The Israelites call the bread, which tastes like honey-coated wafers, “manna,” a foodstuff that will sustain them for forty years. Water continues to be a problem, however, and the Israelites are quick to complain. Moses expresses his frustration to the Lord, asking what he should do with his followers and suggesting that he will not be surprised if they stone him before long. The Lord specifies a rock for Moses to strike, promising it will gush forth water. The plan works to perfection.
Wiping out the Amalek
A tribe known as the Amalek clash with the Israelites. Moses deputizes Joshua to lead men into battle while he retires to a nearby hill and stands with his hands raised. As long as Moses keeps his arms in the air, Israel will triumph in battle. When he tires, Israel will falter. Moses grows weary, and he sits on a stone while Aaron and an assistant support his arms, allowing Joshua and his force to prevail. God vows to battle with the Amalek throughout time, until the tribe is blotted from historical memory.
Joel Stein
I shouldn’t let it bother me. He’s a good man, a godly man, a man who—and this is his best trait compared with all the other Jewish men—doesn’t talk too much. But it’s just so annoying. Because I didn’t marry an idiot. And on battle days, Moses acts like an idiot.
Every battle morning he puts on his Lucky “Israelites” tunic with Joshua’s name on the back. Which I’m not allowed to wash. I personally believe it’s unlucky to smell like the end of a day of pyramid building in the middle of Av. Then he has to eat his manna from his Lucky Bowl since the Red Sea opened the afternoon after he happened to eat from it. That bowl is disgusting, with caked-on manna that is never going to come out. Also, he—I swear to the Lord our God, King of the Universe—looks into the bag with Joseph’s bones, which I keep telling him to throw away because, well, THEY’RE JOSEPH’S BONES. I can’t tell you how many places we’ve lived in where we lugged those gross bones. It’s like a game: I hide Joseph’s bones; he finds Joseph’s bones. The man is like a Joseph’s bones dog.
If, Lord our God, King of the Universe forbid, in the middle of a battle, I interrupt Moses with a question, even during a lull, he freaks out at me and has to walk in three circles around his Lucky Rod of God, chanting, “We will! We will! Smite you! Smite you!” Guess what, honey? You’re not part of Joshua’s army! You’re a spectator! What you do does not affect the battle. Go out and do something useful, like sacrificing something. Other than your dignity. Or help me cook. Manna doesn’t make itself. Actually, it does, but someone still has to gather it, and you’re too busy making an ass of yourself. I think Miriam is starting to notice that on battle days I keep insisting we do timbrel practice at her house.
Moses’ dumbest pre-battle superstition started at Rephidim when the Israelites took on the Amalek, which was like a title battle or something. Moses got in his Lucky Seat on top of the hill, with Aaron on the left (not the right!) and Hur on the right (not the left!). He held his Lucky Rod of God in his hand, looking like a moron. He must have scratched his head at some point when one of the Israelites took a sword to the head, because he became convinced that if he lowered his hand, Israel would start to lose. Wait: It gets crazier. At some point in the battle, Moses figured if one raised hand was good, two would be better. But since he’s more of a battle-watcher than a battler-doer, he’s got the arm muscles of an amateur timbreler. So he sits on a stone and makes Aaron and Hur hold his hands up until the sun sets. Which doesn’t even make sense within his idiot superstition logic. God doesn’t care about the effort, just that your hands are above your head? God is just interested in reducing blood flow to your fingers? Can you lie down as long as your hands are above your head? And you can stop at sunset because God can’t see your hands in the dark? Do you know what OMNISCIENT means? It means “can see in the dark.” The only way any of this makes sense, honey, is if the Amaleks saw you and were distracted by the guy with the lisp who was holding hands with two men.
After the battle, Moses made everyone—who were, as you can imagine, tired from all the killing and maiming—make this ridiculous trophy called the Adonai-Nissi Altar, which he inscribed with—get this: “Hand upon the throne of the Lord.” Seriously. Like he did all the killing and maiming with the hands that he didn’t even raise himself. He also wrote on it, “The Lord will be at war with the Amalek throughout the ages.” I’m sure He will, sweetheart. People will be wanting to see Amalek rematches every year. More likely, you’ll be talking about it with your battle-watching altacockers late into the night until I get so bored, I have to excuse myself to go to timbrel practice.
Here’s a secret: I don’t even like the timbrel.
Think about that while you enjoy your battle.
“Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought Moses’ sons and wife to him in the wilderness, where he was encamped at the mountain of God.” —Exodus 18:5
YITRO (“Jethro”)
Exodus 18:1–20:23
Moses learns to delegate: Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, the priest from Midian, hears about the wonders God has performed for the Israelites. He travels out into the wilderness to meet him, accompanied by Moses’ wife, Zipporah, and their two sons, who have returned home. Moses welcomes him into his tent and gives a blow-by-blow account of Israel’s liberation. Jethro is thrilled and proclaims that God is clearly greater than all other gods.
Moses spends the following day performing magisterial duties, ruling on disputes among his followers. Jethro cannot believe the amount of time Moses devotes to this task. Moses explains that he has to do it all, because only he is privy to God’s rulings. Jethro is concerned that Moses will burn out and suggests he learn to delegate. The Midian priest thinks they should find reputable God-fearing men to learn the law, oversee the caseload, and share the burden so that only the truly major cases are left in Moses’ hands.
Moses executes this idea and creates a legal system to judge matters both major and minor.
The Big Reveal
When three new moons have passed since their liberation, the Israelites enter the desert around Mount Sinai. Moses ascends to confer with God, who instructs him to remind the people of what has been done for them, and how if they keep the covenant, they will become a kingdom of priests and holy people. When Moses relays the message, the people proclaim their agreement as one.
God then reveals the next steps to Moses. In three days God plans to appear in a thick cloud so the people can hear the two of them confer and trust Moses from that point on. The Israelites are to prepare for the moment by staying pure and washing their clothes. God wants the mountain itself to be set off-limits. Trespassers will be put to death.
On the morning of the third day, thunder and lightning crackle around the mountain, and a thick cloud covers the peak. As the Israelites take their place at the foot of the mountain, a ram’s horn blasts loudly, filling the air with fear.
The mountain is cloaked in smoke as the Lord descends in fire. The ram’s horn sounds louder, and the whole mountain appears to quake. When Moses speaks, God responds in thunder, warning Moses to prevent his people from approaching, as they will die. Moses is then dispatched back down the mountain to invite Aaron to return with him.
God speaks these words:
I am your God who liberated you from Egypt. You shall have no other gods than me.
You shall make no idols to bow down to or serve, for I, God, will take revenge on the third and fourth generations of those who reject Me.
You shall not swear falsely by using My name.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. No work will be done on the seventh day to remember the way God rested and blessed the seventh day when creating the world.
Honor your father and mother.
Do not murder.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not make false allegations against your neighbor.
Do not covet
your neighbor’s house, wife, slaves, livestock, or possessions.
All the people glimpse the thunder and lightning, the blaring horn, and the smoking mountain, and keep their distance. They agree to follow Moses’ instructions, aware that they will die if God speaks directly to them. Moses advises them not to be fearful, but to understand what will happen to them if they ever stray from God’s commandments. He then returns up the mountain.
God tells Moses the Israelites are forbidden to make any idols of silver or gold and directs him to build an altar made of earth on which to sacrifice animals.
Rebecca Odes & Sam Lipsyte
“Moses went inside the cloud and ascended the mountain; and Moses remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights.”—Exodus 24:18
MISHPATIM (“Laws”)
Exodus 21:1–24:18
Crime and punishment: a multitude of laws are detailed, including rules about issues as diverse as slavery and murder. The death penalty is prescribed for those who strike or insult their parents. Compensation is set for victims of violent attack, and rules of vengeance are rigidly defined.
Physical damage is to be punished with a like-for-like approach—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—unless the injury involves a slave-master relationship, in which case freedom can be exchanged. Remedies for injuries caused by livestock are clarified, as is the punishment for seducing a virgin without paying the bride-price. Sorcery is prohibited, as is sleeping with animals. Ill-treatment of strangers, widows, and orphans is prohibited. The Israelites are reminded that they are to be a holy people.
Ritual time
The land can be farmed for six years, but in the seventh it should be left to lie fallow, so the needy can take from it. The notion of the Sabbath as a day of rest is reinforced; the day is to be observed, even by livestock.
A rudimentary cycle of festivals is prescribed: the seven days of Passover to remember the liberation from Egypt, the harvest festival to celebrate the sowing of the field, and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year to celebrate reaping. At those times, all males are to gather together before the Lord. A clutter of rules about food and sacrifice are also outlined. The best first fruits are to be offered to God. A kid is not to be boiled in its mother’s milk.
An angel is dispatched to guard the Israelites as a symbol of God’s authority. Led by the angel, the Israelites will annihilate every tribe they encounter and shall tear down their idols. Sickness will be removed from the Israelites’ midst, and no woman shall miscarry. Everyone will live till the end of their days.
God’s terror will proceed ahead of the Israelites. All those who live around them shall be thrown into panic and will flee. A plague will destroy many, but these enemies will be overthrown gradually to prevent the land from becoming overpopulated by wild animals, who will pose a danger.
God describes the borders of the land promised in the covenant: It will stretch from the Sea of Reeds to the Sea of Philistia, and from the desert to the Euphrates.
Game On!
Then the Lord instructs Moses to climb back up Mount Sinai, accompanied by Aaron and the seventy elders of Israel, who are to bow from afar, for only Moses is allowed to approach God. Before setting out, Moses repeats God’s commandments and rules. With one enthusiastic voice, the Israelites agree to comply. Moses then builds an altar and offers up a series of sacrifices to the Lord, dabbing the people with blood as a sign of the covenant.
Moses, Aaron, and the elders then scale the mountain. They see God and are not struck down. Instead they feast together. Moses is instructed to come closer and receive stone tablets on which God has already inscribed the commandments. Moses and his assistant, Joshua, advance to receive them as a cloud covers the top of the mountain. After seven days, God calls to Moses from within the cloud. From the perspective of the Israelites at the base of the mountain, the Lord’s presence appears like a burning fire. Moses ventures into the cloud, remaining there for forty days and nights.
Ben Greenman
So he said he was going to Mount Sinai, and someone in the room, maybe Lou, said, “You mean the hospital?” and the rest of us snickered.
We knew him, so we knew he’d do exactly what he did, which was to turn his back on us as if hurt, take a few steps, and then turn around again, eyes blazing, and say, in a deliberately resonant voice, “The Mount!”
He needed those few steps to get his eyes and his voice that way, trust me. He’s an actor if I’ve ever seen one.
We went on playing cards. Mikey won that hand and Nicky won the next one, and then Lou said he had to be up early the next morning for work and the night broke up.
The next week, we met again, this time at Nicky’s house, and after we had dealt out the first two hands, Donald squared his cards on the table and asked if anyone had seen Moses.
I shook my head, and then I noticed that everyone else’s head was shaking, too. “What gives?” Donald said. “He hasn’t missed card night in years.”
“The Mount!” Lou said, his eyes on fire like Moses’ had been the week before, and we all bagged up.
That night I did a little better, not at cards, but in general, because Mikey brought his daughter Jane to the game. I don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea: Mikey’s about twenty years older than the rest of the guys, so his daughter is only a little bit younger than we are. We’ve all known Jane since she was a teenager, and all of us shed a tear when she told Mikey she was moving in with her boyfriend, but that didn’t pan out, and we all wiped the tear away. At least I did. I can’t speak for the other guys. All I can say is that I’ve had a thing for her since before it was allowed.
Nicky was on a serious winning streak, to the point where Donald accused him of putting mirrors or cameras up so he could see the rest of our cards. When he had most of our money and most of our pride, I decided to sit out a hand and talk to Jane.
She was sitting in a chair in the corner, wearing a short dress that was made from a material that looked like curtains in an expensive house, and I was pretty sure that if I got her into the light, I’d be able to see through it, but I was happy to talk to her in the dark, too.
She told me about a business she was starting, something about arranging for house sitters who were also maids, so you could go away on a trip and come back to find it in perfect shape. “That sounds like a good idea,” I said. “It’s the kind of thing I have never considered before, but now that I hear it, it makes sense.”
Just at that moment, Moses burst in. His eyes were as wild as when he had left, but this time it didn’t seem like acting. “The courts must execute by strangulation those who deserve it,” he shouted.
“And it’s nice to see you, too,” said Lou.
Moses went on like he hadn’t even heard. “Assess the damages incurred by fire,” “Do not eat the meat of an animal that was mortally wounded,” “Do not afflict any widow or orphan.”
“Just calm down,” Donald said. “We’re trying to derail the Nicky Express here.”
But Moses wouldn’t calm down. He flailed his arms and moved his head from side to side so that his hair flew out. “Transgressors must not testify,” he said. “Transgressors must not testify.” Then he fell, just dropping like a rock to the floor. His head bounced off a chair on the way down, and he lay still on the hardwood.
“Crap,” Nicky said. “You okay?” He sprang up to tend to Moses. He brought him a pillow from the couch and also some water and then some scotch and something else that came out of a flask he took out of his pocket.
Moses was murmuring now. “There are rules,” he said.
Mikey banged his hand on the table. He was into Nicky for more than two hundred, and he was furious. “We know about rules,” Mikey said, sweeping his hands over the table. “This whole bloody game is rules.”
And then he looked a little embarrassed that he had talked that way in front of hi
s daughter, and he stood roughly and went outside to have a cigarette.
Jane wouldn’t come out of the chair in the corner. “What’s wrong?” I said. “You’re not mad at your father, are you? Cut him some slack.”
“It’s not him,” she said. “It’s him.” She pointed at Moses. Nicky had gotten enough water and whatever else into him that he was calmed down, or at least silent, though his eyes were still burning. “I had a little thing with him once.”
“You did?” I was suddenly furious. I could have strangled him right there and then.
“He wasn’t like this then. He was much more of a live-and-let-live kind of guy. He’s changed.”
Moses was our age, maybe a few years older, but stretched out there on the floor he looked ancient, like the next change wouldn’t be for the better, like he was maybe already being returned to the earth.
Jane came to her feet as abruptly as her father had. “I think a cigarette’s a good idea,” she said. “But not with my dad. I don’t want him to see. Want to go out back with me?”
“I don’t smoke,” I said. “But you know me: Live and let live.”
She let me get her shirt half off there in the backyard, the sound of the TV coming from the house, the peak of the Mount looming a ways off in the moonlight. But when I heard crying from the house, one that started human and ended animal, I buttoned her shirt back up and told her we had to go back in to help.
“Exactly as I show you—the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings—so you shall make it.” —Exodus 25:9
T’RUMAH (“Offering”)
Exodus 25:1–27:19
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