So what changed your mind?
Nothing did. He stopped me.
. . . God.
No. An angel.
He didn’t come Himself?
No.
Too busy?
Maybe.
And this angel . . . what’d he say?
That I didn’t need to kill Isaac.
Why not?
Because now He knew that I feared Him.
The angel?
No. God. He knew I feared God.
But that’s not what you told me.
. . . Sorry?
You told me you were willing to kill your son just because He asked. Not because you were afraid of Him.
. . . Oh.
Are you afraid of Him?
Oh.
Oh . . . what?
You’re the angel.
What?
On the mountain. I only heard your voice. But now . . . yes, I recognize it. You. You’re the angel. Calling to me a second time.
I’m an . . . ? C’mon. You’re insane, Abe. You’ve lost your goddamned mind.
I’m not. And I haven’t.
And yet you think . . . I’m an angel.
I know you are.
Okay. Fine then. You got me. I’m an angel. And why is it . . . I’m “calling to you”? A second time?
Because you want to make sure.
Of what?
That I fear God. That’s why you asked me.
Ah . . . so He’s testing you. Again. Because . . . what? Getting you to stab your kid to death wasn’t proof enough?
But I stab my—
—Yeah, yeah. I got it, Abe.
He spoke to me, you know. Outside Sodom. Did He tell you that?
Why don’t you tell me.
He was ready to destroy the whole city . . . and I asked Him if He would spare them. If there were just fifty innocent people inside, wouldn’t it be worth letting the rest live? And He said He would. Then I said, What about forty-five? And He said yes, He’d spare the city then, too. We negotiated for a while. I was able to get Him down to ten—if there were just ten innocent people, He agreed not to destroy it.
This is . . . wow . . . this is a great story.
But He destroy it. He rained fire down on Sodom. Gomorrah, too. Burned them all. And when I learned of this, I thought to myself . . . Maybe I should have pushed further . . . Maybe I should have asked God to spare the cities if just innocent person could be found. Do you know why I didn’t?
Tell me.
Because I knew. I knew He was going to destroy those cities no matter what I said.
And why’s that?
Because it was His will.
Coffee?
. . . Sorry?
Coffee. You want some?
No, thank you.
A soda? Some water?
Yes, all right. Water . . .
We don’t have any fancy bottled stuff. Tap okay?
That’s fine.
Great. Good. We’ll get that for you. So . . . you know why we brought you in?
I think so. Yes.
[END TRANSCRIPT]
“The maiden was very beautiful, a virgin whom no man had known. She went down to the spring, filled her jar, and came up.” —Genesis 24:16
HAYYEI SARAH (“The life of Sarah”)
Genesis 23:1–25:18
Sarah dies at the age of 127 in Hebron. In mourning, Abraham approaches the local tribe of Hittites to buy a burial site from them. The Hittites are well aware of Abraham’s special relationship with God, so they offer him the pick of their land. He selects an area known as the Cave of Machpelah, and then he buries his wife.
Aware of his age, Abraham makes his chief servant swear that he will make sure that Isaac does not marry a Canaanite, dispatching the man to the land of his birth to find a suitable bride. The servant asks a practical question: If the woman he finds refuses to relocate to be with Isaac, would he consider moving back to her? Abraham says that Isaac will not go anywhere unless God
instructs him to. The servant swears to obey Abraham’s command, placing his hand under the thigh of his master, as was the custom.
Finding love down at the watering hole
The servant heads out with ten of Abraham’s camels to Nahor. In the evening, he stops his caravan by a well outside the city at a time when the women come out to draw water. The servant suggests that God send him a sign showing him which one should be Isaac’s bride. He decides he will ask all the women for a drink, and the one who also volunteers to give water to his camels will be “the one.”
No sooner have these words come out of his mouth than the beautiful Rebekah arrives at the well bearing a jar on her shoulder. He asks for some water, and she draws water for the servant and his camels—the sign the servant had decided should make her Isaac’s bride. He presents Rebekah with a gold nose ring and two gold armbands and asks if he can sleep on her father’s property overnight. Rebekah consents and introduces the servant to her family. He briefs them on his sacred mission and suggests that their daughter is the chosen one. Her family agrees that if the matter has been decreed by God, then the servant must take Rebekah.
The servant intends to begin the return leg of his journey the next morning, but when he wakes, Rebekah’s brother and mother beg for ten days to spend with her before she leaves. The servant says that God is guiding this mission; that means they should not tarry. Rebekah agrees to leave immediately. Before she and her servants leave, however, her family bestows a blessing, hoping that her offspring will be numerous and successful in battle.
Speed dating
It is early evening: Isaac has just returned to his home in the Negev when he sees the caravan approaching. The servant tells Isaac what has occurred. Isaac walks Rebekah into his deceased mother’s tent and takes her as his wife. He loves her; through her he finds comfort after his mother’s death.
Isaac is not alone in taking a new wife. Abraham marries Keturah, who bears him six children. Their descendants are listed. Abraham gives all his possessions to Isaac in his will, having already given his other children gifts. He also dispatches them far away from Isaac to the east.
At the ripe old age of 175, Abraham passes away a happy man. His sons Isaac and Ishmael bury him in the Cave of Machpela near Sarah, his first wife. God blesses Isaac. Ishmael has twelve sons who become chiefs of twelve tribes. He lives until he is 137.
Rebecca Dana
Look, I may be a virgin, but I’m not an idiot.
You don’t get to be pushing forty in this town without learning a thing or two about men. First of all: They’re helpless. They cannot do anything for themselves. It’s really quite sad. You know the expression “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink”? Actually, you probably don’t know it because, if you’re reading this, you’re probably a man. This is a thing women have been saying for hundreds of years, but it will no doubt be another couple of millennia before (a) it occurs to a man, and (b) he has the wherewithal to write it down.
Anyway, the same is true of men, and also camels. You can lead them to water, but then you will have to beg and cajole them to actually drink it. Like, lift the jar to their desiccated lips and bat your eyes and say, “Please.” This literally happened yesterday. And when I say “literally” here, I mean it, well, literally, not in the way a lot of men use it, when they really mean “figuratively.” This is another thing about men: They can be imprecise in their language. They tend to speak poorly. Sometimes you need to help them say what you know they really want to say.
So last night around sunset, I go out to the well, like I always do. But when I get there, I find this catatonic man and his ten dead-looking camels just staring in at the water, like they’re about to collapse from thirst, but not doing anything about it. I give them a weird l
ook because, Why aren’t they having a drink? The well is right here. But whatever—men!—so I fill up my jar, and the guy asks if he can have a sip. Okay, moron, sure, you can have a sip. And while I’m at it, I offer to juice up his camels, too, because somebody has to be a functioning adult around here. When I do this, he looks at me like I have just invented particle physics. And then he takes out a big sack of gold jewelry and starts putting it on me: a nose ring, some bracelets. It’s insane. He is obviously some sort of rich lunatic, and if he stays outside overnight, someone will rob and kill him. Before I can explain this, my brother Laban comes out after me because I have been gone so long. The dude asks if he can stay with us, and when my brother sees all the gold, he is more than happy to oblige. I love my brother but what was he thinking inviting this completely bonkers individual, who probably stole all this loot and is being chased down by a gang of murderous thugs, into our home? This is a third thing about men: They are easily distracted by shiny objects.
When we get back, my mother and sisters set about feeding this man’s camels and cleaning him up. Meanwhile, he is muttering something about being on “an errand from the Lord,” and he refuses to eat until we let him talk, so we go, “Okay, guy, tell us the story.” And it’s a doozy. He’s been sent by my great-uncle Abraham to find a wife for his son Isaac. Abraham is extremely old and extremely loaded. His wife, Sarah, just died, and he went through a whole mess trying to get her buried in some special cave. Now he’s tired, and all he wants is for his son to marry a girl from his hometown, which is why he sent his senior servant—this dehydrated man from the well—back here to Nahor to find a beautiful and virtuous girl for him. That beautiful and virtuous girl, apparently, is me.
What I want to say at this point is, Why did you not just talk to me? What is the purpose of standing at the well dying of thirst and waiting to see if I’ll offer you a drink, when you could have just spoken to me and learned of my virtues? (My beauty, of course, is self-evident.) But I don’t say it because he is obviously so pleased with his cleverness in devising this scheme for finding a wife for his master that I don’t want to burst his bubble.
When he finishes the story, my father and brother, in their infinite male wisdom, are all, “Sure, take her!” And I’m like, “Um, hello?” But then I think about it, and it occurs to me that this is a great idea. If Abraham really is as big and powerful as they say he is, then his son Isaac must be, too. You know the saying “Behind every great man . . .”? Of course you don’t.
The guy takes out more presents, and everyone is thrilled. We hop on our camels and ride off to Canaan while my family sings:
“O sister!
May you grow
Into thousands of myriads;
May your offspring seize
The gates of their foes.”
I look back and smile. Damn straight they will.
“When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the outdoors; but Jacob was a mild man who stayed in camp.” —Genesis 25:27
TOL’DOT (“Generations”)
Genesis 25:19–28:9
Isaac is forty years old when he takes Rebekah as his bride. She, too, is barren until Isaac prays to God, who makes her pregnant with twins. The pregnancy is a difficult one. It often feels as if the twins are wrestling in her womb. Rebekah suffers such pain that she screams out to God, who informs her that the children will become two nations. They are struggling in the womb because one nation will be more powerful than the other, and the older will ultimately serve the younger.
When Rebekah gives birth, the first twin emerges red and hairy. They decide to name the boy Esau. The second infant comes out grabbing the heel of his brother. They name him Jacob. Isaac is sixty at the time of the boys’ birth.
Brotherly Love
Esau grows up to be a skilled hunter and outdoorsman. Jacob is much more reserved and prefers to stay around the camp. Isaac favors Esau because of his hunting instincts, but Rebekah prefers Jacob. One day, Jacob is cooking a stew when Esau returns, famished, from the field. Esau demands food, but Jacob asks for Esau’s birthright—his rightful inheritance as the oldest son—in return. Esau thinks it through before he agrees, reasoning that a birthright will be of no use if he dies of hunger. So he swears to give it over to his younger brother in return for a bowl of stew.
Another famine strikes Canaan. Isaac goes down to the Philistine kingdom of Abimelech in Gerar. (God has told him not to go to Egypt, but to trust that God will bless him, reiterating the covenantal promise with Abraham.) In Gerar, Isaac passes Rebekah off as his sister, but when the king spies the two acting like husband and wife, he demands to know why Isaac lied. Isaac admits he was afraid of being killed by someone enchanted by Rebekah’s beauty. The king asks his guest to consider what the ramifications might have been if one of his subjects had seduced Rebekah; he then sends out a decree making it a capital offense to hurt either Isaac or Rebekah.
Isaac’s farming skills, aided by God’s blessing, lead him to grow a bountiful crop and amass a fortune. He stockpiles so many sheep, cows, and servants that he becomes the envy of the Philistines, who express their jealousy by blocking up his wells. King Abimelech suggests it might be better for everyone if Isaac leaves the area, which he does. But every time he sets up camp and digs wells, local herdsmen dispute his right to own them. Abimelech ultimately rides out to ease the friction. Aware that the Lord is with Isaac, the king wisely brokers a peace pact.
Esau marries Judith at the age of forty; the marriage is a source of unhappiness to Isaac and Rebekah, because their new daughter-in-law is a Hittite.
Jacob’s deceit
When Isaac is old and his eyesight is failing, he calls Esau and broaches the possibility of his imminent death. He instructs his son to hunt some game and cook his favorite dish before he bestows his final blessing. Rebekah overhears, and as soon as Esau sets off for the hunt, she conspires with Jacob to deceive her husband. Commanding him to bring two kids back from the flock, she sets about cooking one of Isaac’s favorite dishes; her plan is for Jacob to bring it to Isaac and steal the final blessing for himself. Jacob sees an immediate problem: Unlike the hairy Esau, he is smooth-skinned. Isaac will only have to use his sense of touch to recognize the deceit. His mother takes full responsibility for the duplicity and instructs Jacob to follow her advice.
Rebekah cooks the dish and then dresses Jacob in Esau’s best clothes, covering his hands and neck with lambskins. Jacob takes the dish to his father and passes himself off as his older brother. Isaac marvels that he has been able to prepare the dish so quickly, and Jacob, playing the role of Esau, credits God. The dying man then asks his son to come close so he can verify his identity by touching him, yet he remains confused: He has felt Esau’s hairy hands yet heard the voice of Jacob. Still, he blesses Jacob while asking him if he is really Esau. Jacob claims he is. After they eat, Isaac asks for a kiss; upon smelling Esau’s garments, he revels in their outdoors smell.
Isaac’s blessing promises abundance, power, and familial leadership. No sooner is it delivered than Esau bursts in, freshly back from the hunt. Esau has prepared his father’s favorite dish and upon presenting it, demands his blessing. Unable to see him, Isaac asks who he is; upon realizing his mistake, he says that he can do nothing to reverse the bestowal of the blessing. Esau sobs and begs his father to bless him, too; instead, Isaac informs him of Jacob’s deceit. Esau realizes he has been tricked out of both his blessing and his birthright, and must listen as his father reveals the content of the blessing: Jacob will be his master. As Esau weeps, Isaac attempts to calm him, promising that he, too, will enjoy the fat of the land, even though he will always be a swordsman subservient to Jacob.
A furious Esau decides to murder Jacob once Isaac has died and been mourned. Rebekah learns of this plan and advises Jacob to flee to her brother Laban until Esau calms down and forgets. Rebekah talks to Isaac about her fear that Jacob
will marry a local Hittite, so the dying man calls his younger son to him and commands him not to take a foreign wife. Blessing him, he suggests Jacob take a wife from among his uncle Laban’s daughters. He then expresses his hope that Jacob will receive the blessing of Abraham and possess the land in which they are living, which was promised by God.
Jacob sets off for Laban’s home. When Esau realizes that Canaanite wives upset his father, he marries one, taking Mahalath as his third wife.
Joshua Foer
It is well known that Esau loved hunting, the least Jewish of hobbies. Less well known: He was also a scratch golfer, and not half bad on ice skates. Or that he wore tasseled loafers, and a class ring, and didn’t mind the taste of eggnog dripping from his bushy mustache. Everything his Orthodox parents dismissed with the flick of a hand as goyishe nachas—pleasures of the goyim—he embraced with the full force of his tanned, gym-conditioned arms. Esau was the first Jew to wish he wasn’t.
And when he woke up one morning and realized he was forty, and still a bachelor, and that his parents doted on his doughy, bookish brother more than him, he did what many a Jewish man has fantasized about, and more than a few since Esau have actually done: He went off and married a shiksa. Two, actually.
The new daughters-in-law were, it goes without saying, “a source of bitterness” to Esau’s parents. Rebekah, the first Jewish mother to think she’d birthed a perfect son, could hardly swallow her outrage. But Isaac tried to keep his disappointment tucked beneath his velvet yarmulke. After all, there was still a chance, despite the Christmas tree in Esau’s living room, that the grandchildren might still have bar mitzvahs. And if it was at the Reform temple with the motorized ark that opened and closed as if at a Broadway show—well, that was still better than nothing.
Esau was the first Jew to leave the fold. The first to not have to worry about treifing up the dishes, or getting up early to go to shul, who no longer had to say, “I do this, even though I’m not sure why.”
Unscrolled : 54 Writers and Artists Wrestle With the Torah (9780761178743) Page 4
