Joseph and His Brothers, page 14
How was he speaking? He was whispering. It was as it had been earlier that evening, before his father found him, and it was eerie. He wrenched his shoulders, his hands lay trembling on his knees, he smiled, but at the same time his eyeballs incongruously rolled back to show the white. Jacob did not see this, but he had been listening. He bent down to him, holding his hands above and beside the lad's head, discreetly protecting it at a distance. Then he laid his left hand on the boy's hair again after all, and at once there was a relaxation in Joseph's state.
While Jacob's other hand groped for his son's right hand where it lay on his knee, he said with cautious intimacy, "Yashub, my child, listen to what I want to ask, for my heart is anxious for our cattle and the welfare of our herds. The early rains came even before the onset of winter, and were pleasing, for there were no cloudbursts that
flood the fields and fill only the wells of those who live unsettled lives, for it came as a soft drizzle, beneficial to the land. But the winter was dry, and the sea would not lend its mildness to the air, but rather the winds came from the plains and deserts, and the sky was clear, delighting the eye, but bringing care to the heart. And woe to us if the late rains are also delayed and do not come, for that would be the ruin of the farmers' harvest, of seed sown by the tillers of the soil, and the grass would wither before its time, so that the cattle would find nothing to eat, and the udders of the ewes would hang limp. Let my child tell me what he thinks of wind and weather and of their prospects, and what his state of mind is in regard to whether the late rains will still arrive in time."
And then he bent down even lower to his son, turning his face aside to hold one ear above Joseph's head.
"You are listening just above me," Joseph said, without being able to see it, "and your child is still listening as well, to what is both within and without, and he brings tidings and news to your Hstening ear. For in my ear is the sound of branches dripping and of drizzle falling upon the plains, though the moon is exceedingly bright and the wind comes from Gilead. For this rustling sound is not of the present time, but near in time, and my nose is certain it can smell how, before the moon of Nisan has waned by a quarter, the earth will be pregnant by the manly water of heaven and will give off the steamy mists of lust, for I can smell them, and the pastures will be full of sheep and the meadows will stand thick with grain, causing rejoicing and singing. I have heard and learned that in the beginning the earth was watered by the river Tavi, which flowed from Babel and flooded the earth once every forty years. But then the Lord ordained that it should be watered from the heavens, for four reasons, one of which was that all eyes would then look upward. So that we would gaze in thanksgiving to heaven's throne on high, where the devices of weather, the chambers of whirlwinds and tempests, are found, just as I beheld them in my dream as I lay sleeping beneath the oracle tree yesterday. For a cheruhu calling himself Jophiel was kind enough to take me by the hand and lead me there, so that I might look about and gain some insight. And I saw caves filled with steam and their doors were made of fire, and saw the laborers at their business. And heard how they said one to the other: 'Orders have gone out in regard to the feast and the clouds of the heavens. Behold,
a drought reigns over the lands to the west and the plains and pastures of the highlands are parched. Preparations are to be made that it rain right soon upon the land of the Amorites, Ammonites, and Pherrizites, of the Midianites, Hivites, and Jebusites, but especially over the region of the city of Hebron, higher up where the waters divide, where even my son Jacob, whose title is Yizrael, pastures his countless flocks/ I dreamt it with such vividness that there is no mocking it, and seeing as it was beneath the tree as well, my lord can be confident and certain in the matter of quenching waters."
"Praise be to the Elohim," the old man said. "We shall in any case select animals to slaughter for a burnt offering and present Them with a meal, and burn the entrails with incense and honey, so that it may turn out as you say. For I fear that otherwise those who dwell in cities and upon the land may spoil everything by doing things in their fashion and by announcing a debauchery in honor of Baalat and a feast of coupling, with cymbals and shouts in the cause of fertility. It is a fine thing that my boy is blessed with dreams; that is because he is my firstborn by my true and dearest wife. I too received revelations when I was younger—and what I saw as I journeyed from Beersheba against my will and, all unawares, came upon that place with its entrance gate, is surely a match for what you were shown. I love you because you have spoken comfort to me in regard to the rains, but do not tell just anyone that you dream beneath the tree, do not tell it either to the children of Leah or to the children of the handmaids, for they might take offense at your talent."
"I swear it, and lay my hand beneath your thigh," Joseph replied. "Your word is a seal upon my Hps. I know well enough that I am a chatterbox, but when reason demands it, I can most certainly master my tongue; and that will prove all the easier since my little visions are hardly worth mentioning compared with what was granted my lord at the city of Luz, when the messengers ascended and descended between earth and the gates and the Elohim revealed Themselves to him ..."
Duet
"Ah, my dear papa and lord," he said, turning with a happy smile to throw one arm around his father, enchanting him more than a little.
"How splendid it is that God loves us and delights in us and lets the smoke of our sacrifices ascend to His nostrils! For though Abel did not have time to sire children, but was slain in the field by Cain for the sake of their sister Noema, yet we are of the lineage of Abel the tent-dweller, and of the lineage of Isaak, the younger son, who was given the blessing. And that is why we have both reason and dreams, which two are a great delight. For it is precious to possess wisdom and words, so that one understands to speak and to reply and to name all things. And it is equally precious to be a fool before the Lord, so that one may stumble all unawares upon the place that binds heaven and earth, and be given to know in a sleep the purposes of His counsel and to interpret dreams and visions, as far as they indicate what will happen from moon to moon. And so it was with Noah, the arch-clever man, to whom the Lord announced the Flood, so that he might save his life. And so it was with Enoch as well, son of Jared, for he walked in paths of purity and washed himself in living water. That was the boy Hanok, and do you know of him? I know it well, all that transpired with him, and that God's love for Abel and Yitzchak was lukewarm compared with His love for him. For Hanok was so very clever and pious and learned in the secret tablets that he set himself apart from mankind and the Lord took him so that he was seen no more. And made of him an angel in His sight, who became Metatron, the great scribe and prince of this world ..."
He fell silent and turned pale. Toward the end he had fought for breath as he spoke and in breaking off, he hid his face on his father's breast, who gladly tended it there, speaking out over it and up into the silvered air above.
"I do indeed know Hanok, who was of the first lineage of men, the son of Jared, who was the son of Mahalaleel, who was born to Kenan, who was born to Enos and Enos to Seth, who was Adam's son. That is Enoch's descent and lineage back to the beginnings. But the son of his son's son was Noah, the second first man, and he sired Shem, whose children are black, but lovely, and from whom in the fourth generation came Eber, so that he is the father of all the children of Eber and of the Ebrews and is our father ..."
It was familiar; there was nothing new in his summary. Any child in the tribe and clan could rattle off the lesson of generations by heart, and the old man was merely using the occasion to repeat
and witness to it in conversation. Joseph understood that their talk was to turn "fine" now, become "fine discourse" that no longer served the purpose of useful exchange and agreement on practical or intellectual issues, but merely listed and recited things already known to them both—in the service of memory, sanction, and edification—a spoken antiphon like those that shepherds exchanged by the fire in the fields at night and that began: "Do you know of this? I know it well." And so he sat up straight and joined in:
"And behold, from Eber came Peleg and he sired Serug, whose son was Nahor, the father of Terah, rejoice and be glad! He sired Abraham at Ur in Chaldea and departed from there with Abraham, his son, and with his son's wife, whose name was Sahar, like the moon, and who was barren, and with Lot, his son's nephew. And he took them and led them out of Ur and died at Haran. And there God commanded Abraham that, together with the souls he had won for the Lord, he should journey on, across the plain and across the river Phrat, following the road that joins Shinar and the land of Amurru."
"I know it well," Jacob said, taking up the story again himself. "It was the land that the Lord would show to him. For Abraham was God's friend, who with his spirit had discovered among the other gods the Lord who was in truth the Most High. And he came to Damascus and there sired Eliezer with a handmaid. Then he wandered across the land with his people, who were God's people, and he sanctified anew, and in his own spirit, the places where the people of the land worshiped and made holy their altars and circles of stone and instructed the people under the trees and taught them about the coming of the time of blessing, so that others were added to him from those regions and the Egyptian handmaid Hagar came to him, the mother of Ismael. And he came to Shechem."
"I know that as well as you," Joseph sang, "for the father went up out of the valley and came to that place whose fame is great and that Jacob also found, and there built for Yahu the Most High a table of sacrifice between Beth-el and Ai, city of refuge. And from there he traveled southward, to the land of Negeb, and that is here where the mountains descend toward Edom. And he went all the way down them and came into the filthy land of Egypt, the land of Amenemhet, the king, and there he became silvered and gilded, for he was very rich in cattle and treasures. And returned toward Negeb, where he separated from Lot."
"And do you know why?" Jacob asked, but only in pretense. "Because Lot was also very rich in sheep, oxen, and tents, and the land could not support them both. But behold how kind the father was, for when there was strife among the herdsmen about the pastures, it was not as it is among the thieves of the desert, who come and seize by the throat people whose pastures and wells they desire, but rather he said to Lot, his nephew, 'Let there be no strife between your people and my people. The land is wide, and we shall separate so that one goes here and the other there, without hatred.' And Lot journeyed toward the sunrise and availed himself of all the meadow-land of the Jordan."
"In truth that is how it was," Joseph chimed in again. "And Abraham dwelt near Hebron, the Fourfold City, and he made holy the tree that gives us both shade and dreams, and it became a refuge to the wanderer and a shelter to those who had no shelter. He gave water to those who thirsted and set those who had strayed upon the right path and repelled thieves. And took neither payment nor thanks, but taught them to pray to his God El-Elyon, the Lord of his House, the merciful Father."
"You have told it rightly," Jacob confirmed in a chant. "And it came to pass that as Abraham was making a sacrifice at sunset, the Lord made a covenant with him. For he took a heifer, a she-goat, and a ram, all three years old, and a turtledove and a young pigeon. And he divided those with four feet and spread the halves apart and put a bird at each side, leaving open the path of the covenant between the halves and kept watch for eagles that tried to pounce upon the pieces. And a sleep came over him that was like no other, and he was seized with terror and darkness. For the Lord spoke to him in that sleep and let him see the distant places of the world and the nation that would go out from the seed of his spirit and grow large out of the truth and vigilance of his spirit, and great things, of which the princes of empires and the kings of Babel, Assur, Elam, Hetti and Egypt knew nothing. And in the night passed like a flame of fire along the path of the covenant between the pieces of the sacrifice."
"Your knowledge is unrivaled," Joseph's voice commenced again, "but I also know something more. For that is Abraham's inheritance, which fell upon the heads of Isaak and of Jacob, my lord: the promise and the covenant. But it was not for all the children of Eber, nor was it given to the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites,
but to this tribe alone, whom the Lord chose by seeking out the firstborn, not according to the flesh and the womb, but according to the spirit. And those He chose were the gentle and the clever."
"Yes, yes! You tell it as it was," Jacob said. "For what happened with Abraham and Lot, their separation, that occurred yet again, and the nations were divided. Moab and Ammon, whom Lot had sired by his own flesh, did not remain together upon his pastures, for Ammon was fond of the desert and the life of the desert. Nor did Esau remain on Isaak's pastures, but went forth with his wives, sons, and daughters and the souls of his household and his goods and cattle to another land and became Edom on the mountains of Sei'r. And what did not become Edom, was Yizrael, and it is a special people, unlike those who roam the land of Sinai and the ragged thieves of the land of Arabaia, but also unlike the people of Canaan, unlike the tillers of the soil and those who dwell in the fortresses of their cities, and instead are lords and herdsmen and free men, who drive their herds in between and tend their wells and remember the Lord."
"And the Lord remembers us, and that we are special," Joseph cried, throwing back his head and spreading his arms in his father's embrace. "Full of rejoicing is the heart of this child in his father's embrace, and he is enraptured by what he knows well and drunk on edifying exchange. Do you know the sweetest dream, which I have dreamt many thousand times? It is the dream of preeminence and of being the child. For much will be granted the child of God, what he begins shall turn out well for him, he will find grace in the eyes of all, and kings will praise him. Behold, my desire is to sing to the Lord of Hosts with a nimble tongue, nimble as the stylus of the scribe. For in their hatred they sent for me and laid snares for my steps, they dug a pit before my feet, and thrust my life into the pit, where darkness became my dwelling place. But I called upon His name out of the darkness of the pit, and He healed me and He rescued me out of the underworld. He made me great among strangers, and a people I did not know serves me, touching their brows to the ground. The sons of strangers flatter me, for without me they would perish ..."
His chest was heaving. Jacob gazed at him wide-eyed.
"Joseph, what is it you see?" he asked uneasily. "My child's words are imposing, but do not accord with reason. For what does it mean that a strange land will serve him lying upon its face?"
"These were merely pretty words," Joseph replied, "that I spoke
to say something grand for my lord. And it is the moon, too, which beguiles me somewhat."
"Watch over your heart and mind and be wise!" Jacob said fervently. "Then it will come to pass as you have said, that you will find approval in the eyes of all. And I intend to give you something that will make your heart rejoice and that will become you. For God has poured His grace upon your lips, and I pray that He will keep you holy forever, my lamb."
As they spoke the moon, its shimmering light so pure that it transfigured its own materiality, had continued its high journey; the position of the stars had changed according to the law of hours. Night wove peace, mystery, and the future out into far expanses. The old man sat a while yet with Rachel's boy at the rim of the well. He called him Damu, "Little Child," and Dumuzi, "True Son," just as the people of Shinar called their Tammuz. He also called him Nezer, a word from the Canaanite language meaning "sprout" and "blossoming twig," and flattered him. But as they sought out their tents, he urgently advised him not to brag before his brothers and not to announce to Leah's sons and the sons of the handmaids that he had spent so long a time with his father, exchanging intimate words with him. And Joseph promised him, too. But the very next day he not only told them that, but he also babbled on without a second thought about his dream of the weather. And they were all the more annoyed when his dream was fulfilled, for the late rains were abundant and pleasing.
Part Two
JACOB AND ESAU
Moon Grammar
During the "fine discourse" we had the opportunity to Hsten in on— that evening antiphon at the well between Jacob and his imperfect favorite—the old man made passing mention of Eliezer, who had been borne to his ancestor by a slave woman during his sojourn with his family in Damashki. Nothing can be clearer than that he cannot have meant the aged scholar Eliezer who lived in his own camp— likewise the freed son of a slave and presumably a half brother of Jacob—and who, though he had two sons of his own, Damasek and Elinos, used to sit beneath the oracle tree with Joseph in order to further the lad's knowledge of many useful and some more than useful things. Surely one can say it is as clear as day that Jacob meant the Eliezer whose own firstborn son had perforce been regarded for years as the heir of Abraham, the wanderer from Ur or Haran, that is until first Ismael and then—much to the laughter of both Sarai, for whom life was no longer after the manner of women, and Abraham, who himself was so old one might call him a centenarian—Yitzchak or Isaak, the true son, beheld the light of this world. But the sun's clarity is one thing and the moon's another, for the latter had indeed ruled most marvelously over that more than useful discourse. Things look different by moonlight than by the bright of day, and its clarity may indeed have seemed the true clarity to those minds in that time and place. So let us admit, though keeping it to ourselves, that in mentioning Eliezer, Jacob had in fact meant the steward of his own household, his chief servant—or him too, that is, both at once, and not just both, but Eliezers in general, for since the days of the eldest of them, in the camps of the heads of the clan there had often been a freed slave named Eliezer, and he had often had sons named Damasek and Elinos.
