22
PARTISAN REVIEW
rabbinical interpretations, were not only writing this Biography, but
were exposing, from within, its difficulty of being, its fragility and
explosiveness.
In
Genesis, God's Promise is delivered a few times. Real–
ity does not seem to follow it.
In
Genesis
15,
three full chapters after the
initial choice and Promise, nothing happens according to the projected
plot. After arriving in Canaan, Abraham and Sarah are still childless,
and they have already endured a war and a first exile. They are far from
being settled as the ancestors of a promised nation in a Promised Land.
Why doesn't life play out according to promised biography? Was the
Promise flawed? Are these hardships a secret feature of this singular
promise? Jewish commentators linger on these questions. But we can see
that at this point, when Abraham himself starts to have doubts, a dra–
matic gesture is needed in order to straighten things out and save the
Biography.
In
a highly theatrical, almost Hollywood scene with lavish
use of special effects, God repeats his promise of the "covenant between
the pieces." A big show with fire and smoke and the bloody corpses of
cut animals is displayed, night and fire descend, and Abraham falls
asleep. At that moment God renews His promise-this time with many
more details.
In
a way, He delivers to Abraham the Jewish Biography
in
capsula:
And He brought him abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven,
and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said unto
him, So shall thy seed be....And He said unto Abram, Know of a
surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs,
and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred
years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge:
and afterward shall they come out with great substance.... In the
same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy
seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great
river of Euphrates. (Gen.
15,4-18)
Now, we-God, the redactor, the involved characters, and the future
Jewish people-are bound within a written-in-advance biography, with
many obligatory stages, involving other nations and disputed borders.
Amid some more complications, the story is going to follow this outlined
plot, which can raise fresh suspicion: Was the Promise edited later,
according to future events, by the redactor of the Bible and spliced here,
in a way that reality will seem to fulfill it? Or does God's promise impose
its trenchant rules on the complexity of reality and human passions? Is
this extreme-almost manic-case of Biography projected by a promise,
