{"id":55413,"date":"2019-05-13T16:53:38","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T13:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=55413"},"modified":"2022-12-05T14:39:17","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T12:39:17","slug":"human-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/human-habits\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Habits"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In preparation for the battle with the Midianites, God helps Gideon gradually winnow his soldiers down to a \u201cfew good men,\u201d concluding with the following test: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026Then the LORD said to Gideon, \u201cSet apart all those who lap up the water with their tongues like dogs from all those who get down on their knees to drink\u2026
\nThen the LORD said to Gideon,\u201d I will deliver you and I will put Midian into your hands through the three hundred \u2018lappers\u2019; let the rest of the troops go home. (Judges 7:5,7)<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the meaning of this strange assessment? The conventional explanation is that Gideon was preparing to fight a divinely sanctioned battle. Thus, it was important to weed out those soldiers who were used to worshiping idols, as demonstrated by their comfort with the cultic posture of getting down on the knees. Another possibility was that in fact, the test was meaningless \u2013 like flipping a coin \u2013 and used only to underline the miraculousness of a victory which would be won by a mere three-hundred, arbitrarily chosen soldiers.<\/span><\/p>\n

I prefer an approach suggested by an oft-overlooked recent expositor of the Hebrew Bible, the great Modern Hebrew poet Yehuda Amichai. One of the things that makes Amichai\u2019s biblical exposition unique is its startling humanism. In a short collection of poems entitled \u201cThe Bible and You, the Bible and You, and Other Midrashim,\u201d Amichai suggests that the drinking-from-the-stream-test can be thought of as tender, anthropological study of the soldiers\u2019 intimate human habits:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026What is their way with a woman,<\/span>
\n<\/span>in what position do they make love? And how do they weep,<\/span>
\n<\/span>in a bawling voice or with silent tears,<\/span>
\n<\/span>and how do they eat and how do they sleep, on their belly like a baby,<\/span>
\n<\/span>on their side or on their back, and how do they remember their childhood?<\/span><\/p>\n

(From: Yehuda Amichai, <\/span>Open Closed Open<\/span><\/i>, trans. Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld; Orlando: Harcourt, 2000, p. 19).<\/span><\/p>\n

The end of the poem admits to the military ineffectiveness of a such a test \u2013 \u201cMy Gideon was left with no army no battle no glory at the Spring of Harod.\u201d But as an act of biblical interpretation, this is a hard-won, humanistic victory. <\/span><\/p>\n

Image: <\/span>Yehuda Amichai, Tmol Shilshom cafe, Yo’el Moshe Salomon St 5, Jerusalem, by Yair Medina, 1994 \/ wikipedia <\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":55414,"id":55414,"title":"jud7-amichai","filename":"jud7-amichai.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/jud7-amichai.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/human-habits\/jud7-amichai\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jud7-amichai","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":55413,"date":"2019-05-13 13:53:23","modified":"2019-05-13 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