Joseph and His Brothers Page 8

  This, then, would be worthy of consideration as the secret possibility and final meaning of the doctrine—though strong doubt remains whether the proper path to such a goal is the spirit's self-abnegating and fawning behavior, stemming from its aforesaid all-too-lively sensitivity to the reproach of having sprung from death. And let the spirit lend its wit to the mute passions of the soul, let it celebrate the grave, call the past the sole source of life, and confess and expose itself as the evil zealot, as the murderous life-enslaving will—it remains, no matter how it presents itself, what it is: the mes-

  senger of warning, the principle of opposition, umbrage, and wandering, which stirs up within the breast of one individual, among all the great host of the lustily complacent, an uneasiness at our preternatural wretchedness, drives him out of the gates of the past and the given and into the extravagant adventure of uncertainty, and makes him like the stone that, once it has broken away and begins to roll, is destined to set in motion an ever-growing, rolling, incalculable cascade of events.

  10

  In this way, then, the beginnings and promontories of the past are formed, where a particular memory may come to historical rest, as Joseph's did at Ur, the city, and with his ancestor's departure from it. It was a tradition of spiritual restlessness that was in his blood, that defined his personal life, his world, and his father's actions, and that he recognized whenever he recited a verse from the tablets:

  "Why have you instilled this uneasiness within my son Gilgamesh, Given him a heart that knows no rest?"

  This knowing no rest, this questioning, listening and searching, this wooing of God and bitter, doubt-filled striving after the true and the just, the whence and the whither, after his own name, his own nature, the real intention of the Most High—all of it, bequeathed by the wanderer from Ur through the generations—was expressed in the face of the aged Jacob, in his lofty brow, in the anxious peering gaze of his brown eyes; and how intimately Joseph loved these attributes of his father's nature, the nobility and excellence of which his own nature was well aware—for precisely as an awareness of higher cares and worries they lent his father's person all the dignity, reserve, and solemnity that perfected it. Restlessness and dignity, that is a seal of the spirit, and with a child's fearless fondness Joseph recognized the traditional imprint upon the brow of his father and master, although his own stamp was not the same, but—determined more strongly by his charming mother—was more cheerful and less anxious, and his congenial nature was more open to conversation and sociability. But how could he have feared an anxious father lost

  in pondering, when he knew how very much his father loved him? Being loved and preferred was a habit crucial to his nature, lending it color and tone; it also determined his relation to the Most High, whom, to the extent one was allowed to ascribe Him any form, Joseph imagined to be exactly like Jacob, experienced Him, so to speak, as his father repeated in a higher form, and, in his ingenuousness, was convinced that he was loved by Him in just the same way. We would like to anticipate from afar his relationship to the Adon of heaven by saying it had a "bridelike" quality—just as Joseph knew of Babylonian women, consecrated to Ishtar or Mylitta, who were pledged to unwedded lives of pious devotion in temple cells and were called "pure" or "holy," but also enitu, the "brides of God." There was something of the enitu in his own sense of life, something, too, of the strict bonds of betrothal, and, connected with that, there was moreover a certain element of fanciful playfulness that will give us considerable trouble once we are down there below with him— and indeed may be the form in which the inheritance of spirit expressed itself in his case.

  On the other hand, despite his attachment, Joseph did not understand or approve the form this same inheritance had taken in his father's case: the worry, fretting, and restlessness expressed both in an overwhelming dislike of the solid, settled existence that most certainly would have suited his dignity and in an always provisional, shifting, impromptu, seminomadic attitude toward life. Without doubt, Jacob, too, was loved, looked after, preferred by Him— indeed, if that was also true of Joseph, then surely it was for his father's sake. God Shaddai had made Jacob rich in cattle and all sorts of goods in Mesopotamia, and amid his band of sons, his assemblage of wives, his shepherds and servants, he might have been a prince among the princes of the land, and indeed he was one, except not in terms of external trappings, but of his spirit and mind, as a nabi — a "prophet," as one who knows and has experienced God, as an arch-clever man, as one of those spiritual leaders and elders, upon whom had been bestowed the inheritance of the Chaldean and each of whom people took to be the Ur-man's physical descendant. In negotiations and business contracts they spoke with him only in the finest circumlocutions, calling him "my lord" and speaking of themselves in the most disparaging terms. Why did he and his family not live as propertied citizens in one of the cities, in Hebron itself, in

  Urusalim or Sichem, and dwell in a solid house of stone and wood, beneath which he could have buried his dead? Why did he live in tents, like some Ishmaelite and Bedouin of the desert—in open country, so far outside the city that he could not even see the citadel of Kiriath-Arba, out beside wells and burial caves, oaks and terebinths, always ready to strike camp as if he dared not stay in one spot and so take root with others, as if awaiting from hour to hour the instructions that would drive him onward: to take down his tents and stalls, pack the poles, the felt, and the hides on pack camels, and move on? Joseph knew why, of course. It had to be that way because one served a God whose nature was not rest and comfortable repose, a God of future plans, within whose will grand and indefinite and far-reaching things were in the making, who, along with His brooding plans and His will for the world, was Himself actually only in the making and thus a God of unsettling uneasiness, a problem God, who wanted to be sought out and for whom one had to make oneself ready to move at all times.

  In short: It was the spirit—the spirit that brings dignity, but yet again disgrace—that forbade Jacob from living a city-based settled life; and if little Joseph, who did not lack for a sense of worldly magnificence, or indeed of pomp, sometimes regretted this, we shall accept it as we do several traits of his character that are compensated for by others. As for ourselves, in setting out to tell of all these things and so, under no external duress, plunge into an adventure whose end is not in sight—"plunge" in its precise sense of downward direction—we wish candidly to express our natural and unbounded appreciation for the old man's restless opposition to remaining in one spot, to a permanent dwelling. Do we ourselves know the feeHng? Have we not also been ordained to restlessness and given a heart that knows no repose? And this storyteller's star— is it not the moon, the Lord of the Way, the wanderer, who, in his stations, frees himself from each to move on? Whoever tells a story wanders through many stations in his adventures, but only pitches a tent at each, waiting for further directions, and soon feels his own heart pounding, in part out of desire, but in part also out of fear and the apprehension in his bones, yet always as a sign that the road now opens onto new adventures that he must experience precisely, in all their incalculable detail, for that is the will of the restless spirit.

  We have been under way for some time now and have already

  left far behind the station where we briefly lingered, have forgotten it, and, after the wont of travelers, have already estabhshed a connection with the world to which we have set our gaze and that gazes back at us, so that when it takes us in we shall not be totally stilted, bungling strangers. Is it already taking much too long, this journey? No wonder, for it is a descent into hell! Down it goes, hurling us, ashen-faced, into the dark depths, deep into that well of the past whose gorge has never been plumbed.

  Why do we turn pale now? Why is our heart pounding, not just since we set out, but since receiving our first instructions to break camp, and not just out of desire, but very much with apprehension in our bones as well? Is not the past the storyteller's element, the air he breathes, a tense to which
he takes like a fish to water? Yes, true enough. But why does our curious and cowardly heart refuse to be calmed by these words of reason? Surely because the element of the past, by which we are customarily carried farther, ever farther, is a different past from the one into which we now begin our trembHng descent: Hfe's past, the world that was, the dead world to which— deeper, ever deeper—our life will one day belong and to which its beginnings are already consigned to considerable depths. Granted, to die means to lose time and be hurled out of it, but in return to gain eternity and a timeless present, and thus, for the first time, real life. For the essence of life is presentness, and only by means of myth does it represent its mystery in past and future tenses. That, as it were, is life's popular method for revealing itself, whereas the mystery belongs to the initiated. Let the people be taught that the soul wanders, but those with knowledge are aware that this doctrine is but the garment of the mystery by which the soul enjoys a timeless present, with all of life belonging to it once death has released it from its solitary cell. When as adventurous storytellers we plunge into the past, we taste death and the knowledge of it—that is, the source of both our desire and our ashen-faced apprehension. But desire has more life—nor do we deny that it is bound up in the flesh. But the object of desire is the first and last of all our remarks and inquiries, of all our zeal: humanity—for which we shall search in the underworld and in death, just as Ishtar had searched there for Tammuz, and Isis for Osiris, in order to know it there where the past is.

  For it is, always is, though the common phrase may be: It was. That is how myth speaks, for it is merely the garment of the mystery.

  But mystery's festal garment is the feast itself, the ever-recurring feast that spans all of time's tenses, making both past and future present in the mind of the people. Is it any wonder that on those feast days human beings were all in a ferment and custom accepted degenerate, lewd behavior, for it is then that death and life know one another? Feast of Storytelling, you are the festal garment of life's mystery, establishing timelessness in the mind of the people and evoking the myth to be played out in the very present. Feast of Death, descent into hell—you are truly a feast, the reveHng of the flesh's soul, which not for nothing clings to the past, to the grave and the "It was" of piety. But may the spirit be with you as well, and enter into you, so that you may be blessed with blessings of heaven above and blessings of the deep that lies below.

  So down then, and no wavering! Is there no stopping in the plunge to the bottomlessness of the well? Of course there is. Not much deeper than three thousand years down—and what is that compared to fathomless depths? The people there do not have horned armor or an eye in the middle of their foreheads, do not do battle with flying lizards, but are human beings just like us— allowing for a few easily pardoned dreamy imprecisions in their thoughts. Someone who is not a great traveler says much the same to himself before a journey, but when the time comes is plagued by fever and a pounding heart. After all, he says, am I going to the end of the world, leaving every convention behind? Not at all, but only someplace where others have been before, a day or two from home. And it is the same for us in terms of the land that awaits us. Is it some Shangri-la, some never-never land, so alien that one can only clasp one's head in utter bewilderment? No, it is, rather, a land as we have often seen it, a Mediterranean land, not exactly like home, a bit dusty and stony, but certainly not crazed, and passing above it are the same stars we know. There it lies—with mountain and valley, cities, roads, and hills clad in vineyards, with its murky river gushing swiftly through green thickets—spreading out over the past like the spring-fed meadows of the fairy tale. If you squeezed your eyes tight during the descent, open them now! We have arrived. Look—a night of sharp-edged moonlit shadows above a peaceful hilly landscape! Feel the gentle freshness of the spring night blazoned with summer's stars!

  THE STORIES OF JACOB

  Part One

  AT THE WELL

  Ishtar

  It was beyond the hills to the north of Hebron, a little to the east of the road from Urusalim, in the month of Adar, on a spring evening flooded by moonlight bright enough to render writing legible and to reveal—in precise tracery yet shimmering like gossamer—the smallest detail of the leaves and clustered blossoms of a solitary tree, an aged and mighty terebinth, which despite a rather short trunk flung its sturdy branches wide. This beautiful tree was sacred. Beneath its shade counsel might be obtained in various ways, both from the mouths of men—because those who were moved to share their experience of the divine would gather listeners beneath its branches— and by higher means. For those who had slept with their heads leaning against its trunk had, in fact, repeatedly received instruction and prophecy, and during the many years of burnt sacrifices offered at this spot—as attested by the blackened surface of a stone slaughtering table where a slightly sooty flame guttered—the behavior of the smoke, a telling flight of a bird, or even some sign in the heavens had often reinforced the particular fascination that such pious acts at the foot of the tree enjoyed.

  There were other trees in the vicinity as well, though none so venerable as the one standing off to itself. Some were of the same species, but there were large-leaved fig trees, too, and stone pines, whose trunks sent aerial roots down into the well-trodden soil and whose evergreen boughs—halfway between needle and foliage, but pallid now in the moonlight—formed thorny fans. Behind the trees, to the south in the direction of the hill concealing the town and partway up its slope, were dwellings and stables, from where the night s silence was occasionally broken by the muffled lowing of an ox, the snorting of a camel, or the initial agonized strains of an ass's complaint. To the north, however, the view lay open. A good-sized enclosure, its moss-covered walls set in two courses of roughly hewn

  Stones, gave the precinct of the oracle tree the appearance of a terrace with low parapets; the plain beyond—bathed now in the luster of a moon at three-quarters and high in the heavens—extended as far as low rolling hills closed by the horizon. The landscape was sprinkled with olive trees and tamarisk copses and crossed by dusty paths, but in the distance it became treeless pasture where here and there the blaze of a shepherd's fire could be seen. Cyclamens, their purples and pinks bleached by the moon, blossomed along the walled parapet; white crocus and red anemone dotted the moss and grasses at the foot of the trees. The air here bore the scent of flowers and aromatic herbs, of moist vapors from the trees, of wood smoke and dung.

  The skies were glorious. A broad ribbon of light encircled the moon, whose glow was so intense in its gentleness that it was almost painful to gaze directly into it; and stars had been sown and scattered by the handfuls, so to speak, across the wide firmament—here more sparsely, there more lavishly in thronging, glittering ranks. In the southwest Sirius-Ninurta stood out, a living blue-white fire, a radiant gemstone that seemed to be set in array with Procyon, standing higher to the south in the Lesser Dog. Such splendor might have been matched by King Marduk, who had taken the field shortly after the sun withdrew and would shine all night long—but the moon dimmed his briUiance. Not far from the zenith and a little to the southeast was Nergal, the foe with seven names, the Elamite, who decrees pestilence and death and whom we call Mars. But Saturn, the constant and just, had preceded him above the horizon and now sparkled to the south in the meridian. Orion, with his dominant red Hght, presented his familiar, showy self—he, too, a hunter, girded and well-armed, sinking toward the west. And there as well, but more to the south, the Dove hovered. Regulus in the constellation of the Lion saluted from directly overhead, to where the yoked oxen of the Wagon had likewise climbed, while reddish yellow Arcturus in the Herdsman stood lower in the northeast and both the yellow light of the Goat and the constellation of the Charioteer had already slipped down toward the realms of evening and midnight. But far lovelier than these, fierier than any portent or the whole host of kok-abim, was Ishtar, the sister, wife, and mother—Queen Astarte, low in the west in pursuit of the sun.
Her blaze was silver, casting fleeting

  rays, flaring spikes, and one tall flame seemed to stand atop her like the point of a spear.

  Fame and Reality

  There were eyes here, skilled at differentiating and making sense of all this, dark eyes lifted upward and mirroring such manifold luster. They moved along the causeway of the zodiac—that sturdy embankment where order was established in the surging heavens and the arbiters of time stood watch—along the sacred array of signs that in quick succession had now begun to grow visible after the brief twilight of these latitudes. First came the Bull, for since those eyes were shining on an early spring night, the sun stood in the sign of the Ram and both had descended together into the depths. Those knowing eyes smiled to the Twins as they turned now from the zenith toward evening; glancing eastward, they found the ear of wheat in the Virgin's hand. But irresistibly drawn by the pure and soft dazzle of the moon, they turned back to its domain of light and shimmering silver shield.

  They were the eyes of a young man sitting on the edge of a stonework well not far from the sacred tree. An arch vaulted above the open watery depths of the well, and leading up to it were circles of cracked steps, where the young man was resting his bare feet, wet now with the same spilled water dripping from the stones along that side. Nearby, where the wall was dry, lay both his coat, its wide rust-red pattern set against a yellow background, and cowhide sandals, which, with their tapering sides that allowed heel and toes to be thrust deep into them, were almost shoes. The youth had let fall his shirt of bleached but coarse rustic linen and had wrapped its wide sleeves around his hips. In proportion to his childlike head, his upper body seemed rather heavy and full—with shoulders so square and high-set that there was something Egyptian about them—and in the moonlight his tanned skin took on an oily sheen. For beside him stood an opaque iridescent glass pot filled with scented olive oil, and, after having washed himself with very cold water from the cistern, raising its roped pail several times and drenching himself with the dipper—to bring desired relief from the day's intense sun and at