Until the Sea Splits: A Jewish Writing Blog

[danielleplungwriting]

And If I Persih

Mordecai smiles wide when he sees her walk past the palace gate, after. He had been nervous, terrified, she knows, no matter what he might have said, that she would not return from her unannounced audience with the king. So now he is relieved, because he sees his niece and thinks she is still alive.

She will not correct him, though she knows he is wrong.

His niece is dead, died for the sake of her people long before the villain cast his lots.

We are strangers here, her uncle had said. Still, after all these generations. The king will not be kind to us.

When they had come to gather the virgins, she did not resist. The king will not be kind to us. I will give him reason to be.

So, yes, their people will be saved. She is confident that the king will choose her over his advisor, especially at a banquet, with all that wine pumping through his veins. But it is not with his heart that he loves her, not for his heart that he has and will choose her, not just his heart that throbbed when she was ordered and brought to his bed.

She will save their people. But she will still also come to him when asked, wearing the crown he gave her, and perhaps just the crown he gave her. She will touch the tip of his scepter again and again and again and think nothing of it, try to think nothing of it, try to think nothing, nothing at all…

She is the queen. She will remain the queen.

We are strangers here. The king will not be kind to us. Her uncle had shown her Mount Moriah. But Hadassah climbed it alone, carrying her own knife.

Only Esther descended.

[danielleplungwriting]

Quaking on the Shores

There are days that Jonah is convinced that God called upon him because He knew how he would cower in fear, how he would run away, and, in so doing, sin against the Almighty. Knew how woefully imperfect and afraid Jonah would be in the face of a Divine Mission, and how he would look it. Knew that when he finally appeared on the shores of Nineveh, covered in water and fish guts, he would be quaking in what was left of his sandals. That when he proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown,” it would not be a mighty condemnation, but a meek, terrified stutter.

And how could the Ninevites, when faced not with a haughty prophet who seemed to think himself superior to them, but rather with a shaking young man as imperfect as they were, do anything but listen?

[danielleplungwriting]

Mi Chamocha

It seems to Nachshon that the water sits before them like a taunt. Ha! he can imagine that God of theirs saying. Ha! After years and years of oppression, I finally got around to liberating you all, and sure, you’re not slaves anymore, but did you for one second actually think you’d be able to go very far? Nachshon’s skin is itching because they’re still far too close to Egypt, and with the sea in front of them, it will take them months to be able to circumnavigate enough to get away from that blasted narrow place. He can still feel the blisters all over his body from the hot sun, can still feel the indents on his bones from what seemed like tons of brick, can still feel the whip cracking, shattering through his skin for hours a day. (With all Israel speechless and breathless like this, he swears he can still hear those whips echoing in the distance, and he flinches every time he does.) He needs to go. Now. But where can they go?

When they see the dust pouring down the valley and hear the Egyptian chariots rage toward them, while the rest of the people Israel panic, shouting to Moses, crying out to God, Nachshon’s mind is startlingly and decisively clear. He, for one, will not be going back into slavery—this is not a resolution; it is a fact he knows for certain. Therefore, while the crowd around him dissolves into wailing and screams, he calmly walks through them and past them, into the sea without stopping. Vaguely, he hears some of the shouts change—some of them begin to call his name. But he does not stop. He will not be going back to slavery. He will die as a free man.

As he wades deep enough for the water to cover his nose and mouth, the irony of this whole situation strikes him. This God, to whom they have been praying for generations, who was silent while they all suffered, finally takes them out of slavery, only to present them as a gift back to Egypt. Make them look even more pathetic than they actually are. He knows the second he opens his mouth, water will begin to flood his lungs, so he will make his last words count. He proclaims, as loudly as he can, through the water that distorts the words: “Mi Chamocha!” Who is like You, O God? No one else, no other god, could be so sadistic, so cruel.

And then Nachshon keeps his mouth open, allowing the water to flood in, satisfied that his last words serve to spite a God who has never really done anything for any of them.

And then suddenly he is face first on the muddy ground, coughing up all the water he’s swallowed. He takes a deep breath, perplexed, but otherwise doesn’t move. After a moment, Miriam—Miriam who has always been there throughout all those long years of slavery to raise the spirits of the people, and Nachshon’s spirit personally—is kneeling beside him, and helps him to sit up.

“The-the water,” Nachshon splutters, bewildered. “It’s gone! What…?”

“It’s not gone,” responds Miriam gently. “Look.”

And when he does, he sees massive walls of water to either side of him, and a path extending across the sea—wide enough for his entire people to cross.

He inhales once. “How?”

“Mi Kamocha.” Miriam smiles at him softly as she quotes him, properly pronouncing the words Nachshon meant to say earlier, before helping him to his feet. “Come. We must go.”

He is in a daze as they rush across the sea; without Miriam’s hand on his shoulder to guide him, he very much doubts he would have made it across at all. He comes to himself only when, after they are safely on the other side, Miriam and Moses begin to lead the others in song, asking again: “Mi Kamocha!" Had he more energy, he might feel either shame or rage at the fact that his words--words meant to spite their deity--were being reused, now to praise Him.

But as it happens, Nachshon does not have the energy for that. He can only stand, look down toward his muddy feet, wonder: Who is this God of theirs?

[danielleplungwriting]

A Servant of

Aaron looks like a man far too old for his age. His sons are dead. His brother—his baby brother—is sick with his own power and seems to have power of life and death over all the rest of them. His sister is jealous and sent alone into the desert. And he? He wants to lie down. To sleep. To say screw it to the sacrifice, to the wandering, to the whole stinking Land business. He wants to just lie down in the desert and not get up. Let the sandstorm cover him. But this is not the luxury of the High Priest.

No, he must grovel to his baby brother for both his sake and that of his sister. Really grovel, call him my lord, as though he were talking to God himself. (But, of course he’s not, and isn’t that just the point?) And he has to pretend to care, pretend to have the energy to care, when he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he doesn’t. The desert is draining. Grief is draining. Having to grovel to your baby brother is draining.

But he’ll do it. He’s already lost two sons, so he’ll be damned well sure to do what he can to prevent losing any more family to lepersy or the desert or starvation or spontaneous combustion or whatever else this God of theirs will cook up. Even if it means having to bow down low, to another person, not just to God, like he did as a slave. And to one of the same people too—the irony is not lost on him.

But he will do it. He will grovel and offer and keep himself pure and obey and slay the animals that he’s told to when he's told to. And he will try not to envy those animals too much.

He is a servant of the Lord, after all. And he will serve.

[danielleplungwriting]

Beloved

"And Aaron's sons, Nadav and Avihu, each took his pan, put fire in them, and placed incense upon it, and they brought before the Lord foreign fire, which He had not commanded them. And fire went forth from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, 'This is what the Lord spoke: I will be sanctified through those near to Me, and before all the people I will be glorified.' And Aaron was silent."

Rashi says: "But when did He speak? [It was when He said], 'And I will meet with the children of Israel, and it will be sanctified through My glory (בִּכְבוֹדִי) ' (Exod. 29:43). Do not read בִּכְבוֹדִי, 'through My glory,' but בִּמְכֻבָּדַי, 'through My honorable ones.' Moses said to Aaron, 'Aaron, my brother! I knew that this House was to be sanctified through the beloved ones of the Omnipresent, but I thought it would be either through me or through you. Now I see that they [Nadab and Abihu] were greater than I or you!'" ~Rashi

He finds his brother sitting outside the tent, legs crossed in a lotus position, staring out into the desert. “You also could not sleep?”

Nadav shakes his head silently.

Avihu sits beside him. “Does Daddy know?”

“No,” says Nadav forcefully. “He cannot.”

“Why?”

“Because he will try to stop us.”

“You do not trust his faith?”

“It’s not about his faith that I worry. His blood, too, is holy. Perhaps holier than ours. He too could be the consecration offering. And if he begs the Lord, or asks Uncle Moses to beg the Lord on his behalf, I worry the Lord will consent to take him instead.”

“That cannot be his burden,” says Avihu.

“No,” agrees his brother. “The People must have their Priest, especially now that the Lord will have a dwelling place with them. And it should be one whom they already trust. And they trust Aaron.”

“And, Nadav, he is our father. Who has served the Lord since before the People left Egypt. We cannot allow him to have this death. He does not deserve this death!”

For the first time, Nadav turned to look at him. “Do we deserve this, brother? Is it punitive? Does the Lord intend to make an example of us, to show what happens when one disobeys His commands?”

“We are not disobeying.”

“But the People will not know that. Nor will Daddy. Even Uncle Moses does not know that we were commanded to light our own fire. To all of them, it will seem that we are foolish—even drunk—that we are mocking the Lord’s commandments. And then that we are punished for our disobedience.”

“Uncle Moses will come to recognize the truth,” says Avihu, laying a comforting hand on his brother’s shoulder. “We are holy. And through our offering of ourselves, the Lord will be sanctified and come to dwell among our People.”

“We do this for them?”

“Yes.”

“And for Him?”

“Yes. We do this so that the People will be able to carry Him with them always. So that they and He can become one.”

They sit in silence for several minutes, while Nadav lays his head on Avihu’s shoulder.

Finally, he whispers, “I am afraid, brother.”

“I know,” says Avihu. “I am too.”

“Daddy will not be permitted to mourn us.”

“Why not?”

“The Priest cannot mourn the sacrifice,” says Nadav, simply.

“At least he does not have to be the slaughterer, like Father Abraham—”

“In the end, Father Abraham did not have to slaughter his son either.”

“The Lord is merciful,” says Avihu. “To not require fathers kill their sons, even for the glory of His name.”

“I—It is so selfish of me, brother, but I almost wish it could be Daddy. To sacrifice us. It would be easier.”

“No, it would only be easier for us. Not for him.”

Nadav sighs. “Of course. But I fear…I fear I will not have the strength, alone.”

“We will not have to do anything. The Lord will take us. We only need to present ourselves. Besides,” says Avihu, gripping his brother’s hand. “You will not be alone.”

“I am glad.”

“I am too.”

They sit in silence, without counting the time, until dawn. They are huddled together when they hear the shofar sound, rousing the camp and stirring their souls.

With the rest of their People, they rise. The time has come to consecrate the Tabernacle.

[danielleplungwriting]

Bitter

You left me, she thinks throughout those seven long days. When You told me to leave You.

She is told her baby brother begs on her behalf before she is permitted to return. She reenters the camp without a word, her head held high.

After, He tries to come to her in a dream. To you, only in dreams. Do not forget this, lest you be banished again.

“No,” she says.

“You dare?”

“Yes.”

“I will leave you.”

“You already have.”

“I shall never return to you.”

“Fine,” she says. “It is not You I serve. I serve my People.”