Fight The Fear of the Foreign
Pro 2:13-15
Within our ancient texts She Who is Wisdom, often silenced or ignored, keeps reminding us to hold on to the virtues and values of the just life, no matter the vultures circling above, claiming power.
On our second day of reading through the Book of Proverbs, we find out that just as Woman-Wisdom is depicted in these chapters as the Source of the Good Life - so is her counterpart - Femme Folly -or the shadow side, more sinister and dangerous - the Other Woman on the Other Side. The Foreign Threat. We know powerful the fear of the foreign is in our lives. We know it today in terrifying and infuriating ways.
The fear of the foreign is the suspicion towrads what’s new and unfamiliar, sometimes the progressive or the different than what we already know. It can get dangerous.
It’s too familiar and painful to us from the rhetoric in our political reality, right now, in which one side is light while the other is pure darkness, binary systems that insist on either/or realities and are built on demonizing the unfamiliar, the foreign or the alternative path.
While there is wisdom in deciding and in choosing which option leads to better ways of living, there is danger in depicting the ones we don’t know, or the reality we are not familiar with, or our opponent - as a demon - creating paradigms of extreme and exclusive claims to the right and wise ways of being alive.
How do we lift up the choices we believe in and not vilify the other side?
How do we deal with our fear of the foreign?
Reading this text critically may help us begin to do that. We need tools to better handle the situation ahead.
Proverbs is a mix of things, but its tone is mostly universal. It’s not about Jews or Jewish needs - it’s about humanity first. That is surprising.
Dr. Ethan Schwartz writes:
“Proverbs reflects Wisdom’s cosmopolitanism and focus on the individual. Although it presents YHWH as the source of Hochman-Wisdom, He is never presented as the covenantal God of Israel. Rather, he appears as the universal God of the world. With the exception of the book’s superscription, the word “Israel” never appears in the entire book.”
And yet for all its focus on the universal side of wisdom, chapter two introduces the ‘other, foreign woman’ as a warning sign to the son, the reader or recipient of this original teaching.
This trope echoes the phobic attitudes we know towards migrants and towards new ideas, towards sexuality and towards women and all who challenge the male-dominated hetero-normative trappings of society as it’s come down to us, all the way from Solomon or whoever wrote this.
So who is this other woman in this chapter - and how do we make sense of her presence in our lives?
The chapter begins wisdom’s enticement to walk the righteous path and let the awe of God lead the way -- so that one will be saved from femme fatal temptations:
לְ֭הַצִּ֣ילְךָ מֵאִשָּׁ֣ה זָרָ֑ה מִ֝נׇּכְרִיָּ֗ה אֲמָרֶ֥יהָ הֶחֱלִֽיקָה׃ הַֽ֭עֹזֶבֶת אַלּ֣וּף נְעוּרֶ֑יהָ וְאֶת־בְּרִ֖ית אֱלֹהֶ֣יהָ שָׁכֵֽחָה׃ כִּ֤י שָׁ֣חָה אֶל־מָ֣וֶת בֵּיתָ֑הּ וְאֶל־רְ֝פָאִ֗ים מַעְגְּלֹתֶֽיהָ׃
It will save you from the forbidden woman
From the alien woman whose talk is smooth,
Who forsakes the companion of her youth
And disregards the covenant of her God.
Her house sinks down to Death,
And her course leads to the shadows.
Pro 2:13-15
Who is this forbidden woman? The Hebrew word ‘Zara’ is sometimes also translated as ‘foreign’, ‘stranger’ or ‘other’. It is where misogyny meets xenophobia, and yet also based on the old ways in which fidelity is encouraged and breaking of boundaries is a slippery slope to be avoided.
In the context of whenever this was written - men were married early, rarely out of love, and this text is another way to warn them of adultery.
The problem is in how texts like this molded public opinion and treatment of women and foreigners and the other in the societies impacted by this tradition.
We see this being played out - right now.
Anne Gordon comments that:
“Proverb’s second chapter has fear-mongering, the power of seduction, and a promise that those who are upright will inhabit the earth…Those who fear God and live blamelessly will be protected from those who would woo them maliciously with false promises. Perhaps most importantly, they will be protected from the “strange woman” - the first mention of such a figure in this book, and not the last, whether literal or figurative. She has forsaken the path of Torah, and her manner is smooth, seductive, in ways that might entice one who was not sufficiently steeped in righteous living.”
The other woman then is not just about a seductress - but a representation of what takes one off the path of peace, justice, truth and loyalty. The smooth-talking seduction is what lured too many of us and causes us to choose short cuts that end up destroying our life.
We have to read this wisdom with some caution, taking to heart the ways in which we each can choose better, and also acknowledge the toxicity and fear-mongering found here.
Biblical Scholar Stefan Fischer reminds us to read this text critically:
“The perspective of the warning shapes the argument: it is never the man, but always the woman who seduces, but the man can refuse and withstand. Neither the assignment of equal responsibility or guilt of a man towards a woman is acknowledged, nor her position in the society after adultery takes place.
These wisdom teachings create and perpetuate prejudices against women who are not behaving in accordance with social norms. And this is not only the case for promiscuous women, but for foreigners as well. The young man is taught to keep his distance from them. This, the book teaches, will protect him and help his community to stay apart and not to intermingle with foreigners.”
So we tread lightly here, eager to embrace the wisdom of the good life, and aware that whoever wrote this also had some agendas that may not be exactly what a loving and inclusive, pro-choices attitude is all about.
Either way, and come what may - we are instructed to pursue what’s good and to be partners in creating a more just society, where everybody, friend and foreigner alike, beyond gender and all other binaries, benefits, and all of us grow up to be valued, loved, loving and wise. Listen to the wisdom within, refuse the hateful rhetoric. We will persist, with wisdom and love. We always have.
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