Judges: Chapter 4

What is up
will topple down
and what is out 
be gathered in.
Stand at the linen

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A chapter that is both highly gendered and spatial. The leitworts are "arise" "go down" and "go".   Whereas time here is fuzzy and simultaneous (they did evil and Ehud died; she was judging Israel at that time) space is defined and prominent. Deborah, the "women prophetess" who is the "wife/woman of Lapidot"  (gender emphasized a three-rung gong) sits "beneath" the palm in the hills of Ephraim, where all of Israel "goes up" to her to be judged.   The upward motion is emphasized 4 times. The woman-prophetess calls upon Barak son of Avinoam to "go" (l''kh) and fight Sisera and the Canaanites. This vectored motion is repeated 7 times, as Barak insists that he will only "go" if Deborah "goes" with him; she assents, but warns him there will be no glory on the path on which he "goes". "Afes"--literally "zero": for if she accompanies him, salvation will be given to "the hands of a woman."

From here, all motion moves downward, and the army "goes down" to attack Sistra's forces; Sisra "goes down" from his chariot. We are descending towards ground zero. With Barak hinging all his actions on Deborah's presence, we have entered fully the realm of the female. 

Yael, the wife of Hever the Kennite, is the embodiment of that realm, as she exits the feminine space of the tent to draw Sistra inwards. "Turn into me," she tells him. and he turns in (va'yisar) "in unto her, into the tent." Sisra gets sucked inwards, then covered (ve-techsehu) , in a double hiding--in and in again. "Go to the doorway," he commands, attempting to control the threshold, to straddle the line between out and in; between the masculine battlefield, and the dark, protected, milky tent (she opened a bottle of milk... and covered him). Instead, Yael takes the peg that roots the tent to the earth, and uses it to drive Sisera into the ground: he "collapses"; he "falls", utterly engulfed and destroyed by the female space.  

There are links here to the opening chapters: if the initial salvation in chapter 3 returns us to the transitional figure of Otniel ben Kenaz, salvation here comes through one of the Kenites, who join the tribe of Judah at the opening of the book. We are still in the transitional period from the Book of Joshua, though the linking sinews are becoming thinner.]  

 

Judges 3: In writing

Daily weigh-in
needle fluctuating round and round
the set point. No way
back to before
when your body was wholly
your own.

Look down 
at mountains and troughs--
fleshy landscape of broken promises
to yourself. Your goal is
Today you will

eat only when hungry.
cut out
cake. Sticky seduction 
of sugar. Long nights.  
The pull of sleep.

Lie on a bed of flesh
spreading like ripples.

All those months carrying

bear down on your bladder

the weakened sinews 

weaving torso together

leave a groove down the center

separating before and after

Life made flesh--

weight of time and inertia.

It is hard, hard to rise

hard to pull yourself up by your arms

only to swallow

dagger and hilt

and feel the fat close on top of it. 

Judges: Chapter 3

 

We are porous

sucking and seepingץ

Seize the passage and threshold

learn to lock the door

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As in the previous chapter,  the focus here is on "generations", on the changes that happen when a whole population changes and forgets what it "knows" (one of the leitwords of this chapter). A process of change that happens by a changeover of populations (much like Khun's idea of paradigm shift in  his Structure of Scientific Revolutions).

The chapter opens with an ominous list of all the "nations that God left to test Israel" (1:3) in a crucible of war. These nations press from within and without, the external enemies matched by the nations among whom Israel "dwell" and intermarry, in an echo of that original dangerous encounter with the land's inhabitans, back when Shechem stole Jacob's daughter, so many generations ago. If in the original encounter, Shechem's plan to "let us take their daughter's to wife and let us give them our daughters" (Genesi 34: 21) is undone by the brother's violent assertion  that Dina is not for the taking, here it indeed comes to pass, as Israel melds into the surrounding populations and "forgets" the lord.

The first to rescue them from the consequences of God's wrath is Otniel,  who has been waiting like Chekhiv's gun since he was introduced by name in the first chapter. His fairytale like marriage to  Ahsa stands in contrast to the melding into local populations via marriage. 

The story of the second judge, Ehud ben Gera, makes the dangers of ingestion grotesquely corporeal, as he faces off against the fattened-calf (egel) King Eglon. The fleshy Eglon seems to have swallowed Israel into his gargantuan body, and his body swallows  Ehud's two-sided dagger up to the hilt,  and "the fat closed around it." While Eglon ingests the dagger, so it cannot be extracted, the "filth" does seep out. Ehud wins by controlling the entrances (p't'kh is another leitword), shutting the porous door,  and in the end  capturing the passages over the Jordon. Only in asserting boundaries does Israel find itself again]. 

Judges 2: In Writing

Every day the sun rises

every day it sets

every day the waking, dressing

cook, feed

battle of the clothes: too short, too long,

I want sleeves

no sleeves

a jacket

a hat

3 changes, 4

dull pounding behind my eyes

the rhythm of the day,

Hold me, I want you to hold me.

I can't walk!

throwing youself on the sidewalk

legs drumming asphalt.

Sometimes I am patient.

Often I am not.

Breaking point, I grab you,

or walk away, say: I'm gone.

Sometimes I hold you. 

Sometimes croon

It's hard. Sometimes

I feel the pulse

panic at your neck.

Always, in the end

I walk out the door

to your wails.

Say: too much noise.

Say: talk to me! 

While you scream

Listen to me!

I want you to listen!

Mouth a gaping O

of despair.

Judges: Chapter 2

 

Cry for the forgotten

Those who forget history

Are destined to repeat

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We move back, both in time and in space: once again,we are back in the encampment of Gilgal. the touchstone of the period of Joshua; once again, Joshua is alive, "sending the people away" (2:6). In an echo of Joshua's two closing farewell speeches (Joshua 23 and 24), the Book of Judges presents us with two transitons from the Joshua era to the epoch of the judges. As in the case of Joshua's farewell speeches, the first is more personal, while the second takes a broad historical perspective.

The story of the Exodus reverberates in the background.As in Egypt, where the passing of a generation leads to a loss of history as Joseph is forgotten, here a generation passes, and another rises that does not "remember God" and His faithfulness.

With the loss of Joshua's God of history, Israel enters a cycle of infinite return. We are no longer on a vector from "the other side of the river" towards the promised land, but rather in a repetitive futile cycle: repentance is fleeting; redemption temporary; and every boundary made to be broken. The language becomes habitual, yet laden with allusions, whether to the plagues in Egypt [the hand of God was heavy against them], or the Golden Calf [they have strayed quickly] .

The weeping that opens the chapter becomes a weeping for generations, a reverberation of the initial weeping in the aftermath of the spies' report in the days of Moses, which resulted in the loss of the Land.

A leitwort is "oath" (shvua) and "covenant". Israel has replaced the exclusive covenant with God with oaths and covenants with the local peoples. As intimated in the previous chapter, the cost will be steep.

Judges 1: In Writing

Dive

towards dry dust

demand

its blessing

well

from below and above

leap

and leave the tired animal

behind

 

Judges: Chapter 1

 

Start the after

we go up, we go down

jostled together.

Give me your blessing!

All we don't have

pressing against us 

unwanted intimacy

lodged in our throat

as we spin, again and again.

[For full chapter, click here
The chapter begins "after the death of Joshua."It is both a continuation and a reprise, revisiting events that took place in the era of Joshua to create a bridge into this new reality. It is indeed a new reality of leadership, and the transformation is made apparent almost immediately. "Who shall go up for us initially, to fight the Cannanites?" (Judges 1: 1) the nation asks, searching for a new leader. ""Judah shall go up" (1:2) God answers, shifting the focus from individual to tribe. Relationships have now become fraternal rather than hierarchal ("Judah said to his brother"), as leadership disseminates within the tribal structure. Key events of the story of Joshua are retold within this new framework: the story of the conquest of Hebron the story of the conquest of Hebron is retold, yet this time with the focus on Judah, rather than the heroic Caleb. Here, it is the tribe that grants Caleb his inheritance, rather than the man who leads the tribe. as the leader is subsumed within his tribe. Only one individual still is given a central place: Otniel ben Knaz, conquerer of Debir, who fairytale-like, is granted Ahsa as his wife, in a passage is lifted almost verbatim from the account in Joshua. As in Joshua, Ahsa demands a "blessing" of her father, in the only piece of individual dialogue, and is granted the "upper and lower waters". 
The reprise of the list of conquered and unconquered areas builds a precarious bridge to a new, dangerous era. The list of conquests is matched by a negative list of "not conquest", as the Canaanites "are resolved to dwell in that land" (1: 27). Even when the sons of Joseph manage to conquer Luz, they are haunted by a negative shadow of Luz, created by the Cannanites that left: "and the man named the city Luz, which is its name to this very day" (1:26).  Rather than a triumphant settlement of the "land resting from war" that is the refrain of Joshua, we are presented with a tension-filled subjugation and uneasy coexistence.  At the closing of the chapter, the negative refrain of "did not inherit" (lo horish) turns into active dispossession, as the tribe of Dan is driven off its land and into the mountains. Is this what will happen to all?

Hello to Judges

 Me, years later, far less sure of myself, and the continuation of this project. But here is to trying a new book. 

For Judges, I chose to use a limited palette of acrylic markers (reds, blues, white). Using markers continues the visual language of Joshua, just as the opening of Judges overlaps and continues the Book of Joshua. 

The introduction of more colors indicates the more variegated leadership and social structure, as the strong central leadership of Moses and Joshua break down to the local tribal leadership of the judges.

The brown paper of the notebook echoes the paper I used for the book of Exodus, which is appropriate for this book of nation formation, which represents a kind of closure to the process begun in Egypt.

Here's to new beginnings!

A Belated Goodbye to Joshua

 It feels strange to say “Goodbye to Joshua” when I have just said a new “hello.”

After several years (!), I can't even begin to understand or explain what made me stop the Joshua section one chapter before completion.

I do remember after the end of Deuteronomy, I felt like I had reached closure, a natural stop point. Joshua always felt like a tag-along, an added experiment. I experienced the Book of Joshua as a comedown after the high poetry and complex narratology of Deuteronomy—the language mundane, the violence off-putting. And as a first-time new mother, I also had other concerns that felt more urgent. Yet why I stopped right before the end, I can’t say. No doubt there were some deep, unacknowledged currents there. I do know that the longer I waited, the more distant I felt from the project, and the harder it became to go back. Finally I blocked it out. A niggling untied end that I refused to consider.

Then came this year’s terrible Simchat Torah and its aftermath. As October turned to November, November to December, month after month, the war raging on with no exit point, I found myself completely blocked. Words disappeared.  When I tried to draw, I had to push against the intractable weight of futility. It was as bad—worse—as the block that started me on the Bibliodraw project so many years ago. This time I didn’t have whiplash or amnesia. My arm was working. It was my heart that wasn’t. I found myself desperate for a daily project. And the only project that seemed real enough and urgent enough to matter was Bibliodraw—a project in which I had already invested so much, a project embodying so many layers and history.  It is also a project that gives me a framework of feeling my way through this desperate time. Feeling my way, as I always have, with the “tikvat hut ha-shani”,  Rahab’s guiding bright thread of central archetypal narratives. Returning to Bibliodraw is returning to the questions: what are we doing here? How do we earn this home? How do we lose it? A project that could engage my heart and intellect and hand as one.

Finding a quiet moment does not happen often with four little kids in war time. But I suddenly had a day when I woke up, and all my children were in childcare, and I had no urgent projects that I needed to complete. For the first time in what seemed like months, I drew a deep breath. And I said: I'm going to finish this. I will at least complete Joshua, and close this one circle. Tie up this one dangling thread.

Because, despite all my denials, it was still bothering me. The notebook there, sitting in my closet, incomplete. And so I spent my quiet day reading through Joshua again. This is a much more condensed process that my other “goodbyes”, which were the slow accumulation of weeks' worth of ruminations and thoughts. This rather is the result of months of studying, years of silence, then a quick one-day review

So, the those thoughts after this review.

The Book of Joshua opens with a promise and a charge: I will be with you like I was with Moses, but you must take courage and be strong. The book indeed continues directly from the story of Moses, providing a bridge from Deuteronomy, . Yet it also actively redoes Moses’ legacy in a complex balancing act.   Jooshua’sleadership begins with crossing the Jordan, in a conscious recreation  of the parting of the Red Sea. This places him in the position of Moses, even as it rebirths Israel yet again as a nation. This is a new generation, with a new destiny.

Israel then camps in Gilgal, where they recreate the Exodus, celebrating Passover. It is a place of renewed literal brit, reactivating circumcision after the years of wandering: “Make thee knives of flint, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time. … them [the children born in the desert] did Joshua circumcise; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised by the way.” The desert era is seen as a hiatus, a kind of suspended animation between the beginning of the journey and its end. It is only now, when the children of Israel camp in Gilgal that they start national life anew

The ideas originally presented by Moses in the desert, which existed until this point only in words and concept, are now put into action, finding embodiment in the concrete space of the Land: cities of refuge, covenants in specific places, words literally etched in stone. Yet embodiment is a dynamic  and gradual process. Ideas become real, but not at once. Repetition and variation are key elements as this book. We keep going back to revisit history, even as we move forward. There is aonstant tension between potential and actual, becoming and being. The virtual desert journey does not truly end.

Again and again the verses declare that the conquest is complete, that the land is “subdued”, that Israel is settled and secure. Again and again, we find that it is not so. The same cities are conquered and unconquered, again and again: Hebron, Debir. This tension is perfectly encapsulated at the end of the era, when Joshua sends out representatives of eeach of the tribes to scout out and demarcatethe boundaries of their estate (18: 4). The land is then “distributed…each to his inheritance” (19:49), and they make “and end of dividing the land’ (19: 51), even though, as we find out, the land is as yet mostly unconquered, and not yet theirs to divide. The inheritance “ends” in abstracted visualization, even as in concrete terms it remains undone.   

Throughout this intense period of process, Gilgal is the home base, from which Israel sets out in short sorties, returning back to this space of covenant, as they try to work out the relationship between themselves and God.

The conquest begins with thedivine battle at with Jericho, which is essentially a version of the Jubilee (yovel): seven cycles on the seventh day, which ends with the blowing of the shofar (yovel), in a recreation of the Jubilee opening which undoes human ownership. With the blowing of the Jubilee horn, all the land returns to the owners originally allotted by God, all debts are cancelled, human possession and transactions are undone.  We return to origin. Just so, Israel’s inheritance of the land begins with God announcing a Jubilee, undoing the ownership of the Canaanites. The yovel is blown, the land returns to God. The victory is not the people’s ,but completely herem—forbidden, within the realm of the divine.

The second battle with Ai opens the door for human involvement in battle, as God steps back, acting mostly as tactician. And throughout the book, Joshua pushing for greater and greater human involvement. “You are a great people, who have great power…you shall drive out the Canaanites” (17:17), he tells the children of Joseph, urging them to take charge of their inheritance.

Yet at the very closing, the book returns to its opening point of yovel: the land is not truly theirs. It remains always God’s, a gift that precludes true possession, always given, never had. It is the process itself that is true belonging, the various points where God showed his faithfulness. What remains is to make a choice, and witness your own commitment.

Joshua: Chapter 24

God of history
God of faithfulness and choice
He is your belonging
in a land not your own
and the cycles close

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After what seemed like a farewell speech in the previous chapter, Joshua "gathers" (y's'f ) the people together one last time, this time in the fateful location of Shechem--the city Abraham first encountered upon entering the land; the place where Jacob settled when he returned from exile; the place where the eponymous gatherer, Joseph / yosef is finally brought to rest, in the portion (shechem ) promised him by Jacob so many years before: "And behold, I am giving you one portion over your brethren, which I took out the Amorites with my sword and with my bow" (Genesis 48: 22). 

And indeed it is not only the people who are gathered here but history itself, as Joshua draws the full story of the children of Israel, stretching back to a primordial river that predates and prefigures the formative Jordan that opened this book: "on the other side the Rivers sat your forefathers, Terach, the father of Abraham and Nahor" (Josha 24: 3).  Joshua follows Abraham on his fateful journey to Cannan and  to God, touching on key events: the choice of Isaac,  the split between Jacob and Esau, the descent to Egypt, the splitting of the Red Sea (which plays so dominant a role in the opening of this book, prefiguring the splitting of the Jordan). Surprisingly, Balaam's forced blessing is also included in the key overview, seen as an opening volley in the conquest of the Promised Land. From there, the crossing of the Jordan, the conquest of Jericho, all leading to single, primal choice: Who will you worship?  

Joshua demands a clear-cut choice, as split as the two banks of a river, or the covenant upon entering the land before the two mountains of Grisim and Eival. Indeed, the covenant here is modeled on that earlier covenant, also including an etched stone. There can be no more walking on both sides.

 

Throughout, Joshua lets Israel know that God is their only true source of belonging.  The land that has become so central is not truly theirs, it is the land of the Amorites (24: 15): they dwell in "cities which you did not build... you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant" (24:13). In contrast to Jacob, who conquered Shechem with "sword and bow", his descendants won with God's intervention, not with "sword and bow" (24: 12).  It is God who has been with them throughout their journey, a faithful God of relationship and history, who demands faithfulness back,

Echoing the altar erected as "witness" between the interlinkage of the Eastern and Western tribes, the tribes all accept and witness their interlinkage with God.