The Battle of Rabbah

No matter how literary I become and no matter how many essays or protests or humane societies I spend time with, I will always be a complete whore for battle scenes. Whether it's Scots charging headlong into Long Shank's pikes or Admiral Akbar standing mightily against the Death Star or a bunch of sweaty dudes charging headlong into each other wearing only a thin piece of chain mail, battle seems to always entertain and rarely enrich me.

So to indulge my own post-intellectual desire for bloodshed, I have taken the tenth chapter of Second Samuel and transcribed it into a meta-textual/graphical medium, hopefully, worthy of A&E. I hope this accomplishes an attempt at both filling in lacuna and exciting the violence minded thirteen year old inside of you. Just imagine that everything here is being read by an older gentleman with a very trustworthy voice.

(Second Samuel 10:6) - "When the Ammonites saw that they had become odious to David, the Ammonites sent and hired the Arameans of Beth-rehob and soldiers, as well as the king of Maacah, one thousand men, and the men of Tob, twelve thousand men. When David heard of it, he sent Joab and all the army with the warriors."

This is an example of a preeminent attack. King David, an expert strategist and divinely inspired patriarch, has noticed that the Ammonites have mobilized their forces as well as enlisted the help of multiple nations of mercenary warriors. The combined Ammonite forces number in the twenty thousands. Lined outside of the gates of their home, Rabbah, the Ammonites take up a rallying position outside of their capital city in preparedness for an attack on King David. Meanwhile, the young warrior king has sent his nephew, Joab, to take a strategically advantageous position against the Ammonite army.

Below is a found copy of a courier document sent to David by Joab on the verge of war. The orange forces are the Aramean mercenaries and Red forces are the Armenians. This document is property of the Pony, Montana Museum of Natural History and Anthropological Artifact Thievery Coalition.



(Second Samuel 10.9) - "When Joab saw that the battle was set against him both in front and in the rear, he chose some of the picked men of Israel, and arrayed them against the Arameans; the rest of of his men he put in the charge of his brother Abishai, and he arrayed them against the Ammonites."

Though Joab's forces arrived at Rabbah, supposedly against an unprepared enemy, the combined forces of the Ammonite nations literally swallowed the smaller Hebrew forces. Quick thinking, Joab separated his army into two divisions. One smaller and more elite force could take on the smaller but still formative mercenary element while the second army, filled out with conscripts and regulars could face the pincer. Notifying his brother that, despite the division of forces, their first concern was holding battle lines, Joab set out with his special division to face Arameans.

What follows is a letter preserved under a rock for thousands of years. It is an account of the battle by an army regular by the name of Charlie or "Chuck the Puck".

Dear Ma,

I hope all things are well on the farm. Tell hi to pa' for me and tell him that I feel mighty shameful bout missing the second harvest this season. Hopefully we'll give these Amminites a good ole whoopin and get our skedaddles home. The fightin' on the northern front is lookin' to be mighty fierce. Yesterday, General Joab sent his brother with a company of our best officers and enlisted men to the southern front. I don't know why but some of the fellas here are gettin' skittish since that kind of thing usually means we're all surrounded. But if there's sumpthin' we're good at, it's bein' surrounded by a bunch of angry folk lookin to do some hurt on us. But I figure if anybody could get us out of here it's ole Joab. Food still stinks, we just eat beans, no gravy. Sometimes I wonder why I'm doin' this whole kosher thing, pork sounds mighty fine in dem beans.

God Bless and Good Yuntif ma,

Charles "Chuck the Puck" Goldblum

(Second Samuel 10:13) - "So Joab and the people who were with him moved forward into battle against the Arameans; and they fled before him. When the Ammonites saw that the Arameans fled, they likewise fled before Abishai, and entered the city."

Joab, having won the battle, drove the whole of the Aramean armies back with his small band of elite warriors. After seeing such a small force drive back the larger and more ferocious Aramean forces back, the Ammonite ranks broke into a rout and to the safety of Rabbah. Taking a defensive position inside of the city, the Ammonite forces prepared for a prolonged siege against the Israeli forces. Joab, seeing that his work was done and his enemies pacified, decided to pull back instead of waging a protracted siege maneuver against Rabbah.

After the Battle of Rabbah, the Arameans rallied forces from around their lands and mobilized against David where they were then almost annihilated by the Hebrew king. With this loss, the kingdoms of Aramea and Ammon were fractured from each other. And everyone lived happily after ever.

/Cue credits

The Conservative Bible Project

Someone is rewriting the Bible.

Link:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/10/conservatizing-the-bible.html#preview
http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project

This is hilarious to me. Luckily, I suspect they won't be getting anywhere with this. However, if they do, god bless them.

Like Jewish Cofession... only not really.

As I write this post, my mind is swimming in guilt, lost in a haze of post-Saturday blues. I feel this way either because I did, as per usual, about half of what I was supposed to do for Monday or because of the Mafioso's body I dumped in the Hudson river the other day. He was a big guy; people called him wheat-loaf. His jokes were always a bit stale though. Some of this is more true than other bits. Neither of these are the actual reason for my guilt.

Last night, ironically while hanging out with a group of devout Christians, I engaged in a sort of culinary iconoclasm. I ate Pittsburgh style breaded pork chops on this holiest of weekends, the weekend of Yom Kippur. On this day, when Leviticus tells us to, "deny yourselves and present the Lord's offering by fire[...] for it is a day of atonement", I ate pork (something I've been told that I'm not supposed to eat in the first place) breaded in crumbs (it's a tradition to throw bread crumbs into a stream or river as symbol of letting go of sins and asking for God's forgiveness- not- eat them) cooked in a Pittsburgh style (God is a Red Wings fan). Also, I got kind of drunk. Since I'm not going to make it home to Billings for the Yom Kippur service tonight, I have decided to do write up on my favorite part of the ceremony, the beginning, the part where we allow our vain vows to God a moment to dissipate into the wind- The Kol Nidrei.

or, for you visual folk out there, this:



But, in actuality, I don't really know what this sounds like. Or says, for that matter. Nor do I really care, because I prefer the soundtrack to the script. The song entitled Kol Nidrei, composed by Max Bruch. It sounds like this:



Beautiful, huh? Anyway, hearing that piece was always really cool for me because as a kid, I always found the long high holy days services to be really boring and this piece made the ceremonies less so. Hearing this piece and seeing Uri Barnea perform it are two things that got me to start playing violin. Later, I got to be the one to perform Kol Nidrei for the service.

Since, in this class, the form of music is paramount to our understanding of the mythological, the compositions of Bruch, besides being neigh holy in some circles, is a symbol of how a mind outside of a place can become cognisant of that place's essential soul. This is almost exactly what we are doing as literary readers of the Bible. We hope to understand the music of the text, its mythological "resonance" outside of the pedantic restrictions of analysis or theology: all without an immersion in it's liturgical constructions and ceremonies. Maybe, here, there's a lesson in remediation and cultural grokking.

"..As a young man I had already ...studied folk songs of all nations with great enthusiasm, because the folksong is the source of all true melodics---a wellspring, at which one must repeatedly renew and refresh oneself."
-Max Bruch

Written by Max Bruch in the nineteenth century, the Kol Nidrei's usage in services has been controversial both because Bruch did not practice Judaism and because the prayer's purpose is a bit vague in the first place.

Max Bruch was not a Jew. Bruch's Protestantism disturbs some and understandably so. How can someone who has not lived and grown up with the traditions of a people even conceive an understanding of that people? And, regardless of understanding, to attempt a composition that captures the ephemeral spirit of a group through music without being a part of that community seems ludicrous. I think Bruch knew this. He wrote that his music was inspired by the purity of the folk song, not necessarily the "Jewishness" of the notes. Max Bruch was searching for truth in music, that unattainable direct link between a raw emotion that passes so suddenly and the lasting, repeatable truth of an artistic composition. Similarly to how the Czech composer Dvorak wished capture the spirit of America in his New World Symphony or how the Jewish New Yorker, Aaron Copeland, explored the Shakers- Bruch loved the peoples he studied, not out of any affinity for what they believed or how they separated themselves, but, instead how they fitted into Earth's musical milieu.

To me, this makes Kol Nidrei pure. Though written by an outsider, the composer's understanding of music itself and his hope to connect his compositions with the truths of humanity lends an innocence to his undertaking. He doesn't recount the tragedy of the first temple's destruction or the trials of Abraham or the great flood or any other form of Jewish memesis, only the soul of the Hebrew folk songs he has heard. Through this filter of a composer, he doesn't recount the tragedy but, instead, the feeling of sorrow that accompanies that tragedy. This act, without politics or hamfisted theology, shares its genetics in the original compositions of those who lived the stories which inspire the theology, and this, to me, seems like a celebration, not a contamination, of a people's resilience.

The prayer of Kol Nidrei is the beginning of everyone's journey to seek forgiveness for their sins. The music is a manifestation of the sorrow that shadows a mind aware of its own folly. Some say it sounds better on cello than violin:



"Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility. "
-Saint Augustine

Due to my lack of knowledge about the content of the text (which may just benifit my attempts at treating it as poetry) I cannot discuss the language of the prayer. However, I am aware of how it is used in Reform Judaic communities and the usage of Kol Nidrei, and the whole service behind Yom Kipper itself is mythological (at least in how it is practiced in modern day Billings MT).

///(I have to finish this later, I have a paper to work on for another class and this one has gone a bit longer than expected.)///

The developing word

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/books/review/Krystal-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

I was reading the above article today when I realized that there exists a clear separation between spoken and written word. My presentation the other day reminded me of this. While working on a paper, while writing on page, the words in my head seem to flow, however, when speaking they lurch out and I sound like I'm having a stroke. This makes sense to me and it also seems to draw some light no the bible, documentary hypothesis, and the mythological tones that the bible takes.

We learned in the Oral traditions class last semester that the psychodynamics of speaking are much different than those of writing. In the bible, there's a convergence of oral tendencies via parataxis and repetition. In the P writer sections there's lists of ancestry trees. During the time when this was written there was a definite need for people to look into their past. This is a facet of the first level of Frye's stages of literacy. This isn't really an analysis. I just thought it was interesting how this convergence is still a facet of our current day society.

Dr. God

I worked at the Bozeman Chronicle mailroom for a summer about three years ago where I shuffled papers, stacked crates, and taped boxes shut alongside some of the most ignorant and under-read folk a person can meet. Less concerned with poeticism than the color of their own shit, they seemed hellbent on smoking, chewing, cussing, and coffeeing their way into oblivion. This stood in stark contrast to my time searching and discussing meaning in the words of poets. When I first met them, just as I was entering the world of academic rigour (mortis?), I thought myself as a student of the erudite, a literary artist in a desert. But as I spent time with the "common people", I realized that their lives were filled with a poeticism that I could perceive only if I ditched my pretentions, start smoking, drinking folgers, and appreciating the little things. There was a different kind of sensitivity there, the kind that literary critic Declan Kilberd called,"the sacrament of everyday life." Now, I find the autopsy of Whitman and Dickenson and Thoureau in a stuffy, windowless room to be the most hilarious act of silliness I have ever participated.

I am experiencing this feeling again as I sit and try and read the Bible with my pretentions to civility and critical analysis and electricity. Once again, I am thinking that I have been approaching this text with blinders on- from sunday school to the sanctuary.

Like many American kids I spent many an afternoon watching Disney and hearing bastardized versions of old folktales, folktales that had been milked for whatever moral that Mom, Dad, and Michael Eisner could sell to me. Storytelling became a simple tool to teach me things such as "love your brother", "don't steal", and "save the princess". Abandoning all webs and imagery and meat in the texts, I was trained to distill the "moral of the story" at a very young age. Later, in High School, this process became the act of "formalist criticism" and "style analysis" and under the firm post-structural eye of one of my Uni professors, Lisa Eckhart, I learned a new name for it: "bullshit". Granted, there is value in it, that's undeniable, however, there are limits to the search for moral meaning in textual analysis, and having been raised in this way for almost two decades, it has become cataracts to my reader's eye.

//quick gear change, sorry about this, but I wanna make a metahpor.//

Though my friends in the Computational Sciences would slap me for this, I think of software as technology. A new piece of software changes the way I interface with my computer and, at times, the way I view and interact with the world around me. These are extentions of my senses and limbs which goes to the heart of what a technology is (once again I can feel the sting of my tech savy friend's hands as they beat me into understanding).

There's a problem with the operating system known as Windows (you know, the one manufactured by Microsoft) where one piece of software will conflict with another because they are trying to use the same resource as another piece of software or something like that. I don't know the technical term for it, but it exists and it is the bane of my career in the use of word processors.

So, in a more relevent sense, since moralities and analysis are augmentations to my natural, unbiased senses (they are the bias methinks, but whatever) they are technologies just like my shitty Windows Vista, and my newfound appreciation of the bare sensory awareness of things and "simplistic" modes of living are the conflicting pieces of technology.

Since those moralities have basically become totally ingrained in me, they act as an almost base hardware and possibly cannot be removed. So I can only hope to become aware of them right? I don't really know what I'm talking about. These are feelings pointing in a certain direction.

But, coming a little bit closer to relevancy, I have found myself becoming more aware of this conflict as I read the Bible for this class.

The professor told us that the writer "J" of the bible wrote beautiful prose and that the Bible is a magnificent example of storytelling. I took his word for it in class. I try not to disagree with people with "Dr." at the head of their names. So I guess it's beautiful, that's cool, what's the value of beauty anyway when you have the raptures of the common beating at your heart everyday? I didn't find it all that great, I mean there's very little scene setting, half of the book seems to be expository, which- wait, I was doing it again. I was consigning my expectations of a civilized reader to the text. So I need/needed (it's an organic process) to start appreciating it for its poetry, that common people mode of thinking, the mythological mind thing.

Going through Genesis this way was really hard. I felt myself looking at these people as heroes, archetypes again, the circuitry of my moral -finding-beagle was sniffing away and I started to feel that odd sense of detachment as Lots daughters raped their father that some find when their moral-finding-beagle connects with their presumptions-about-the-text-poodle and they get thrown into the pool of what-is-actually-there. This was a 404 error on my part. This text can't be read with my psudo-progressive leanings and moral attitude that the world needs to be fluffy and comfortable. I mean Aaron was a jackass, Moses was a pedo, and God is a bi-polar megalomaniac under these rules. Just as I needed to ditch my impulse (my technology) of moral hunting, I needed to embrace that ohm thing where I let what is there just settle and enjoy the ride.

Still havent done this.

Also, quick aside, the people from the beginning are my friends now. And I'm not saying that they are noble savages who are at peace with the world. I'm just saying that they do a pretty good job of looking at the stars and seeing beauty or shaking a hand and feeling kinship. They are just as capable of moral delusions and petty squable as anyone else. They are just as contradictory as I am in this blag post. It's just that they are cool with their contradicitons, and that seems kind of indicative of the whole mythological mind stuff we are discussing in class.

(like usual, this is not a finished blog post, my mind is spaghetting like mad right now, and I want to get something up before class).

Homeword defense...

Fact is created from myth because word is imperfect. Otherwise it would be called

Laws of Nature...

A friend of mine asked me why I was taking this class. He said that studying the Bible is pointless. I would agree except I don't think he was serious. At least not about that first question. In the tone of the first question was the broader question "why even study English?" What's the point? "Can it make you rich?" Though I knew the answer already, I figured I would write this for myself to answer those questions. I decided to share it since it is framed by my thoughts on Genesis.

Distilling the questions down, I realized that the question is of "WHAT DO YOU EVEN DO WITH AN ENGLISH MAJOR ANYWAY?" is a question of power. How does the study of language empower you? Money, jobs, whatever, is just the assumed corrolary have having power. He was rich and powerful. And besides, the sword can make currency worthless in a single swoop. It's what drives the sword to swing in the first place that interests me.

This is going to be mildly incomprehensible, and I apologize for that.


In middle school I had a class called connections where an old lady with big thick round glasses instructed my peers and me to glue things to a metal can. She told us to pick pictures and small trinkets that related to us. Things we related to. Things that defined us.

We were to create outward illustrations of ourselves on coffee cans where we would then store our daily supplies for the class. The expectation was that, through the majesty of pasting and gluing, we would create some sort of inner affirmation that would solidify our identities as creative beings. Most of us just pasted pictures of women in bikinis and people smoking in order to annoy the teacher.

If we didn’t do as she said and instead sat around talking, we would be punished in detention. Detention is where high school teachers send kids to sit still and not talk, a place to commune with the clock.

“If you do not make connections” The class implicitly said, “then we will keep you from doing things. We will punish you.”

I spent a lot of time in detention in Middle School. Sometimes for talking in class. Mostly for not going to class. (And it shows in your writing. haha. -Ed)

Now, this memory popped into my head while I was reading certain parts of Genesis. And this memory turned into a question, as most memories do for those raised by a Semitic mother. Is this going to make me sick? The answer was most assuredly no. The memory of a pointless class I took back in Middle school would not make me ill. Being fully assuaged of any worry, my brain did next what it is wont do. Ask more questions.

What the hell was I doing in such an infantile class?

Why did I even go to that class?

How does my school get off on teaching me that power is granted by the willful acceptance of a democratically empowered populace while also holding punishments for crimes gauged by something as arbitrary as my teacher's mood over my head?

After the usual deviations of a neurotic mind, these questions narrowed into a single, musable (I made that one up) question.

Where does power come from?

I mean this one's a doozy. My mom has power over me, the school has power over me, and I have power over certain people sometimes. Power, or the ability to influence a another's actions or thoughts such that they reflect the will or desire of the affectant, is a factor in the lives of all living things (the 'all' part of this is arguable).

Since a good chunk of the Bible involves the transferrence of power or the loss of power or the gaining of power, I figured this train of thought would be a relevent thing to blog about while it looped through the mountains of the hasty conclution zone to the synagogue of partial understanding where the humble Rabbi Hershel awaits to guide me through my silliness.

Pertaining to this question, my tiny, ill informed brain-space-world has given me 3 answers based off my severly limited experience of a suburban kid:

1.) "The Prince" would say that power derives from the ruler's ability to place fear into the populace. Might makes right.

2.) Hobbes says in "The Leviathan" that power comes from a contract between the head of government and a covenant of men that allows for a united front against the chaos of natural laws. Power comes from the whims of the majority.

3.) My roommate told me that power derives from my ability to shut the hell up and stop worrying bout that kind of shit and drink some beer and have some fun. Physical Power is secondary to the dialectic that creates it.

I find paralells to the Biblical texts right off.

First, it seems that God does indeed rule by an iron fist. For his own sake, he drowns everyone when we disobey (Gen 7). He also crushes cities (Gen 19:12) and approves of mass murder (Gen 34:25). It seems that God is all about making people do things at the end of a spear (or a flaming sword for that matter). Power, according to the Bible, comes from the ability to submit people to your will via mortal fear.

Ah, says the rabbi, as I finish my sophomoric rambling, but why would God use physical force when it is already apparent that he is perfectly capable of bending physical laws? Why not start over by simply erasing the slate? God invented Newton for Vishnu's sake, if he wanted to truly assert his will with force, couldn't he just make everyone do what he wanted by making their synapses fire off in such a way that would coax them into doing whatever? Sure, God'll slap ya if ya get too far out of line, but so will your Dad. You don't listen to your Dad just because he'll slap you, do ya?

Nah, says I, I listen to my Dad because my mom will slap me. The Rabbi chuckles and points to my second point.

What about the will of the majority? He says.

Oh, that? It's the same thing.

Is it?

Yeah, it just makes sense. The majority has the greater force behind it. With greater numbers comes a fuller urge for folk to protect their keep, their family, and their reputations. So they relegate authority to enforce, via a legislative body, a law which reflects the moral standards of the people.

Ah? So what allows the enforcement authority to do what they do?

Guns.

Guns?

Yeah, Guns, you step out of line, they shoot you in the face. It's really the same as the (1.)) first assertion. Might makes right. The power of the majority comes from the ability to coarse people into behaving correctly. You better act right, or you'll be smacked right.

What about the moral authority? How does that play in?

Well, they need some sort of standard.

Well how do they determine their moral authority in the first place?

I get where you're going with this. But I think it's a reciprical thing, the moral exists because it can be enforced and so the enforcement creates the law.

So the law itself is arbitrary then?

I suppose so.

No absolutes then?

Sure.

The rabbi reaches over and slaps me. There, he says, no laws, I have decided I'm right because I can hurt you. I am right by force.

The rabbi is one million times my age. I could snap him. I could break his neck and throw him to the rocks below where he's die on the rocks like the children of Babylon. Then I'd be right. At least under this application of the conversation I'd be right.

But that's not really it is it? How the hell do I figure out where does power come from?

The answer, I figure, is in the Bible itself and in the reasons for what I am doing in this class (or any other).

Why, the rabbi asks, did you write about your "semitic" mother in your blog?

I don't know. I thought it would be funny.

It's not. It's stupid. Not funny at all. Says the Rabbi. You wrote about it because it's true. Your mother nagged you every winter to put on your coat, she nagged you to eat your veggies, nagged you to watch where you step, nagged you to save money, get to bed, make your bed, and watch out who you kept bed with. Your mother, your father, they had authority over you because they gave you descresion. They nagged you into submission. Nagged you into living. You listened to your father because he knew more than you. He had more words in his head. Memories stored as word. Morals stored as word. Experience stored as word.

That makes no sense. I say/said (whatever, I don't really know what tense to use to I will used as many as possible) .

What is God symbolic for?

What?

Order. God is a symbol for universal order. No matter how anyone sees the universe, through Christianity, Judaism, Taoism, mathematics, whatever, the best part of a God, gods, spirit is order. There is some sort of reason to the Universe. A predictable, understandable order about things. That is, at least, what I see in the lord our God, Adonai, etc.

So what does this have to do with power?

Everything. The power of order is not its ability to connive its members into doing things. The power of order comes from our inability to truly perceive it. Ignorance of absolutes allows us to use what absolutes we can conjur or maybe perceive to influence the world around us. I believe this. You believe this.

I believe this?

Yes

Seems mighty presumptuous to me.

Well, what have we been doing for the last few pages?

Arguing.

Arguing a point. Making logic. Making bullshit. Whatever. We are using words, the dialectical tradition, to make order. The power of anything comes first from its ability to assign order to the universe through its interpretive capabilities. The mind takes in dull, raw, input from the ears and the eyes and the nose and the skin, and interprets it. It's the ability for the mouth to use said words to create a proper similicrum of the dullness in order for there to be any relating to that information. Order, by definition, is the restructuring, physical or mental, of our universe. Regardless of truth, evidence, or skeptacism. The form is arbitrary, the structure is arbitrary, the word grants power.

The first thing that God had Adam do is name things. The Baroness stripped man of their approach to godliness by stripping them of their common tongue. The Bible is a self reflexive text. Like all texts, it recognizes its own existence and the reason for its own power. It is also one of the most influential books in the western world. The root of all power, of all organization, is the creation of word. The Word. The ability to change perception is the root of all power and word, for humans, is the building block of perception.

And this is why I am in college studying language. The sword can make currency worthless in a single swoop. It's what drives the sword to swing in the first place that interests me. I want to be a peddler of reality.