105-74 vriendjes vriendinnetjes verliefd verloofd

Coda: Rebecca's Children Revisited; or, Credo Quia Ineptum Est


At the beginning
of this essay, I [DB] introduced
the ancient and modern trope of Ya'acov & Esaw
as figures for authenticity and primacy in the fraught and ambiguous relation
of nascent raabinic Judaism &
Christianity in late
antiquity.

This figure works so well precisely
because it doesn't work, and indeed the "separation,"
the "parting of the ways," doesn't seem quite to work, either.
The instability of the opposition, at both the textual & historical-referential level,
provided the ancients with a wonderful opportunity
for rich contention.

If it is obvious that for the "writer" of the Torah,
Ya'acov is Israel (as both person & people), it is not at all abvious that Tertullian, Irenaeus,
& those who came in their wake were wrong in reading - for their historical situation -
Ya'acov as the younger child,
Christianity.

To be sure,
Ya'acov was the person Israel - no one could deny that as the Bible's intention,
but no one, too, was constrained to reading Ya'acov
as a type of "the Jews" and not the Christians,
Christians understood
as an "Israel."

Indeed, it is not certain to me
just how & when & where Rabbis started to read the elder as Christianity.
It is in reactian to Christian readers, a cause of their reactive readings, or perhaps, as I have suggested,
only a product of the historical succession of pagan Rome
by Christian Rome?

For us moderns too,
the figure works I think, as a figure for the instability of the divide & identification of
Judaism & Christianity, Jews & Christians [some remark the figure of Egypt in the Bible as the site of the original production of the binary opposition between true & false religion in antiquity & as the site of the deconstruction of that opposition in modernity: this double function of a memory (not a false memory & its true reconstruction) is precisely
what we gesture toward here.]

Twins in a womb,
tussling with each other,
striving for separation, surely not separate until they're born,
& even then, never sure of their sovereign identity; in this case the figure is even more fraught than ever, since there is a prophecy that of these two twins,
the elder will serve the younger.

Where paradoxically, then, one normally would find a struggle for primogeniture, here we find a struggle for the opposite, for each to claim that the other is the elder, owing to the verse itself & to teh oftnoted principle in Genesis of the reversal of primogeniture.

Indeed, the problems here double the historical complexity and tangledness of the history of the contention over martyrdom as a means of the production of separate identities that I [DB] have traced in this essay.

We have seen this complex struggle playing itself out.

Each of the children of Rebecca
{Rivka} strives to prove himself the true son
by claiming the crown, while historical reflection has suggested
that martyrdom was elaborated by rabbinic Jews and Christians together
via a tangled process of innovation & learning, competition &
sharing of themes, motifs,
& practices.

Where each of the "brothers"
seeks to identify himself as the true son
by having been born last, now each of them
seeks to identify himself so by
having been killed first!

Sibling rivalry
seems indeed a very good figure
for this relationship, & indeed
so thought the ancients,
as well!

In a sense,
one could say that the interpretation of the figure enacts the figure itself,
for the struggles of the Rabbis & teh Fathers over the name Esav &
the name Ya'acov double the struggles of Esav & Ya'acov
in the womb & thus instantiate
the icon itself?

Sometimes,
partings can seem more
like encounters.


Wat
mij betreft
gaat iets dergelijks
ook best wel op voor Adam &
Eva, Kajien & Abel & al die andere parencombinaties
vol symboliek, drama, tragiek, humor & werkelijkheidszin,
tot & met Yochanan de Doper
& Yehosjoea de Natsri
aka 'haMasjiach'
etcetera.

ZO
verhouden mensen
zich tot elkaar in onze
struggles for
survival
e.d.?!

't Moge
duidelijk zijn
dat ik op den duur
veel meer zie in 't samengaan
in dit soort situaties dan in permanent war:
de bedoeling van mydiverhaaltjes
is onderscheidingsvermogen
ontwikkelen, koesteren,
mogelijk maken &
bevorderen.

Hopelijk
loopt 't niet
altijd & eeuwig uit
op meer dood & gruwelijk verderf,
krankzinnige misverstanden &
wrede vernietiging al of
niet wederzijds?!

Yehonatan
& Dawied waren
al de beste vrienden:
op den duur zullen ook
"Joden & Filistijnen", Yitschak & Ishma'eel
moeten leren samenleven zoals ook binnen Israel al
bruine, witte, zwarte, 'gelovigen & ongelovigen'
elkaar beter hebben leren kennen
in de dagelijkse omging
met elk ander.

Vandaar
dat ik zoveel
meer zie in Uri Davis'
perspectief van zo'n thuisland voor alle volkeren
['n soort van laboratorium v/d mensheid sinds duizenden jaren],
als groot begrip heb voor Daniel Boyarin's mening
dat we 'zoiets' ook elders
[waar ook op aarde]
kunnen beleven
...