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

by Bennett, Roger (EDT)

  The most discouraging times were the occasions when Pharaoh would favor the talents of a newcomer. Someone would be in a cubicle all of two months and snag the attention of Pharaoh based on a single piece of work. The person would instantly strike a chord and off they’d go, leaving behind a gnawing sense in my family that we were all doing something wrong. We’d all sit in silence and digest the fear that we were not simply being misunderstood, more that our creations were worthless.

  Over time, I started to believe I didn’t have it in me anymore. I began to take my salesman job more seriously. I considered sealing my wooden box and accepting the idea that my permanent career was already thrust upon me. Only then, only at my very lowest point, did Pharaoh stop at my desk and flip through an old sketchbook that was sitting on a shelf. He flipped pages and nodded. There was a long pause on a particular image. Silence in the room.

  He shut the book and announced he had a job for me in the Creative Dept. My family gasped. I gasped. He was indeed freeing me from my cubby, as if unlocking a prison cell door! He put his hand on my shoulder and told me to bring my wooden box, my colored pencils, my sketches and journals. He insisted I bring everything I had.

  I had been chosen.

  As I felt the warm robes of Pharaoh surround me, I was instantly filled with doubt. Although I had always fantasized about being promoted and freed, I felt at home with my family. But I was welcomed into this new world by the other artists. The old and young. Some familiar. Some not. Some with immense wealth. Some not. I knew my life from that point forward would be different. Regardless of what I would do for Pharaoh, one thing was clear . . . I was no longer a salesman for the company. I was an artist.

  My assignment? Pharaoh needed me to interpret his dreams and find a way to exploit the visions for profit. Pharaoh was obsessed with his dreams. He loved to sleep, and his dreams were stunningly lucid. He felt they were gifts from the gods. His ego declared that the images they contained could be turned into gold if interpreted correctly. It would be my job to do so. Entry-level stuff in this department. To prove my worth.

  I started work that day and immediately came through for Pharaoh. I interpreted his dreams exactly how he wanted to hear them. Using my artistic abilities, I prophesied crops lush and lucrative. For the first time in my life my creations were seen as valuable.

  I would sit by his bedside and watch him dream. And when Pharaoh woke, he would tell me a dream of winged beavers making dams out of rain clouds. (I would find a way to improve irrigation in his fields.) He would nervously tell me a nightmare involving a dead man with a beak on his face. (This would become a highly effective new scarecrow product.) A dream of a volcano with golden lava. (A new smelting method for our blacksmith.) I’d sketch and interpret. And gloriously, find ways to translate his visions into profit. I had become known. Accepted.

  But I didn’t want to abandon my family. I would often walk down to the old row of cubicles and visit my old family. They were eager to hear stories of my work in the Creative Dept. Compliment me on a newfound confidence that had never been present before. They saw me as different. I wore stubble with pride while my family was still obligated to shave daily. I no longer wore a tie to work—I wore a blue robe. Distinctive attire for someone who had been tapped by the Pharaoh.

  For a while, life was actually a dream. I worked hard to listen and interpret. And products went to market based on my interpretations. Some made profit. Some did not. But over time, I found it more and more difficult to find the hidden meanings in Pharaoh’s dreams. I couldn’t focus on his descriptions. They seemed scattered. I wouldn’t be able to connect a vision to profit or product. I became discouraged, as did he.

  I soon resented how hard I was working for him. I’d listen to a thorough retelling of a unicorn stampede and desperately try to link it to a new way to herd cattle. What he wanted didn’t make sense. I soon realized I was just pretending to know what I was doing. My frustrations led me to believe that Pharaoh was just a lazy dreamer who had persuaded himself that he did his most brilliant work while dead asleep. I doubted I needed his daydreams to find profit for him.

  Soon my mind fought for my attention. It pulled me away from Pharaoh’s visions, and I found myself writing my own stories on the side and making flipbooks at night. I had a growing interest in my family’s work as well. We would happily collaborate and share ideas. The work was more interesting and better than the lazy dream interpretations I cranked out for Pharaoh, which admittedly were getting repetitive and stale.

  One afternoon, while Pharaoh was enthusiastically telling me one of his daydreams (it involved him standing on a ladder wearing only a wolf’s mask with a large yellow crab on his head—don’t ask) . . . I shamelessly yawned.

  Pharaoh sat back and asked if I was tired of my job in the Creative Dept. Instead of denying it, I leapt at the opportunity to change our relationship. I asked if we could move away from his dream world and try imagining things in reality. I suggested we try to work together while he was actually awake. Walk the farms for inspiration. Talk to villagers. Gather ideas from common cubicle dwellers. I let him know that my previous family was overflowing with fresh ideas. I suggested we work with all divisions of the company to identify new revenue lines.

  Pharaoh reminded me that for the last quarter, profitability in my dream interpretations had been sliding downward. He was not concerned with inspiration. He didn’t want distractions. He was concerned only with profit.

  I insisted we could surprise the world together by providing something truly unique and new. Reconfigure the Creative Dept. altogether. If we took on a new direction, I insisted, profits would pour in. Pharaoh sat back in his chair and nodded. He told me he appreciated my bravery and confidence. He told me he was excited to see what else I had in store for him. Pharaoh asked me to gather my thoughts with my family. I was excited. It was a breakthrough!

  When I arrived downstairs, I noticed my old cubicle had been restored. My sales log had returned. A fresh stack of business cards with my position declared. Account executive. I wasn’t returning to my cubicle for “inspiration.” I had been officially demoted. Dismissed.

  My family somberly welcomed me back, but most seemed happy just to have me around full-time once more. Although I was embarrassed to be sitting back on cubicle row again in my old department, I felt inspired. Reenergized. I embraced my newfound freedom from Pharaoh’s wants and babbling dreams.

  I found I was far more nourished by the lives of my immediate family than by the dreams in Pharaoh’s head. The range of personalities. The variety of dreamers. The struggles. The weathered souls. The close calls. I started writing their stories. Doodling their adventures. Pharaoh’s dreams were simple and repetitive by comparison. And for the first time, I felt like a true artist. There would be no distraction with profit. I was also free from rejection and doubt! Free to love my art!

  Years later, here I am. I still sit in a cubicle. Recently promoted to sales manager. My bar has been raised from ankle height to knee. I’ve noticed my family is more career-focused as well. We have to be. Age eventually takes a toll, and we all know that Pharaoh favors youth. But there is a certain pride in not flailing around when Pharaoh strolls the cubicles. Although I still doodle and write, I’m no longer desperate to be a part of the Creative Dept. I doubt I will ever be chosen again, as I never produced the profits that were expected.

  But in between sales calls, I often wonder if I sabotaged my true potential by attempting to change Pharaoh. Whether my ego rose above Pharaoh’s prematurely. Perhaps I never felt at home in the Creative Dept. and am better off on my own. Free of direction and expectation. But there also is the fear that what keeps Pharaoh from choosing me again isn’t based on spite for profits lost but a nagging suspicion of a potential truth: that I was never quite worthy of his promotion in the first place.

  “So Joseph settled his father and his brothers, giving th
em holdings in the choicest part of the land of Egypt in the region of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.” —Genesis 47:11

  VA-YIGGASH (“Then he drew near”)

  Genesis 44:18–47:27

  Mercy, mercy me: as the story of Joseph picks up, Judah, unaware that he is speak- ing to his brother, approaches the Egyptian vizier and begs for mercy, as Benjamin, the youngest brother, who is about to become enslaved, is their elderly father’s favorite. He then relates his version of Joseph’s “death” at the hands of wild animals and asks to be enslaved in place of Benjamin, saying that his father will die if his youngest son does not return.

  Joseph, unable to contain his emotions, orders all of his attendants to leave the room. He then reveals himself to his brothers, sobbing so loudly that rumors of the scene soon reach Pharaoh.

  Joseph wants to know more about his father’s health, but his brothers have been stunned into silence. Acknowledging himself as the brother they sold into slavery, he absolves them of blame, suggesting that God dispatched him to Egypt as part of a divine plan: Only by becoming Pharaoh’s counsel was he able to save so many lives.

  He commands his brothers to return to their father and bring him and their entire household down toward Joseph in an area named Goshen. Joseph intends to use his political power to save them; he knows there are still five more years of famine to survive. He then embraces Benjamin around the neck, weeps, and kisses all his brothers.

  Father and son reunion

  Back at the Egyptian court, Pharaoh is delighted by the news of Joseph’s brothers’ arrival. He encourages Joseph to have his family move down to enjoy everything Egypt can offer them, even providing transport to aid in the re­location process.

  Joseph follows Pharaoh’s advice, equipping his brothers with wagons and provisions for the journey, taking extra care of Benjamin. When they return home and relay the story of Joseph’s fortune to their father, the old man is so shocked that he does not believe them until he sees the Egyptian wagons. He immediately expresses his desire to see Joseph again before he dies.

  Sixty-six members of the family travel down to Egypt. On their journey, God appears to Israel in a dream, calling him Jacob, making it clear that no hardship will befall them in Egypt: His heirs will become a great nation. He also reassures him with the news that Joseph will be beside him when he dies.

  Joseph rides by chariot to meet them in Goshen, and weeps as he embraces his father. Israel says that now that he has seen his son alive, he is ready to die. Joseph prepares his family to meet Pharaoh, instructing them to tell anyone who asks that they breed cattle; Egyptians abhor shepherds.

  Joseph takes some of his brothers to meet Pharaoh, who asks them what they do for a living. The brothers say they are shepherds driven to Egypt by the famine. Pharaoh directs Joseph to settle his family in the most fertile region of his kingdom and suggests that the most capable brothers look after the royal livestock.

  Joseph then introduces his father to Pharaoh. When asked his age, Israel says he is 130 years old. His life has been hard, he says, even though he is not as old as his ancestors. Joseph then settles and provides for his family in Rameses, the most fertile region in all of Egypt.

  As the famine worsens, Joseph sells the rations to raise money for Pharaoh. When the Egyptian subjects run out of money, he takes their livestock in exchange. When the livestock are gone, he takes possession of their land on behalf of Pharaoh, giving out seed that can be planted; the king will take a fifth of the harvest and the serfs, four-fifths. Joseph is widely praised for the ingenuity with which he saves the lives of the Egyptian people.

  Saki Knafo

  The morning of the reunion, Joseph put on his best tunic and looked at himself in the mirror. A lot had happened in the past twenty-two years. His brothers had sold him out. He’d been to jail. He’d made a lot of money. He’d married a beautiful woman. Looking at himself in his gold-fringed tunic, he thought about how happy he’d become since he’d last seen his father. He never could have imagined that he’d be so content, so successful, so rich. He straightened the fringes of his tunic, because he’d learned that that’s what wealthy people do when they look at themselves before an important moment, and then he went out into the court, where an old man with a walking stick was standing next to a soldier. “Dad,” he said. “Why did you come?”

  His father shrugged. “I heard that there was some lucky bastard from Canaan who managed to get laid by an Egyptian princess. I thought, Yep, that’s my boy.”

  Joseph stared at him for a moment, and then laughed one of those short, sarcastic laughs. They embraced, and Joseph looked his father in the eyes. “I can’t believe I actually missed you,” he said.

  “You’re such a liar,” his father replied.

  Joseph and his father had never really liked each other. When Joseph was a teenager, his father had dragged him to all kinds of family meetings, festivals, and fights, always introducing him as the future of Israel.

  “But I don’t want to be the future of Israel,” Joseph would say.

  His father would smile lightly and turn to the rich couple next to them and ask about their children, their children’s spouses, and their livestock.

  Joseph thought of his father as a huckster, and he refused to believe that he’d inherit his father’s lust for power or his talent for manipulating people. Then he ended up in Egypt, where manipulating people meant the difference between life and death. He played a part—the part of a powerful man like his father—but he knew deep down that he was doing it only to survive, and that if he wanted to, he could give it all away. The money, the servants, the wife. He could ride off to another city and start all over again. He’d be fine. He had a talent for survival, and he would have thanked his father for that if his father hadn’t been such a lying, shallow prick.

  In Egypt, Joseph’s father wasted no time making himself comfortable. By the end of the first day, he and Pharaoh were drinking buddies. By day two, they were business partners. By the following Sabbath, Pharaoh had appointed Joseph’s father to the top post in the new tax collection agency. As Joseph watched his father ingratiate himself with his powerful friends, he realized for the first time that he couldn’t ride away after all. He’d worked hard for his success, he’d risked his life for it, and now his father was claiming it for his own. It had taken years of danger and hardship, but he’d finally built his own world, and now his father wanted it for himself.

  After a year, Joseph’s father married an Egyptian woman of his own, his third wife altogether, and nine months after that, he had his first Egyptian kid. Joseph watched with the usual boredom. He grinned his way through the promotion ceremonies, the wedding, the bris, the second bris, and then his father’s fourth wedding, the third bris, and the first bar mitzvah. At the age of 147, Joseph’s father finally died. The family, including the Egyptians, mourned him for seventy days. Joseph had his father embalmed, a traditional process that took another forty days. Then he prepared a ceremonial journey back to Israel, leading twenty of Pharaoh’s servants and many of his closest associates over the Jordan River. They stopped at a small village where they mourned Joseph’s father for yet another seven days. Here, according to the historical record, their cries caught the attention of the surrounding Canaanites, who remarked that Joseph must have loved his father deeply.

  “Bless the lads. In them may my name be recalled, and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac. And may they be teeming multitudes upon the earth.” —Genesis 48:16

  VA-Y’HI (“And he lived”)

  Genesis 47:28–50:26

  Jacob’s end: Jacob lives in Egypt for seventeen more years. As he approaches his death at the age of 147, he makes Joseph promise to bury him in his ancestral homeland rather than Egypt.

  Jacob soon falls ill, and Joseph takes his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to his bedside. Jacob adopts the boys as his own and brings them close to bl
ess them, favoring the younger over the older with his right hand. Joseph goes to correct this, thinking his aged father is making an absentminded mistake, but Jacob says no: Although both boys will birth nations, the younger, Ephraim, will be the greater. Israel (aka Jacob) then tells Joseph that he is close to death, that God will bring him back to Canaan, and that he has saved him an extra inheritance over and above that of his brothers.

  Jacob then calls all of his sons together and predicts their fortunes. Unstable as water, Reuben, the firstborn, once a force, is doomed to mediocrity because he seduced his father’s concubine, Bilhah. Simeon and Levi share a temperament—they are both angry and violent—and a fate: Their descendants will be scattered across Israel. Judah will dominate his enemies; ultimately, his brothers will bow before him. He will wash his clothing in wine and have teeth whiter than milk.

  Zebulun will dwell by the sea and work with ships. Issachar will be as strong as an ass and live in a beautiful region. Dan will rule but remain as treacherous as a serpent. Gad will live a tumultuous existence: His ancestors will raid and be raided. Asher will be the richest. Naphtali will be like a liberated deer that bears beautiful offspring. Joseph will be a spiritual man: Archers will shoot at him, yet his own bow will stay taut, strengthened by God, who blesses him as he did Jacob. Finally, Benjamin’s life is foreseen as that of a hungry wolf who hunts in the morning and divides the spoils by night.

  Having defined the futures of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, Jacob says farewell to each of his sons. He then instructs them to bury him in the Cave of Machpela, where Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Leah are entombed, and breathes his last.

  Joseph flings himself onto his father’s body, weeping and kissing his face. Then, gathering his senses, he commands his physicians to embalm the corpse, a task that takes forty days. The Egyptians mourn for seventy days; once the period comes to an end, Joseph asks Pharaoh for leave so he can fulfill his promise and bury his father in Canaan. Pharaoh grants permission and orders senior members of his court to escort Joseph on the journey and witness the funeral at the Cave of Machpelah.