{"id":47952,"date":"2019-01-22T21:16:18","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T19:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=47952"},"modified":"2022-08-17T08:29:10","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T05:29:10","slug":"embodying-envy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/embodying-envy\/","title":{"rendered":"Embodying Envy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Following the innocuous description of Balaam saddling his own ass (Num. 22:21), Rashi comments:\u201dFrom here we learn that hatred disrupts order, so that Balaam saddled his own ass. God said, You wicked one, Abraham already preceded you, as it is said, \u201cAnd he rose early in the morning and saddled his ass\u201d (Gen. 22:3).<\/span><\/p>\n

Two men, across a gap of centuries, saddle their own asses: the gesture expresses impulsive desire, impatience with social decorums. But one man is considered to be consumed with love, the other with hatred. How does one read the passion in the gesture? It is as though the gesture of that particular body in that particular situation would have spoken more powerfully than words.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an arresting passage, Proust muses on the unconscious eloquence of the body and its gestures. The narrator of<\/span> In Search of Lost Time<\/span><\/i>, Marcel, contemplates a pregnant kitchen maid. He is reminded of Giotto\u2019s allegorical figures, associating the maid with the figure of Charity. Marcel then muses on the figure of Envy, who \u201c<\/span>should have had some look of envy on her face<\/span><\/em>\u201d (emphasis added); but who is depicted with a snake filling her mouth, so that \u201cthe muscles of her face are strained and contorted… and her attention – and ours too for that matter – is so utterly concentrated on the activity of her lips as to leave little time to spare for envious thoughts\u201d (Marcel Proust, <\/span>Swan\u2019s Way<\/span><\/i>, 1989, 87).<\/span><\/p>\n

The figure of Envy embodies the reality of envy. Marcel remarks on the \u201c<\/span>\u00e9tranget\u00e9 saisissante<\/span><\/em>,<\/span><\/i>\u201d the arresting strangeness of these figures. They have an allegorical force, which verges on the vulgar. As the literary scholar Gabriel Josipovici puts it, they are figures that \u201cdraw us in to reality\u201d: Charity does not look charitable, nor Envy envious. We see Charity in action, Envy in action; \u201cGiotto has compressed into one image a whole state of being\u201d (<\/span>Trust<\/span><\/i>, 1999, 182). <\/span><\/p>\n

I suggest that the midrashic view of Balaam bears some similarity to Giotto\u2019s and Proust\u2019s way of seizing character in action. Balaam, too, is Envy, struggling with the snake in his mouth. From the beginning, he ignores the will of God, so clearly expressed in his first encounter: \u201cYou shall not go with them\u201d (Num. 22:12). He prefers to take up the license of God\u2019s later words: \u201cRise up and go with them\u201d (22:20). <\/span><\/p>\n

He prefers God\u2019s word to His will. A kind of docile formalism masks the true passion of his whole being, which turns toward Balak, not toward God; to envy, not love.<\/span><\/p>\n

Excerpted from: \u00a0Bewilderments<\/em>, Schocken Books, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":47950,"id":47950,"title":"num22-balaam and god's messenger","filename":"num22-balaam-and-gods-messenger.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/num22-balaam-and-gods-messenger.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/baalams-she-ass-then-and-now\/num22-balaam-and-gods-messenger\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"num22-balaam-and-gods-messenger","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":47948,"date":"2019-01-22 19:09:59","modified":"2019-01-23 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