Deuteronomy 21: In Writing

what the eye does not see
what the hand does not do
trickles through the stony soil

to the untouched reaching roots
that trail their long fingers

onwards

seeps out through the stream  
that will not wash clean

Deuteronomy: Chapter 21

What do you bring in

When you go out

And what do you take out from within?

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The chapter is a mixed back of disparate laws. Its opening reiterates and intensifies the themes of the previous chapter, while its closing looks ahead, to a time after settling in the land, defining the relationship between parents and children in a society where inheritance is at stake.

The opening section reiterates the previous themes of “coming in” and “gone out,” yet complicates them. If in  the previous chapters, we established a sacred space “within” and then “went out” to war, here what is out is brought in, and what is in is taken out.

The opening returns us to the laws of murder, and the metaphysical responsibility for blood: “you must expunge clean blood from within you.” Yet the movement “out” has changed the responsibilities “within” (a key word in all these chapters). In chapter 19, we dealt with the laws concerning inadvertent manslaughter, and the need to provide refuge for the killer from vengeful relatives who seek to “redeem the blood”—a responsibility to those who fit “within” (k’r’v) the roads and center that define Israel. Here, the responsibility is instead to the anonymous corpse, to the outsider who has no relative to demand “redemption.” Literal closeness, physical proximity, creates a bond: “then your elders and judges shall come forth, and they shall measure the distance unto the cities which are round about him that is slain. And it shall be that the city which is next to he that is slain, the elders of that city shall take a heifer that has not drawn a yoke…”

The ritual of atonement enacted by the elders brings what is outside into the intimate sphere. The unbroken heifer is taken to a wild “river that is not worked,” and what is beyond human habitation comes to atone for human habitation. The ritual shares much in common with the enigmatic laws of the Red Heifer, which comes to purify after contact with death. Here, we restate the connection between inheritance and blood, but a level of primal rituals of contact with the earth.  The stranger is brought “within” the circle of responsibility, and the unmarked spaces beyond the roads are webbed in to the sacred.

After bringing the outside in, we once again move “out” to the laws of war (the two sections are connected by a word play on yi-matze—“find”-- and te-tze—“go out”). Yet if the previous section on war mandated complete destruction, so as to prevent “learning from their abomination,” here, there is a possibility of bringing a captured woman “into your home.” After following a ritual of mourning and symbolic severing “inside your home,” the outside can become intimate: “and afterwards she shall be your wife.”

Uniting these two sections is a focus on seeing and eyes: the elders must swear that “Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it,” so that they will do “the right in the eyes of God.” The unseeing eyes then open  to see “among the captives a woman of beautiful form” (21:7). 

At the closing of the chapter, the focus on seeing shifts to a focus on hearing, as the breakdown of relationship between parents and children is defined by "he does not listen to us" (21: 20); and the son's death penalty is supposed to make "all of Israel listen." Here, what is closest is expunged, as the parents "take out" (ho-tzi-u) their son to the court.
  
There is constant pulsation between bringing in and going out, between closing the senses, and opening them.]

Deuteronomy 20: In Writing

Always, at the threshold

Woman, earth, and tree

Always the constellation,

with the gleaming

always fruit a moon

dripping overhead

Always her arms,

her fingers curled in tight buds

Always the blossoming of her belly

a room expanding to hold

like the earth always beneath

calling to your feet

Always the question:

Will you rest in her arms?

Will you take the fruit?

Waiting to be given

Waiting  to be taken

Deuteronomy: Chapter 20

To plant but not flower,

Promise but not have

Don't fall

consumed before consummation

Be like a tree

Heavy with fruit

[For full chapter, click here

From the protracted focus on "when you come in,"  we now turn around to "when you go out." After building the matrix of center, ways  and periphery, a unified "Israel," the nation can now move outwards to "cities very far from you" (20:15). But if the space within focuses on justice, and a concern for blood, the turn outwards shifts to the (brutal) laws of war.

Even as God promises to "be with you," there is a full awareness of danger. "The officers shall say to the army: 'Has anyone built a home and not yet dedicated it? Let him go home, lest he die in battle and someone else dedicate in it.  Has anyone planted a vineyard and not yet eaten of it? Let him go home, lest he die in battle and someone else eat it.  Has anyone betrothed a woman and not yet taken her? Let him go home, lest he die in battle and someone else take her” (20: 6-8). Here, the greatest tragedy--the one thing that must be avoided--is non-consummation. Whether in human interrelations, or in relations to the earth, what has been prepared must be possessed; what is planted  must see fruition. 

The linkage of the human to the tree--the betrothed to the untasted vineyard--is sounded again at the closing of the chapter, where the army is warned against destroying fruit trees: "for man is the tree of the field." Though war creates an absolute break between human and human, the basal connection to the earth is maintained.]

Deuteronomy 19: In Writing

Expand and contract

follow the pulsing arteries

the beating blood

run, run, from the heated heart.

Redeem your blood

redeem your cells

redeem the membranes 

between your fingers

between knuckles and nails,

redeem what fell,

what you could not hold,

gather it all back in

within the walls

to that primal bound

that first line

before you were you

where self and mother

were one

Deuteronomy: Chapter 19

 

Beat the bounds

and know the paths

redeem the space

where blood run

where blood pools

within, without

the boundaries that broader

the boundaries unmoved

[For full chapter, click here
This chapter continues expanding up the key words that appeared in the previous one: k'r'v--within, amongs; d'r'sh, investigate, analyze. Now, two  new leitworts enters: g'v'l--boundary, border; and d'r'kh--path, road. We at last speak of the definitive boundaries that create the sacred space "within" and the roads that form the interconnections. These preservation of these boundaries requires taking responsibility on the most primal level: a care for spilled "blood," for perjury, and a constant maintenance of the sacred space within: "you must burn out the the clean blood within" in a continuous re-calibration.  There must be a "redeemer of the blood" (go'el ha-dam). Even if inadvertent, any act of killing is "murder" and demands a complex play of redemption and refuge.

The return to Sinai in the previous chapter also returns us to the laws given in the aftermath of Sinai: "He that hits a man and dies shall be put to death; but if he did not lie in wait, but God brought it to his hand, I shall appoint a place where he shall flee" (Exodus 21: 12-13). These laws are  reiterated in this chapter, but now grounded in the earth "which you are about to enter." Characteristically for Deuteronomy, the laws are now focused on humanity rather than on God: "designate for  yourself three cities within your land."

And it is only in taking this responsibility that the land will truly become "yours." The chapter open by emphasizing that the land does not yet truly belong to Israel: "when God shall cut off the nations whose land God your Lord is giving to you...and you dwell in their cities and in their houses." Only after taking responsibility for inadvertent murder does that land become Israel's: "You shall separate three cities in the midst of your land, which God gave you to posses."

In taking this responsibility, one can even change and move the seemingly immutable outer boundary. Boundaries are  perhaps absolute on a personal level-- "do not encroach on the boundary of your brother, which  the early ones have bound"--but on a national level, the are flexible, expanding to fit the nation's commitments: ": "If God your Lord expand your border...designate another three cities of refuge." ]

Deuteronomy 18: In Writing

Close the conches of my ear
so I don't hear 
so I don’t see

seal my eyes

Leave me the space of not-know

of not now,

of tomorrow

Give me the silence between words 
the echoes of emptiness 

Blanket me dark
make me present in absence

Give me the hollowed grave
So that I don’t die

Deuteronomy: Chapter 18

the desire for absence

to be not

to circle the gaps of the unknown "no"

[For full chapter, click here

This chapter is dominated by the same key words as the previous one: k'r'v-- close, within; and d'r'sh, to investigate, analyze; d'v'r--thing, saying. It too focuses on to'eva--usually loosely translated as "abomination"; it too places it in opposition to tamim --pure, without blemish.

Thematically, the two chapters are  related as well, as here we further define the relationship of center to periphery and the space "within". The "chosen" (18:5) tribe of Levi is intimately linked  to the place that "God will choose," and so cannot have "an inheritance amongst / within [k'r'v] his brother" (18:2)--he cannot truly be part of the space between the periphery and the center. Coming into the land will bring a to a new leadership that will come from among (k'r'v) the people: "I will raise them a prophet from amongs (k'r'v) their brothers, like you [Moses]". This leadership will draw directly from Sinai,  the place where all the nation "heard the Lord."

Yet rhetorically, this chapter is dominated by the negative: it opens with a sonorous "no": "lo yihiye--there shall not be."  This negative is balanced by the positive "ze yihiye--this shall be" in the next subsection, but the negative floods once again at the closing, with the return to Sinai. The prophet who will come to replace Moses will come to preserve "not": "let me not hear again the voice of God" "let me not see this great fire." Too much Presence leads to complete absence: "so I not die." 

The coming prophet will straddle the line between the known and unknown, between yes and no: "the prophet who will speak in My name that which I have not commanded, that prophet shall die.... that which the prophet spoke in the name of God and was not (lo yihiye) and will not come (lo yavo), that is the thing which God has not spoken..." Hu ha-davar asher lo davro--that is the thing that God has not--the negative here gains a positive presence, becomes an actual davar, thing, object, speech act.]

Deuteronomy 17: In Writing

How to find the space

between breath and breath

between blood and blood

between touch and touch

between the air 

billowing the lungs

and the caverns between

between the blood

pulsing through your arms,

down to your fingers,

out to the tips

that touch the world

and the blood that circles

 back to the heart again

hold the thread of words

between your fingers

cats cradle weaving and unweaving

your body

Deuteronomy: Chapter 17

move out

and come in

the perfect circle

that creates its own continuation

[For full chapter, click here

This chapter continues the vortex inward movement that defined the previous chapter. If the previous chapter ended with the establishment of local courts--a move outward from center to periphery--this chapter moves back in, as the local courts stream into "the place that God will choose" for consultation. 

The creation of a central core and outer liminal "gates" allows the internal space to begin to function a a single entity. One of the key words of this chapter is k'r'v (close, within): once we have drawn the radii connecting the center and the outer limits, we become aware for what is enclosed "within." The nation begins to function as a single entity:"Burn out the evil from within you" is transformed into  "a burn out the evil from Israel." 

With the establishment of a national entity, the movement to the center in physical space is echoed in the human realm: the centralization of authority through the appointment of a king:"Appoint a king over yourselves, whom God will choose" (17:15). The social center, like the physical center, is not yet defined. It awaits the appointment of God's choice.

  

The appointment of the king introduces the vortex-like circularity into the very structure of the book itself. Deuteronomy here provides for its own self-replication: "and when he sits on his throne, he shall write this mishne torah [review of the Law--another name for Deuteronomy] in a book before the priests and Levites, and it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, so that he will learn to fear God, and keep all  the words of this Torah, to do all these laws" (17:18-19). The king appointed through this book will assure the continuation of the book. ]