Mark Mirsky
NOAH 'S DAUGHTER
Simone Weil, French Jewess, Catholic convert, twentieth–
century sister spirit of the fifteenth-century mystic, Saint Teresa, also
a daughter of Zion, argues in notes posthumously published by her
admirers that Noah's drunkenness was ecstatic possession, his son
Ham, understanding this, a stumbler upon a blessed miracle.
In
her
theology, Ham, father of Egypt (and, contradicting tradition, of
Crete and Phoenicia, too) was the bearer of true religion and civiliza–
tion, a prophet of Christ.
The knowledge and love of a second divine person, distinct from
the powerful creator God, and yet identical with him; of a divine
person who was both wisdom and love, who ordered the universe,
who taught and guided mankind, who, by his incarnation, united
human nature to that of God, and was a Mediator, suffering and
redeeming men's souls: that was what the nations had found be–
neath the branches of the marvellous tree of Ham's daughter–
nation.
If
that constituted the wine with which Noah was intoxicat–
ed when Ham saw him drunk and naked, he might well have lost
the shame which is the heritage of the sons of Adam.
I am sitting in the winter sunshine of the Plaza Gomilla. Here,
a shipload of Jews fleeing Palma de Mallorca were burned at the
stake. Winds blew the boat back into the harbor. Inscrutable God,
you tease Jacob as a father. We know ourselves to be your children
because only from a parent would we suffer such abuse. The world
tries
to comfort us, advising that we abandon insane bonds, but re–
membering the favors of our youth, we love You and make excuses.
Simone, the blood seeps up from the cracks in the pavement.
