Aharon Megged
STORIES WITHOUT HEROES: THE
SINGULARITY OF THE HEBREW STORY
The Hebrew story is the story in Hebrew.
It
is not in the
least important that there are myths parallel to and more ancient
than the biblical stories of man's creation and the flood. What deter–
mines their distinctive literary qualities is the fact that they were
written in Hebrew words and Hebrew syntax. Meaning is latent in
the words, in the structure of the sentences, and in their rhythm, and
in this lies the singularity which distinguishes the Hebrew story from
all others. Yeats, in an introduction to his plays, wrote, "When I
changed my syntax, I also changed my intellect." The syntax of the
Hebrew story is, likewise, Hebrew "intellect," Hebrew ways of
thought and of perceiving the world.
The epic of the Hebrew people begins by saying, "And God
said to Abraham, 'Go forth from the land of your birth, your coun–
try, and your home; I will lead you to the land which I will show
thee. ' " Then, after two sentences, "And Abraham went forth as God
bade him ." After only two more sentences, Abraham already is in
Canaan, in Shechem, and from there travels south to Egypt as a re–
sult of famine.
The rhythm of the story takes broad strides, renounces details,
and occasionally lingers on a description of exceptionally important
events, those with motivational significance for the future, the fate of
the people and its faith, or the character of Abraham . After two
chapters, we already find ourselves at the "Covenant Between the
Pieces ."
The Greek epic,
The
I~iad,
begins with the words,
Sing, goddess, the wrath of Paleus's son Achilles,
a destroying wrath which brought upon the Acheans
myriad woes, and sent forth to Hades
many valiant souls of heroes.
Its Roman counterpart,
The Aeneid,
begins,
Arms and the man I sing, who, forced by fate
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shores
Long labors both by sea and land and bore .
