yehoshua: before hashem
sholem aleichem,
It's been a while! Sorry about that. I took a week off for TDOR, and then another week off because I'm in the middle of a big move. This week will also be brief, but I wanted to do something to get back in the rhythm of this. I also got an interesting reader question about what makes a text sacred, which will be at the end!
This week: Yehoshua 9
Summary: When the various kings hear of the Israelite's destruction of Yericho and Ai, they gather for war. But when the people of Givon hear, they pretend to be travelers from a far country and ask Yehoshua to make covenant with them. Yehoshua makes peace and covenant with them, but then learns that they lied. So Yehoshua and the Israelites make them (and their descendants!) servants/bondmen/slaves
There's a phrase in all of this that jumped out to me:
וְעַתָּ֖ה אֲרוּרִ֣ים אַתֶּ֑ם וְלֹא־יִכָּרֵ֨ת מִכֶּ֜ם עֶ֗בֶד וְחֹטְבֵ֥י עֵצִ֛ים וְשֹׁ֥אֲבֵי מַ֖יִם לְבֵ֥ית אֱלֹהָֽי
Therefore, be accursed! Never shall your descendants cease to be slaves, hewers of wood and drawers of water for the House of my God.
The language "never shall your descendats cease..." is in Hebrew ולא-יכרת מכם: and it will not be cut off from you [servitude, wood-hewing, water-drawing ....]
The imagery of cutting-off calls directly back to the Givonite's main request of Yehoshua: to cut a covenant with him.
And in the context of cutting covenants, this verse directly references a section from Devarim:
אַתֶּ֨ם נִצָּבִ֤ים הַיּוֹם֙ כֻּלְּכֶ֔ם לִפְנֵ֖י יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶ֑ם רָאשֵׁיכֶ֣ם שִׁבְטֵיכֶ֗ם זִקְנֵיכֶם֙ וְשֹׁ֣טְרֵיכֶ֔ם כֹּ֖ל אִ֥ישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵֽל
You all stand here this day -- all of you -- before haShem your god: your (pl) captains of your (pl) tribes, your (pl) elders, and your (pl) officials, each man of Yisrael
טַפְּכֶ֣ם נְשֵׁיכֶ֔ם וְגֵ֣רְךָ֔ אֲשֶׁ֖ר בְּקֶ֣רֶ מַחֲנֶ֑יךָ מֵחֹטֵ֣ב עֵצֶ֔יךָ עַ֖ד שֹׁאֵ֥ב מֵימֶֽיךָ
your (pl) children, your (pl) women, and your (sg) stranger that is in your (sg) camp: from the hewer of your (sg) wood to the drawer of your (sg) water
לְעׇבְרְךָ֗ בִּבְרִ֛ית יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ
for you (sg) to pass into the covenant of haShem your (sg) god
There's a shift here from plural to singular. The captains, elders, officials, children, and women belong to you all.
The strangers in your camp, whether wood-hewers or water-drawers, belong to you-singular.
The same shift happens with haShem: "you all stand here before haShem, god to all of you" is how we begin, but we end with "you as an individual pass into the covenant of haShem your individual god."
And, in Yehoshua, we read: "servitude, wood-cutting, and water drawing for the house of my god". Not our god (certainly not your god.)
Why the shift from singular to plural? I think it points out the inherent contradiction of hierarchy and individuality in covenant with haShem. In order for you-as-an-individual to pass into covenant with haShem, the broader community must stand before haShem and also all of those who you think you individually own (at any level of that term) must stand before haShem.
And if so, how can they really be yours? How can you individually pass into this covenant?
Reader Corner
I received a note! Here's a short excerpt:
you say that Yehoshua is at a different "level" or something of sacredness (sorry if that's not exactly the word you used) -- what does this mean, exactly? is it not in the bible?
This is a great question, and one that I am not at all qualified to answer. If any readers are familiar with good philosophical, theological, or sociological takes on this let me know!
But I still have opinions, which I'm happy to share, with the caveat that I'm just a rando on the internet.
I think before answering this question, we have to answer the question of "what makes a text sacred anyway" which is....pretty complex once you start thinking about it. I think one framework we could talk about has two poles:
- absolutism: sacredness is an inherent aspect of a text in-and-of-itself
- relativism: sacredness is an aspect of the relationship between a person and a text
An example of an absolutist attitude might be "the torah is sacred because it is the word of god".
An example of the relativist perspective might be the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. I don't think most people in that podcast community would say HP is sacred in itself, but rather that the community, introspection, and practice they follow creates something sacred via those relationships.
I think the relativist side of things is really tempting for more rationalist people. If you don't think, for example, that the Torah is the literal word of god then....any sacredness in the text must come from how it is treated, no?
And if that's so, why couldn't I treat any text as sacred? If I develop special practices around reading it, pay close attention to what it says, incorporate it in my life the same way I do the Torah...who's to say that any text can't be sacred!
I don't wholly disagree with this, but I think I fall closer the middle on this spectrum, or slightly absolutist, to be honest (though I don't think the Torah is the literal word of god).
I'm just very suspicious of the idea that you can take any text, and it will become sacred if you treat it as sacred.
This is connected to my general suspicion of the idea of "spiritual technology" -- that there are these recipes to follow to obtain certain spiritual experiences. I don't disagree that following certain steps can produce a particular emotional or psychological experience (just look at people's reactions to certain musicals).
But I do think this kind of approach fails to produce the most important aspects of, in my experience, religious practice. For example, I think one reason we've seen so many religious communities do so poorly on Covid precautions -- even outside of areas of Covid denial -- is because they are chasing a particular emotional/spiritual experience whose recipe requires communal singing, or seeing people's faces. As opposed to exhibiting communal care for vulnerable members of the community, which to me is far, far, far more sacred.
You can certainly "do pardes" (a Jewish text-study framework) to Harry Potter, and it might produce a particular experience: a flash of insight, the joy of sharing an idea with a friend, the pleasure of seeing a character from a different perspective. But I think that divorced from the community and tradition that developed this technique, its use alone is merely literary analysis or personal reflection, and not something truly sacred.
This is of course only my opinion.
I do think people treating a text as sacred is an important aspect of a text's sacredness, but so are
- the text presenting itself as sacred
- communal understand of the text as sacred
- a history of the text being treated as sacred
- unknown, communal, or prophetic authorship
- a level of authority over norms within a community
- ...
Some of these are more relativist, some more absolutist. But I don't think one is enough: I think you need a lot of these for a text to be sacred.
Yehoshua has a lot of these, but not as many as the Torah. I think the texts themselves claim different levels of sacredness/authority, and our tradition has treated them with different levels of sacredness/authority.
Which is probably all I actually had to say to answer this question, but....have way too many unedited words instead :)
ada