Unscrolled : 54 Writers and Artists Wrestle With the Torah (9780761178743)

by Bennett, Roger (EDT)

  2for this new beginning.

  “That is why it was called Babel, because there the Lord confounded the speech of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.” —Genesis 11:9

  NOAH (“Noah”)

  Genesis 6:9–11:32

  It’s one of the great diy projects of all time. Noah is reintroduced as a righteous man who “walks with God.” He lives at a time in which the earth is in such an anarchical state, God reveals an intention to destroy humanity. Noah is instructed to prepare for a flood by constructing an immense ark and then filling it with his family—wife, sons, and their partners—as well as animals of every kind, both male and female. Noah may be 600 years old, but he does what he is told and prepares for a forthcoming deluge, which God claims will last for forty days and forty nights.

  The rains begin and last as long as predicted. Water swallows up even the highest mountains, covering the land for almost six months. Every human being and all of the earth’s creatures are wiped out. The only remaining forms of life exist within the belly of the ark.

  In the seventh month, the waters finally begin to recede, and the vessel comes to rest on Mount Ararat. Noah employs a dove to test the flood level. The first time it goes out, it circles back, unable to find a resting place.

  Seven days later, it brings an olive branch back in its mouth, which Noah considers a good sign. A week later, the bird does not return.

  After little more than a year, Noah disembarks and sets the animals free. God instructs him to be fertile, and Noah responds by offering a sacrifice in God’s honor. The Lord sets out a series of laws that Noah must follow and promises never again to destroy humanity, unleashing a mighty rainbow as a mark of that intent.

  don’t drink and farm

  Noah becomes a farmer, but drinks far too much wine while planting his vineyard. Ham, Noah’s youngest son, discovers his father passed out and naked in his tent and tells his other brothers. Those two treat their father with a lot more respect than Ham, covering his nudity while taking great pains to ensure they don’t glimpse him in this vulnerable state.

  When Noah recovers and realizes how his youngest son has behaved, he curses him, dictating that Ham’s descendants will be Canaan, a slave nation to his brothers’ offspring. Despite this unfortunate incident, Noah lives an additional 350 years, finally passing away at the ripe old age of 950. His sons’ progeny become nations that populate the entire earth.

  the city and tower of babel

  Every human speaks the same language until the population in one of the regions decides to build a city that will gain renown by hosting a tower that soars up into the heavens. God is angered by the vanity of this concept. Disappointed that the residents have abused the power of communication, God scatters the citizens across the earth, forcing them to speak different languages so they can no longer automatically understand one another. The building project ceases, and God calls the place Babel, which would become a pun, as it was the town that compelled the world’s languages to be mixed.

  Shem’s descendants are listed through the generations until we learn of a man named Abram, heading out for Canaan with his wife, Sarai, who is, regrettably, childless.

  Aimee Bender

  THIRTY-SEVEN STATEMENTS ON BABEL

  iMy first word was What?

  iiI ask my writing class to list words they love. Then to list words they hate. The hate list is fun. Every year, someone says moist and everyone cringes. They can hardly stand it! Usually someone puts shit on their love list, and another student across the room puts shit on the hate list.

  iiiAmichai, an Israeli scholar, tells me that the word for ark, teva, can also mean “word.” Teva means “sacred container,” something holding the seed for life, and Noah’s ark was definitely that, but it could also be translated as “word,” a box containing a sacred meaning. So according to that interpretation, Noah got those animals two by two, the elephants, the cheetahs, the marmots, the radiant eels, and he put them all on a word.

  ivA few lines later, it’s the Tower of Babel. The people were building a tower, and everyone spoke the same language.

  vGod came in and was angry at the power of the united human front and made the one language into many languages. “There the Lord confounded the speech of the whole earth.”

  viIt must’ve been different then. Just because you speak the same language doesn’t mean you can understand the person.

  viiWe had that bad spat in the deli. You thought I meant that I wanted to go with you to the cop movie. But I didn’t say that! I knew it was a moment for you to have special time with your friend! I said I wanted to go with you to the next cop movie. You didn’t hear me. Maybe I forgot to say “next.” It took us an hour to get through it. You looked so upset. I was crying.

  viiiWe both speak English.

  ixMy friend has a daughter. When her daughter was born, she was blonde with light eyes. My friend has dark hair and dark eyes. She was so surprised. She had expected a child who would look a little like Anne Frank, as my friend looks a little like Anne Frank, as many Jewish women do. But her daughter looked more like Aunt Katie from Nevada.

  x“Do you know what I mean?” “You know?” “Does that make sense?”

  xi“I’m so surprised!” said my friend on the phone. “Who is this person?”

  xiiAnts operate as a string of neurons. The ant brain is spread out amongst the group of ants. Before the Tower of Babel was broken, all the people must’ve been of one mind, kind of like a group of tower-building ants. We were not so separate if we all truly spoke the same language, if we all could really communicate that clearly, if all our words were the same. We were groupthink. We were oneness.

  xiiiThen my friend reconsidered. I could hear the gurgling baby sounds on the other side of the phone line. “I don’t know her yet,” she admitted. “If she had looked like Anne Frank, I would’ve assumed that I knew her, that she was just like me.”

  xivIf you see an ant separate from its line of ants, it will wander around. If it does not find the group again, it will die.

  xvAndré Breton, father of surrealism, wrote in 1924 in his brilliant Surrealist Manifesto, “Keep reminding yourself that literature is the saddest road that leads to everything.”

  xviWhat the hell is he talking about?

  xviiI have it on the wall in my office. I read it and reread it. Why the saddest road?

  xviiiHere it is in its original French: Dites-vous bien que la littérature est un des plus tristes chemins qui mènent à tout.

  xixFlaubert says, “[N]one of us can ever express the exact measure of our needs, or our ideas, or our sorrows, and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when we long to move the stars to pity.”

  xxTripping and falling and flubbing and rephrasing.

  xxiFlaubert’s talking gorgeously about the inadequacy of our tools, but I enjoy thinking of bears in a forest, dancing.

  xxiiMetaphor is beautiful. It is also failure. Simile: It is like, the sun is like, your body is like, my heart is like. This is one of our very best ways to describe experience, which is at its core a way to admit we cannot directly ever describe experience.

  xxiiiIn the story, God gave us our separateness.

  xxivMy friend’s daughter is not my friend. Even if she had looked like Anne Frank, she would not have been my friend. It was actually helpful that they looked so different, so there would be no confusion over who was who.

  xxvWe came in on a word. We were all the same mind, speaking the same words. Then God made us different.

  xxviIt is sad.

  xxviiIt is also true.

  xxviiiIt is also kind of relieving. We were never ants to begin with.

  xxixWe try and try. Try to communicate. Try again. Misunderstand again.
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  xxxThat other fight we had on the way to the national park? Awful! I cannot believe you said that! When I say, “Turn right,” I mean “turn right”!

  xxxiThere is the bear waltz. And the bear Charleston.

  xxxiiThe tower crashed. After the dust cleared, the people looked around, bewildered, coughing. They all began talking at once. It was loud and confusing. Some sounds were guttural. Some fluid. Someone was singing a song no one had ever heard before, to a melody that had no match.

  xxxiiiI was weeping on the ground and a man walked by. “We’re through,” I said. “It’s over!” Babies were crying in the distance. Someone threw a handful of pebbles at the sky. The man sat on a rock next to me. He was wearing a beret and smoking a cigarette. “Do you speak English?” I asked, even though that was the first time I’d ever called it English. He shook his head. “Je ne comprends pas,” he shrugged. He finished his cigarette and then lightly twisted it under his shoe. Then he reached into his pocket and unscrolled a parchment. He read it quietly for a while. Then handed it to me.

  xxxivI could not read a word of it, but mostly it was just a picture of a road. A long road into an open horizon, which matched the view I saw when I looked up. Everyone, a little alone, moving forward with suitcases and bags. Kicking the dirt. Crying. Sometimes reaching out a hand. Hugging. Beyond, the shimmering land, vast and wide and untapped.

  xxxvMy friend’s daughter will grow up. One day, she will stand in a living room facing her mother, her own face flushed and hot. “You never understand me!” she will yell. She will stomp into her room.

  xxxviIt is the loss of the time when we felt known without effort. It is multiple languages even when we speak the same language. It is beating and beating on that old cracked kettle. But where does it lead?

  xxxvii “To everything.”

  “He cohabited with Hagar and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was lowered in her esteem.” —Genesis 16:4

  LEKH L’KHA (“Go”)

  Genesis 12:1–17:27

  On the road: God tells Abram to leave his home and head to a destination that will be revealed. As a reward for leaping into the unknown, God promises that Abram’s descendants will spawn a great nation, assuring him he will become known as a great man. In the future, those who bless Abram will be blessed, but those who curse him will be cursed.

  At the age of seventy-five, Abram takes to the road, heading for Canaan with his wife, Sarai; his nephew Lot; and their entire caravan. Even though the Canaanites control the region, God informs Abram that his descendants will one day rule the area.

  Abram builds an altar to celebrate this encouraging news before continuing his journey.

  She ain’t heavy, she’s my sister

  A severe famine grips the land, forcing Abram to head to Egypt. As he approaches the border, he tells his wife to pass herself off as his sister—a deception designed to prevent lusty Egyptians from killing Abram so they can enjoy her for themselves.

  Abram’s worst-case scenario comes to pass: Sarai is so beguiling, she is soon subsumed into Pharaoh’s court harem. Abram profits from her ascendancy, and is plied with sheep, oxen, asses, slaves, she-asses, and even camels.

  God intercedes by unleashing mighty plagues upon the royal household, which causes the Pharaoh to express his frustration that Abram had not disclosed the true nature of his relationship with Sarai. Abram quickly finds himself escorted out of Egypt.

  You go your way, I’ll go mine

  Abram’s caravan is now weighed down by gold, silver, and cattle. His nephew Lot is also well outfitted. So great is their bounty that the two have to separate to ensure there is enough room for their animals to graze without getting in one another’s way. Abram lets his nephew choose his preferred destination, and Lot selects the verdant plains around Sodom, a city that is packed full of sinners.

  God appears again to Abram and reminds him that all the land he can see in every direction will soon be his and that it will be filled by his descendants, who will be as difficult to count as the dust of the earth. Abram responds to this news by constructing an altar.

  Clash of kings

  War engulfs the area as the region’s kings do battle. Sodom and Gomorrah are invaded by the Mesopotamians, who ransack the city, enslaving its populace, including Lot and his party. Abram rounds up 318 men and sets off in pursuit, managing to defeat the captors and liberate all those who have been taken prisoner, including his nephew. The king of Sodom and King Melchizedek of Salem are among those who welcome him back victorious. Melchizedek, who is also a priest, praises Abram and God for their military success. Abram rewards him with booty. The king of Sodom asks Abram to return his people, but suggests Abram keep all of the possessions he has plundered. Abram replies that he is under strict instructions from God not to keep even a thread or a sandal strap.

  The Covenant

  God reappears to Abram, reminding him that he will be protected and richly rewarded. Abram complains that he has no heir and will have to leave his belongings to his steward. God informs him that he will yet have children and that his offspring will be as numerous as the stars in the sky.

  Abram asks God how he will know when to possess the land. God tells him to sacrifice a ram, a dove, and a young bird. Abram falls into a deep sleep as the sun sets, and God reveals that his offspring will be enslaved in a foreign land for centuries, only to have God crush their oppressors and free them with great wealth. Abram is also informed that he will live to a ripe old age.

  Later, a smoking oven and a burning torch are visible, and God makes a covenant with Abram, revealing the exact parameters of the land he will inherit.

  Sarai and Hagar

  Because Sarai remains barren, she urges Abram to try to have a child with her Egyptian servant, Hagar. Abram agrees and Hagar becomes pregnant, which makes her act self-important around Sarai. After Sarai complains to Abram, he tells his wife to do whatever she thinks fit to resolve the situation. Sarai elects to treat Hagar so harshly that she feels compelled to flee.

  An angel tracks Hagar to a watering hole in the desert. When asked why she’s fled, Hagar admits she is scared of Sarai. The angel tells her that if she returns to Sarai and tolerates the abuse, her descendants will become too many to count. She is also advised to name her son Ishmael, and told that he will be a wild man who will live a life of conflict. Hagar follows the advice, and Ishmael is born when Abram is eighty-six years old.

  Abraham’s bargain

  Twelve years later, God tells Abram, “I am ‘El Shaddai.’ Walk before Me, and be blameless.” Abram is also reminded of the covenant. Abram falls to his face, and God changes his name to Abraham while breaking the news of Abraham’s end of the deal: He must circumcise every male in his family, himself included.

  There are more changes. Sarai’s name is now to be Sarah. And sensationally, she will bear a son whose descendants will be nations and rulers. Abraham’s reaction is to laugh. “Can a man aged one hundred have a child?” he asks. “Can Sarah become pregnant at ninety?” Abraham asks God to show favor to Ishmael. God confirms that he too will become the father of a great nation, but that his covenant will be carried through Isaac, who will be born to Sarah the following year.

  Abraham circumcises every male in his party—even his slaves. At age ninety-nine, he circumcises himself.

  Jill Soloway

  Do I take a bus or a cab from the station? That is what nobody told me. The agency that sends you thinks that if they give you the name of the people, that is enough. I called and texted the lady, but she keeps writing back to my wrong email account. I got rid of Hotmail a million years ago, but for some reason the agency keeps giving it out. The lady’s name is Sarah, I know that, and her husband is Avi, I know that, and they are Jewish people. Avi is a record producer and Sarah is an I’m-not-sure.

  *********

  Lisa u
sed this agency, as did Sandy, so I trusted it. Lisa got an amazing girl from the Research Triangle, a biology student, and Sandy got a black girl from Texas. They all raved about the kinds of girls the agency sent, so I figured it would work. I picked her name from a list of names, Aggie, because she sounded like a farm girl. It was an old picture. If I had seen a new picture, I wouldn’t have picked her. She was from Florida, but not the beachy, sandy part of Florida where people you and I know have been; she was from Sweet Gum Head, Florida, which may as well have been Mississippi.

  When I look back, I realize she gave a suspicious email address to the agency. Our communication was so damn spotty, I should have written to the agency and said give me another girl. I had a feeling about her, but I didn’t trust my feeling. That is the worst thing about me—I don’t know how to trust my feelings. There’s my gut, and there’s my anxiety that chases me like a pack of dogs. It’s seriously hard to know which is which.

  *********

  So, yeah, from the moment Avi the record producer opened the door, I knew there was going to be trouble. Sarah was out with their kid, so it was weird. My first connection was not with her, which isn’t her fault or my fault, it just was.

  My first connection was with him. He reminded me of my favorite English teacher at Sweet Gum Head High, John Thomas. Avi had the same soap smell as John Thomas, which John Thomas called sandalwood. Is it wrong is it wrong is it wrong that from the moment I walked into their Manhattan double-story loft, I had to fight some tidal impulse to tell Avi I loved him already, forever? That is okay, I thought to myself, I know how to fight this feeling. My mom and my grandma and every other one laid it out for me before I even turned eleven. Men and boys your whole life will want to have sex with you. It is your job to say no.