God Is Disappointed In You
Page 7
We built walls, we built watchtowers. Needing a mouth, we built the Fish Gate, so the food could flow in. Needing an ass, we built the Dung Gate, so the shit could flow out. Rebuilding a city is like resurrecting a dead animal. You not only need to bring it back to life, you have to keep the wolves and coyotes away while you do it.
When the neighboring countries noticed we were rebuilding the city walls, they laughed us off. But as the wall grew taller, the laughter was replaced by threats. Every week, a new message would arrive, threatening war if we continued working on the walls.
Stopping work on the wall was out of the question. We all agreed that we had come too far to quit, whatever the cost. And yet, I knew these were not idle threats. So I had to take half my work force off them wall, arm them and use them as guards. With only half the workforce building the wall, this meant everyone had to work double shifts. Despite their heroism and sacrifice, I knew my builders couldn’t carry on much longer like that.
Things got worse. I learned that many of my workers, who had literally poured their blood and sweat into that wall, were forced to mortgage their homes and go into debt, just so they could afford to work on the wall. So when I heard that our own merchants and noblemen were taking advantage, raising interest rates and foreclosing on homes, I totally lost my shit.
These were heroes, building the wall and guarding the city from attack, protecting these greedy assholes who were then charging them for the privilege. I gathered all the lenders together in a room and I told these guys that if they wanted to live in our city when the wall was finished, then all this subprime mortgage shit would have to stop, NOW. What’s the point of guarding against a foreign invasion when you’re being enslaved from within?
Although the invasion never came, the foreign kings still tried to stop me from completing the wall. They sent me a letter vaguely accusing me of walling off the city so I could become king and lead a revolt against Persia. They summoned me to a series of hearings to discuss the matter. I saw no point in trying to talk them out of believing rumors they themselves had made up. I had too much work to do, anyway, so I ignored them.
Soon afterward, a man came running up and said there was a group of armed men coming to kill me. He pleaded with me to hide in the temple. “Hurry, run to the temple!” He pleaded. “There’s a gang of mercenaries right outside the city! Quick, hide in the Temple! Seriously, they’re coming! Oh my God, they’re huge! They’ve got swords and these huge axe things and everything!”
I wasn’t sure why he was so eager to see me hide in the temple, but something about the situation just didn’t smell right, so I simply kept working. Later on, I figured out what he was trying to do. The neighboring kings had learned about an obscure Jewish law that eunuchs aren’t allowed in the temple. If they could trick me into going inside the temple, they thought I would be stoned to death or something.
After two months of danger, sleep deprivation, and hard work the walls of Jerusalem had been rebuilt. And all because I followed one simple maxim: when in doubt, keep working.
It might seem a little trite, all this trouble over a stupid wall. But you’ve got to understand, it was the wall that finally allowed people to return to Jerusalem without having to worry about being overrun by thieves, marauders, and rapists. A few hardscrabble pioneers can make a go of it in a lawless wasteland, but if you want the artists, priests, and scribes to come, then you need a wall to protect them. And those are the people who create your culture, write your history. It might be construction workers who build your nation, and soldiers who guard it, but it’s the nerds who make it a civilization.
To celebrate the completion of the wall, we threw a giant celebration. There were musicians playing on top of the wall. There were choirs at the Fish Gate, singing out of the mouth of the city. There were choirs at the Dung Gate, singing out the ass of the city. You could hear us for miles around. Then, Ezra emerged from the temple and stood at the altar.
A hush fell across the entire city as he began to read from the Torah.
As I looked around, I could see tears rolling down the cheeks of the old people and it occurred to me: it had been fifty years since these people had heard these words read aloud in public. It had been fifty years since we were all gathered together in one place. Soon tears were staining the faces of every man woman and child in the city. Most of us didn’t even grow up here, but it didn’t matter. We all felt, perhaps for the first time ever, that we were home.
Esther
When Xerxes was King of Persia, he once threw an epic party that lasted a whole six months. At one point during the party, the king got drunk and ordered his wife Vashti to dance in front of his friends to show off her tight young body.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Vashti said.
“Whatever,” King Xerxes shrugged. “Let’s do some Jello shots…”
His advisors took Vashti’s refusal much more seriously, though. They told Xerxes that if he let Vashti off the hook, women all over the empire would start disobeying their husbands, sparking a wildfire of feminist bedlam. Trying to put the genie back into the bottle, King Xerxes divorced Vashti. Now Xerxes needed new queen, though, so he set up a worldwide beauty pageant to find his next wife. The winner was a young Jewish woman named Esther.
As part of her prize, Esther was given a year’s worth of beauty products, fancy dining, and luxury accommodations at the king’s palace. One of the king’s advisors was a Jewish man named Mordecai, who happened to be Esther’s uncle. Mordecai told her not to mention her family, as that would reveal that she was Jewish, which he felt might somehow queer the deal.
“He might not like ethnics,” he warned her.
Soon after Esther and Xerxes were married, Mordecai stumbled upon a plot by a couple of bitter old eunuchs to assassinate the king. Mordecai exposed the plotters and saved King Xerxes’ life, a fact which was duly entered into public record with a gold star next to Mordecai’s name.
In addition to his sexy new wife, the king also had a new prime minister, named Haman.
To celebrate his promotion, the king allowed Haman to parade through town while everyone in the streets bowed and shouted wonderful things about him. Haman really got off on parades and ass-kissing and was having a mind-blowingly good time.
But when he returned to the palace, the best day of his life abruptly turned to shit. Because there was one person out of the whole city who refused to bow as he walked past. The party-pooper was Esther’s uncle, Mordecai. Haman immediately complained to the king.
“Bowing’s against my religion,” Mordecai explained.
“It’s a religious thing,” the king said, closing the matter.
This slight continued to haunt Haman, however, stinging him in his sleep like a pillowcase full of scorpions. Haman vowed to have his revenge by not only murdering Mordecai, but his entire race as well.
“That’ll teach you to ruin a parade.”
So one day, while the king was buried under paperwork, Haman slipped a decree into the pile that ordered the execution of Mordecai and all the Jews in the Persian Empire.
“What’s this?” The king asked.
“Oh, nothing. Just a death warrant for some fringe group who have their own set of laws. Apparently, they don’t think your laws are good enough.”
“Well, we can’t have a bunch of haters running loose in the empire. If you think it’s a good idea, go ahead and put my seal on it,” the king said, tossing his signet ring to Haman. It was a casual genocide.
Perhaps hoping to later turn the extermination of the Jews into a board game, Haman used a set of dice, or purim, to select the date on which the genocide would begin. It’s from these dice that the Jews get the name for their “Feast of Purim.”
Late one night, Xerxes was suffering from insomnia. He started reading the public records, hoping to bore himself to sleep. While reading, he saw the gold star next to Mordecai’s name and realized that he’d fo
rgotten to reward Mordecai for saving his life. So the next morning, he asked Haman what he should do to reward someone who’d done the king a really big favor. Haman, of course, thought the king was referring to him.
“Well, I think anybody would love a really nice parade. Not just any parade, though. They should be led through the city on your horse and wearing your favorite jacket. Oh! And someone should run in front of him shouting his praises and everyone should be forced to look at him and think he’s cool. Now, THAT would be a parade!” Haman said, ticklish with anticipation.
“Perfect!” The king replied. “Could you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Make the arrangements. You know, be the guy who leads him through town, shouting nice things about him, telling everyone he’s my best friend in the world, that sort of thing? I want to give Mordecai a parade he’ll never forget.”
“Who?”
“Mordecai. You know Mordecai, don’t you? That Jewish guy?
He saved my life once and I totally forgot to thank him. Scatterbrained!” the king said, wobbling his crown around on his head.
Haman burned with humiliation. He returned from the degrading venture even more determined to have his revenge on Mordecai. To make his revenge even sweeter, Haman built a special, seventy-five foot tall spike on which to impale Mordecai.
When Mordecai found out about the king’s decree, and the approaching date of the ordered extermination of the Jews, he went to Esther and begged her to say something to the king.
“I know what I said before, about keeping the Jew thing under wraps, but the next time you’re having sex with him, it might not hurt to let it slip, you know, that you’re Jewish. You know, it could help the rest of us out.”
“Yeah, but I can’t just tackle the king in the hallway and start humping his leg. I have to wait for him to call for me. If I show up unannounced, his guards will put me to death. And he hasn’t called for me in like a month.”
“Well, you’d better think of something. We can’t let the future of our race be decided by whether or not the king gets horny in the next couple of weeks.”
Esther was in a bind. Days passed, the date of the planned genocide approached and still the king had not called for her. Finally, she worked up the nerve and burst in on the king while he was working.
“Esther! Honeybee! What’s the matter? You look nervous. Oh, is it that rule about being killed for coming to me unannounced? Oh, don’t worry about that! That’s just an old palace by-law. Tell me, how’ve you been? What’s going on in your life?”
“Oh, cheetah lips, you’re so good to me, and I hate to ask favors of you, but I do have something really important I need to ask you. I see that you’re busy, though, so I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you and Haman join me for dinner tomorrow. I’ll cook up some antelope steaks, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
The next day, Esther laid out three place settings. After enjoying a pleasant, light-hearted dinner, the king turned to Esther and asked, “So what was that favor you wanted to ask me?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s nothing, really. But it turns out that there’s a law on the books that all the Jews are supposed to be killed. Well, I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it, but I’M Jewish. So, according to your law, I’m going to be killed, along with my family and all of my people.”
“What? What are you talking about?” the king asked, stunned.
“I never passed any law like that!”
“Apparently, you did. It said something about us being ‘a fringe group who’ve set up their own laws.’ Maybe you didn’t know what you were signing, though. I know how busy you get. Maybe someone snuck it past you?”
The king looked angrily across the table at his prime minister. “Not cool, Haman. Not cool.”
“Well, to be fair, I did tell you about this…” Haman explained.
“Yeah, but you made it sound like you were going to bust some Libertarians, not exterminate an entire race of people!” the king replied. “Great. Now I look like a total racist. Thanks a lot, Haman! Oh, I am so pig-biting mad right now! You’ll both have to excuse me, I’m going outside to clear my head for a minute.”
Seeing the king all roiled up like that terrified Haman.
“Please,” he begged Esther, “if I had known that you were Jewish, I never would have…please… you’ve got to say something to him…”
Haman was groveling so hard that without even noticing what he was doing, he walked over to the couch and began pawing Esther. As if on cue, Xerxes came back into the room at this exact moment and saw Haman climbing all over his wife.
“What the HELL, dude?” The king said, seeing Haman lying on top of Esther. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”
At this point, it occurred to Haman that he had probably seen his last parade.
The king was so irate, he wanted to execute Haman in the most horribly memorable way possible. Luckily, there was a seventy-five foot spike lying around that did the trick. King Xerxes had Haman impaled on the spike, and made Mordecai his new prime minister.
“Here’s the rub,” the king explained. “I’m afraid my order to kill all the Jews still stands. Once I’ve put my seal to a new law, I can’t take it back. But, what I CAN do is issue a second order to arm the Jews so they can kill anyone who tries to act on my first order. Sorry, I’m afraid that’s the best I can do under the circumstances.”
In the following weeks, a war raged between those trying to kill the Jews according to the king’s first order and those trying to protect them according to his second order. All told, some seventy-five thousand people died as a result of this bureaucratic glitch.
“Well, let me say, this has certainly taught me a lesson about reading what I sign!” the king said.
It was a close call, but in the end, the Jewish people were saved from extermination by Esther’s courage. And, in a strange way, by Vashti’s refusal to give the king a lap dance.
Part Three
Wisdom and Poetry
In which God and Satan make a friendly wager, King David releases a greatest-hits album, and King Solomon teaches you how to treat a lady.
Being king affords you a lot of time to think about life and jam on your harp. Collectively, David and Solomon wrote hundreds of Psalms, which were love poems to God, set to music. Sort of the ancient Jewish equivalent to Gospel music. Solomon also wrote hundreds of one-liners and bon-mots which became the Book of Proverbs. Not to mention some sexy poetry, for which he wrote both the male and female parts. Kinky. As an artistic choice, I took the liberty of presenting that book, The Song of Solomon, exclusively from the female point of view. I hope you don’t mind.
An unnamed king, a descendant of Solomon and David’s, wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes, an honest meditation on the paradox and futility of life, and very possibly the first work of Existentialist philosophy.
Then there’s the Book of Job, which attempts to answer the age-old question of why the innocent suffer. On the surface, the answer appears to be that God’s got action riding on us. But in The Guide for the Perplexed, the medieval rabbi Maimonides offers a different possibility: Job, like the rest of us, must suffer because it means nothing to worship out of habit—praying and getting rewarded, like a dog who rolls over because he knows he’s going to get a treat. Only when the treats are not forthcoming do we question our faith. And only then do we, like Job, discover what we truly believe.
The Book of Job
God and Satan make this crazy bet.
Satan claims that this guy Job only loves God because God gave him wealth, respect and a large and adoring family. So to prove Satan wrong, God allows Satan to kill off Job’s wife and kids and strip him of his wealth through a series of disasters. To top it all off, Satan is allowed to give Job all kinds of sores and diseases. He even makes Job stink. His friends and neighbors begin to wonder if hanging around Job might not be bad luck, so they stop coming by his house.
“Okay, you won on Job,” Satan said. “But twenty bucks says that guy will totally flip you off.”
“Who, that guy?” God asked.
Psalms
King David was the most famous harp player in history. His music is timeless. His songs have sold millions in Europe. Now, for the first time ever, all his greatest hits are compiled here in one priceless collection! At last you can have all your old favorites right at your fingertips, including songs by his father Jesse, his son Solomon, and all the King David Family Singers. Includes such classics as:
The Lord Is My Shepherd (I Shall Not Want)
Psalm 23
I’ll Feed You Honey from a Rock
Psalm 81
Weary with Sorrow (It’ll Be Better Tomorrow)
Psalm 119
Satisfy Me (With Your Finest Wheat)
Psalm 147
The Tents of Kedar (Be Rockin’ Tonight!)
Psalm 120
No artist has touched as many hearts or stood the test of time quite like King David. In this unique collection, you’ll hear the songs that span his illustrious career and celebrate the changing times in which he lived. From his early days as a gospel act, to his maturing social consciousness as a folk legend…