Photo:Trac Vu (@ unsplash) We tend to understand the dead backwards, that is, we look first at who they were at the end of their lives when assessing their character; we look at their deaths to form an opinion about their lives. With our current subject this is difficult, for we do not know when, where and how he died; nor do we know where and by whom he was buried. Friends and family agree that as he got older he spent more and more time outdoors, just walking, resting by the stream, napping in the orchard. These absences from home became more frequent and longer. One day he simply did not return, but no one can say exactly when that was. One can surmise that this behaviour constituted a return to the ways of his childhood, as it were, for the child loves to sleep in the field, his small back leaving an gentle impression in the still-warm soil, his eyes roaming among the stars, his heart growing wild and strong. He can distinguish most plants by their smell, he learns the routes ani
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.