Photo: Feri & Tasos (on unsplash.com) The land he has been coming to these forty years is spread before him like a woman waiting for his touch. He doesn’t feel his age, almost forgets the trials and the dust along the long way home. So many buried by the roadside where they fell, so many born along the roadside--now princes and priests, drawers of water, hewers of wood. They never heard the Great Ventriloquist but through his mouth, yet they will cross the river and possess the land. And then they will forget, cavort with godlets, and be taught regret. If he could go, he would remind them every day, and if they went astray he’d plead their case before The One Above! Please let me cross. He’s seen the Lord, he’s heard his voice, he never asked for chosenness, but there it was: the stutterer pushed front and centre, made to slay Pharao’s children with his tongue. Did it mean nothing?! No one is perfect, and he struc
Just what it says: a little midrash, a filling in of some of the lacunae Torah leaves in the lives of its characters. The stories lay no claim to being right, but they do explore what is possible. Texts don't sit still long enough to have fixed meanings; too often we assume that Torah is done and finished. It is never finished.