<p>I read the first page about pink shirts…and then the last page. This has to be the greatest evolution of a topic that I’ve ever seen on CC!!!</p>
<p>Gourmetmom, this is a standard progression for some of us. :)</p>
<p>Did you watch the cartoons?</p>
<p>“Interesting. Then why are Jews worshipping God?”</p>
<p>Good question. (and do most Jews worship God?) I could write a book on this one (but nobody would read it.)</p>
<p>(I do have five rewritings of Abraham on the mount, if you’d like me to send them to you - doesn’t require you read those either…)</p>
<p>They are long, right?</p>
<p>I don’t think most Jews worship god, but there was sure a lot of fear and worship in the prayer books I saw on Saturday. </p>
<p>It was questionable whether the recent conservative rabbi at my old shul believed in god but he prayed</p>
<p>No, shortish.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure our local rabbi doesn’t believe in God, or in any recognizable Jewish form.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ahhh, but what one sees in the prayer books and what one sees in people’s hearts and minds can be very, very different. :)</p>
<p>Recognizable form. You mean like refomodconewalstructidox?</p>
<p>SlitheyTove, I am just talking prayer books here… :)</p>
<p>I saw some incredible people on Saturday…</p>
<p>Mini, you can post the Abraham rewrites here. Others might be interested too or you can send the rewrites to me when you get a chance. Thanks.</p>
<p>Here’s the first (they are my own midrashim):</p>
<p>**The Sacrifice of Abraham
**
The garble of voices had been growing stronger for weeks, even months now. He remembered the last time he had been subjected to this turmoil, when Sarah had asked him to cast out the slavewoman and his firstborn son into the wilderness. He was shocked by her cavalier cruelty. The confusion of voices had finally resolved themselves into a single, commanding voice who told him not to be too distressed over the matter, the slavewoman was sturdy, and his son would certainly survive and grow into a nation of his own. And so, somewhat against his better judgment, Abraham gave them a little bread and water, not even an extra goat or some grain to sustain them, and sent them off toward whatever his God had in store for them. He missed his son dreadfully, and now was terribly unsure whether he had done the right thing.</p>
<p>For awhile the voices had stopped, but here they were again, sometimes in bewildering whispers, sometimes murderous screams, always as if carried upon the wind, unrelenting, impossible to ignore, but just as difficult to make sense of. He became disoriented, couldn’t sleep, barely ate, and his conversation became incomprehensible. He swore off the folk doctors and refused to visit the sacred springs. He would not offer up kids or lambs, even pray in the privacy of his own tent. His pulse ran fast, his head ran feverish, and he had stopped sweating. He fought day and night, especially at night, against hearing the message. On the few nights he did manage to sleep, he would wake up with a start, and there the terrible voices would be again, first a low murmuring, and then a loud roar. He resisted, resisted with all his might. The voices had already cost him one son.</p>
<p>At last, absolutely exhausted, he could resist no longer. The single, inescapable presence made itself known, and Abraham knew he must obey. In the middle of the night, he gathered up wood, saddled his ass, and awoke his remaining son and two servants. They took neither food nor water.</p>
<p>They were gone before the sun’s rising. No message was left, as they ascended the foothills of Moriah. “Where are we going?” whined Isaac, his voice just beginning to change and sounding like the bleatings of a goat. “I am going up to prepare a great feast before the Lord,” replied Abraham with a great sigh, his voice flat, his ashen face gaunt with sleeplessness.</p>
<p>On the third day, Abraham saw the place from afar. He bade his servants stay behind with the ass, while he and his son, slowed by hunger and carrying the wood, ascended Mount Moriah. There was the jumble of voices again, “Abraham, Abraham, Abraham.” The wind whipped across his eyes, blinding. Again the incessant “Abraham, Abraham, Abraham.” The wind had swept the place of leaves; no living thing inhabited it. Without a word, he set about building an altar of stones, in the habit of the desert people. “Where is the sheep for the great feast?” asked Isaac, thinking of the meal which would surfeit his hunger. “It has been provided, my son,” said Abraham, his voice rigidly controlled, his face contorted as if in great pain. Then they both fell silent.</p>
<p>Abraham bound Isaac, hands and feet, and placed him upon the altar. The voices reached an excruciating pitch, and the wind howled its emptiness. He raised his arm, ritual knife high above his head, then stopped, lowered it slowly. Silence. Like the bottom of a deep canyon. Silence. Then a voice deep inside him, a voice different from any of the voices he had ever heard before. There it was. In the silence. It didn’t command. It was reassuring. Gentle. Comforting. Comforting like a father. Comforting like a father he had never known. And Abraham knew. Deeply. He knew. No God, no God worthy of the name, certainly none worthy of worship, would ever demand the death of a child. Certainly not at the hand of a father. Abraham shook. His right arm trembled. Slowly he raised his eyes. The murmuring voices were silenced. His mind no longer wavered. He renounced this God, certainly, forever, and all Gods of cruelty, and all acts of cruelty committed in the name of this God, or any other God, now and forever. With a new certainty of mind, born of the silence, he breathed. Deeply. This would be the covenant he, Abraham, a father, would pass down to his children, and his children’s children, to be numbered as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand upon the seashore. And all the nations of the earth would be blessed when they arrived at the same truth. It would take time, many scores of generations perhaps, but the time would come. Without fail. It would come. He was sure.</p>
<p>The voices had stopped, and the air was still. Abraham cut Isaac’s bonds with the ritual knife, and looked up to see a ram caught in a thicket. They killed the ram, and roasted it upon the altar. Abraham sat in silence with his son, and in silence they ate until their hunger was assuaged. Abraham’s countenance shown down upon his son with a new light, never before seen. With his right arm, he flung the knife as far away as he could and, together, they descended.</p>
<p>Confident now. The voices had stopped. This time for good. There would be no more sacrifices. Although he was to live for sixty more years, remarry, and beget six more sons and as many daughters, Abraham would never speak of, nor invoke the name of his God again. He had sacrificed his God upon the mountain.</p>
<p>" And Abraham knew. Deeply. He knew. No God, no God worthy of the name, certainly none worthy of worship, would ever demand the death of a child. Certainly not at the hand of a father"</p>
<p>This story has always bothered me…and the above quote is why…</p>
<p>Mini, where is number 2? please…</p>
<p>SONG OF HAGAR</p>
<p>“I don’t know why, but I had expected better of him. He came into my tent after I had fallen asleep, and announced softly, not without a touch of shame in his voice, that his God had commanded him to have his way with me. I felt angry, helpless, above all betrayed by him. And I was so ashamed, as if I were betraying my father who had made such a desperate attempt to save me from such a fate. I didn’t struggle, didn’t cry out. It was not that I believed in this, this God, but I feared more than anything that if I did not submit, he would send me out into the wilderness again.”</p>
<p>Hagar drew up her tattered shawl more tightly around her. The sand was blinding, and gathered in little piles by the sides of the boy lying face down at her feet. She took two handfuls of sand and let it run out between her dry and cracked fingers. She remembered the first time she had been sent out to the wilderness. Her father, impoverished after seven years of poor harvests and about to be taken in bondage for his debts, would not have her sold off into concubinage, or even worse. She was barely thirteen. Without a word, he pointed away from the sun and out of Egypt, then turned his back, pulling his cloak over his head, his hands drawn up to cover his eyes. So she went, to the north and east, with nothing to eat, just the clothes on her back and a vision of her father’s tears as he chose her death rather her ruin. For two days she wandered, her feet aching and bloodied by the stones, her clothes snagged by bushes and thorns, her mind numb in the sun’s heat. At night, she curled up in the brush, afraid of the occasional lion’s growl, but more so by the yelping of jackals.</p>
<p>On the third day, her steps were increasingly slowed by hunger. Towards the day’s end, in the west, she saw the dark outlines of vultures swooping low against the fire of the setting sun. “They are waiting for me,” she thought, convinced she would not outlive the coming night. She was too tired, too resigned, to be discomforted.</p>
<p>She turned her steps toward the last vestiges of the sun’s rays and came over a low rise. The vultures were now virtually overhead, circling and diving to the earth. And there in a small hollow she saw an old man, gray-haired, bearded, his brown robe gathered around him, lying face forward, as if dead, in front of a rough-hewn altar of stones haphazardly piled up. Arrayed around the altar were the carcasses of a heifer, a goat, and a ram, halved, arranged eerily so that each half faced its opposite. A turtle dove and a young ****, each with their throats slit, lay upon the altar. There was blood everywhere. Vultures hopped amidst the slaughter, picking at the dead animals, but, curiously, only the carcass halves on the right side. Ravens awaited their turn in the fiery blood red of sunset, even approaching the old man, pecking at his collar.</p>
<p>Descending into the hollow, Hagar approached him tentatively, bent down, and touched his shoulder with her right hand. The man gave a start, and stared at her from the ground. His eyes! Set in his brow lined with age, his eyes shone strange and wonderful, wild, fiery as the sunset. She helped him clamber to his feet, both of them trembling, she from exhaustion, he from? The birds of prey flew off. He motioned her to sit, and he set about kindling a fire on the altar, cutting a bloody haunch from the left side of the heifer, and roasting it over the flames, swaying and humming all the while. Under the cloudless sky they ate, he sparingly, she ravenously. She was about to fall asleep, but he pulled her close toward him, placed one arm around her shoulder, and began to talk, babble really, in a language she could not understand. His whole head seemed to radiate with light, as his eyes sought the stars in the moonless heavens, and he gesticulating wildly with his free hand. He sang, tuneless, his voice directed, to nowhere. Each time she started to doze off he pulled her back, gesturing to and fro, always upward, eyes aflame. At last he rose and, moving perhaps a bowshot away, started to dance, a crazed yet deliberate dance, almost youthful, outlined against the silence of the desert, shadowless. She slept.</p>
<p>Hagar didn’t remember when she had become a slave. He had brought her back to the settlement, a camp really, and disappeared into his tent, not to re-emerge until seven days had passed. She began to help in the endless round of cooking and sweeping out of the tents. Everyone could see she was an Egyptian. When she returned with Abram, it was assumed he had purchased her from a neighboring band. Where else could she have gone?</p>
<p>It was clear he was the head of his tribe, though exactly how she was unsure. The slaves never spoke of him, or at least not directly. He was not often seen, and was known to fall into trances, dark moods which could last for weeks or months, or wander off without leaving word as to where he was going. His wife seemed to be in charge, ranging through the encampment, giving orders to pack up the tents, gather the herds, to be led off in the direction Abram bid them. Twice, maybe three times a year, sometimes when the fields for the sheep were still plush green, or in driving rain, or intense heat, each time, Sarai’s voice growing hoarser and more exasperated with every command, every move increasing the harshness of her manner.</p>
<p>Hagar recalled how she found herself in the wilderness a second time, and shuddered. “When the shrew, his wife, saw I was with child, she tore at her hair, and beat me pitilessly. I was living reproach to her barrenness, God’s curse upon her. She demanded Abram send me and the unborn child off to die, and the man, that coward, still sheepish about what he had done, left the filthy business to his wife. She did whatever she could to cause me to miscarry, assigning me only the heaviest loads, keeping me on my feet day and night, and was never satisfied. There was no choice. I had to go.”</p>
<p>So there she was in the wilderness again. She found a spring, and enough wild roots and berries to eat, but where was she to go, her belly swelling? She thought of killing herself, and the child, as the best revenge against him, he who so longed for a son. But no, something inside her said the best revenge would be to return and bear him a firstborn.</p>
<p>And so she returned, now close to her lying in. She was attended by the midwives; Sarai refused even to acknowledge her presence. Abram paced outside the tent, coming in on several occasions with a frightened look upon his face, and no words of comfort. At the moment of birth, as she had planned, and he by the bedside, she screamed “Ishmael” – “I have heard your affliction.” Abram picked up the child, now in swaddling clothes, and in his obtuseness and self-centeredness, thought it referred to himself. “God has indeed heard my affliction,” thought Abram, “I will call him Ishmael.” The name, and the boy, were living rebuke to Sarai, whose own affliction went unheeded.</p>
<p>For awhile, she was protected by Abram’s love for his son. How different they were! Abram slow and reflective, absent-minded or, no, so full of mind, possessed really, guided from afar, that he would forget where or even who he was, whom he was talking to, or where he was going. The child running, always running, in and out of the tents, among the sheep, by the riverbanks, like tumbleweed blown on the wind. Abram would look upon his son, hold him, peer intently into his eyes as if to ask, “Do I know you?” The boy would squirm and struggle, break away, careening around the camp, the answer in his body, “I know everything that is wild and free, the animals that break from the flock, and those which prey upon them. And I know you, or at least that part of you which is me, in my own way.” And at the appointed time, in the evening, the boy would literally run to his straw pillow and fall upon it, relaxed and content like a surfeited mountain lion, asleep.</p>
<p>Hagar did not know what to make of circumcision. After weeks in one of his dark moods, Abram announced brightly one morning what his Lord required, took up the boy, this being his thirteenth birthday, and had the deed done. She thought it was a sign of the covenanted bond between Abraham (why did he change his name?), who spoke of the numerous descendants to come, and Ishmael being his only offspring. Hagar imagined this confirmed by Abraham’s renaming his wife Sarah, in acceptance of her childlessness.</p>
<p>It was not to be. Isaac was born, and although or perhaps because Abraham continued to favor his firstborn, the beatings became more and more brutal. She could hear Sarah and Abraham arguing long into the night. She knew it was about her.</p>
<p>At long last it happened. Abraham asked her to wait by the side of his tent. He went off to the riverbank, and returned with a small skin of water, a husk of bread, and Ishmael by the hand. He pointed the two of them toward the rugged lands to the south and west, and turned his back, pulling his cloak over his head, his hands drawn up to cover his eyes.</p>
<p>And so here she was, after two days, toward evening, the water and bread gone, her son lying at her feet. Her own feet were toughened now, leathery, like her face, which had seen many settings and risings. She squinted toward the west, the sun about to fall below the horizon, and made out the dark outline of a single bird of prey against the reddish purple sky rapidly fading, swooping and then climbing, almost beyond range of sight.</p>
<p>The wind ceased. Hagar rose slowly, and moved toward the edge of a low rise, perhaps a bowshot away. There in the hollow below, she saw a pile of stones, somewhat haphazard, almost covered by sand. She descended into the hollow, and stopped, looked up and heard the screech, piercing the stillness, an eagle. And then, not one, but another, and another, twelve in all, soaring, soaring…</p>
<p>And something stirred deep inside her. It was a voice, and yet not-a-voice, a silent motion perfectly formed, an inward, unspeakable turning, a…knowing. With her eyes fixed upon the ground, she began to walk, infinitely slow, pulled forward, traversing a wide arc around the pile of stones. And then, then, she turned, she knew to turn, a full turn, the loose folds of her garment twisting behind her. Forward around the circle again, a bit faster, her garment blue-brown, sand-spangled in the enveloping twilight. Then another turn, faster yet again, she started to dance, a crazed yet deliberate dance, almost youthful, outlined against the silence of the desert, shadowless. A single eagle remained, hovering high overhead. A gentle thunder rolled in the far distance.</p>
<p>And a song welled up inside her, burning in her breast, searing her throat, and out it came, a wavewind of song unfolding, tuneless, her voice directed, to nowhere:</p>
<pre><code>I have waited upon his God, O how I have waited,
But I will wait no longer,
For He has led me out of the land of Egypt
And into the fleshpots of Canaan,
Into the house of bondage.
Three times have I been thrown into the lion’s lair,
But only twice returned;
For now am I suckled by the lioness,
Who nurtures her cubs until they are ready to run wild and free.
My soul soars like an eagle - see it there!
For the wilderness of my soul has brought forth a great people.
I sing a new song, for the wilderness has brought me forth
From my native land and from my father’s house,
And will make of me a great nation.
I lift up mine eyes unto the hills,
But my strength comes from within,
For I have seen wilderness in the eyes of men,
Wilderness omnipresent in all living things,
And I am delivered by the wilderness out of my distress.
Hear O Ishmael! Yesterday your sons
Would have been born the sons of slaves,
But today they are born the sons of free men.
And I will follow the new moon in its traces,
For my soul waxes in great rejoicing.
</code></pre>
<p>Hagar whirled one last time, stumbled breathless, and fell face down next to the stone pile. Lifeless, immoveable, the two heaps black against the sandscape. Clouds shifted. Pikas went about their business. Lichens continued their ten thousand-year hold on rocky outcroppings. The earth turned, inexorable, wrenching the seas from their beds, exposing and then recovering shoals and shores, pulled forward, traversing a wide, unrelenting arc. Scorpions scuttled by.</p>
<p>He descended into the hollow, approached her tentatively, bent down, and touched his mother’s shoulder with his right hand. Hagar gave a start, and stared up at him from the ground. His eyes shone strange and wonderful, wild, fiery as the sunset. He helped her clamber to her feet, both of them trembling, he from exhaustion, she from? She gathered him close and gazed searchingly, first at his face, newly a man’s, and then over Ishmael’s shoulder and seeking far, past the pile of stones, always upward, eyes aflame. A new star was rising in the east.</p>
<p>Ok…this is not how I remember the story on Sunday school. </p>
<p>I was not expecting this story told like this. 3 please.</p>
<p>If this is the way you learned it in Sunday School, I wouldn’t have had to write it.</p>
<p>**Sarah
**
“He’s killed my son!” Sarah keened, clothes rent, a handful of gray hair like ropes hanging in her hands. “He’s killed my son!”</p>
<p>She ran panicked from person to person throughout the camp, from women grinding the husk off grain in their stone bowls, to men having returned from herding to sit down for their evening meal. They all stared at her blankly, some not comprehending, others distinctly uncomfortable at being asked to provide close comfort to the wife of the tribe’s leader.</p>
<p>The servant had told him what he had seen. The patriarch had told him to wait behind, while he ascended the last heights of the mountain with Isaac, both carrying wood, and the ritual knife slung around Abraham’s shoulder. From behind a bush he could see Abraham, seemingly in one of his trances, bind his son upon the altar they had built, and raise his knife to slay him. The servant flew down the mountain as fast as he could, bewildered and terrified.</p>
<p>Sarah calmed herself as best as she was able, and returned to her tent, without having received a single word of sympathy. Small clumps of slaves and herdsmen gathered quietly outside, squatting on their haunches, as the cool of the evening overspread the settlement. None dared enter.</p>
<p>Sarah had aged rapidly. The curves of her body were still there, but tired, as she had grown more angular. The twists and bends of the muscles of her arms and legs, formerly smooth, were all sinews, like taut thongs used to tie down the tents during the intense summer winds. Her red-brown hair, which had once been thick and luxurious, was now straight like blue-gray cables suspended limp. Her eyes had receded behind a nose increasingly hawkish. It was a body and a face that had weathered spiritual insult and a great sadness, and they both showed.</p>
<p>Sarah had loved her husband once, or so she remembered. It was a long time ago. She had known him since early childhood, and looked up to him with wonder and, sometimes, dread. He fell into trances, sometimes for days. He heard voices. He talked of a High God, one who ruled over all other gods, a God who presented Himself in a whirlwind, or a pillar of fire, or a dark cloud. Women spoke of Abraham as if he indeed was one of the nephilim. She had heard about the nephilim since her youth, the great ones who were sons of gods and mortal women, still said to be alive on earth. Married to a nephilim! The very idea fed her vanity. His (and her) father, if he was Abraham’s father, didn’t understand him, and had long given up trying. But she would love him, understand him, serve him, after her own fashion, follow his star. </p>
<p>His star hadn’t diminished. The trances had grown longer. He wore on people, and even on her. They had grown rich, yes, in silver, gold, goats, sheep, servants, and slaves, but they were still wanderers. He couldn’t sit still. He would come to her tent in the middle of the night and, instead of an embrace, with a light in his eyes would tell her, voice soft but firm, that it was time to move again. She became exasperated. As they had grown richer, it had become more and more difficult to pull up the camp, gather the increasing multitude of the tribe, and march on, to places unknown and for purposes silent.</p>
<p>The sacrifices had grown stranger, too. Two sheep, a sheep and two goats, three doves, a lamb newly weaned, a wild-caught deer, four *****, Abraham looking for the right combination which would unlock his prayers and send them winging heavenward for an answer. He never sacrificed in the camp, always in the reaches, by himself, beyond her sight and hearing. He kept his prayers secret, nurturing them in private, never to be known, never to be known by her.</p>
<p>Abraham slept with other women. Many of them. He told her so. Always women from neighboring bands or those they passed in their journeys, never from his own tribe. He always paid them of course, and their clan leaders, he felt obligated to do so, with the condition that if a male child was born, it was to be returned to him. None ever was. This discreteness, scrupulousness really, was to prevent rivalry or jealousy within the tribe, and make clear Sarah’s pre-eminent place despite her childlessness, or so he told her. And she believed him. She knew he didn’t really enjoy sex, and never had. It was, or at least he treated it as, an unwelcome diversion from his real purpose, to which he, and only he, was fully privy when apart. Sarah had not felt jealous, had diligently learned not to feel so, only guilty for being empty, and it was only this way he could hope to uncover the woman through whom God’s covenant might be fulfilled.</p>
<p>It was Sarah’s idea to have Abraham sleep with the Egyptian. At least she would know where he was. He didn’t take her up on the offer for a long time. But then late one night he returned to her tent, looking sheepish and confused, and lay down wordless beside her, and Sarah knew. And it ate at her, slowly, like a voracious tapeworm, gnawed at her insides. For when she saw the Egyptian was with child, Sarah knew they must both be rid of her.
.
It was not that she was jealous of the Egyptian, or at least not on Abraham’s account. She was jealous, jealous indeed of her swelling womb, crimsoning cheeks, the stars transfixed in her coal black eyes. No, they had to be rid of her because, Sarah was sure, in her innermost being she was sure, the child was not Abraham’s. She had seen the Egyptian laughing with the shepherd by the side of her tent, laughing in the way that only lovers can laugh, a blushing laughter which was an affront to all who knew not love, reddening laughter a piercing rebuke to those who have known love and wake up one sun-spilling morning to discover that they are strangers to each other, and love no longer.</p>
<p>But she couldn’t send her away, and didn’t dare confide in him. He must have already sensed it, for when she concocted a tale about the Egyptian’s refusal to carry out her commands, Abraham waved her off with a dismissive wave of the hand, telling her to deal with it as she saw best. Did he know? Was he willing to have the Egyptian driven out of camp because he recognized the child wasn’t his? Or would he have her driven out because, on the contrary, he knew the child to be his, and realized too late that this child would not be the fulfillment of the covenant? Sarah suspected the answer, for Abraham, was neither. It was simply a domestic affair, best left to his wife, he was distracted, passive, accepting of the possibility that God might speak to others, to her, if somewhat imperfectly, and that what she decided must ultimately fit into the eternal plan. Why was he always so opaque?</p>
<p>God didn’t speak to her. She had never expected Him to. She performed what she thought was prayer to a God of whom she had no knowledge, but the reflection stuck to her that communication with the All-Powerful was her husband’s awkward gift, and reserved to him alone. She would have to rely upon her own resources. </p>
<p>She was now resolved. She would protect him. Better for her to be seen as jealous than for him to be perceived as heartless. She adulterated the Egyptian’s food, mixed potions in her drink. She ordered her around day and night, kept her bending and stooping, carrying heavy loads. Called her a fat sow. Made her stand for hours at end. The Egyptian grew larger. She beat her around the head and belly, tripped her, and beat her again for her clumsiness. And one day she was gone. Sarah knew not whither, and didn’t care. The other slaves looked at her as if she had committed a murder, and indeed there had been killing in her heart. No guilt. She had done what she had to, according to her light.</p>
<p>But when the Egyptian reappeared in the camp, so close to her lying in, Sarah was beside herself. Abraham had, unexpectedly and for the first time anyone could remember, delayed the camp move by one day after having given his usual notice. When he saw the Egyptian’s return, he ordered Sarah to unpack the camp, and leave the herds to grazing. Every tent stake was like a dagger in her heart, every fire relit a burning mote her eye. The gathering of men and women at their tents was witness to the fact that now she would be, forever, alone, in a loneliness of her own making. She could hardly bear the clamor of laughter, and forbade the sound of song. She forced them into mourning for a birth she could not prevent. If she could have, she would have forbidden their lovemaking for eternity.</p>
<p>“Ishmael” – “I have heard thy affliction”, the boy’s very name was an assault upon her own childless condition, a brazen spear directed at her guts. The Egyptian was now protected, though Sarah could barely endure her presence, even the scent of her. And Abraham loved the boy, a beautiful boy, face shaped like an olive and eyes like hazelnuts, loved him as…his own. Couldn’t he see that Ishmael was not his? The boy, from the time he could walk - and he never walked, always ran - had none of the deliberateness, the thoughtfulness, the interiority which would mark him as Abraham’s child. Ishmael was everywhere - among the tents, by the cooking tripods, scattering the flocks, gamboling by the river - wherever there was life among the tribe. And whatever he received was a theft, stolen from what would rightfully have belonged to her own unborn son.</p>
<p>After one especially long period of silent brooding, Abraham announced on Ishmael’s thirteenth birthday the new ritual of circumcision. Ishmael was first, Abraham (who had changed his name from Abram to mark the event) was next, a sign of God’s promise. Sarah was furious, and perplexed. Other tribes had their cuttings and outward bodily signs. Some notched their ears, others incised patterns on their palms, or the back of the neck. These signs were to be seen, as symbols of clan membership or devotion to their gods. But the cutting of foreskins? It didn’t make any sense. The only ones who would ever see it were women. Was it meant as a reminder to them? Sarah (who was forced to change her own name as well) was ashamed. It would be, she thought, the tribe’s cruel memorial, forever, to her barrenness.</p>
<p>With Ishmael beginning the stripling growth into manhood, she felt suffocated, by him, by the inescapable presence of the Egyptian, by their swelling treasures, by the sounds of goings on in other tents, by Abraham, by the mute presence of Abraham’s God. At night, she, who for years had slept soundly while Abraham besought the All-Knowing for a sign, now remained awake.</p>
<p>She took to long night walks to the edge of the settlement, the fires being extinguished one by one, envelopes of gray-green clouds balanced uneasily on the hills, enfolding the eastern horizons. And softly creeping, like a wildcat who had been scared off after an attack but now wants to see if her prey is still alive, the thought began to encircle her. What if…just perhaps…maybe…maybe it wasn’t the soil that was infertile, but the seed…shrivelled up…a nephilim…offspring of a god and daughter of earth…couldn’t…the promise…a son…as numerous as the stars. The clouds parted, and the great expanse b
itself, celestial fires shimmering in a space-time long past, a remembrance of things as yet to be revealed. The desert owl silently swooped low, scouring the desert floor, and retreated. The wildcat had found its wounded prey, clutched it between her teeth and shook it, and it was still alive.</p>
<p>Abraham ran into her tent all out of breath. “They are here, they are here!” he panted, “They have come. Three angels – messengers of the Lord. Come, quick. Bring cakes!” And Sarah came to the tree where the three messengers were reclining. Abraham bowed to them repeatedly, and brought them water and his finest wine. After Sarah gave them the cakes, she began to wash their feet, each in turn. Despite their strange and wondrous dress, these, Sarah knew, were men, not angels.</p>
<p>Abraham invited the messengers to bathe in the river. Two of them arose, and Abraham ran to the herd to choose a fine calf to be prepared for their evening meal. The third stayed behind.</p>
<p>It was done. No words were exchanged. The two messengers reappeared. Abraham brought the meat and butter and milk and stood in front of them while they ate it. As they prepared to take their leave, the third messenger blessed first Sarah, who was standing just inside the entrance to her tent, and then Abraham, saying “I will return to you when life is due, and Sarah shall have a son.” Sarah laughed, a nervous, frightened laughter. Abraham understood immediately. Three messengers went on toward Sodom. Only two arrived. </p>
<p>Sarah grew. Abraham prayed, and brought his nephew Lot out of the city. They never spoke of it. As Abraham grew further distant, the rest of the tribe dared not approach her.</p>
<p>The birth was difficult. In the middle of the night. Abraham did not attend. When Isaac was born, Sarah expected Abraham to come to her tent on that day to take the child for the performance of the new rite, as had become the custom. But for seven days and seven nights, there was no sign of Abraham, just the attendance of female slaves who remained sullenly at the foot of her bed, awaiting her next command. As she suckled the famished, defenseless infant, she lay there, at turns infuriated and confused. Did Abraham reject her child? Was the cutting of foreskins over now that it was drained of meaning? She struggled within her tangled web of thoughts and feelings, hungry and helpless. But on the eighth day he came, eyes illuminated and carrying the ritual knife and, without a word to her, lifted the child high over his head shouting Hosanna and led his henchman out to the altar to fulfill the commandment.</p>
<p>Isaac was a sickly child, slow of foot and perhaps somewhat slow-witted, but she loved him in a way only a woman who had given up any hope of children could. The boy followed her wherever she went like a shadow, quietly playing in the corner of the tent while his mother, even more imperious and overbearing, ever thinner, enjoined order.</p>
<p>Still there was the problem of Ishmael. When before he was a reminder of failure, now he was a threat. It was difficult, however, to hate the boy. He wasn’t really the problem. Amidst the freedom offered her by her position, Sarah felt wholly boxed in.</p>
<p>It was the Egyptian. f Abraham died before Sarah, and Ishmael came to head the tribe, Sarah would become subservient to her. The indignity of it, the shame! This could not, must not, would not be. Not if she had any strength in preventing it.</p>
<p>This time the repudiation would have to come from Abraham himself, for the entire tribe must see it. It would be best if Ishmael were killed, though with no blame laid directly at Abraham’s tent. Perhaps the boy could be sent out and killed in battle with the tribe’s enemies. But there were no longer any enemies. Abraham had managed to make peace with all of his neighbors, and the boy was too young. He could be cast into a pit in secret and never found, but the danger of discovery was too great. Maybe Ishmael could be sold off into slavery, with proof offered that he had been devoured by lions while hunting. She imagined vividly the tearing and staining of his cloak with goat’s blood so that the dried rust red would provide evidence of a lethal attack. But no neighboring band would likely accept the patriarch’s firstborn son as a slave unless he was offered by Abraham himself. For weeks her head throbbed as she sought her way out.</p>
<p>Abraham was appalled. He had heard rumors of other tribes sacrificing their enemies, or women, to their gods, though he had never actually witnessed any or met anyone who would testify to it. But the idea that God would tell her that his firstborn must be sacrificed to fulfill the covenant was impossible. His God, he shouted, was not like the other gods, and would never command such a thing. They argued and shouted, night after night. She nagged, cajoled, pleaded, insisted; he resisted, covered his ears, howled in anguish, cried out against her. She knew she could wear him down. He still felt guilty about Hagar.</p>
<p>At last it was concluded. Abraham sent the two of them - Hagar and Ishmael - out into the wilderness reach with a small skin of water and husk of bread, never, she hoped, never to be heard from again. Sarah kept to her tent that morning, and in the following days and weeks worked to conceal her gladness. She thought in passing of making a thanksgiving offering to his God, but she could do nothing publicly, and quite honestly, she didn’t know how. </p>
<p>As she lay on her bed pondering whether this was to be her final punishment, a servant barged into the tent. “Come quickly! They’re coming. They’re coming back!” he barked at her, forgetting himself. “Who?” she asked, now agitated. “Abraham, Isaac!” he shouted, and ran out of the tent without waiting for her permission. Sarah gathered herself up, and walked briskly to the edge of the camp. “There, there!” a shepherd shouted, pointing toward the hills of Moriah, the sun’s rays streaming toward them like arrow shafts. Sarah held her deeply veined hand over her water-filled eyes and squinted over the sage-covered sand toward the east. There, beyond small whirlwinds pivoting and blurring the landscape to the left and to the right, there, beyond the boulders, there, was Abraham and, holding his father’s hand was, Isaac, and there, to the right of Isaac, she could not be sure, she squinted again, there…was…a third…</p>
<p>Sarah fell in a heap on the sand, and felt an intense jab of pain above her heart, traveling from front to back and up through her left shoulder. She took several seemingly bottomless breaths seeking to control the pain, and a great weariness descended upon her. She thought she heard the boom of nighthawks, and in her mind’s eye she was witness to an immense conflagration, the world engulfed, nighthawks overhead, gold-vermillion flames licking the deep blue and straining to unite with the saffron sun which had given them birth. She remembered his words: “I will return to you when life is due.” And at that moment she experienced a great emptiness. She knew she was dying.</p>
<p>Somehow she assembled her little remaining strength and with the greatest of effort staggered to her feet. Abraham, his eyes filled with their tiresome inward fire, and Isaac, just a boy, head bowed, disoriented and distraught, his face pallid and worn and life drained, were now no more than a bowshot away. There was no other. Sarah now knew that to which she was called. She strode out toward the two of them, right hand clutching at her breast, silently grabbed Isaac’s arm with her left, and walked on purposefully toward the hills. She felt his inner confusion as she dragged him forward. And when they reached the boulders, little eddies of heat moving upward as the sun baked down, she turned toward Isaac, with firmness but without comfort she turned toward her only son, told him firmly, with her own inner certainty born of the messenger, that he was not to look back, lest he be consumed by the flames.</p>
<p>Mini, I guess you are right. </p>
<p>“Bring cakes” lol</p>
<p>The rest is pretty heavy. </p>
<p>4 and 5 please…</p>
<p>The Wager</p>
<p>*Micaiah went on,“Listen now to the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord seated on His throne, with all the host of heaven in attendance on His right and on His left. The Lord said, “Who will entice Ahab to attack and fall on Ramoth-gilead?” One said one thing and one said another; then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, “I will entice him” “How?” said the Lord. “I will go out”, he said, “and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all of his prophets.” “You shall entice him,” said the Lord, “and you all succeed; go and do it.” You see, then, how the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, because He has decreed disaster for you.”
*
*1 Kings 19-23
*</p>
<p>There was in the land of Canaan a man who lived a good and virtuous and mostly upright life. Not a blameless one, mind you, but well above average, especially compared with his neighbors. His name was Abraham, and he had learned to love God, which was unusual, given that all his neighbors feared Him, and he was reasonably honest, even if he was known to drive a hard bargain now and again. He had prospered, mainly by avoiding strife, and having learned early the lessons of compounding, so that his herds grew until he owned five thousand four hundred and thirty six sheep, two thousand three hundred and seventy eight goats, four hundred and sixty nine camels, two hundred and forty one yoke of oxen, one hundred and twenty six asses, and a large number of slaves. And the Almighty let his countenance shine down upon Abraham and all that was his.</p>
<p>The day came when the members of the court of heaven assembled in the Presence of the Lord, and Satan was there among them. And the Lord, pulling upon His platitudinous beard, inquired of him where he had been.</p>
<p>“Ranging over the earth,” Satan said, in sonorous if slightly mocking voice, gesturing in a wide arc with his left hand, “from end to end.”</p>
<p>Then the Lord asked Satan, “Have you considered my servant Abraham? I have caused my countenance to shine down upon him and all that is his. And Satan asked more familiarly in return, “Why does this Abraham find such favor in your sight? I have ranged over the earth from end to end, and he certainly is not the best among men. He is nowhere near blameless, and no paragon of virtue. He may be honest, but he’s not above tipping the scales by sleight of hand to gain a bit of advantage from time to time. He doesn’t offer you the best sacrifices – in fact, just last week he offered you his second best lamb because he knew the better would bring a very good price.”</p>
<p>The Lord God leaned back on his throne and smiled. “Of course, I know all of this. He has been known to bend the truth a bit, and to My good amusement. He was even willing to put his wife out on loan on several occasions, to Pharoah and to the King of Gerar, and he was well paid for it.”</p>
<p>“Still, let me tell you, Satan,” the Lord continued, “what I love about this man Abraham is what reminds Me of you. He questions everything. He wants to know why there is good and why there is evil upon the earth. He inquires of Me at every step, throwing out customs that are simply a matter of habit, listening for My voice when all the rest is but a babble, searching, always searching for that which he knows not.”</p>
<p>“I do not keep secrets from Abraham regarding what I am about to do, for he will be a great and populous nation. And he is forever trying to bargain with Me, sometimes in the strangest of manners, sometimes, why, he reminds Me of you. Whereas we all know the wickedness of the few can contaminate the many, rather like a handful of mealworms can ruin an entire amphora of wheat, he, he tries to argue with Me that I should save the multitude of the wicked for the sake of a just few. How absurd! If the just were truly deserving, I said, should they not be able to turn others from their wrongful paths? Still, I listened and we parlayed, haggling like two vegetable sellers at the market, and he can be so smooth. “May I presume to speak to the Lord,” he stuttered, bowing low, “dust and ashes that I am,” etcetera, etcetera, like some toadying sycophant. I told him to dispense with the honorifics and the legal nonsense, we were already in the middle of our conversation, and he wasn’t going to find ten good men anyway. And, after all of this, the fact is that he didn’t even look. It was just a game to him, and to Me, too, and it makes for a great tale, don’t you agree?”</p>
<p>“But,” interjected Satan, “Sometimes he really does get to You, doesn’t he?”</p>
<p>“Ah, yes,” God admitted a little, well, sheepishly. “Once I reminded him of the covenant and the land that I promised him, and he had the nerve to ask how he was to know that I would keep my promise. He demanded a bond, as if I were a common debtor! So I had him perform one of those crazy sacrifices that the Pizzurites like, you know, a three-year-old, oh, what was it? ah, yes, a heifer, and a she-goat, and a ram, and a turtledove (the turtledove didn’t have to be three years old), and a young bird (age unspecified), and cut them up and arrange the pieces and all that. And then I told him that because he did not trust in Me, his offspring would be held in captivity for four hundred years in a strange land. He pleaded, “Does it have to be for such a long time?” Yes, my dear man,” I said to Abraham, “Four hundred years to Me is but the twinkling of an eye.”</p>
<p>And God laughed. And Satan laughed. And God laughed more vigorously, until He began to choke. And the Lord bent forward, and Satan, leaning over from the right side where he had been standing, slapped Him verily between the shoulder blades, and a crash of thunder was heard throughout all of creation.</p>
<p>“He loves Me,” explained the Lord, suddenly unsure as to why He was explaining Himself to Satan, “And the feeling is mutual. But he takes nothing at face value, he is no drone like,” and at that the Lord waved the back of His hand toward the band of fawning angels awaiting summons, standing below the raised dais of the throne and fanning themselves languidly with their wings.</p>
<p>And Satan spake, assembling his words behind his pencil-thin moustache, carefully guarding his voice so as not to reveal even the slightest hint of jealousy, “Has not Abraham good reason to love You? Have You not hedged him in on every side with Your protection, him and his family and all his possessions? Whatever he does You have blessed, and his herds have increased beyond all measure. Did You not promise that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, and that kings shall spring forth from him, and all because You find pleasure in our mutual disputations? After all, what have You ever required of him but his foreskin?”</p>
<p>And God closed his eyes, and sank into thoughtfulness. He remembered His row with Abraham about circumcision. “Why not a cut on the left ear, or a tattoo on the right shoulder?” argued Abraham, quivering with the unsettling knowledge that his knife might slip or might not be sufficiently sharp to accomplish the deed with the requisite precision. “Something everyone can see, and be mindful of?” “Ah,” responded the Lord, “that’s just the point. It will be your covenant with Me, for you to carry around in the recesses of your heart, not to be paraded among your neighbors.” “But Sarah, she shall look upon it,” urged Abraham, still seeking a way out. “Yes,” said the Lord, and it will be a reminder to her of the Great Pharoah, and how you loaned her to him out of cowardice and lack of trust in Me to defend you.” “But,” Abraham began to splutter, hoping he could come up with a good enough response to counter the argument. “No buts, my friend,” said the Lord, “I will protect you and yours from the knife as I would have protected you in Egypt, and it shall be a sign unto you, a reminder of your lack of faith. And as for Sarah, every time your wife shall look upon you, she shall be reminded that you are to be as Great Pharoah, the father of a great nation.”</p>
<p>“My Lord?” spake Satan gently in His right ear, waking Him. And the Lord God, remembering Satan’s last words, flashed a look of anger, and the angels fell silent and bowed obsequiously before the throne. And Satan continued, pressing his advantage, “Just place a demand upon him, one with which he cannot reason, and see what will become of your friendly discourses.” And the Lord God said, “Let us put him to the test, and this be our wager. All that he has is in your hands; only Abraham himself you must not touch.” And Satan left the Lord’s presence, a cold wind blew through the court of heaven, and the angels shivered.</p>
<hr>
<p>And the sun shone down with its warmth upon Abraham and all that was his. Five thousand four hundred thirty six sheep blanketed the hillside in a warm breeze. And Abraham looked upon the hillside, and the valley of tents below him, and saw that it was good.</p>
<p>The sheep numbered as they had yesterday. Abraham thought upon the sacrifice he had offered the previous evening. He had bound the sheep himself, and hefted it himself upon the stone altar even as it attempted to struggle free, raised the ritual knife with his right hand stretched out toward the evening star, and sliced the throat clean through, the blood running freely down his arms, and besmattering his cloak. The sheep was then consumed in the sacred fire. Abraham looked down with contentment upon his cloak, for in each speck of sheep’s blood, whether dried or still wet from the sacrifice, he saw his descendents, a great nation promised unto him. And he saw that it was good.</p>
<p>And it was very good in the morning, too, for a lamb had been born. Abraham had assisted in the birth himself, his arms covered in the blood of birth even as they had been covered in the blood of sacrifice, the fruitfulness of the earth brought forth in the blood of sacrifice and in the blood of birth. And the lamb struggled upon its unsteady legs and walked off, as if its birth were simply an everyday occurrence.</p>
<p>Abraham loved roaming over the hills, away from his family, his retainers, and his slaves, and all their squabbles. His tents were filled with silver and gold, but a man couldn’t think in them. For what were gold and silver but weights upon men’s shoulders, like the decorated yokes upon his oxen? Sarah had long since assumed leadership of his household in response to his infirmity, his falling into long trances, or, as he told her, his conversations with the Lord. And it was upon the hillsides, never within his tents, that he received his messages from the Lord, as he had that first time he had felt his infirmity come upon him while tending his flocks on the outskirts of Harran, and had felt His Presence.</p>
<p>“Arise, and let you go forth from this, your native land, and your father’s house, and journey to a country that I will show you, for I will make you into a great nation,” said the voice. And in the dreamlike vision of his trance, Abraham began to question and he stammered, “That you may be my God, I have no reason to doubt, because I have heard your voice before in my dreams. But, and this I do not understand, oh Lord, how can I go forth from my native land when I have not lived in Ur the place of my birth this many years, and I am only a sojourner in Harran, this foreign land where my father is now buried?” And the Lord smiled warmly upon Abraham, and Abraham could feel the warmth of His smile. And the Lord said to Abraham, “I will bless you and make your name great and a blessing unto all the nations. And I will bless those that bless you, curse those who curse you, and all the families upon the earth shall wait upon your blessing.” Such was the vow that God made to Abraham. And Abraham went forth from Harran, with Lot his nephew, and his wife Sarah, and all the wealth they had amassed, and the knowledge of this blessing and of his Father in heaven graven deeply upon his heart. From that day forth, the Lord disclosed His designs for the world of men to Abraham in his infirmity.</p>
<p>So it was on that day that clouds suddenly blanketed the sky, and a cold wind blew out of the north, and Abraham fell into a trance upon the hillside, and could feel His Presence.</p>
<p>And Satan came upon him, disguising his voice as that of the Lord, and said, “Arise, and let you go forth…” and at that, Abraham bolted upright in his mind’s eye, for these were verily the words that the Lord had spoken unto him while he tended his flock on the outskirts of Harran. And Satan spake in the voice of the Lord, “Arise, and let you go forth, and take your favored son Isaac, whom you love, to the Mount of Moriah. And there you shall offer him as a burnt offering unto Me.” And just as suddenly as the voice had been heard by Abraham, so it vanished, and Abraham came out from his trance as quickly as he had fallen into it upon the hillside.</p>
<p>Abraham arose, and picked up his shepherd’s crook that was lying beside him, and thought, “That this was the voice of my God, I have no reason to doubt, for I felt His Presence, and I have heard His voice before. But why would He depart from me so soon without telling me of His purpose? Perhaps the message was not complete. For a summons of this kind should have been accompanied by a sign, such as the flaming torch that had appeared before me at the altar in Mamre. And in all of the visitations of my Lord, He has spoken of His covenant unto me. No, this was but an error in my hearing, for it was not after the manner of the Lord Most High.”</p>
<p>Toward evening, having walked the hills without speaking to anyone, but with God’s Presence unrevealed, Abraham returned to his tents with troubles in his heart. For he knew he had heard what was spoken, and the command of his Lord could not be ignored. And Abraham looked upon the gold and silver in his tent, and his heart was filled with rancor. “What good is this wealth with which my Lord has blessed me, if He denies me His promise? For He has broken His covenant with me, and all shall be turned to ashes. For Isaac, he who brings forth laughter, He shall take in sacrifice, and all that is mine is reduced to dust.” And Abraham raged through his tents, and all shrank in fear from his anger.</p>
<p>In the middle of the night, with the Lord’s Presence still not come upon him, Abraham arose, and saddled one of his one hundred and twenty seven asses – for another had been born that afternoon – gathered up wood, and awoke Isaac and two servants. They took neither food nor water, nor left any message behind.</p>
<p>They were gone before the sun’s rising. Abraham walked toward the foothills of Moriah lost in his thoughts, with Isaac tugging at this right sleeve. Abraham told the child to silence himself, and in silence they walked. And Abraham waited upon the Presence of the Lord, but He was not there. Abraham considered in his mind how he might wrestle with the Lord, should the opportunity present itself. “Lord,” he could hear himself saying, “You who has made Thy covenant with me, and has blessed me, I will offer you my best lamb as a burnt offering upon Moriah. I will offer you forty-fold from among my sheep, my goats, and my cattle, as ransom for my son. For, my Lord, how can my descendents be as numerous as the stars in the sky if You take my son whom You have given in fulfillment of the promise? Certainly You would not deprive Yourself of the offerings of Your great nation.”</p>
<p>But no voice was heard by Abraham, nor was the Presence felt, nor did his infirmity come upon him. There was to be no wrestling, for it had been decided. And at night, an unvaried pall of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky and all its inhabitants, by which Abraham’s descendents were to be numbered, so that they remained hidden from his sight. And there was no pillar of fire but the brazier that smoldered in Abraham’s heart.</p>
<p>On the second day, they reached the foothills of Moriah. “Where are we going, father?” asked Isaac meekly, as fear had now stricken his heart. And Abraham replied brusquely, with a hint of anger and a touch of sarcasm in his voice, “I am going up to prepare a great feast before the Lord.” And Isaac knew to ask no further questions, for Abraham’s heart was now a stranger to him.</p>
<p>In the night, the heavens were again shrouded from zenith to horizon, and darkness was on the face of the earth, and the embers of Abraham’s heart grew cold, even as sleep fled from him in terror.</p>
<p>And it was on the third day, and the Lord’s Presence still not come upon him, that Abraham saw the place from afar. He bade his servants stay behind with the ass, while he and his son, slowed by hunger and carrying the wood, ascended Mount Moriah. Abraham now trudged forward like a soldier of the Philistines, like a soldier of this generation or of every generation that was ever to walk upon the earth, his mind dead to pain and numb to the future, but with his task grimly but clearly set out before him, even as his eyes were blinded by the mountain winds. And he came upon the place. Without a word, he set about building the stone altar, in the manner of the desert people. “Where is the sheep for the great feast?” asked Isaac, thinking of the meal that would surfeit his hunger. And Abraham waved him away, his face rigid, and his ears closed up against him, for Isaac was already dead to him in his mind, and his knife lay cold upon the altar.</p>
<hr>
<p>The stars hung in the air. There were thousands, no, tens of thousands of them, cold, unblinking points, each its own cold, self-contained brilliance inhabiting the blue blankness of night’s vacant expanse. They appeared to steal down upon an as yet unsettled world yawing upon its vertical axis, awaiting an order to join in formation for a long, inexorable march, awaiting an order that would never come.</p>
<p>Abraham awoke. Or so he believed he was awake, more awake than he had ever been since he had left Harran and his infirmity had come upon him. His skin tingled, as if the steely cold points of the stars were stinging his flesh, and the iridescence of the blood specks upon his cloak shone upward in wordless response.</p>
<p>A fire burned upon the altar. The snap of the flames lay claim to his hearing, and the sparks danced their little, spangling lives upon the air and vanished into the enveloping darkness to dance no more. And Abraham could feel His Presence and was startled, because he was awake now as he had never been awake before.</p>
<p>And an angel of the Lord appeared before Abraham, or at least he believed it was an angel. Yet he thought it was a man, except that when he stepped between Abraham and the altar, Abraham could see the flames clear through him. And the angel said to Abraham, “The Lord God Most High is very wroth with you, and shall not visit you again.” And Abraham could feel the chill of the Lord’s anger shoot through his neck and shoulders as he sat upon the ground. </p>
<p>And Abraham said, “But have not I done all that the Lord commanded?” </p>
<p>And then behind him he heard a quiet whimpering. He whipped his head around quickly and there, lying in the dust at the foot of a thornbush was Isaac, still bound and helpless, his knees drawn up close to his head and shivering. And as Abraham turned, he glanced down, and saw his knife there, bloodless and gleaming, lying by his hand.</p>
<p>Abraham quickly reached for the knife, thinking to complete that which was required of him. But as he rushed upon Isaac with the ritual knife raised high, the angel grabbed him from behind, struggled with the upraised arm, and the knife fell by the side of Isaac’s head. And Abraham slumped down beside him.</p>
<p>And the angel said, “The Lord is not wroth for the lack of your son’s blood, and the burnt offering of his flesh. He is angry because you have already killed Isaac in your mind.”</p>
<p>Abraham looked up at him confused, and said, “Have not I always done as the Lord Most High has bidden?” </p>
<p>And the angel replied, “Brace yourself and stand up like a man, for you have failed His test. Did not the Lord your God plant the law of love in your heart in Harran? Did He not also plant the seed of truth there for you to nurture? Did He not teach you to search the inner recesses of your heart for His voice when the rest was a babble, and stand in its light? Did He ever command of you blind obedience once your eyes were already opened?”</p>
<p>Abraham trembled. And the angel continued, “Isaac is now dead to you. You have murdered your first-born son Ishmael in your heart and he shall not return to you, and you have killed his mother, though they yet live in the glory of His Presence upon the earth. And you have slain Sarah your wife, though she be not dead, and her blood cries out to the Lord. And though you shall have six more sons, and as many daughters, they shall shrink from your sight, and you shall banish them for the length of your days. And none shall be there at your passing.”</p>
<p>And Abraham quaked and gasped for breath, and then cried out, “Are you Satan that speaks thusly?” And the angel responded, “Satan only dares to tread where the hearts of men are stopped up.” And he vanished from Abraham’s sight.</p>
<p>Abraham roughly cut the bonds that held Isaac. Just then, he espied a ram caught in the thicket. Abraham took the knife and cut its throat, and without ceremony cut a piece out of its haunches and without prayer roasted it upon the altar. He and Isaac ate of it and were satisfied. And Abraham flung the ritual knife away into the thicket.</p>
<p>And the Presence was gone and would not return to Abraham, and his infirmity would never again come upon him. Isaac slept through what remained of the night. And beside him Abraham sat alone and awake, seeking counsel of himself beneath the blind, unfeeling arsenal of stars.</p>
<hr>
<p>And so on that day, in payment for the wager, God banished Satan from the court of heaven and condemned him forever to walk alone among the families of men, commanding blind obedience. And the All-Powerful One, Blessed Be He, in loneliness paced to and fro in the heavenly court, surrounded by the cherubim and seraphim as they sang in unison until the end of time, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts, and the Whole World is His Glory.”</p>
<p>I’m afraid the last one in this series has remained half-finished for 12 years. It is the story of Michael, living in a city that worships Moloch, where first-born sons are sacrificed. He loses his son, his wife drowns herself in sorrow in a well, his son-in-law is killed trying to force a recalcitrant village to sacrifice to Moloch, and his daughter (the wife), slits her own throat. He leaves and thinks to kill himself in a cave on the mountain. But when he goes into the cave, animals (beginning with a ram) present themselves to be slaughtered. He lives on the mountainside for nine years. And then he sees Abraham and Isaac approach…</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>This midrash is the post-script to the five (and now I;m done - for now):</p>
<p>ISAAC</p>
<p>Goat. About ten months old. Likely female. Dead three seasons, certainly less than a year. Killed in early spring. Isaac knew goats, after thirteen decades of living with them, buying and selling, slaughtering them, eating them, preparing their skins, knew them better than women. Both stubborn. Goats less demanding. Isaac preferred the smell of goats, especially after they’d fed following a warm spring rain. These were not the hands of his elder son. He knew which of his sons this was, and he expected his son realized he knew, too.</p>
<p>Isaac was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. Well, maybe a little slow sometimes, but not stupid. Now through gray eyes dimmed by decades of exposure to the dust of his herds and sun blazing, he could make out but the bare shadows of forms. His tongue was slow. Most of what he had to say to his people had been uttered long ago, and there hadn’t really been much to say. He could hear somewhat, though there was an incessant buzzing in his ears. He was no longer privy to the chatterings of women who always surrounded him, and he was now somewhat at peace, or at least in truce, with himself and with his tribe.</p>
<p>What he had lost in sight and hearing was somewhat compensated for by what seemed to him to be even sharper senses of touch, taste, and smell. His mind was as keen as it had ever been, or so he thought, and now less distracted by the moment-to-moment, day-to-day hustle and bustle that had marked his nomadic and trading existence. It had always been said of the aged that their time was short, but on the contrary, Isaac now had plenty of time on his hands, to contemplate the larger things.</p>
<p>God had not spoken to him. Not for a very long time. Not for more than half a century? And the memories were now dim. Something about descendants as numerous as stars, offspring increasing, and they would be given land. What Isaac did remember, vividly, was that the messages really had nothing to do with him. All was to be done because of promises made to his father Abraham. </p>
<p>Even after all these years, he still felt some bitterness toward his father, so quick to listen to a God who would demand his son (him!), and then would be just as satisfied with a ram. That’s what he was, a ram, a cut in a foreskin, a sign or a symbol, not a living, breathing soul. Isaac was never quite the same after coming off the mountain, and rarely saw his father again, having been taken away by his mother, who was now estranged and embittered, to live in Hebron. The whole episode left a sour taste in his mouth. God never expressed the slightest interest in Isaac for himself. Abraham had never blessed him. And there was no land.</p>
<p>Even the one incident for which he had become famous – seen fondling his wife whom he had represented to King Abimelech as his sister – had made him a laughingstock. It was simply a reprise of the same incident acted out by his mother and father. The King laughed, uproariously, the whole court with him in one huge bellylaugh, at Isaac’s utter lack of creativity in duplicating Abraham’s attempted ruse. “Didn’t your father, my old friend, tell you it didn’t work?” blurted out the Philistine king between laughs, sides heaving. “And besides, Sarah was your father’s sister, so there was at least a certain grain of truth in his cunning.” Abimelech slapped his thigh, and burst out again, “But you, could you at least have closed your tent flaps?” His very name was a joke: Sarah, who had brought forth Isaac – laughter – in her old age. So he, and his wife, were saved, not for himself, but for his father, and for the amusement they had offered. God spoke to Abimelech, but not to him.</p>
<p>He had grown fat, and rich, with flocks and women and gold rings, and idols, the gathering of tents forever growing larger, the women roasting sheep over an open fire, the goats covering the slopes like the fullness of wind. He loved scratching the heads of his goats between the horns, running his hands slowly down their necks and spines until he could breathe deep of the hillside on their flanks.</p>
<p>So when Jacob came to him dressed with those ridiculous skins upon his hands, and a dish of goat meat instead of game, the old man decided it was a joke and decided to play along. It was absurd for his, what was he now, fifty?-year-old son to be involved in such foolishness, but what was the harm? “How did you catch and cook the game so quickly, my son?” Isaac asked in his best patriarch voice, knowing Jacob had never caught so much as a rabbit, and never knew him to have cooked anything in his life. “Because the Lord your God granted me good fortune,” replied Jacob, trying unsuccessfully to disguise his voice in a low baritone. Isaac stifled a giggle, and barely restrained himself from asking whether his son was feeling well. </p>
<p>He smacked his large lips, and tasted a bit of the stew. Not a wit like the Hittite cooking he had grown to love since his older son’s marriage. Isaac loved to eat, indeed almost lived to eat, which was one of the reasons he surrounded himself with other women. He had loved Rebecca, but she’d never be esteemed for her cooking.</p>
<p>Jacob bent over and kissed his father, and Isaac placed his right hand on Jacob’s head. Sheep. Hair like a sheep, greasy and matted, full. The hair of his son Jacob, not of his older son, whose hair was thin, dry, burned by the sun and wind of the hunt. Suddenly the old man felt very tired. Couldn’t concentrate. What was the purpose of this awful charade? Could he read God’s purpose in the ruse, as Abimelech had divined the purpose of his own, similarly bungled? Why had not God spoken to him about his sons as He had spoken to Abraham? He remembered Rebecca’s tale of the message she received regarding the two boys, but this was just the prattle of women. Surely God would not choose to speak to a woman and not speak to him, speak to Isaac, Abraham’s, and God’s, favored son.</p>
<p>Isaac murmured the expected blessing, not without a touch of sarcasm. Jacob would never smell of the field, as his blessing began. God would understand. Something about wine and the fat of the earth, and that his brothers might bow to him (did he have more than one?), and nations, too. Told him to get a wife…</p>
<p>He leaned back and dozed and dreamed. He dreamed he descended into a dark room at the bottom of a cave. The walls of the cave were dark too, but glowed with enough iridescence so that he could see the large bowl of savory stew upon the floor. The buzzing in his ears grew louder, like a large carrion fly approaching. He stooped to eat the stew, but just as he began to chew, he heard a small but stern and scolding voice emerge from the buzzing. “Isaac. Oh, Isaac. Did you really believe I would fulfill my promise to Abraham and found my people, my nation, upon a deceit?” Isaac’s right hand trembled. “I am like the wind, Isaac, that can see into the inner sanctums of all your tents, and into your innermost heart.” </p>
<p>Isaac opened his mouth to plead, but the meat stuck in his throat. In a whirlwind before him, he saw that his blessing would also be a curse. Jacob’s children would be as a lesson, a light unto the world, but would themselves know little but affliction. God’s chosen, chosen for suffering. They would possess the land that had been promised, but would never know the enjoyment of it. They would be ruled by great kings, but the kings would lust after their women and the women of other nations, and lead their armies into slaughter. Their prophets would be accepted and praised among many nations, but rejected in their own. And then in this terrifying pageant he saw the sons of Jacob dispersed to the four corners of the earth, the land they yearned for turned to an empty, howling waste. He saw that through their ordeals and tribulations, God would hide his countenance from them, and speak to them only in haunted dreams and silent visions, and then speak to them no more. Isaac now knew the most awful truth of what he had wrought. Though they would reinhabit the land, Jacob’s children would not know God again until the lie was undone, and the land returned to its rightful owners, the sons of Esau, to be shared, not from fear, but freely, as among brothers. Until then, there was only the promise of darkness.</p>
<p>They found him in the morning. Breathing heavy, a half-chewed piece of meat in his mouth, his right hand paralyzed. Isaac had experienced a stroke, which left him without the ability to communicate except through the movement of his blind gray eyes. While he lingered on for thirty-five more years, he would never again smell the grass of the field, taste the wind, or feel the hide of his goats or the touch of either of his two sons.</p>
<p>Ok…I hope I am allowed a preference. I liked the first Abraham story better than the Wager because the first Abraham story spoke to me. </p>
<p>The ones about the women…</p>
<p>How could God treat women like this?</p>
<p>Mini…I had no idea I was going to spend time reading Bible stories today, but I enjoyed your stories.</p>
<p>What is your Jewish upbringing story? You might have mentioned it before but I forgot.</p>
<p>Preferences allowed - they are meant to be read as a set, a Pentateuch, with five different perspectives on the same thing.</p>
<p>Pre-rabbinical training. Serious at one time. The more I knew, the less comfortable I became. I was fired as the head of a Hebrew School for refusing to teach Zionism as part of my religion. But that was a very, very, very long time ago. Now I am an ardent Yiddishist. Changed religions almost 40 years ago, and the change doesn’t carry a lot of charge for me anymore. (It once did.) I accept that others find meaning, purpose, and value in the various faiths we chose, or in no faith at all.</p>
<p>Mini’s solla sollew?</p>