Vayechi

So Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. - Gen 50:26

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the Universe. - Carl Sagan

As we complete the Book of Genesis, a new narrative emerges; we exchange cosmology and biography for racial history. With the death of Joseph, the Bible's last cosmopolitan protagonist, the story ceases to be about the creation of the Universe, and the interplay of a few select men and their tribes with the neighbouring tribes of Bronze Age Judea. The story is now about the Jews.

For the remaining four books of the Pentateuch, we will follow one man - Moses - as he leads a single nation - Israel - from the bonds of servitude in Egypt to bloody conquest in the Promised Land, with a lot of nomadic wandering thrown in for good measure.

The commentators distinguish between two phrasings of the same essential blessing, "Blessed art thou, Lord our God, who created the Universe" and "Blessed art thou, Lord our God, who took us from Egypt". This distinction seems to demonstrate a sensitivity not just between two different kinds of god - the Deistic watchmaker, and the Theistic interferer - but between two different kinds of idea: the Big Idea, and the Small Idea.

Big Ideas are questions of philosophy. Who are we? Where did we come from? What is the Universe for? Why is - well, any question beginning with "why" is probably a Big One.

Small Ideas are questions of practicality. Did I leave the iron on? Will bad traffic cause me to miss this appointment? Does that special someone feel the same way?

Life is, and ought always to be, a delicate interplay of the two. We must live with a constant awareness of Big and Small, and strive to understand which of the two should take precedence in each moment. This is no easy task. But the literary end of Genesis, and the mortal end of Joseph, both remind us of the task's importance - not just its necessity, but its urgency.

For the ultimate fate of Joseph is the fate of us all - indeed, the fate of the Universe itself. We must make the best of what we can - right now - for time is short. Go tell someone you love them, hug a stranger, and try something crazy you've always been too scared to do. Above all else, dedicate yourself to that which is truly important.

You will never be as young as you are today.

Vayigash

After successfully predicting and preparing for an imminent seven year famine, Joseph is left in control of the only food in the region. The citizens of Egypt pawn all their possessions, and that gets them enough food for a year.

When that year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said unto him, "We will not hide it from my lord, how that our money is spent; my lord also hath our herds of cattle; there is not ought left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands: Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate." - Gen 47:18-19

Interestingly, the commentators write that Joseph willingly accepted all the real estate, but he did not acquire the citizens of Egypt as slaves. Now consider the incident of Jacob and Esau that took place a few parshiot earlier:

And Jacob simmered a stew, and Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, "Feed me, I pray thee, with that red stew; for I am exhausted." (Therefore was his name called Edom.) And Jacob said, "Sell me this day your birthright." And Esau said, "Behold, I am about to die: of what use is a birthright to me?"

And Jacob said, "Swear to me this day;" and he swore unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau spurned his birthright. - Gen 25:29-34

Compare the actions of father and son. Jacob sees his brother about to starve and insists upon acquiring the poor man's birthright before feeding him. Joseph sees his subjects about to starve and refuses their own offer to become his slaves.

The Kabbalists write that the Patriarchs represented different sefirot, or attributes of the Divine. Roughly translated, Abraham was chesed: mercy; Isaac was gevurah: strength; and Jacob was tiferet: balance. As the lineage proceeded, the attributes were honed. I do not know of any commentators raising this particular example, but I like the clear contrast between Jacob's exploitation and Joseph's mercy.

There's a sensation you get with good literature, that the text is almost cognizant, and that when you curry its favour with diligent study, it rewards you with a new insight. Turn it this way, turn it that way.

Shabbath Shalom

Mikeitz

Joseph's Guide to Obtaining and Wielding Power!

1) Be just a tiny bit better than the competition

Everything Joseph does, he does slightly better than everyone else. Whether it be slave to the House of Potiphar, or astrologer to kings, Joseph goes above and beyond every time. And that gets him promoted: whether from servant to head servant, or from small-time soothsayer to ruler of the whole fucking country, Joseph is always climbing the ladder. What's interesting about Joseph's upward-mobility is that he's doesn't seem to work that much harder than anyone else.

Bob Rona, author of The Quick and Easy Guide to Sensational Selling, says that the differences between an average product, a good product, and a great product, are often very minimal. For a 10% increase in price, you may well get a product that's twice as good.

The same principle is true of good workmanship. Joseph doesn't do anything extraordinary in Potiphar's House - he just does what he's told to. But he does it properly, every time, and is thus appointed to run the household.

Success is not always a matter of breaking your back in difficult toil - many do that their whole lives, and never get anywhere. Sometimes it's just about finding the right place to put in that little bit extra.

2) Have a plan

When Pharoah asks the young Hebrew to interpret a pair of troubling dreams, Joseph tells the king what the dreams mean, then judiciously follows up with sound advice on what Pharoah should do about it. Pharoah is so impressed that he instantly appoints Joseph viceroy over the entire empire - "by my throne alone shall I outrank you." (Gen 41:40)

Pharoah didn't ask Joseph for actual advice - the lad was brought before the throne to serve as a dream interpreter, not a strategic advisor. But because he recognised a newly created gap in policy, and demonstrated the initiative and foresight to fill that gap with a viable plan, he was, with an air of inevitability, appointed to carry out that plan. The default position of those in power when presented with a grand scheme is often, in the immortal words of Jean-Luc Picard, "make it so". This policy makes perfect sense from the leader's point of view: the originator of a strategy is generally someone who properly understands its value and what is needed to make it work - why complicate things by trying to find someone else who fits the bill?

3) Get divine assistance

And Joseph had been brought down to Egypt. Potiphar... purchased him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. God was with the Joseph, and he became a successful man; and he remained in the house of his Egyptian master. His master perceived that God was with him, and whatever he did God made succeed in his hand. Joseph found favour in his eyes, and he served him; and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had put into his hand. - Gen 39:1-4

Remember when I said that Joseph did his servant-work competently? Well, he did get a little help. While this does dampen his success a bit in Potiphar's house, his dream-interpreting stuff is still pretty impressive... right?

Then Pharoah sent and summoned Joseph, and they rushed him from the dungeon. He shaved and changed his clothes, and he came to Pharoah. And Pharoah said to Joseph, "I dreamt a dream, but no one can interpret it. Now I heard it said of you that you can comprehend a dream to interpret it."

Joseph answered Pharoah, saying, "That is beyond me; it is God Who will respond with Pharoah's welfare." - Gen 41:14-16

So if you can get God to do everything for you, you'll do pretty well. Problem is, of course, that we're never told exactly what it is that Joseph did to get God onside, though I suspect that nepotism played a significant role.

And, finally:

4) Once you have the power, be a dick

God's constant assistance wasn't the only thing Joseph got from papa. He also inherited his father's love of being an asshole. But instead of simply stealing from his brothers, Joseph took his dad's favourite pastime one further: he framed his brothers for stealing from him.

During a famine that affected the entire region, Joseph's brothers came to Egypt to buy food from the royal stockpile. When they finally met after so many years apart, Joseph recognised his brothers, but they didn't recognise him. Most of this week's parashah is dedicated to the ensuing story of how Joseph repeatedly framed, falsely accused, imprisoned, and generally mindfucked his bewildered brothers.

It must be noted that Joseph was far more justified in all of this than his father ever was; after all, his brothers did attempt to murder him shortly before they sold him into slavery. So I guess you can't really fault him for being a dick in this instance. But you definitely have to give him credit for doing it well. And I suspect he enjoyed it. A lot.

As my favourite misquotation of Lord Acton goes, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But it also rocks absolutely."

Shabbath Shalom

Vayeishev

"There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it..." - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Two seemingly unrelated narratives run through his week's parashah. The main tale - which continues into next week - is about Joseph, favourite son of Jacob, favourite son of Isaac, favourite son of Abraham. By this point we all know how well the whole "favourite son" thing works out, but just like that one time when your spaghetti bolognaise slid right off its plate and splattered dramatically onto the recently-cleaned-but-still-much-too-dirty-to-eat-off floor, there is nothing you can do but gape as the awful spectacle unfolds.

Joseph, like his father before him, does a very good job of being a dick. Not enough that his dad gives him amazing technicolor dreamcoats, no sir. No, Joseph has to go around telling his brothers about dreams he's had involving symbolic sheaves of wheat and celestial bodies in motion - the sort of thing which is basically fancy-pants astrologer speak for "you'se all my bitches". As we are all aware by this point, there is only so much complete dickery that favourite sons can get away with before their siblings try to kill them. Whilst out shepherding one day (the sons of Jacob were all shepherds; Yissachar wanted to go into medicine, but that was no field for a good Jewish boy), the brothers throw Joseph into a desert pit to die of thirst; then, in a sudden fit of joint compassion, rescue him from the pit and sell him to Arab traders instead.

Joseph ends up working for a wealthy Egyptian named Potiphar, and soon rises through the ranks to become Chief Servant of the Household. That might not sound very impressive to you, what with the word "servant" still being part of the title and all, but it comes with a good dental plan and superannuation, and when you're sold to Arab traders, you take what you can get. Potiphar's wife has a penchant for kosher sausage, and tries to sleep with Joseph whenever she gets a chance. Joseph continually rebuffs her, ostensibly because he's too honourable to sleep with a married woman, but more likely because she looks like a snaggletoothed cross between Rosie O'Donnell and Amy Winehouse.

Eventually, the constant rejection really pisses off Mrs. Potiphar, and in her fury she claims that Joseph tried to rape her, an allegation which quickly lands the young lad in an Egyptian prison. While incarcerated, Joseph meets Pharoah's butler and Pharoah's baker, who are troubled by their recent dreams. Seeing how well the whole interpreting-people's-dreams thing went the first time around, Joseph takes a crack at these two, predicting that the baker will be executed while the butler is to be released and reinstated to his old job. Joseph asks the butler to put a good word in with Pharoah, so that the king might release Joseph. But when the predictions prove true, the butler demonstrates that he, too, can be an absolute tool, and completely "forgets" to ever mention the incident to Pharoah. Which I guess is unsurprising, really: what else do you expect from a public servant?

In next week's parashah, we see things eventually work out for Joseph. When the butler eventually does remember to mention the whole dream incident to Pharoah - TWO YEARS LATER - Joseph is summoned to the palace and begins a swift climb through the ranks which culminates in his appointment by Pharoah to run the whole damn country.

Meanwhile, far away, in another part of town, Judah gets married, settles down, and has three sons. The kids grow up, and Judah marries his eldest boy, Er, to a girl named Tamar.

But Er, Judah's firstborn was evil in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord slew him. Then Judah said to Onan, "Consort with your brother's wife and enter into levirate marriage with her, and establish offspring for your brother." But Onan knew that the seed would not be his; so it was, that whenever he would consort with his brother's wife, he would let it go to waste on the ground so as not to provide offspring for his brother. What he did was evil in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord slew him, too. - Gen 38:7-10

At this point Judah realises that marrying this particular dame might not be the optimal course of action for son #3, so he takes a raincheck on the whole business.

Time passes, and Judah's wife dies. Tamar, frustrated that she still has no baby-daddy, covers her face with a veil, disguises herself as a whore, and waits by some crossroads which she knows Judah will soon be passing by. Judah sees her and asks her for (apparently unprotected) sex. How Tamar knew that he would go for a hooker is never satisfactorily explained. He offers her a sheep, which was apparently the going rate at the time, and she accepts. Judah leaves his staff, cloak and signet ring (why he has non-soulbound gear equipped is also never satisfactorily explained) as a pledge that he will send said sheep and, dangerously undergeared and lacking the stats needed to deal with any random encounters, departs for home. He actually tries to send her the sheep he promised but, seeing as how she isn't actually that crossroads' resident slut and, furthermore, how she has left no forwarding address, the livestock comes back marked "return to sender".

And it was, when about three months had passed, that Judah was told, "Your daughter-in-law Tamar has committed harlotry and, moreover, she has conceived by harlotry." Judah said, "Take her out and let her be burned!" - Gen 38:24

In your head, run through the classic scene from Holy Grail with minor adjustments for added hilariousness: "We have found a slut, may we burn her?" "How do you know she is a slut?" "She looks like one!" etc

As she was taken out, she sent word to her father-in-law, saying, "By the man to whom these belong I am with child." And she said, "Identify, if you please, whose are this signet, this wrap, and this staff." Judah recognised; and he said, "She is right; it is from me, inasmuch as I did not give her to Shelah my son." And he never had sex with her again. - Gen 38:26

Some people claim that the Bible is merely a collection of fairy tales, but this story clearly proves otherwise. Fairy tales end with, "And they all lived happily ever after." Bible stories end with, "And he never had sex with her again." CLEARLY DIFFERENT.

The fall and rise of Joseph, and the dalliance of Judah and Tamar, have the same theme running through them: the getting, use, and abuse, of power. Joseph's is the classic rag-to-riches tale; a young man whose talent for interpreting dreams in a reliable yet remarkably insensitive way proves to be both the instrument of his downfall and the tool of his redemption (which leads, naturally, to the redemption of the tool). Eventually, Joseph uses his political power to screw with his brothers; a highly illustrative example which presumably makes social scientists wet themselves with glee.

Judah's tale, meanwhile, starkly highlights how power imbalances - between the prince and the proletarian, between man and woman - lead to severe, yet seemingly inevitable, injustices. Tamar sluts it up? Kill her! Judah sluts it up? Well, um... you see... look, let's just forget this whole thing ever happened, ok? The girl? No, just let her go. Case closed.

I've heard it argued that Judaism is likely the one true faith because its holy writ portrays its heroes warts and all, unlike the sacred texts of other faiths, which contain unrealistically perfect protagonists. A few points need to be said about this admittedly innovative piece of apologetics. Firstly, of course, it's blatantly not true. For instance, Arjun from the Bhagavad Gita is also depicted as far from perfect, and in a constant state of internal struggle. Secondly, even if the Torah were uniquely realistic with regards to its heroes' flaws, it would prove nothing other than perhaps a little more literary finesse on the part of its author. King Lear is brilliant, but that hardly makes it true.

Finally, and most importantly for our purposes: it is interesting to note the extent to which conventional orthodox Jewish readings attempt to completely counter this nuance, and portray all the "good guys" of Tanakh, ironically enough, as infallible übermenschen. The commentators seem to have developed, with a few honourable exceptions, the nasty habit of whitewashing the text into simplistic morality tales, ignoring the depth of character and events which are so abundant within the works. This parashah especially is a fantastic study of character, power, and the workings of society, and I encourage you to set aside, even temporarily, whatever interpretations you might already hold, and truly explore the richness within.

Vayishlach

Regular readers will already be familiar with my view of the traditional Esau-Jacob rivalry: Esau was both an upstanding gentleman and a total badass, whilst Jacob was a an odious crook. This week we read of the last time the twins would ever meet alive. The parashah begins thus:

Then Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to Esau his brother to the land of Seir, the field of Edom. He charged them, saying: "This shall you say, 'To my lord, to Esau, so said your servant Jacob: I have sojourned with Laban and have lingered until now. I have acquired oxen and donkeys, flocks, servants and maidservants and I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favour in your eyes.'"

The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, "We came to your brother, to Esau; moreover, he is heading toward you, and four hundred men are with him." - Gen 32:4-7

At this point, our antihero clearly realises that he is royally screwed. Jacob, realising that his uppance is about to come, commences Operation: Bribe Your Way Out Of A Tight Spot, and sets up several flocks of herd animals as gift offerings to placate the righteous anger of his brother. Interestingly, he staggers the flocks so that the gift will appear larger than it really is. First sales trick in the Bible?

But before Jacob's gift trains can reach Esau, Esau reaches him.

Jacob raised his eyes and saw - behold, Esau was coming, and with him were four hundred men - so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two handmaids. He put the handmaids and their children first, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last. - Gen 33:1-2

Nota bene: Jacob protected his beloved wife and kids by hiding them behind his less valuable wife and kids. Just saying.

Then he himself went on ahead of them and bowed earthward seven times until he reached his brother. - Gen 33:3

Moment of truth. Jacob grovels a little, but it's surely too little, too late. This is where you expect Jacob to get his ass absolutely handed to him. But wait!

Esau ran toward him, embraced him, fell upon his neck, and kissed him; then they wept. - Gen 33:4

Take a second to truly feel what has just happened here. You have just witnessed the greatest act of forgiveness in the entire Torah. You have to understand what was at stake. When Jacob stole Esau's blessing, he didn't just screw Esau. He screwed all of Esau's descendants, in perpetuity, forever. Forever-ever? Forever-ever!

Esau was well within his rights to slay Jacob. But he didn't, because Esau was like Mahatma Ghandi². He didn't even take the damned bribe. He just said, "It's cool. We're cool." And that was that.

The midrashic commentators, by and large, continue to insist that Esau is the villain of the story. Some go so far as to claim that by "kissed him", the Bible clearly meant "tried to bite his throat out". Humans are very good at twisting new information to fit our respective preconceived world-views. None of us are immune to this tendency. But simply by recognising its very presence, we can begin to combat its specious and insidious consequences.

Try to ask yourself, early and often: "What if I'm wrong?" And always, always remember that the answer to that question is never quite as terrible as it seems.

Vayeitzei

After fleeing Beer-sheba to avoid the wrath of his brother (who possessed that unfortunate combination of being simultaneously really pissed off, and really handy with a bow and arrow), Jacob arrives in Haran, where he meets his cousin Rachel and is instantly smitten. He offers to work for Laban, Rachel's father, for seven years in exchange for the girls hand in marriage. Laban accepts the proposition, and the Torah gives us a terrifically saccharine verse.

So Jacob worked seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him a few days because of his love for her. - Gen 29:20

Awwwww... anyway, we get to the big day, and either Jacob is blind drunk or his bride is wearing a burqa, because - what do you know - he marries Rachel's sister, Leah. So he gets a little pissed off and confronts Laban about it. Laban explains that he switched the girls because "it's not the done thing for the younger sister to get married before the older". For some reason, Jacob is cool with this. Maybe he was just overcome with awe and respect because he'd finally met his match when it came to screwing people's lives through deception and fraud. I'm not a fan of Jacob, if that's still unclear. Really not a fan.

Laban follows up with, "I'll tell you what: I'll let you marry Rachel as well, but after you do you gotta work for me another seven years." At this point, the right next move for Jacob
is obvious: marry Rachel and run. Instead, he marries her and then actually works another seven years for Laban. Then he purchases some of Laban's flock for additional work. The text doesn't specify a figure, but the midrashic consensus seems to be six years.

Now here's the good part. He gets to the end of his six years and flees, in case Laban decided to take Rachel and Leah back. Dude. If you're going to flee, you may as well have done it thirteen years ago. You'd have the same wives, you'd just be down a few sheep. Big freaking deal.

Speaking of wives: by the time chapter 30 of Genesis rolls around, Leah has four kids; Rachel has zero.

Rachel saw that she had not borne children to Jacob, so Rachel became envious of her sister; she said to Jacob, "Give me children - otherwise I am dead." - Gen 30:1

Needy bitch, right?

Jacob's anger flared at Rachel, and he put her in her place with his mighty pimp hand. - Gen 30:2

No, just kidding.

Jacob's anger flared at Rachel, and he said, "Am I instead of God Who has withheld from you the fruit of your womb?" She said "Here is my maid Bilhah, consort with her, that she may bear upon my knees and I too may be built up through her. So she gave him Bilhah her maidservant as a wife, and Jacob consorted with her. Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, "God has judged me, He has also heard my voice and has given me a son." She therefore called his name Dan. - Gen 30:2-6

Does anyone else find this whole affair really, really creepy? Get hubby to impregnate the maidservant, grab the kid, claim it as your own? Kinda messed up.

I know I did firsts last week, but I can't miss the opportunity to drop this one in. Here goes: the first example of male prostitution in the Torah:

Reuben went out in the days of the wheat harvest; he found dudaim in the field and brought them to Leah his mother; Rachel said to Leah, "Please give me some of your son's dudaim." But she said to her, "Was your taking my husband insignificant? - And now to take even my son's dudaim!" Rachel said, "Therefore, he shall lie with you tonight in return for your son's dudaim." When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, "It is to me that you must come for I have clearly hired you with my son's dudaim." So he lay with her that night. - Gen 30:14-16

The Torah™: proud supporter of the pimp trade since 1313 B.C.

Toldot

Now here is a riddle
To guess if you can...
Who is the monster?
And who is the man?

- Walt Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Toldot is the story of two brothers: Esau, a hunter, a man of the wild; and Jacob, a scholar, a man of the book. Theirs was a rivalry that predated even their birth; as unborn twins they engaged in fetal fisticuffs - a pastime which certainly didn't endear the tykes to their collaterally damaged mother. (Gen 25:22) The boys were born Esau first, with Jacob grasping his brother's heel. Already the literary symbolism draws us to Esau as the protagonist, with Jacob the clear antagonist. As they boys grew, their parents played favourites; Esau was Isaac's golden boy, whilst Rebecca preferred Jacob. (ibid 25:28)

The mutual hostility of the brothers draws to a crescendo in a simultaneously spectacular and farcical piece of intrigue, the recounting of which occupies the entire 27th chapter of Genesis. Isaac's advanced age has robbed him of his sight, and he fears his time is almost up. He asks Esau to prepare for him one final feast, after which the elder Patriarch intends to grant his final blessing unto his favourite son. Ever diligent, Esau departs on a hunt.

Rebecca has overheard the exchange, and quickly hatches a scheme to ensure that her favourite son comes out on top. She urges Jacob to bring two young goats from their flock to her, so that she may prepare a meal for him. He can bring it to his blind father, who will think him Esau and mistakenly grant him the grand blessing. Jacob objects; not because he feels that there might be some kind of ethical problem involved in stealing from his brother by callously manipulating their blind, dying father; but because Esau is a hairy man, and if Isaac touches the impostor, the ruse is up. "Chill," Rebecca tells her frantic son. "I got it all figured out." Jacob brings the goats and Rebecca fries em up. She then takes the furry skins of the kids and covers Jacob's arms and neck with them, to simulate Esau's hairiness.

The preparation complete, Jacob enters the room of his father. They exchange niceties and, suspecting something is up, Isaac asks to feel his son's arm. The old man then exclaims:

"The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." - Gen 27:22

Plus a hundred points for poignant foreshadowing, but minus about a billion for good thinking, yeah? (Beeblebrox 1979) "Oh well, I feel fur, and it's a lot more likely that Esau's voice just magically changed into Jacob's than it is that Jacob, you know, put on a jacket - so, on with the blessing we go!" The kinesthetic deception successful, Jacob fraudulently receives the blessing and vanishes into the night, moments before Esau returns from his hunt and totally loses his shit.

Interestingly enough, midrashic commentary on this tract, and indeed, this relationship, invariably paints Jacob as the hero and Esau as the villain. The midrash performs all kinds of literary gymnastics in a desperate effort to imply that by "Esau liked hunting" the Bible means "Esau lied to his dad, served idols, commited regicide (seriously), seduced married women, and, presumably, cheated on his taxes (or at least his tithes)". These efforts can seem confusing, until we remember three fundamental points:

1. In the text: Esau (from what little we see of him) acts like a good human being and a great son.
2. In the text: Jacob is clearly a jerk.
3. In real life: The midrashic commentators are all descendants of Jacob.

Make sense now?

Shabbath Shalom.

Chayei Sarah

One of the fun things about reading the earlier parshiot of the Torah is that you can point out all the Biblical firsts as they float by. For instance:

Abraham heeded Ephron, and Abraham weighed out to Ephron the price which he had mentioned in the hearing of the children of Heth, four hundred silver shekels in negotiable currency. And Ephron's field, which was in Machpelah, facing Mamre, the field and the cave within it and all the trees in the field, within all it's surrounding boundaries, was deeded. - Gen 23:16-17

First purchase of a burial site in the Torah. In the struggle between science and religion, Stephen Jay Gould advocates a principle of "non-overlapping magisteria" - the idea that science and religion occupy different, and complementary, fields of study. God isn't a scientific concept, the reasoning goes, nor is the Bible a scientific text; so it's absurd to try to judge religion by scientific standards, or the other way around. This notion is not only wrong, but profoundly dangerous, because it ignores the effect that religious ideas have on the real world.

This transaction in Genesis - the purchase of a cave in which several Biblical matriarchs and patriarchs were to be interred - has real implications in modern Israel. One of the major objections that many Zionists have to the establishing of a Palestinian state is the inevitable concession by the Israelis of several sacred sites, including this very cave. The site is holy to the Muslims as well, and they'd very much like the burial place of their forefather, Ibrahim, to be included in their state. These tensions almost certainly played a role in the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre, when rogue Israeli soldier Baruch Goldstein opened fire upon a crowd of Muslims at prayer, killing 29 and injuring 150. Religious beliefs play a very real, very brutal role in the affairs of the modern world.

Rather, to my land and to my kindred shall you go and take a wife for my son, Isaac. - Gen 24:3-4

First "blue blood" policy. We're dealing with the absolute founder of the Monotheisms, and he's already insistent about his son only marrying within the family. The more things change...

And it was, when the camel had finished drinking, the man took a golden nose ring, its weight was a beka, and two bracelets on her arms, ten gold shekels was their weight. - Gen 24:22

First nose ring in the Torah. Idea: get a nose ring. When conservative family members protest, point out that the Bible clearly endorses such things. Let me know how it goes.

And Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother; he married Rebecca, she became his wife, and he loved her; and thus was Isaac consoled after his mother's death. - Gen 24:67

First use of the word "love" in the Torah. Note, by the way, the couple's ages - according to Rashi, Isaac was 40 at the time of his marriage; his wife, Rebecca, was three. If psychoanalysis floats your boat, you might also like to note the curiously Freudian wording of the verse.

And finally... the first instance in the Torah of a man telling another man to touch his penis. You think I'm kidding?

And Abraham said to his servant, the elder of his household who controlled all that was his: "Place now your hand under my thigh." - Gen 24:2

Shabbath Shalom.

Vayeira

So Abraham awoke early in the morning, took bread and a skin of water, and gave them to Hagar. He placed them on her shoulder along with [Ishmael], and sent her off. She departed, and strayed in the desert of Beer-sheba. When the water of the skin was consumed, she cast off the boy beneath one of the trees. She went and sat herself down at a distance, some bowshots away, for she said, "Let me not see the death of the child." And she sat at a distance, lifted her voice, and wept. God heard the cry of the youth, and an angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heeded the cry of the youth as he is there." - Gen 21:14-17

The medieval commentator Rashi gives us a corresponding celestial narrative of this verse, derived from the Hebrew "שם-הוא באשר" -"as he is there". When Hagar prayed for her son's life, the angels pleaded with God to let Ishmael die, as his descendants would kill and oppress the Jews. But God refused, and miraculously saved the child, on the grounds that Ishmael was not yet guilty of any wrongdoing; "as he is there", in his present state, he was an innocent.

This fascinating piece of Midrashic lore is a striking example of one of the oldest conflicts in philosophy: that of deontological vs consequentialist ethics. Simply put, deontology focuses on the inherent rightness of actions, whilst consequentialism looks at the outcome, or consequences, of actions.

A common and powerful examination of this conflict take the form of a thought experiment: suppose one had the opportunity to travel back in time and kill an Austrian baby named Adolf Hitler; would it be the right thing to do? A deontologist would argue that killing babies is always wrong, and that one is always obligated to refrain from such actions. A consequentialist would counter that the good being wrought - the prevention of World War II and the Holocaust - far outweighs the evil of killing a single baby.

The dilemma is further examined with exquisite subtlety and humanity in the graphic novel, and movie of the same name, Watchmen. [SPOILER ALERT: the following two paragraphs contain major plot details from Watchmen.] The movie revolves around a vigilante named Rorschach and his attempt to uncover a conspiracy. As the details come together for both protagonist and viewer, we learn of a plot to massacre millions for the sake of preventing an impending nuclear holocaust. Rorschach, a strict deontologist, says the following of his continued efforts against small-time criminals while the Apocalypse draws ever closer: "Soon there will be war. Millions will burn. Millions will perish in sickness and misery. Why does one death against so many? Because there is good and there is evil, and evil must be punished. Even in the face of Armageddon I shall not compromise in this." Rorschach's assertion is a deeply resounding one, in no small part because we constantly face echoes of his conundrum in our everyday lives. When we give food to the hungry, we do not eradicate hunger. Let us labour under no such delusions. We give food to the hungry, because good needs to be pursued for its own sake, regardless of the folly and futility of doing so.

Rorschach's worldview stands in deep contrast with that of Ozymandias, perpetrator of the grand scheme. Ozymandias sees a Cold War in imminent danger of becoming very hot, and decides to kill off large civilian populations while framing a scapegoat, in the hope that the USA and the USSR will put aside their differences to combat this perceived new threat. After his plan is implemented, he explains and justifies it to Rorschach and his fellow heroes. From the god-like figure of Dr. Manhattan, who can (partially) foresee the future, he seeks reassurance: "I did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out, in the end." "'In the end?'" echoes Dr. Manhattan. "Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends."

Here lies one of the fundamental problems with consequentialism. The full ramifications of our actions are never truly foreseeable. The popular video game Command & Conquer: Red Alert demonstrates this using a form of the Killing Baby Hitler problem given above. Red Alert takes place in an alternate universe in which Albert Einstein invents a time machine, and uses it to prevent Adolf Hitler's rise to power, and thus World War II. But the lack of a hostile Third Reich to weaken and check Stalin's fledgling regime means that the Soviets grow far more powerful than they otherwise would have; and threaten the West not just with nuclear might but with massive conventional military force.

There is far more to be said on the topic. Rashi gives us a starting point, and a fine example of ethical reasoning, but he does not spoon-feed us the solution to our own dilemmas. Let us take his example and further explore the topic ourselves. As the name itself suggests, Genesis is not meant to be an end, but a beginning.

Lech Lecha

Now it came to pass, that there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land. And it came to pass, when he was close to entering Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, "Verily I know that you are a woman of a beautiful countenance. Therefore it will happen, when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, 'This is his wife'; and they will kill me, but they will let you live." – Gen 12:10-12

To recap, monsieur Abram: you need to head into Egypt, because there's no food in Israel, and you're worried that when the Egyptians see you with Sarai, who is a regulation hottie, they will kill you so they can have her. Fair enough (assuming they're both horny and unprincipled), that's a legitimate concern. So... how are you gonna get yourself out of this one?

"Please say you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that I may live because of you." - Gen 12:13

Um... what?

"Please say you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that-"

Yeah, dude. I heard you... I'm just... WHAT? That's your brilliant plan? Tell everyone she's your sister? Oh that's really clever... then the Egyptians won't feel that they need to kill you before they kidnap and rape her. THEN THEY'LL JUST KIDNAP AND RAPE HER WITHOUT KILLING YOU FIRST. FUCKING BRILLIANT PLAN THERE, ABE.

So it was, when Abram came into Egypt, that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very beautiful. The princes of Pharaoh also saw her and commended her to Pharoah. And the woman was taken to Pharoah's house. - Gen 12:14-15

Sigh.

For those of you following along at home, God does eventually step in and pestilence the fuck out of Pharoah, causing him to release Sarai. But honestly, Abram, you can’t keep relying on God to pick up the slack in your shitty plans. I’m not gonna get all up in your grill about it this time, but I don’t want to see that kind of bullshit from you again.

Now, moving on….

Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, "Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?" - Gen 12:17

I believe this is history’s first recorded ROFL.

This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not of your seed. - Gen 17:10-12

Jewish boys today are circumcised. The ritual is called brit milah, and is considered one of the most important aspects of Jewish family life. It’s very much the done thing: you circumcise your son.

Circumcision seems to me to be the most glaring horror of modern Judaism. We used to regularly perpetrate conquest and persecution and genocide on God’s orders, but we’ve stopped all that now. Yet we continue to mutilate the genitals of every male born to our people. The situation is so exceedingly bizarre that I am often stunned into simple denial. “No, we can’t possibly be doing something that horrendous right now.” Yes, we are. Entirely sound pieces of the human body are being forcibly removed by sharp instruments for absolutely no good reason. And all this is done in an atmosphere of not merely apathy, but merriment. The assembled masses laugh and sing and eat and mingle whilst the baby wails, as newborns are wont to do when sharp instruments are visited upon them, unaccompanied, it should be noted, by anesthetic.

To this vile farce is sometimes added the feeble justification of supposed health benefits. Some studies may (or may not) indicate that circumcision lowers the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). To the best of my knowledge, the jury is still out on this.

On the issue of alleged protection that circumcision gives against STDs, I feel that I must point out the obvious. Sex with condoms is safe. Sex without condoms is NOT safe. Any other factors are so trivial as to be irrelevant. Anyone who circumcises their child with the hope that it will prevent the contraction of an STD is essentially following this line of reasoning: “Circumcision has been shown to lower rates of STD contraction. Therefore, I should hack at my child's genitals with a sharp knife. In the event that he is ever stupid enough to have unprotected sex with an STD carrier, this will slightly reduce his risk of infection.” Bravo, fucker.

Ultimately, even if it were conclusively demonstrated that circumcision did lower rates of infection in later life, it is neither the parents’ nor the rabbis’ place to make such a permanent choice on the child’s behalf. It ought to be delayed until the boy is much older and in possession of such faculties as are necessary to decide whether the benefits of perpetuating the covenant of Abraham and potentially engaging in slightly-safer-unsafe-sex are worth the cost of losing a chunk of his penis.

Noach

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud. And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. – Gen 9:12-15

In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed”? Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” - Carl Sagan

An argument is as strong as its weakest point. I propose we look at the “little God” idea in the context of Parashat Noach, just when God is going about his business of flooding the whole planet. An undertaking of such grand scale has not been seen since a week ago in Bereishit, and, as long as God’s sky-mnemonic suffices, shall not be seen again.

It seems that the Bible can be read in one of two main ways; either it is the eternal word of Almighty God, or it is a hodge-podge collection of Bronze Age mythology (other fascinating possibilities will be covered in later posts). If one wishes to pick one of these options with any reasonable degree of certainty, I’d recommend some solid reading on theology and theodicy and comparative religion first. But to take a far less intellectually rigorous and more fun approach: which does it seem like?

A couple of things seem instantly apparent from the above verse. The first is that God’s grasp of prismatic physics is woefully poor. Further; the God of the Hebrews fights with human weapons, like bows (I believe there is a Midrash which points out that the bow is depicted facing away from the Earth to symbolise God’s restraint of His vicious intent).

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease. – Gen 8:22

God’s apparent interest in the particulars of agriculture is a little off-putting. Did He really build this entire universe and all its dizzying mechanics just so the amazingly primitive, ape-descended life forms on one little blue-green planet orbiting a small unregarded yellow sun, far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy (Adams 1979), should be able to plant and harvest their crops?

And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. – Gen 6:19-20

Why is it that the God of the Hebrews never seems to know any more than the average, reasonably well-informed tribesman of archaic Judea? One might forgive such a tribesman for being ignorant of asexual reproduction. But surely the Almighty Himself would have mentioned it:

Don’t bother taking two of those lizards in; just take one – the species is parthenogenetic. Never mind what that means, your race will figure it out in a couple of thousand years. Just do what I say, or I’ll smite you. - Not in the Bible

Once again, none of this is very good evidence against the divinity of the Bible. There are other places for that. I merely find it interesting to swap spectacles around whilst I read, and marvel at how profoundly different the text looks from a slightly different angle.

Bereishit

The foundational text of Monotheism starts, sensibly enough, at the very beginning. “Let there be light” seems reasonable. “Let there be a firmament” works fine, too. But we are given cause to pause when Day Six rolls around and the good Lord unexpectedly declares: “let us make man!” (Emphasis mine; italics rarely appear in the original Hebrew.)

As so often happens, the Midrash provides the answer long before you’ve asked the question.

Rabbi Shemuel bar Nahman said in the name of Rabbi Yonatan: While Moshe was writing the Torah, he wrote what was created on each day [of Creation]. When he reached this verse, “God said: Let us make man in our image, as our likeness” – he said: “Lord of the universe, why are you giving a pretext to the heretics?”

He answered him: “Write; a person who wishes to be mistaken will be mistaken.” (Bereishit Rabba [Vilna], parasha 8)

It seems that even that single condition is frequently redundant; a person will be mistaken regardless of whether he wishes to be mistaken. The simplest demonstration of this fact is that, at a bare minimum, two-thirds of the world’s population have picked the wrong religion. Further evidence can be found in any robust democracy: a very substantial minority invariably votes the “wrong” way. We make bad choices about our jobs, our studies, our purchases and our relationships. As a species, our favourite pastime seems to be walking around with our eyes resolutely shut.

Over the coming year, I intend to write my thoughts on the weekly parashah. I will write about what I find enchanting, and what I find distasteful. Doubtless I will offend some. If you are one who is easily offended, this planet may not be for you.

I cannot give you Truth. Heck, ignorant as I am, I can hardly give you Knowledge. But Entertainment seems like an altogether more reasonable goal. Some Stimulation may well be in order. And we shall, I hope, have Fun.

Confucius noted that the man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. And I think no more can be asked of any man, than to stand tall, when the situation calls for it, and proclaim: “These are my stones!”