I
THE TORAH IN HEAVEN
Nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the world was created, the Torah was written. How? With black fire on white fire. It was Yahweh’s only daughter. Her father wanted her to live in a foreign land. The presiding Angels said: “Why can’t she stay in heaven?” Yahweh answered: “What’s that to you?” A king came along and took the daughter for his bride. Yahweh told him: “This is my only daughter I’m giving you. I can’t part with her. But nor can I tell you not to take her, because she is your bride. Grant me but one thing: that wherever you go you keep a room for me.”
* * *
In the solitude before Creation, Yahweh had only his daughter to help. She was Torah, Law, and Hokhmah, Wisdom. His consultant, and his artificer too: she calculated the size of things, took care to plug the waters, marked where the sand should start, sealed the seams of the heavens. Sometimes she served as the open map of Creation. Then Yahweh would watch her in silence.
* * *
Wisdom was the artificer, the plane, the tool. But even more often she was his helpmate, at his side. When she was born, “the abysses were yet to be.” The waters had not burst forth. And the heavens were still to be raised and hung. Whenever something appeared or was transformed from one thing to another, “I was with him and I arranged all things,” cum eo eram, cuncta componens, said Wisdom. No one would ever know greater pride or greater awe. As the cycle of marvels was nearing its end, Wisdom was always there in front of Yahweh, playing on the ground. It was Creation’s happiest moment, one uninterrupted pleasure (delectabar per singulos dies) whose emanation would eventually pass to the sons of men, much abated, much adulterated.
* * *
Together with atonement, with Eden, Gehenna, the throne of majesty, the Temple, and the name of the Messiah, the Torah was one of the seven things created before the creation of the world. Eden, a garden, hovered in a place that preceded space. Likewise Gehenna, a valley. Their presence was indispensable, though no one knew how or where they could have existed before the world came into being. For the Torah, on the other hand, the existence or otherwise of the world hardly mattered. She sat on the Father’s knee, singing together with the presiding Angels. After hundreds of generations, some of those Angels looked down and saw a man struggling to climb a mountain. With a shiver of nostalgia that anticipated their imminent loss, they asked the Father: “Why do you want to give this carefully guarded jewel to a creature of flesh and blood?” But it was already too late.
* * *
It was because the Torah was written with black fire on white fire—Nachmanides, a cabalist of Gerona, believed—that it could be read in two contrasting ways: either as an uninterrupted text, not divided into words—something the nature of fire demands—or in the traditional fashion, a sequence of stories and precepts. Approached the first way, the uninterrupted text became a list of names. Stories and precepts melted away. But other cabalists from Gerona went further. Why insist on a plurality of names? The whole Torah should be read as a single name. The Name of the Holy One. Azriel went so far as to say that Genesis 36, which lists the descendants of Esau and is generally thought an unimportant passage, should not be considered as fundamentally distinct from the Ten Commandments. They were parts of the same structure and all equally necessary.
* * *
Wisdom issued from the mouth of the Father in the form of a cloud. “It covered the earth like a cloud.” Before the world was created, she raised her tent in the heavens and waited there. She came to the Father in a “pillar of cloud,” where he sat on his throne. Tent and pillar of cloud: they would turn up again when Moses, in the presence of his astonished people, withdrew into the “Tent of Meeting” and immediately afterward a pillar of cloud covered the entrance. That was how Yahweh chose to speak to Moses, “face to face, as a man speaks to his neighbor.” Wisdom on the other hand passed from inside the tent to inside the pillar of cloud. It was the first step, the beginning of a never-ending journey. From then on, Wisdom would visit every corner of the cosmos. “I have traveled the circle of the heavens alone, / I have walked in the depths of the abysses. / In the billows of the sea, and across all the earth, / enriched myself among every people and in every nation.” Everywhere she went, Wisdom found something to feed on. But she was forever thinking of her tent. She was looking for somewhere to pitch it again. One day the father pointed to a place. “So it was that I settled in Zion,” said Wisdom, winding up her story. One day, in the same land, the Son, her brother, would find “nowhere to lay his head.”
II
SAUL AND SAMUEL
Saul makes his first appearance on a mission to recover some she-asses that had gone missing. He had a servant from home with him and together they walked a long way. But the asses were not to be found. When they reached Zuf, Saul said to the servant, “My father will have stopped worrying about the asses; he’ll want to know where we’ve got to.” They had been walking for three days, after those asses. They had crossed Mount Ephraim, the land of Shalishah and the land of Shaalim. The asses were not to be found. And by now they were disoriented, uncertain how to get home. Then the servant said he’d heard of a seer who lived in Zuf. Perhaps he could help. Saul agreed, but at this point they didn’t have so much as a hunk of bread in their bags. What could they offer the seer? The servant said: “I came across a silver shekel. We could give that to the seer and ask him the way.” The Bible adds a few words in explanation: “Once, in Israel, when a man went to consult Elohim, he would say, ‘Come, let us speak to the seer!’” What today we call a “prophet” was once called a “seer.”
Some girls had walked out of Zuf by the city gate to draw water from the well. Fatal meetings tend to happen near wells. As with Rebecca, or Rachel, or with Demeter in Eleusis. On this occasion, as on others, there was a gaggle of girls. They saw the two foreigners climbing toward the city gate. “Does the seer live near here?” the two strangers asked. The girls were eager to help: they could see him right away, but they’d have to hurry, because he was about to leave town. “You must meet him,” they said, “before he climbs up the hill to eat, since the people won’t eat until he comes. It’s he who blesses the sacrifice before the guests eat.” Shortly afterward, at the city gate, Saul saw a man leaving the town and asked: “Could you tell me the way to the seer’s house?” Samuel answered. “I am the seer.” And at once he invited Saul to follow him up the hill: “Today you will eat with me.” Then he added: “As for those she-asses you lost three days ago, they’ve been found.” For a priest like Samuel the first thing to do was to make the sacrifice then share out the meat of the sacrifice for people to eat. Saul got the best portion and Samuel said, “Here’s what’s left, they’ve served it to you: go ahead and eat! They kept it on purpose for you, when I invited the people to the banquet.” The portion is moîra, “destiny.” Saul’s destiny was ready and waiting. They were expecting him.
* * *
For anyone not in the know—and no one is in the know—it was the lost asses that led Saul and Samuel to meet. If Saul’s father hadn’t told his son to look for them, Saul would have stayed at home, in Israel’s smallest tribe. He was a handsome young man, a head taller than his companions, and had given no sign of any particular vocation. Thanks to the lost asses, he found himself far from home, not sure of the way back. He was ready to give a silver coin to the person who would guide him.
It was in these circumstances that Yahweh had him meet Samuel. The lost asses were the ruse that made the meeting possible. And the asses would be found. Not by Saul, but—how we don’t know—by Samuel himself, the seer who was to make Saul the first king of Israel. Yahweh was, among many other things, an allegorist. The lost and found asses were also the people of Israel who yearned for a king but wouldn’t have been able to choose one, if Samuel, the seer, had not anointed him with the oil he kept in a vial.
* * *
After the sacrificial meal they went back to the city. Samuel had Saul lie down on a bed on the roof of his house. Then he woke him early next morning and said, “Get up, I’ll set you on your way.” They left the city together. Samuel told Saul to send his servant on ahead. He must stay behind. He must hear the word of God. Samuel took out a vial of oil and poured it on Saul’s head. He said that Yahweh had anointed him as “leader of his people.” They were alone, shortly after dawn. Then Samuel told Saul to start walking. And he mentioned three things that would befall him. The first had to do with the lost asses. In Zelzah, near Rachel’s tomb, two strangers would tell him the asses had been found. Thus it was. His father, they said, no longer thought of the matter, he was just worried for his son who hadn’t come home.
Other predictions were also soon fulfilled. They were “signs,” Samuel had said. And had added: from now on “you will act by accepting whatever offers itself to you.” It was a winning strategy. The signs appeared as foretold and Saul understood what Samuel meant when he said, “You will be transformed into another man.”
People who had known him couldn’t believe it. Was it possible that Saul, Kish’s son, that tall handsome boy, was now behaving like a nabi, a “prophet,” dancing and speaking to the rhythm of harps and tambourines? They said, “But what has happened to Kish’s son? Is Saul, too, one of the prophets?” And a gently mocking proverb was born, something people still say today: “Is Saul, too, one of the prophets?”
When Saul had finished prophesying, he met his uncle. It seemed he’d now gone back to being what he was before. In no way was he different from the boy he’d been when he left. His uncle just wanted to know where he’d been, with his servant. “After the asses,” Saul said. “But they were nowhere to be found,” he added. “So we went to see Samuel.” “And what did Samuel tell you?” his uncle pressed him. “That the asses had been found,” said Saul. “But he didn’t tell him about the kingdom,” the Bible observes.
* * *
Only Samuel knew that Saul was king of Israel. Now the people must be told. Samuel called them to Mizpah. He reminded them that they had asked for a king and that in doing so they had rejected Yahweh, “who saves you from all adversities and distress.” They had dared demand of him: “You must appoint a king over us.” So now show yourselves to Yahweh, Samuel wound up abruptly.
All the tribes were there. They drew lots, as Yahweh saw fit. The tribe of Benjamin was chosen. Then they drew lots for the family. And Matri’s family was chosen. Now they had to choose which member of the family. They all stood in a line. All except Saul. They asked Yahweh if someone was missing. Yahweh said, “He’s hiding among the bags.” Now Saul came forward. He was taller than anyone around him. Samuel said, “There is no one like him in all the people.” Then the people hailed Saul. He was the first king of Israel.
* * *
Saul hid among the bags—something Harpo Marx would do—paralyzed by the terror of election, the terror that in the future would afflict his people more than any other, the terror of the drawn lot, the chance, that a moment later might select him. But Saul knew the selection had already happened, when Samuel anointed him. Just that then they had been alone. No one had seen. No one knew. Chance and destiny were about to fuse in his person. An oppressive fusion. Never again would he breathe freely, carelessly, as when he’d walked those remote paths in search of his father’s asses. Dreamy and bored, he’d exchanged a few words with his servant from time to time. But that was all. Now nothing like that could happen again his whole life long.
* * *
Saul’s election as king of Israel was as swift as a simple drawing of lots. But his kingship had no foundation. So Samuel “told the people the law of kingship.” But that still wasn’t enough. The law must be written down. So Samuel “wrote it in the book that he set down before Yahweh.” Fitful, inevitable steps. And everything wound up in a book.
* * *
Last of the judges, Samuel was also a prototype priest and a prophet before the prophets. Born from the vow of a barren woman desperate for motherhood, he was dedicated to the priesthood before he was born. At twelve he heard Yahweh’s voice and did not recognize it. He was asleep in the half-dark of the temple. He thought it was Eli, the chief priest. He ran to him and said, “Here I am.” Eli looked up and said, “Wasn’t me, go back to bed.” It happened twice more. Same words, same routine. It was hard to imagine Yahweh calling. This was a time when “the word of Yahweh was seldom heard and visions rare.” But the old priest, Eli, father of two wicked sons, understood that it had been Yahweh’s voice. Then he said to the young Samuel, “If you hear someone calling, say: Speak, Yahweh, for your servant is listening.” Silently, Samuel lay down for the third time. And something happened that Scripture describes thus: “Yahweh came in and stood, calling him as before: ‘Samuel, Samuel!’ And Samuel said, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening.’” Yahweh immediately explained that he was going to destroy the line of Eli, the priest Samuel had grown up with, the man who had taught him the rituals of the faith. It was not Eli’s fault, but his sons’. They attacked anyone bringing offerings to the temple with three-pronged forks, snatching the best parts of the offerings, “like brigands.” Time and again they raped “the women who gathered around the Tent of the Meeting.” Others said they just “seduced them with gifts.” Eli was old and ponderous, he had judged Israel for forty years, but his words had no effect on his sons. Soon he, too, would be crushed, Yahweh announced. And so it was, shortly afterward. On hearing that his sons had been killed in battle against the Philistines, Eli fell from his seat with a thud. His heavy body lay sideways across the door. He died from a broken neck.
Samuel listened to Yahweh’s words. Then he fell into a deep sleep till morning came. And as on every morning, for it was one of his duties, he opened the doors of the House of Yahweh. His only fear was that as soon as they found themselves alone old Eli would ask him what Yahweh had said.
* * *
When the elders of Israel came to ask for a king, Samuel was far from happy. He knew his sons were corrupt, even if he himself had made them judges. He remembered the horrors of the sons of Eli, likewise appointed by their father. But this wasn’t enough to have him embrace the idea of a king. He didn’t think the Jews really understood what a king was. A king is someone who takes more than he gives. This was the idea Yahweh had passed on to him. The people wanted a king because they no longer wanted Yahweh to reign over them. Yet Yahweh had accepted the request, had said, “Hear their voice.” It was a kind of abdication, as Yahweh himself had explained: “It’s not you they’re rejecting, it’s me, that my reign over them might end.” So Yahweh was relinquishing his sovereignty, even over this very small population. But first he wanted to explain to Samuel what “the law of kingship” meant. That it wasn’t a good thing. The people must realize: “He will take your daughters as perfumers, as cooks, as bakers. He will take your best fields, your best vines, your best olive groves, he will take them to give to his servants.” A king plunders his subjects before protecting them. This was the law that the people were preferring to Yahweh’s law. Samuel repeated what Yahweh had told him point by point. But the people were unimpressed. They listened impatiently, enchanted by an illusion. They said they wanted to be “like all the other nations.” They all had kings. Why should Israel be the only one without? “Our king will judge us and march at our head, he will fight our battles.” That was what they wanted. A visible, tangible man, predatory perhaps, perhaps greedy, but nevertheless someone the people could follow. “He will fight our battles.” Samuel dismissed them at once. He said he would call them together again when he had found someone who could be their king.
Something irreversible happened then in the history of Israel and in the history of Yahweh’s relations with Israel. They would no longer be a priestly people, led by those who administered justice, supervised the sacrifices, and watched over the Ark. They would be a nation like other nations, with the advantages and risks, the pleasures and pains that derive from being a kingdom, where everything converges on a single person: the sovereign.
Copyright © 2019 by Adelphi Edizioni S.p.A. Milano
Translation copyright © 2021 by Tim Parks
