Our Tribal Traumas: Reveal to Heal

The Philosopher Leo  Straus  taught us about the  ‘Hermeneutics of Suspicion’ - how to read all texts, and esp. historical and religious records with a detective’s eye - unearthing the repressed and intentionally hidden. How else will we heal ancestral trauma?

This week - with so much political drama in our lives, vicious violence and war continues, I take his advice as I comb through the headlines — as well as our weekly chapters of the Hebrew Bible in this week’s selection of psalms. 

Poetry and prayers, it turns out,  are not just about the fluffy stuff of life and death and fear and faith that echoes our existence, how to cope and hope and make sense of what life is all about. It’s also sometimes where the big myths hide and where storytelling leaves behind the raw residue of what our ancients did or didn’t always want us to know. They, like us, are part of an ongoing relay race, always with agenda to make sure that history is passed on  — often leaving off or downplaying other points of views or historical records that complicate the narrative.

This week as we read through the chapters of the psalms ascribed to the poetic house of Asaph, whoever that was in our history, I couldn’t help but notice how politics was part of the poetic - and maybe that’s because I traveled from the Middle East back to NYC, and onwards to the West Coast with so much turmoil everywhere and as the war continues claiming lives and rupturing realities.

Depending on what media outlets serve you the news you will get very different ways of deciphering what’s going on - and how we got here.

And though I don’t search the psalms for history or politics - this week I was reminded that our values and visions for the future do live inside these biblical narratives - which are far from objective, with far reaching impact on how millions and more imagine what’s sacred, who’s worthy and how to life, love, vote or value what matters most. That’s where the suspicious mind kicks in.  reveal to heal.

The chapter we read yesterday is a stunning example of political propaganda, written or edited on behalf of the Judean authors of the Bible - those scribes from the Southern side of our people’s national history, with what will become Jewish religion - sitting on the earlier layers of the Northern kingdom - the Israel that was replaced by Judah - reviled, repressed - but not forgotten.  It’s on us to redeem the alternative narratives that are part of our people’s once popular legacy. 

This is not the time and place to delve back into this ancient - and enduring ideological conflict between the two main faction of the Jewish people.- Judah and Israel, South and North, Tribal/Universal, etc. 

 If you joined me for the previous chapters of Below the Bible Belt - the Books of Kings and Prophets - we discovered chapter by chapter the centuries of conflict and eventual erasure of the Kingdom of Israel, with the Kingdom of Judah claiming the narrative, creating the biblical canon and locking into place their religious/political agenda as the only valid one.  For some of us - more liberal, progressive, pagan-friendly, feminist to queer - the narratives of the Northern Kingdom seem much more compelling than the firm fundamentalism   of Judea and its lore. 

So it’s chapters like the one we read yesterday that betray the Judean hostility towards the Israelites. It’s like watching FOX news covering President Biden,  or most of Israeli TV’s coverage of what’s happening in Gaza — you get what I’m going with this. 

This is how Psalm 78 refers to the Northern Kingdom of Israel — the people of Ephraim, brothers/others in arms: 

וַיָּ֤קֶם עֵד֨וּת ׀ בְּֽיַעֲקֹ֗ב וְתוֹרָה֮ שָׂ֤ם בְּיִשְׂרָ֫אֵ֥ל אֲשֶׁ֣ר צִ֭וָּה אֶת־אֲבוֹתֵ֑ינוּ לְ֝הוֹדִיעָ֗ם לִבְנֵיהֶֽם׃ לְמַ֤עַן יֵדְע֨וּ ׀ דּ֣וֹר אַ֭חֲרוֹן בָּנִ֣ים יִוָּלֵ֑דוּ יָ֝קֻ֗מוּ וִיסַפְּר֥וּ לִבְנֵיהֶֽם׃ 

וְלֹ֤א יִהְי֨וּ ׀ כַּאֲבוֹתָ֗ם דּוֹר֮ סוֹרֵ֢ר וּמֹ֫רֶ֥ה דּ֭וֹר לֹא־הֵכִ֣ין לִבּ֑וֹ וְלֹֽא־נֶאֶמְנָ֖ה אֶת־אֵ֣ל רוּחֽוֹ׃ בְּֽנֵי־אֶפְרַ֗יִם נוֹשְׁקֵ֥י רֽוֹמֵי־קָ֑שֶׁת הָ֝פְכ֗וּ בְּי֣וֹם קְרָֽב׃ לֹ֣א שָׁ֭מְרוּ בְּרִ֣ית אֱלֹהִ֑ים וּ֝בְתוֹרָת֗וֹ מֵאֲנ֥וּ לָלֶֽכֶת׃

God created the testimony for  Jacob,

ordained the teaching for   Israel,

charging our ancestors

to make them known to their children,

that a future generation might know—

children yet to be born—

and in turn tell their children

..and they should not be like their ancestors,

a wayward and defiant generation,

a generation whose heart was inconstant,

whose spirit was not true to God.

Like the Ephraimite archers

who became traitors  in the day of battle,

they did not keep God’s covenant,

they refused to follow divine instruction;

Ps. 78: 5-10

For the generations that have read this it is obvious that King David and the Judeans are the good guys and will endure forever and that the Northern Kingdom ruled by the tribes of Joseph are villains. That’s for sure how I grew up — it says so in the Bible!

But the hermeneutics of suspicion demand that we dig deeper. History is written by the winners, and we know enough to know that things are much more complex that the simple binary stakes that make one tribe triumphant and the other demonized for all time. 

The Judean attempt to stick to its story demanded the dismantling of the earlier kingdom, the rival to the north.  That’s what always happens in conflicts and in civil wars. 

But today we get to question that and to talk back to the text and thank the poet for this political polemic that portrays our people for what we may still be, for better or worse — a nation built of many narratives and ideologies, with some sense of what unites us and long held evidence of different takes on what it means to live a sacred life and what values we cherish most. 

So what’s in a psalm? Layers of hidden conflict, along with memories of what it means to a nation with competing narratives that still surface and demand of us to pay attention, with respect, even if we don’t agree - to different views and values and how somehow we must try a little harder to enable all these layers to co-exist. 

We are in the middle of the three weeks on the Jewish calendar that recall how baseless hatred was the reason for our troubles and destruction --  can we learn from our histories, the told and lesser told chapters - about how to be and do better this time around? 

Let’s hope so. Let’s try. Read deeper. Reveal to heal.

Thank you for joining me Below the Bible Belt. 

Shabbat Shalom.