Joseph and His Brothers, page 24
"But why does it seem to me," Isaak asked again, "that your voice is uncertain, Esau, my eldest, and that it sounds to me like Jacob's voice?"
And in his fear Jacob knew of no answer to that, and only trembled.
But Isaac said gently, "The voices of brothers are surely much alike, and the words from their mouths have the same or similar sound. Come here, that I may feel and see with my hands, which are seeing hands, whether you are Esau, my eldest, or not."
Jacob obeyed. He set down all the things his mother had given him, stepped closer, and offered himself to be felt. And from up close he could see that just as Rebekah had bound the unpleasant hides to him, his father had used cord to bind the moistened cloths to his head, so that they would not fall off if he sat up.
Spreading tapered fingers wide, Isaak's hands groped the air a little before he encountered Jacob, who presented himself. And those
skinny, pale hands found him and felt where there was no garment— felt his neck, along his arms and the back of his hands, on down his thighs—and everywhere they touched the pelt of the kids.
"Yes," he said, "yes indeed, that surely has to convince me, for it is your fleece, the red tufts of Esau, I can see it with my hands. The voice resembles Jacob's voice, but the hairiness is Esau's, and that decides the matter. And so you are Esau?"
Jacob responded, "So you have seen and said."
"Then give me something to eat," Isaak said, sitting up. His robe hung down over his knees. And Jacob picked up the bowl, and crouching at his father's feet, he held it up to him. But Isaak first bent forward, placing a hand at each side, directly over Jacob's pelt-covered hands, and smelled the dish.
"Ah, good," he said. "Well prepared, my son. It has been cooked in sour cream, just as I ordered, and there's cardamom in it, and thyme, too, and a pinch of caraway." And he named several more ingredients that his nose could distinguish. Then he nodded, reached for the bowl, and ate.
He ate it all—which took a long time.
"Do you have bread, too, Esau, my son?" he asked, still chewing.
"But of course," Jacob replied. "Flatbread made of wheat, and oil."
And he brought him the bread, dipped it in oil, and held it to his father's mouth. Chewing it, Isaak took another bite of meat, then stroked his beard and nodded approval, while Jacob looked up into his face, observing it as he ate. That face was so frail and transparent, with delicately sunken cheeks from which only a sparse gray beard sprouted, and with a large and fragilely shaped nose, its thin nostrils spread wide, the arched bridge like a well-honed knife—it looked so spiritual, so holy, despite the cloths covering the eyes, that frugal meals and chewing seemed not to fit it really. It was slightly embarrassing to watch the eater as he ate, and one could imagine that he must be embarrassed that someone was watching him. It may well be that the cloths over his eyes spared him such uneasiness—at any rate, he kept chewing, his brittle jaw beneath its sparse beard moving at a relaxed pace, and since the bowl contained only the very best pieces, he left nothing in it.
"Give me something to drink," he then said. And Jacob hastened to hand him the jug of wine, even setting it to his father's hps, thirsty from the meal, and his father's hands rested on the pelts on the backs of Jacob's hands. And having come so close to him, Isaak spread his fine nostrils wide to sniff at the balm in his hair and the wildflower fragrance of his garments, but then fell back and said, "Indeed it is most deceptive—the scent that my son's fine garments always have! Like the meadows and the fields in the spring of the year, when the Lord has blessed them with flowers to deHght our senses." And with the tapered tips of two fingers he lifted the edge of one of the cloths a little and said, "Are you truly Esau, my older son?"
To which Jacob gave a desperate laugh and asked in return, "Who else?"
"Then all is well," Isaak said and took such a deep breath that his fragile Adam's apple raised and lowered under his beard. Then he ordered Jacob to pour water over his hands. And when he had done it and dried the hands as well, his father said, "So let it be done!"
And greatly refreshed by food and drink, his face flush now, he placed his hands on the crouching, quivering man before him to bless him with all his might; and since his soul had been so strengthened by the meal, his words were full of all the power and riches of the earth. He gave him earth's fatness and womanly plenitude and dew and the male water of the heavens, gave him the fullness of the field, tree, and vine and the rampant fertility of flocks and a twofold shearing each year. He laid the covenant upon him, gave him the promise to bear, so that what had been founded might be passed on to the generations. His words were high-sounding and Hke a great current. He passed on to him dominance in the battle of the world's two halves, the light and the dark, victory over the dragon of the desert, and ordained him to be a beautiful moon and to be the bringer of the equinox, of renewal and great laughter. He, too, used the formula Rebekah had muttered, so ancient that it had become a mystery that did not exactly fit or accord with reason in this case, since only two brothers were involved, but Isaak spoke it solemnly over him all the same: The children of his mother would serve the bearer of the blessing, and all his brothers would fall down before his anointed feet. Then he called out the name of God three times, saying, "So may it be, so let it come to pass!" and released Jacob from his grip.
He stumbled away, to his mother. But a Httle later Esau returned home with a young wild goat that he had shot—and now the tale turns quite merry and quite horrid.
Jacob was an eyewitness to nothing of what then happened, nor did he wish to be; he kept himself hidden that day. But he knew it all exactly from what others told him and he could remember it as if he had been present.
The returning Esau was still in his state of glory. He knew not one thing of what had gone on in the meantime, for the story had not yet taken him that far. In happy arrogance and swollen pride he came strutting, the wild goat on his back, the bow in his hairy fist, and as he marched along he kicked his legs very high at each step and with a radiant glower turned his head from side to side to see if people were also watching him in his impressive superiority, and even at a distance began once more to boast and crow—and what a grand calamity and joke it was for all who heard. For they had gathered now, both those who had seen goat-pelted Jacob enter and then leave his lord's tent, and those who had not seen it themselves. But Esau's wives and children did not come out with them, though he called out to them again to come witness his grandeur and pomp.
People gathered and laughed at the way he was tossing his legs and crowded around him to see and hear him go about this. For he now began to shout incessantly like a peddler as he skinned his goat with much to-do, gutted and cut it up for all to see; he struck flint, set brushwood afire, hung a kettle over it, and ordered the laughing servants to bring him all the other items he needed to prepare his dish of honor.
"Ha-ha and ho-ho, you awestruck gawkers!" he blustered. "Bring me the big fork. Bring me sour milk from the nursing ewe, for his favorite feast is boiled in sheep's milk. Bring me salt from the salt mine, you sluggards, bring coriander, garlic, mint, and mustard seed to charm his palate, for I will pamper him until power bursts from his very pores. Bring me bread to serve with it, made of solet flour, and oil from the pressed fruit, and strain the wine, you idlers, so that no yeast is in the jug, or may the white jackass kick you! Run now and bring it here. For it is the feast of the feeding and blessing of Isaak, the feast of the son and the hero Esau, whom his lord sent out to hunt game for his meal, and whom he wishes to bless there in the tent before the hour is out!"
And so he went at it with hand and mouth, with ha-ha and ho-ho, with bombastic gestures and windy booming boasts of his father's love for him and of Red Hide's great day, till those in camp were bent over with laughter, writhing and weeping and hugging themselves. And when he departed with his fricassee, carrying it like the tabernacle before him, kicking his legs so ridiculously again, and bragging all the way to his father's tent, they screeched for joy, clapping their hands and stamping their feet, and then fell silent.
For from outside the curtain Esau said, "It is I, my father, and I bring you something so that you will bless me. Do you wish me to enter?"
And from within came Isaak's voice, saying, "Who is it who says I and wishes to enter the blind man's tent?"
"Esau, your Rough Hide," came his answer, "who has hunted and cooked for your strengthening, just as you commanded."
"You fool and robber," the voice resounded. "What are these lies you present me? Esau, my first son, was here long before you, he fed me and gave me drink, and went his way with the blessing."
Esau was so startled that he almost dropped the whole lot, and flinched with such a jerk that the creamy sauce spilled from the pot, soiling his clothes. People yowled with laughter. They shook their heads, for it was all much too absurd, they wiped tears from their eyes with their fists, then shook them, sprinkling the ground. Esau, however, lunged into the tent, unbidden, and then there was silence while all the others stood outside, hands clapped to their mouths, nudging each other with elbows. But not for long, for from inside there came a howl such as they had never heard before, and Esau burst out with upraised arms, his face not red but violet. "Damn, damn, damn!" he shouted with all his might, a quick burst of words that we might use at some minor annoyance nowadays, but at the time and coming from shaggy Esau's mouth, it was a new and inventive cry, filled with its original meaning, for he was truly was damned, not blessed, and solemnly deceived, a butt of jokes like no one else. "Damned," he screamed, "cheated, deceived, and overthrown!" And then he sat down on the ground and wailed with his tongue hanging out and tears thick as hazelnuts rolling down his cheeks, while people stood in a circle around him, clutching themselves in sheer pain at the grand joke, at how Esau, the red man, had been duped out of his father's blessing.
Jacob Must Journey
Then came flight, Jacob's escape from home and the camp, decreed and put into action by Rebekah, his determined and high-minded mother, who in sending her darHng away was wilHng never to see him again perhaps, if only he had the blessing and could bear it on through the course of time. She was too clever and farseeing not to have known what would follow the solemn deception; but just as she knowingly had laid its burden upon her son, she also knowingly took it upon herself and sacrificed her heart.
She said not a word, and even in her conversation with Isaak to prepare what had to be done, not a word was spoken about the substance of the matter, essential realities were avoided. Nothing escaped her. It was certain, written in the stars so to speak, that within his own chaotic soul Esau was planning revenge, employing whatever imaginative powers he possessed to undo what had been done. She soon learned how he was pursuing his Cain-like goals. She learned that he had established mutinous contact with Ismael, the dark beauty, the spurned man of the desert. Nothing was more understandable. They were both of the same disadvantaged breed— Yitzchak's brother, Jacob's brother. They walked in the same set of footprints, excluded and disagreeable men—they had to find one another. The danger was worse, more far-reaching than Rebekah had anticipated, for Esau's bloody plans extended to Isaak as well. She heard how he had suggested to Ismael that he murder the blind man, and then he, Esau, would deal with his smooth brother. He was afraid of Cain's deed, afraid that it would make him even more himself, more clearly himself. So if his uncle acted first, that would embolden him. But Ismael raised objections—giving his sister-in-law time to act—for this was not to his liking. He hinted that tender memories of feelings that he once had for his gentle brother and that had served as the pretext for his exile, made it difficult for him to raise his hand against Isaak. That was for Esau himself to do, and then he, Ismael, would plant an arrow so neatly into the nape of Jacob's neck that it would come out at his Adam's apple, instantly sending the coddled brother sprawling dead in the grass.
The plan that savage Ismael suggested was typical of him. His idea was new, whereas Esau had only conventional fratricide in
mind. He could not grasp what his uncle meant at all, thought he was babbling nonsense. Murder your father—that wasn't even a possibility to his way of thinking; it had never happened, didn't exist, was without rhyme or reason, was by its nature an absurd proposal. At most you could castrate your father with a sickle, the way Noah had been castrated, but to kill him—that was idle gibberish. Ismael smiled at his nephew's slack-jawed obtuseness. He knew quite well his plan was not idle, that it had roots, that perhaps it had been the source of all things and that Esau had stopped too soon on his journey into the past and, in saying that it had never happened before, was taking comfort in much later beginnings. He told him as much, and had more to say as well. Ismael said things that at first made the hairs of Esau's fleece stand on end and sent him running. He suggested that after slaying the father, one should eat abundantly of the flesh in order to incorporate his wisdom and power, the blessing of Abram within, and for that reason Esau should not first cook Isaak's body, but would have to devour him raw, blood and bones and all—which sent Esau running.
He returned again, it's true, but negotiations dragged on between nephew and uncle as to their assigned roles as murderers, giving mother Rebekah time to take precautionary measures. She told Isaak nothing of what she knew about designs that close, if unnamed, kinsmen harbored against him. The conversation between husband and wife was solely about Jacob—though not about the danger that, as Isaak himself surely knew, threatened him. There was never any talk about the deception of the blessing or Esau's rage— not a word in that regard, but only about how Jacob had to go on a journey, to Mesopotamia in fact, to visit his Aramaic relatives, for were he to stay, there was every reason to fear that he—he too!— might make a ruinous marriage. The parents found agreement at that level. If Jacob were to wed one of the daughters from the region, Rebekah said, a Hittite who like Esau's wives would arrive with her abominable idols in tow, what then, she asked Isaak in all earnest, would still be the point of her life? Isaak nodded and then admitted that yes, she was right, Jacob would have to go away for a while on that account. For a while, that's how she had put it to Jacob, too, and she meant it seriously, hoped she might be allowed to mean it seriously. She knew Esau, his chaotic, flighty nature, knew that he would forget. He was out for blood now, but he could be distracted.
She knew that on his excursions to the desert he had become infatuated with Ismael's daughter Mahalath and planned to make her his wife. Perhaps among his other fleeting thoughts that amiable matter would now assume a more important role than plans for revenge. Once it became clear that Esau had completely lost view of them and had calmed down again, Jacob would receive a message from her and return to her breast. But first, and for her sake, her brother Laban— Bethuel's son, seventeen days from here, in the land of Aram Naharaim—was to receive him with open arms. And so the flight was arranged, and Jacob was secretly readied for his journey to Aram. Rebekah did not weep. But she clasped him to her for a long time in the early morning darkness, stroking his cheeks and dangling amulets around him and his camels, pressed him to her again, and pondered in her heart that, if her God or some other god willed it, she might never see him again. It was destined to be so. But Rebekah had no regrets, either that day or later.
Jacob Must Weep
We know what happened to the traveler on that first day, have seen both his humiliation and his lifting up. But his being raised up had occurred within him as a great vision for his soul, whereas his humiliation had been real and physical, much like the journey itself, which he continued under its sign and as its victim—alone and a beggar. The way was long, and he was not Eliezer whom "the earth had leapt up to greet." He thought a great deal about that old man, Abram's chief steward and messenger, who, as everyone said, bore a considerable resemblance to the primal father and had made this same journey on a great mission, to fetch Rebekah for Isaak. How different his journey had been, how stately and befitting his rank, with ten camels and richly provided with all necessary and superfluous items, just as Jacob himself had been before that damnable meeting with Eliphaz. Why had God the King decreed this? Why had He punished him with such hardship and misery? For it seemed certain to him that it was a punishment, in repayment and satisfaction for Esau; and during his rigorous and wretched journey he thought a great deal about the nature of the Lord, who had doubtlessly willed and ordered what had happened, but was now harassing him for it, making him
pay for Esau's bitter tears, if only for decorum's sake, so to speak, and in generously inexact proportion. For was his burden, however onerous, equal in value to the advantage he had gained over his permanently thwarted brother? At that question, Jacob smiled under his beard, which had grown considerably now during his travels and together with his damp and dirty headscarf framed a dark brown and lean face, shiny with sweat.
It was the height of summer, in the month of Ab, hopeless in its heat and drought. Dust lay thick as a man's finger on trees and bushes. Whenever other travelers passed him by, Jacob would cover his face and sag in his seat atop the high back of his intermittently and poorly fed camel, its large, shrewd, and sad eyes growing increasingly tired and plagued by flies. Or to lighten its burden, he would also lead the animal by the bridle as it strode along one of the parallel paths that made up these roads, while he walked in the one adjacent, his feet dusted by the stony powder. At night he would sleep in the open—in a field, at the foot of a tree, in an olive grove, beside a village wall, whatever offered itself—and could make good use of the body heat of his animal, against which he snuggled. For the nights were often cold desert nights, and being a coddled child of tents, he immediately caught cold as he slept and was soon coughing like a consumptive by the blazing heat of day. This greatly hampered his ability to earn his daily bread, for in order to eat he had to speak, tell stories, entertain people with descriptions of the dreadful adventure that had reduced a son of such good family to poverty. He told his tale in the towns, in the markets, or outside the wall at wells where he was allowed to water his camel and wash himself. Boys, men, and women with pitchers gathered around him and listened to words that, even when interrupted by coughing fits, were polished and vivid. He gave his name, praised his line of descent, described in detail the grand life he had led at home, lingered over the rich and spicy meals he had been served, and then provided a picture of the love and painstaking generosity with which he, as the firstborn of the family, had been provisioned for his journey to Haran in the land of Aram, toward the dawning east and darkening north, beyond the river Prath, where certain of his kinfolk dwelt, whose place of honor among the residents of that land should be no cause for wonder, since they owned a myriad of sheep and goats. And so he had been sent to them from home, and the purpose of his mission had com-
