Jews and Words by Amos Oz & Fania Oz-Salzberger

Author:Amos Oz & Fania Oz-Salzberger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2012-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Isaiah and Micah spoke of “the end of days.” Daniel mentioned the mysterious “end of wonders.” Note that these expressions denote time, not place. They are neither Paradise nor Elysium. The “end” will be part of human history. It is a future era of bliss, but corporeal bliss, political even, with food and homes and cities and peace. Daniel, a mystic, says that the dead will awaken and the just will be rewarded. But the political-minded Isaiah and Micah are more interested in international relations. Many nations will come up to Jerusalem, and heed Israel’s God, and cease practicing war. The physical world and its variegated peoples will continue to exist. Folk will still raise crops, enjoy sensual pleasures, and treat their neighbors kindly.

Elsewhere in the Bible “the end of days” denotes a distant but historical future, as in Jacob’s seminal speech to his twelve sons. There is a smooth continuity between the language of real life and the language of promised divine bliss. The same goes for that idyllic image, “every man under his vine and under his fig tree.” In 1 Kings, 2 Kings, and Isaiah, this phrase, with small variations, refers either to a past historical period or to the near future, as a political promise. But in Micah it is part of “the end of days.” So yes: even then, there will be vines and figs to sit under. There will be private ownership of those vines and figs. However, everyone will own a vine and a fig tree. We will all eat and drink and never fear.

Centuries later, rabbinic and Midrashic sources came under the influence of pagan and Christian eschatology, creating a blurry Jewish notion of a Day of Judgment and unworldly eternal bliss. But there’s a twist: even in that vague Jewish paradise, out of this world, food and drink must still be served. Without food, how can one seriously be studying the Torah for all eternity? So the Jewish table is set with both books and delicacies even in afterlife.

One version depicts a great everlasting banquet. It is for just men, and it is just for men. The Righteous will feast on the flesh of Leviathan and Wild Ox (also dubbed Behemoth), and drink “preserved wine.” The Gemarah says God himself will serve up the feast, cooked from the vanquished monsters after they gore one another. Hasidic lore is happy to repeat the story, but adds that Leviathan and Behemoth also represent two types of intellect: ethereal and earthy. In Haim Be’er’s novel Back from Heavenly Lack, the author—raised in an Orthodox Jerusalem family and familiar with every nook and cranny of Jewish textdom—plays wonderful interpretative games with this story.

But the wives of those feasting just men, in good Talmudic fashion, are not at the table. They are the footrests at their husbands’ feet. Literally. At least they don’t have to cook the meal.

And this reminds us of a little gem by Isaac Leib Peretz, Sholem Bayis (Domestic bliss). Hailing from late-nineteenth-century

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