Joshua: Chapter 2

What keeps watch at the doorway, between? 

Are you penetrable,  knowable? 

Shut the door,  yet open the window

Give me a sign.

[For full chapter, click here
This chapter continues the focus on theme of transition, which here is given a tangible embodiment.
 We begin with the transition between Moses to Joshua. Joshua acts as Moses,  sending out spies. Yet this time, in a successful reiteration, Joshua sends only  two--a recreation of the successful spies, Caleb and himself. The other ten spies are forgotten.
We move on to the transition between the Encampment and the Land.  The spies are to scout out "Jericho, and the land", looking both at the countryside and the city. They stop at the liminal space between the two--the house of Rahab, who lives within the city wall itself, straddling the separation. Rahab becomes the key to the spies success in Jericho, straddling metaphorically between Israel and the inhabitants of the land. It is she who gives the spies their information. And saving  their lives, she demands to be saved in turn. Her literal liminality indeed becomes the key to salvation: she saves the spies by lowering them by rope out her window, and is saved in turn by hanging a "red thread" in her window. This thread, tikvat (lit. 'extension' 'hope') hut ha-shani, signals a way forward, and opening for hope.
Rahab not only lives in a liminal space--she herself is a liminal space, an entrance waiting to be penetrated. The language of the chapter is unremittingly sexual.  Rahab is described as a zonah (which means both innkeeper and whore). The spies "come to her" (repeatedly) and "lie there" in her home; she is told the spies have come to "plow" the land; and she repeatedly speaks of "knowing" (the carnal daat) and "not-knowing."  Indeed, there are many echoes of the Sodom story, with its threat of sexual violence. Rahab's advice to the spies to flee "to the mountain" echoes the angels' advice to Lot to "flee to the mountain" (hahara nasu).
Yet it is Rahab and her family who actually play the part of Lot, saved from the destroyed city. In  saving the spies--"sending them forth", as Joshua had "sent" them --Rahab metaphorically opens herself and the city up as conquest. In exchange, she is granted a protection that echoes Israel's protection in Egypt during the plague  of the firstborn. By marking the limen, she is set aside].

Joshua 1: In writing

Hold me tight

as I hold on to you

seeing you in 

the palm of my hand

the sole of my feet

I fit my foot to your footstep

disappearing over the plane

winding up the mountain.

Can I be you—

You, whose loss is path I cannot trace

I search for your face

that saw face to face

while I see reflections 

in the murmuring waters

separating between us

you carried between rushing reeds

you carried over the deeps

as I wait at the bottom

listening to a distant roar

till you appear

face a beacon

blinding.

as the distant mountaintop

how can you be quenched and dark

how can I rise

and take what you never got

barred at the river.

Do not leave me

as I get up to leave you.

Joshua: Chapter 1

How do you rise when down? 
How do you learn to walk? 
Hold me please!

[For full chapter, click here

"And it was after the death of Moses, servant of God"--these words open the new section of the Bible, and are definitive of the new era. Again and again, the chapter emphasizes that "Joshua, minister of Moses" draws from the remnants of his master. The land will be given "as I spoke to Moses"; God will be with him, as He was "with Moses"; the people will obey him, as they "obeyed Moses." He seems to have no presence or will of his own. This sense of diminished potential is reflected in the grammatical structure of the chapter, which is dominated by negative ( lo) rather than positive forms. The word rak--only--is repeated throughout.

Yet within this crushing ambiance of loss, God exhorts Joshua to "rise". He must learn to walk, to move beyond the stasis of drawing from Moses. His relationship to the land will be defined by where "the sole of [his] foot falls." His wisdom will come through movement, "in every way he walks." Only then will his "path succeed."  God's exhortation is dominated by the leitworts "walking" (l'kh) and "path" (derekh}. And indeed, Joshua moves on to order the Children of Israel to prepare to move.  

Learning to walk is not easy. Again and again, God promises not to let go--"I will not loosen My hold, and will not leave you." On his part, Joshua must--as Moses exhorted him back in Deuteronomy--"Be strong and have courage." ]

New Year, New Section of Bibliodraw. Hello to the Prophets / Neviim

As many of you know, I had a bit of a crises when I finished Deuteronomy--and with it the first section of Bibliodraw. The Pentatuch, hamisha humshei Torah, are a unit in and of themselves, with unifying patterns, cross reference, and a continuing narrative.
After completing Deuteronomy, I tried to continue immediately with the Book of Joshua. I couldn't. The move from the stunning poetry  and complex narratology of Deuteronomy to the simple, bloody story of  Joshua was jarring.

I could barely get myself to pick up a pen. My mind and heart were still caught up in the first section of Bibliodraw: the links between the books, the development of the narrative, the development of the imagery.
I decided to take a break, and focus on integrating what I had so far.
In the meantime, Bibliodraw was featured in two important exhibitions--one in the Senate Gallery in Ben Gurion University, the other currently up in the Mishkan Museum of Art in Ein Harod. This gave some closure. Add to that a baby, a move, and a new job, and I feel it is time to move on.
With much exhortations from my brother Oriel, I have finally decided to pick up the gauntlet.
For this book, I have decided to use black marker. The monochromatic palette will create a  visual link to Deuteronomy, emphasizing that the Book of Joshua picks up exactly where it ends off. This is the sequel.
the simplicity of the marker does not allow too much fine detail, which i think is appropriate for the simple language and narrative of this book
Bibliodraw Part II, here we come.
Oriel, this one is for you!

Limited Edition Prints

In preparation for the exhibition at Ben Gurion, Bibiliodraw has been properly digitized.
Limited edition prints of select images are now available. Contact me for details.

On Exhibition

A selection of images from Bibliodraw are currently on view in  the Department of Art in the University of Ben Gurion. The exhibition will be up through the summer.

Goodbye to Deuteronomy

So here it goes. I've been wafting and wedging about writing this Siyyum.
Why?
Because doing so would imply that this part is really over. Because it would mean I need to decide what to do next. And also because Deuteronomy was hard for me, on so many levels. How do I sum it up--or some up my interaction with this difficult book?

Deuteronomy means literally "deuter" "nomos"--"second law"--a close translation of the Rabbinic appellation for the book: "Mishne Torah"--"second/ repeated law". Both names focus on the fact that this book is mostly retrospective, a spoken review of the books that came before. In terms of the time frame, this book was indeed, for me, a doubling--it took me as long as the other 4 books put together. It is harder to get a sense of continuity with all the time that passed since starting this book and finishing it. I was forced to do my own "review", going back and looking at the images, to try to feel how this book develops. 

In some ways, the Book of Number leads smoothly and directly into Deuteronomy. The final chapters of Numbers act as a segue, as they begin the review of the desert years that becomes explicit at the opening of Deuteronomy.  More profoundly, if the Book of Numbers focused on learning how to speak, this Book of Words (the literal meaning of the Hebrew name, Devarim) focuses on the next stage of speech: the creation of identity and memory. We move from learning to speak, to learning how to write, and to transmitting this writing to the future. And if Numbers ends with the fear of curses and imprecation, Deuteronomy closes with the giving over of blessing.

  

How does this “book of words” transform speech?

“These are the words the Moses spoke”: we begin with a focus on the role of the narrator. The first chapter of this book can be read as a primer in literary theories of narratology, with a defined speaker presenting reported speech and internal speech, vying with a narrative that has already been told. The literary structure forces an awareness of the presence of the speaker, and how the speaker’s experience and narrative stance affects the story that is told. The review is not identical to the original. The prism of identity stands in the way—an identity formed by the “words” being spoken, which define the timeline, define causality, define responsibility. Experience is translated into a particular frame, and into various narratives that compete with each other. Speech becomes the bearer of identity, the maker of memory. It is words that bind: you are defined by what you swear by, by the words you declaim. History is defined by what and how you choose to remember. Covenant is a story that must be personally and collectively articulated, again and again.  The book ends with a grand scene of establishing a seminal text that will serve as the nexus of identity: "And Moses wrote this teaching (torah) and delivered it to the priests and the sons of Levi...and the elders of Israel" (31:9). From internal speech, we are moving outwards, towards writing that is meant for reading, for sharing: "you will read this teaching before all of Israel, in their ears. Gather the people together: men women, and children and the stranger within your gates, that they may hear and may learn... so that their children, who do not know, may hear and learn" (10-13). 

The focus on speech and its role in creating identity, is accompanied by a focus on boundaries, both literal and metaphysical. The book sets out to differentiate "self" from "non-self."Like all stories, it is a story that also excludes and destroys. There is no room for dual loyalties in the covenant. All that is "not self" must be destroyed or incorporated.  Deuteronomy  continuously moves between a defined center and outer limits and back again--whether by tracing the contours of the country though the tri-annual journey from the peripheral cities to the central "place" that God will choose; or through a judiciary that is placed at "every gate" yet relies on a central authority; or through the network of roads providing refuge for the inadvertent killer. Beyond these etched contours is the space "outside"--a space to which the army "goes out," only to come "back in". The boundaries of the land are echoed in metaphysical laws that define and limit who can "come into" the congregation.  Even the consequence of sin is limited by a boundary, not to exceed the limits of the individual life.

It is Moses, the speaker, who experiences these absolute boundaries most acutely. Barred from crossing the physical boundary of the Jordan River, his life embodies the unbreakable and unmoving limit of God's will. The book opens as he looks out toward the Promised Land, and closes as his final request is once again refused, and he dies "there, in the desert, by the passages of Moab," unable to "cross" the river. It is Moses who embodies the lesson that his "song" comes to teach:  That God is the singularity that holds all opposition,: "I am He...there is none that can deliver from My hands."

In its focus on giving and taking and absolute boundaries, Deuteronomy returns us to the primordial introduction of the speech act: Eden and its aftermath.  Deuteronomy indeed acts as a "second law" in that it returns us to the issues that animated the primal presentation of humanity: : speech, knowledge, possession, and “good”--the adjective that Moses repeats again and again. The first, the only, command given to the humanity is to see and not not to take--to accept the imposed limits, to be a guardian who does not “send forth his hand.” In Moses’ bitter experience standing on Nebo, we return to the human in the garden, staring at the forbidden fruit. And this time, the painful boundary remains unbroken.

Does this perhaps, allow the blessing to answer the curse? 

Deuteronomy 34: In Writing

Always across

always abyss

Pour myself out

over water, into water

wafting on the waves

waiting for hands

that reach, will not reach

Watch me as I look outward

nothing between us

sky above us.

Do you watch for me?

You will never find me.

As I can never pass

onto dry land.

Let me curl into the clefts

between the waves

listening for your voice

the brush of your breath.

Deuteronomy: Chapter 34

Everything and nothing:

what you see and what you cannot have

eye to eye

face to face

At the moment of ending 

who will know me

who will I know?

[For full chapter, click here

We come to the final chapter of Deuteronomy, a chapter of ending, and transitions. There is a harsh finality to this closing: some things are irreplaceable, irreparable. Moses' tears and pleading cannot undo his one mistake at Meriba. "You shall see the Land, and there you shall not pass." And with the death of Moses "in the land of Moab" is the end of an era. An intimacy has passed that will not return: "there arose no more in Israel like Moses, who knew God face to face." We touch absolute limits and absolute loss.

Moses climbs Nebo for a bird's-eye view of the Promised Land. Yet of Michel de Certeau sees the synoptic high view as presenting the position of power, here is serves to demonstrate absolute limits: "and God showed him the land of Gilead as far of Dan, and all of Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Menasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the last sea... And God said to him: 'this is the land that I swore unto Abraham, Isaac and Jacob... you have seen it with your eyes, and there you shall not pass." The Torah closes with a harsh lessons that not all you see is there for the taking. Is this perhaps a return to humanities first, failed, lesson in boundaries, with a Tree whose "fruit was a delight for the eyes," yet was not to be eaten?

Yet it is the harshness of absolute limits that itself that reveals the deepest intimacy. In Moses' lonely journey up the mountain, it is God who is with him. He dies "by the mouth of God," and it is God who buries him "in a valley in the land of Moab, and no man knows his burial site, to this very day." No man knows Moses' final resting place, but Moses "knows God face to face." It is this mutual knowledge that defines Moses and provides his space, as the people move onwards. 

For this is also a chapter of transition. There will be no replacement for Moses, but there will be a next step. Joshua is filled with the "spirit of God, for Moses laid his hands on him." The days of mourning "end," and we await the next step.]

Deuteronomy 33: In Writing

These are the words...

After all has been said

factored and seen

loosen the strands

and watch them rectangle

speak watching and wondering

watering a seed

and whispering Grow

language of letting go

ceasing to mold

the world with word

speaking the words

between now and later

Listen to my speech

turn to blessing

turn to prayer.

May we live and not die

May we be

May we come

into our people

May we draw on the deeps

May we reach for the dew 

sunk in the sand

plyng the sea.

May we reach what lurks below

what drips above.

May we find the everlasting hills

the eternal mountains

that embrace.

Hold us in your arms

gathered at your feet

carrying your voice

in the nucleus of our cells.

I know

no one

but the weave that holds us together,

the everlasting arms of earth

a lone glinting spring.