Unscrolled : 54 Writers and Artists Wrestle With the Torah (9780761178743)

by Bennett, Roger (EDT)

  Family trumps all

  The entire party returns to Egypt, but the brothers are afraid that Joseph will exact his revenge now that their father is dead. They test the waters by sending Joseph a message suggesting that Jacob has left him instruction to forgive his brothers. Joseph weeps as he hears this, and his brothers fling themselves at his mercy and offer to be his slaves. Joseph assures them he is no god and reiterates that although they may once have wished him harm, the outcome of their action has been good, thanks to God. He reassures them that he will look after his entire family.

  Joseph lives to be 110. Before he dies, he makes his brothers swear that they will take his bones back to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Once he dies, he is embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.

  Dennis Berman

  a letter to my unborn son

  ***

  You are coming soon. And when you arrive, we will bless you. But for whom is this blessing? Is it for you? Or is it for us?

  I can already feel the moment. It’s January, and the wind is leaking through the window. Your mother will be spent, and in the drafty night, crankily demand that I try to soothe you.

  You will be at my shoulder, both of us stuck between sleep and alertness, barely able to see.

  And then will come my blessing for you, remembering how my father and I recited the Shema together before bed. We would name each aunt, each uncle, each cousin, and then finish with a patriotic flourish that invited God to look after “all the Jewish people, the United States, and all Earth.”

  Jacob to Manasseh and Ephraim. All the way down, from me to you.

  I can already feel that sensation of your tired lungs on my chest. I will find your head with my hands, issuing a directive into the darkness:

  god bless and keep this child. send him on the right path.above all, bestow on him a perfect jump shot. keep his feet square to the basket. make sure the elbow is tucked at ninety degrees beneath his shooting hand.

  Is there a difference between a prayer and a blessing, especially a blessing lost on an unknowing infant? We use the terms interchangeably, but there seems to be an abiding difference.

  To pray seems suitably humble. It is a beseechment.

  To bless a child suggests I have some power, some priestly redirection, to channel God’s wishes. God, show my son Your favor! And right now!

  Here I must level with you, son: I’ve got no pull. My blessing will rise from the earth like all the others, a moisture for clouds. But it is really up to God or whatever forces you may one day understand: luck, genetics, parenting, economics, evolution.

  On this night, son, the blessing will not soothe you or cheer you. The blessing is to soothe and cheer me.

  ***

  And before long, you will understand words. And you will watch your father fret about this world and your role in it.

  It will be hard to resist assigning you a path. Maybe I will regard you as a Reuben, too intemperate for your own good.

  Or you will be lavished with expectation, a Judah in your parents’ eyes.

  Prophesy is dangerous stuff, son. Not that saying it will directly make it so. But that slowly, unconsciously, I will try to shape your adult self to some vision erected when you were a child.

  I will teach you all that I know. But we must remember: This is your gig.

  ***

  The years move on, and I can see you again. Your tired lungs have grown strong. You are nearly a man yourself, and far from home, angry with me. In the dark, I will say a prayer for you, thinking of myself no more.

  ***

  And then the moment further off, perhaps, when the blessings lost on you as an infant are finally made whole.

  You are in the dark with your own son, my grandson. You are tired, and not sure how things will go. And then you will discover your own words, left like a cask of bourbon biding its time.

  square to the basket. feet set. elbow. please, god.

  Part Two

  Exodus

  The narrative hurtles four hundred years on, and the story turns to that of nation building and the moment when the covenant that had first been revealed to Abraham is made manifest.

  Exodus begins with a listing of the sons of Jacob, the man who became known as Israel. His descendants, the Israelites, have become a slave people; the book tells the story of their liberation. And since every freedom story needs a hero, Moses—a man with a mysterious orphan-turned-prince upbringing and a personality that can be both stubborn and insecure—is introduced as God’s chosen leader.

  God and Moses meet at a burning bush and quickly become a mutually enabling partnership. Both appear able to manipulate the other as the Israelites wander through the wilderness, suspended between the suffering of the past, the indignity of the present, and the promise of the future. They are not an attractive people: fickle, weak, ungrateful, and undermining. But their adventures are made for Cecil B. DeMille: They careen from one visual spectacle to another—the Ten Plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the fury at Mount Sinai, and the desert wonder of the Tabernacle.

  Susan Dominus

  Sh’mot (“Names”) Exodus 1:1–6:1

  Sloane Crosley

  Va-era (“And I appeared”) Exodus 6:2–9:35

  Steve Bodow

  Bo (“Go”) Exodus 10:1–13:16

  Joel Stein

  B’shallah (“When he let go”) Exodus 13:17–17:16

  Rebecca Odes & Sam Lipsyte

  Yitro (“Jethro”) Exodus 18:1–20:23

  Ben Greenman

  Mishpatim (“Laws”) Exodus 21:1—24:18

  Marc Kushner

  T’rumah (“Offering”) Exodus 25:1–27:19

  Mark Lamster

  T’tzavveh (“You command”) Exodus 27:20–30:10

  Rich Cohen

  Ki Tissa (“When you take”) Exodus 30:11–34:35

  Ross Martin

  Va-yak·hel (“And he assembled”) Exodus 35:1–38:20

  Josh Kun

  P’kudei (“Amounts of”) Exodus 38:21–40:38

  “The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe in the Nile, while her maidens walked along the Nile. She spied the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to fetch it.” —Exodus 2:5

  SH’MOT (“Names”)

  Exodus 1:1–6:1

  Joseph’s family numbers only seventy when they first come down to Egypt, but they breed prolifically, and soon fill the region. And so, when a new king, with no memory of Joseph and the heroic role he has played, arises, he views the number of Hebrews as both a security risk and a potential fifth column in a time of war. He has them rounded up and forces them to work as slave laborers, but despite the brutality of their work, the Hebrews still multiply, and the Egyptians begin to despise their presence.

  In the name of population control, the king of Egypt commands every Hebrew midwife to kill newborn boys at birth. The midwives, fearing God more than Pharaoh, disobey the order; he counters by commanding his people to throw every newborn Hebrew boy into the Nile.

  A Levite man and wife conceive a son. Entranced by his beauty, the mother hides him for his first three months. Once he has grown too large to conceal, she places him in a carefully constructed wicker basket and floats him on the Nile, telling his sister to watch over him from close by.

  When Pharaoh’s daughter comes down to the Nile to bathe, she spots the basket in the reeds and orders her servant to fetch it. Discovering a crying boy, she guesses that the infant must be a Hebrew. His sister approaches Pharaoh’s daughter and offers to find a Hebrew who can nurse him. The baby’s mother is fetched, and Pharaoh’s daughter retains her as a nurse. When the boy grows up, the princess adopts the boy and names him Moses, which means “I pulled him out of the water.”

  Coming of age

  Moses sees the Hebrews hard at labor and witnesses an Egy
ptian guard beating a slave. After looking around to check that no one is watching, he strikes and kills the guard; he then buries him in the sand. The next day he encounters two Hebrews brawling and intercedes to try to calm them down. One of the Hebrews sarcastically asks if Moses intends to murder him as he did the guard, and a panicked Moses realizes that his violent act was witnessed. Pharaoh soon finds out about the matter and issues the death penalty, so Moses flees deep into the desert to a well in Midian.

  Moses watches the seven daughters of a local priest drive their flocks to this well, but before they can water their animals, local shepherds chase them away. Moses leaps in to defend the women and to make sure they can get the water. The priest cannot believe that his daughters have accomplished their task so quickly, so they tell him about the Egyptian who came to their aid. The priest invites Moses to be their guest and ends up giving him one of his daughters, Zipporah, as a wife. The two give birth to a son, Gershom, which means “I’ve been a stranger in a foreign land.”

  Time passes. The king of Egypt dies, yet the Israelites’ suffering only increases. God hears their cries for help and recalls the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

  Burning man

  An angel of the Lord appears to Moses in a blazing bush, which he encounters while driving his father-in-law’s flock. The bush burns without ever being consumed. When Moses wonders aloud how that is happening, God calls out to him by name, instructing him to take off his shoes and respect the holiness of the ground. Moses hides his face out of fear, as he instantly connects God to the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

  The Lord reveals the plan. It is time to rescue the Hebrews from their suffering and to bring them out to a land, flowing with milk and honey, that is currently populated by a number of tribes, including the Canaanites. Moses’ job is to go to Pharaoh as God’s intermediary, so the Israelites can be liberated from Egypt.

  Moses questions whether he has the right credentials for the task, but God reassures him that the Lord’s presence will be all that he needs to succeed. He is then commanded to ensure that the newly liberated Israelites will travel to this mountain and worship the Lord.

  Moses asks how he should describe God to the Israelites, so they will know to take his story seriously. God uses the name Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh (“I will be what I will be”), and offers specific advice about how Moses should address the Israelite elders, reminding them of the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the promise of land. God is aware that Pharaoh will agree to liberate the Israelites only if he is exposed to a greater power; the plan is to batter the Egyptians with a series of wonders.

  Moses remains apprehensive, worrying that the Israelites will not believe his story, so God performs a pair of miracles to strengthen his courage: First, Moses’ rod is turned into a serpent and back again, and then Moses’ hand is frozen. God believes these visual wonders will convince the Israelites, but if they both fail, Moses should pour Nile water onto dry ground and watch as it is converted into blood. The next concern Moses raises is about his speech impediment. God dismisses his anxiety, asking him to remember who it is that gives humans the power to speak and who makes them deaf, dumb, or blind. Moses continues to express his doubt, and God begins to lose patience, suggesting Moses employ his brother, Aaron, as a spokesman.

  God instructs Moses to return to Egypt, reminding him that all those who wanted to kill him are themselves dead. So Moses takes his wife and sons on an ass and heads to Egypt.

  leading in troubling times

  On the journey, God prepares Moses for the wonders that will be performed before Pharaoh, briefing him on the plan to harden Pharaoh’s heart so the king will be humanly unable to let the Israelites go until the life of his oldest son is threatened.

  A mysterious incident follows, where God suddenly sweeps down and attempts to kill Moses’ son at night. Zipporah responds by circumcising her son with a flint.

  Meanwhile, God directs Aaron to meet Moses in the desert. Moses briefs him, and the pair assemble the elders of Israel. Aaron handles the talking and performs the miracles God has prepared. The elders respond immediately, bowing down in relief that the Lord has recognized their suffering at last.

  Liberation begins

  The duo confront Pharaoh, demanding in God’s name to be allowed to take the Israelites into the desert to worship. Pharaoh rejects the request: He has not heard of God, and is frustrated that Moses and Aaron are distracting the Israelites from their slave labor. The Egyptian king orders his slave masters to worsen the Israelites’ conditions, hoping added punishment will encourage them to forget about God.

  The Israelite foremen beg Pharaoh to relent, but he shows them no mercy, calling them shirkers. Returning to work, the foremen encounter Moses and Aaron and berate them for worsening their conditions. Moses turns to God and begs to know why their plan appears to be backfiring. God tells Moses to wait and see. Before long, Pharaoh will be exposed to a force so superior, he will not just let the Israelites go, but will drive them from his land.

  Susan Dominus

  I knew who she was right away. Before I could even see her face, I could see the embroidery around her neckline, and then I knew. Everyone in town was wearing a similar but simpler version, a stitch anyone’s little sister could make in a quarter of the time, but I knew the original when I saw it, because my friend Tamar had designed it, the crazy shimmering stream of tiny triangles in gold and yellow, so many in that infinite line of pattern that it made my head ache just watching my friend bend her head over that precious piece of cloth, hour after hour, stitching loop after loop. I would have been seeing triangles in my nightmares, but Tamar saw them in her dreams, like revelations; Tamar was an artist, which made her different. She was also a slave, which made us the same. “It’s for his daughter,” she whispered to me. No one ever mentioned him by name, out of fear, out of loathing. His name was cruel. His name was dirt in our mouths.

  And so I knew who that was, that girl on the shore, the one staring out onto the water. On any other day, I would have run, run like my life depended on it, breathless with the news of my sighting, electrified by my close brush with power. On any other day, it would have been a short story I told my friends, maybe even my children, although at that time I did not let myself think I might have children of my own: the time I saw the princess, alone, across the Nile.

  I had no intention of running away this time. I was there for a reason, even if I could not say what it was. I had already run away that morning, escaping the sight of my mother, collapsed on the floor. For three months, my brother, a life banned by edict, had cried out for food, for love, for life. Every time he did, he endangered our own. I could live with that cold, crawling feeling of imminent disaster, ignoring the ceaseless throb of terror as I carefully tended his bath, beating his cloth swaddlings until they were softer than his own skin—I had no responsibilities other than to this child, this princeling in our midst, my baby brother, a creature whose head touched my hands before any other’s as I ushered him out of the same woman who had given me life. I had no other loyalty: He was my world. But my mother had another child to protect. That child was me. And she had chosen. She had sent my brother on his way, sending him floating away. She could not protect him any longer; maybe the perch and the catfish, the crocodiles and the water lilies could.

  As children, my friends and I had taken stalks and husks and tied them into miniature boats like the real ones we saw on the river, creating our own mini fleets, pitching them downstream, then racing for miles to see whose had gone the farthest. I knew the banks of the river, I knew its pacing, where the boats got stuck in the banks at a curve and had to be poked out with a long branch, where the current picked up and boats might go out too far to be retrieved. I ran to find my brother, and when I finally spied him, sleepy and silent, lulled or stunned by sun, I looked up and saw her, too. Later, the stories would all say she was with her handmaids, but t
hat was royal editing. I know the truth; she was alone. And she was crying, for what reason, I never found out: A lost treasure? Heartbreak? Shame?

  Maybe I was blindly guessing, or maybe I was distilling, in the compressed urgency of the moment, something essentially true about the person I saw. I took a chance; I flung a rock, not at her, but into the river. I made a splash. I saw her look up, I saw her see, and comprehend, immediately, what should not have been comprehensible: a baby, three months old, floating down the river in a basket that should have been dry, in someone’s larder, packed with food from the market. And then I saw her reach, reach out to grab my brother, reaching so far that I thought she would almost certainly fall in. Her arm seemed to stretch, so that she seemed not just royal in that moment but almost divine, sure of having whatever she wished, whatever its cost.

  And then Moses was on land and in her arms. He awoke, sobbing with hunger, with thirst—to her, the sound of any baby crying; to me, the sound of my brother in pain. I gave her a moment to register the situation, how unequipped she was to offer him solace, how badly he needed it. I waited, biding my time until I saw her awe turn to uncertainty, and then:

  “I know a Hebrew nurse,” I called out across the river. I was loud, and my voice sounded ragged to my ears. She looked up from my brother and saw me. What did she see? I had no time to compose myself; I am sure she saw it all. Desperation. Fear. How starved I was for an answer to my offer. And then she nodded.