Thursday, July 14, 2016

The Exodus Experience of the Other

Exodus

The Israelite experience in the wilderness
Was haunted by the likes of a skeptic.
In each traveler, there lived a villainous
Scandal of chaos, an annihilation epic.

In the wilderness they did not trust
The foundation for knowledge of the Other.
Even at brother and sister scandal brushed
Aside the Trust to be discovered.

God commanded a census
At the wilderness journey’s start
Even though Israel was contentious
Of any other their scandal might thwart.

The accounting imposed on each traveler
An acknowledgement of one another.
It was of a presence or absence character,
Something skeptics do not bother.

Only in the wilderness place
Skepticism undermines experience.
The census, though, gave ordered weights
To their trustworthy trip, not luxuriant.

The Israelite experience of 40 years,
Their return to ancient Egypt crushed.
That wilderness journey with all its tears
Was precisely a gesture of Trust.


This is a versed paraphrase taken from a paragraph in the book
Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg
Schocken Books - Random House LLC
2015

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