Jacksonville Public Library

Bewilderments, reflections on the Book of Numbers, Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

index present

non fiction

Bewilderments

bibliography

875675076

Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg

reflections on the Book of Numbers

" The Book of Numbers is the narrative of a great failure. What should have been for the Israelites a brief journey from Mount Sinai to the Holy Land becomes a forty-year death march. Both before and after the devastating report of the spies, the narrative centers on the people's desire to return to Egypt, to undo the miraculous work of the Exodus. This view of the wilderness history invites us to a different kind of listening to the many cries of distrust, lament, resentment that issue from the Israelites throughout the Book of Numbers. Is there a way to integrate this narrative of dark murmurings, of obsessive fantasies of return to Egypt, with the celebration of a love-intoxicated wilderness discourse? The question touches not only on the language the Israelites speak but also on the very nature of human utterance. Who are these people? Who are we who listen to them? What effect does the cumulative trauma of slavery, the miracles of Exodus, the revelation at Sinai have on a nation that is beginning to speak?"

Flags in the wilderness -- Madness and civilization -- Desire in the wilderness -- "Sing--now!--to God": Miriam and Moses -- Bewilderments -- Black sun: Moses and Job -- "From another shore": Moses and Korach -- Heart of stone, heart of flesh -- "Wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen'?": Balaam and Moses -- To be or not to be: a tale of five sisters -- "Let me see that good land": the story of a human life