HOW TRUE TO LIFE IS BIOGRAPHY?
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a prison, an inescapable destiny? One of the great lessons this case
teaches us is the subversive ways in which the jewish tradition reads the
Promise. This is a unique mixture of reverence and irony, of belief and
resistance, and, above all, of an extraordinary human freedom; the free–
dom to participate in the creation of the story-an outrageous human–
istic attitude that runs under much rabbinical thought, and is enacted
through the re-articulation of the story. This, for me, is an essential fea–
ture of the jewish Biography.
Let us stay with the unfolding of the Biography, through the selection
of its designated lineage. After the late birth of Isaac (and there will be
a lot to say about Sarah's, as well as the other matriarchs' initial steril–
ity), the traumatic expulsion of Hagar and her son Ishmael follows.
Isaac's life, and with it the survival of the whole future jewish Biogra–
phy, is on the brink of extinction in the "binding of Isaac" (and the tra–
ditional commentators insist on the fragility and ambiguity of all the
protagonists in this scene, including God and Satan). Yet, in the next
generation, the choice of the lineage is even more dubious, as we have
only one matriarch, Rebecca, who conceives twins. Bewildered, she
reads God's promise as a singular biography with only one inheritor,
without any place for sharing, for plurality-a monotheistic story, with
one God and one nation, immediately opening the abyss of jealousy and
hatred, of dispute and fraternal conflicts.
And the children struggled together within her; and she said,
If
it
be so, why am I thus? And she went
to
inquire of the Lord. And the
Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner
of people shall be separated from thy bowels: and the one people
shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the
younger. (Gen.
25, 22-23)
Yet, in the generation of the twelve sons of jacob the continuity of the
Jewish "biography" is no less uncertain. Meanwhile, jacob has been
nominated "Israel," so all of his descendants are part of the chosen
nation-protagonist. No one can be excluded. Still, out of the twelve, the
Jewish Biography follows joseph's fate. So, how is life going to follow it
"naturally"? How will the family-nation be led into Egypt, "a land that
is not theirs" for "four hundred years," as God promised to Abraham?
Here the Midrash Tanchuma (Genesis, Va- Yeshev) gives a strikingly
ironic reading. The Midrash starts by quoting a verse from Psalm 66-5:
Elnorah alilah al b'llei Adam.
Or, "In his work He is awesome toward
the children of men, oh God." And here we encounter a Hebrew word,
