it gushes

at toe-touch

pressed by the weight

fruit burst at your heart

a stench

of cries unheard

eyes unopened

decaying death

 of fish fed on the formless

flung to the water

before they could swim

what was stillborn

beneath the waves

swells between the stones

we are the ghosts that

laden the air

a sibilant smell

Exodus: Chapter 7

There will be blood
When all the hidden
Wells to the surface





















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Transformations and marks, as reality becomes permeable, changeable.
Moses will be a 'god/power' to Pharaoh, Aaron will be his prophet, in this multi-layered world where God taken on multiple names. A chain of speech, from God, to Moses, to Aaron.
The staff "changes" things from one thing to another, as Moses returns to the liminal banks of the river where he was found as a child. The baby who was "hidden" now exposes the loss of the generation of drowned children. The waters of Egypt become blood in a graphic literal image of the genocidal crime. The very stones and trees drip blood.
If the foremen of Israel had feared that Moses "had spoiled (hevashta) our smell with Pharaoh, to give him a sword to kill us," the very waters of Egypt now rot (va-yivash), as the moral rot rises to the surface]

Exodus 6: In Writing

Short of breath

deaf

soul whistling past

crushed by the carried

dark fist in our back

spring us from beneath

the pounding weight

cradle us in your arms

Break me open

break me out

sudden sight

heard and hear

know and be known

say your name

call me

from the formless faceless masses

These are they

these are I

in all the stumbling earth within

I seek you

cry a name in the wilderness

the name we choose

Exodus: Chapter 6

What's in a name?
say my name and know
I call you by name

See and will see
hear and will be heard

I will raise the burden
and draw you out

Take and give













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Round one in the battle against Egypt. First, the chapter returns to the thematic linkage between sight, hearing, and knowledge, restoring the connection to knowledge broken by Pharaoh's "I do not know God":  Though God did not initially make himself known by Name, " You will know that I am God".
Pharaoh's plan to crush Israel's resistance through the sheer burden of work is successful. Israel "do not listen" because of "short breath and hard work." Yet God promises to "take them out from under the burden of Egypt," removing the soul-crushing pressure that Pharaoh so consciously applied.
The most important theme is that of names. The chapter opens with God naming Himself repeatedly in a dizzying schizophrenic hall of mirrors: "I showed Myself known as El Shaddai, and with my Name I did not make Myself known to them..."The chapter closes by returning that that initial anonymous mass of the children of Israel, who had been reduced to animals, swarming across the land, this time calling them by name. Moses and Aaron must now be seen not as the children of  "a man of Levi" who married "a daughter of Levi" but as the children of Amram, who married his aunt, Yocheved. They are redefined in this context:  "These are the Aaron and Moses to whom God spoke" "these are those who spoke to Pharaoh." Redemption will begin again, now that the exhausted masses of Israel have been recalled and called by name]