THE TWINS - A 3-Act Drama

The difficulty is that we read the Bible. If we could listen to it as I suspect Jews of Biblical times did, we would find a very different experience. So let’s assume we are listeners and participants in one of the narratives -- the history of the twins, Jacob and Esau. We’ll soon see how the narrative leaves the printed page and becomes a musical with its own ritual (things that are acted out) and liturgy (the lines of the script).

The history of the twins begins with Isaac. Immediately we find our first point of entry: rhythm and rhyme. For he is introduced as Isaac ben Avraham. Immediately this phrase is followed by its twin: Avraham sired Isaac -- a redundancy since we already know that bit of information from the first phrase. But if we ignore the information and listen to the rhythm and rhyme of the Hebrew lines, we’ll hear a theme that repeats itself-- the theme of doubling (twinning). How appropriate for the story of a set of twins!

The next clue appears in the second verse. The information tells us that Isaac is 40 years old. Why specifically 40? Of course, 40 is one of those “magic” or representative numbers, like 3, 7 and 12. But more than that, it may be an echo of Abraham’s name. But you have to let your imagination loose for a minute. Think of the ancient Hebrew not as [Av-ra-ham] as we pronounce it today, but more like the sound of its Arabic cognate [Ib-ra-heem]. If we hear [Ab-ra-heem], it’s easy to hear the sound play between the word for 40 [ar-ba-yeem] and the name [Ab-ra-heem].

Let’s look further. In the third verse, Isaac pleads with God because Rebecca is barren. The verb is [va-ye-tar]. Then, surprisingly, when God responds to Isaac’s plea, the same verb appears but in a different form: [va-ye-a-tayr]. Maybe that’s the verb and maybe not. After all, the letters are the same in both cases. Only the vowels, the sounds, are different. But in ancient texts, there were no vowel markings (until the fourth century CE when the Masoretes filled in the blanks). So do we really know that the sounds of the verbs were the same or different? In any event, the verbs are designed so that the second provides an echo of the first. Repetition and variation of sound, a sure signal that we are in the presence of the spoken word.

So rhyme and rhythm -- sound and beat-- are drawing us into the telling of the narrative. More than just that. When God speaks to Rebecca (verse 23) He speaks in great rolling waves of sound, rhythm and information, all combined in two sets of two lines each. The first:

You have two nations in your womb,

Two separate peoples will issue from your loins.

and the second:

One people shall be mightier than n the other,

And the older shall serve the younger.

Even in the translation, we can feel the great power of the cadences. But in the Hebrew, the sounds, echoes, undertones and overtones are unmistakable.

The first:

Shnay goyim b’vitnaych

U’shnay leumim mi mayayech yepareydu.

The second:

U’l’om mi l’om yayamatz

V’rav ya’avod tza-ir.

The lines emerge as if from an echo chamber. The sounds and the rhythm of the lines carry forward the idea of nations and people, not boys or twins.

These verses are an answer to Rebecca’s question: Why me? [lamah zeh anochi]. Here is another sound device. That question will be repeated with variants when Esau asks rhetorically: “What does the birthright mean to me?” [llamah zeh li b’chora] (25:32) Later, Rebecca will again pose the question, this time to Isaac as she asks him to send Jacob to Laban in Padan-Aram so that her son doesn’t marry a Canaanite woman. For if he does, she says: “What good will life be to me?” [lamah li chaim] (27:46) Just as with the other questions, this last one is rhetorical, asked to indicate the speaker's emotional state. The similarity of question form, of rhythm, shows them all to have a liturgical quality that the listener responds to much as congregations today respond to parts of the kaddish.

lamah zeh anochi.

lamah zeh li b’chora.

lamah li chaim.

But liturgy always works with ritual. Soon we find these “questions” appearing at crucial times during the dramatic rite.

First Rebecca approaches God. She crosses a spiritual threshold when she comes into God’s presence. We do much the same at the beginning of the Amidah when we take three steps back and three forward, as if coming into the Presence. With kavanah we feel we have taken a step for which there can be no turning back. We have come into the presence of God. The liturgy and the ritual of the Amidah help develop the kavanah so important to that experience.

So Rebecca, crossing from the profane to the sacred world, uses the liturgy of the rhetorical question to help her experience this awesome moment.

Esau’s situation when he uses the liturgical question is somewhat different. Although he too crosses into a new territory, he is still within the secular world. As a man of the fields (a hunter) he is not comfortable close to the home fires, as is his twin, Jacob. Esau is a rough-and-tumble, heavily masculine being. So when he appears at the entrance to Jacob’s tent, he is entering a strange territory. For Jacob, who is a food gatherer and preparer, a “simple” or “mild” man, the figure of Esau is foreign. Esau barges into the tent, starved for food. In boorish, yet strangely stilted, language, he begs Jacob [halitayni na] for “some of that red stuff.” [ha-adom, ha-adom hazeh] He admits he is tired, and near death with starvation. He’s willing to give anything -- his birthright included -- in exchange for food.

Both Rebecca and Esau undergo what has been called a “liminal” experience, that is, something happens when a border or threshold, a limit, has been crossed. This border crossing needs some sort of liturgical signal as its accompaniment. Ritual and liturgy always occur together. The questions provide that signal. Later, Rebecca will cross the border from a devious backstage manipulator to an up-front petitioner as she tells Isaac that her life won’t be worth living if Jacob marries a Canaanite woman. And, of course, the crossing is accompanied by the liturgical question.

Jacob flees to Padan-Aram, to Laban, Rebecca’s brother. In doing so, he crosses several barriers. Geopolitically, he is entering foreign territory, no longer his home. Psychologically, he is crossing from childhood (where he does what his mother tells him to) into adulthood. These are thresholds, and to cross them he uses ritual and liturgy.

His first symbolic experience (28:10-22) is filled with ritualistic elements: the stone Jacob uses as a pillow, the dream (vision), the ladder (he approaches God as Rebecca had years before), and the Voice of God. Immediately upon experiencing this vision, Jacob uses the stone to set up an altar, pouring oil on it. He then names the place, liturgy accompanying ritual as a signal of the passage.

Arriving at Padan-Aram, Jacob immediately encounters another stone, this one covering the well from which the flocks must drink. The stone serves two purposes for the local inhabitants. It protects the water from dust, dirt, filth, and accidental falls. It also signals ownership: only the family of the owner can use it, no outsider without permission. But the stone is also a ritual object. It carries its echo from Jacob’s earlier vision. Now, when he removes it from the well head and waters Rachel’s flock, he is performing an ownership ritual which conveys much to Rachel, her family, and to us as audience/participants. Another liminal experiences has been successfully passed through.

Twenty years pass. Jacob has two wives, two concubines, eleven children, and large herds. He is a middle-aged, successful entrepreneur. Laban, suffering the loss of herds from Jacob’s deception, orders him to leave and return to Canaan. But when Jacob leaves surreptitiously, without performing the appropriate leave-taking rites, Laban pursues him, infuriated that he has violated a rite of passage. The pact they draw up is a symbol of a liminal event, deciding a border that neither of them will cross. Again a stone is used to set up an altar (31:45-46). A ritual meal is eaten and special words are said (31:51-53):

Here is the mound, and here is the pillar which I have set up between you and me; this mound shall be witness and this pillar shall be witness that I am not to cross to you past this mound, and that you are not to cross to me past this mound and this pillar with hostile intent.

These lines are contractual in their intent and liturgic in their sound and rhythm. the repetition and variation. The seal of authority for this contract is the final invocation of God:

May the God of Abraham [Acting for Jacob] and the God of Nahor [for Labam] judge between us.

Each names the place according to his own preference. Thus liturgy and ritual create an armistice between two hostile forces. Laban returns to Padan-Aram.

The dramatic elements of ritual (the stone, the altar, crossing borders) in this narrative, and liturgy (naming, using echoes of previous incidents, the rhythm and sounds of the langauge and the doubling so evident in the early part of the narrative) all these elements operating simultaneously on the listeners, involving them in the narrative performance much as modern audiences are involved in a film narrative.

But Jacob has a final threshold to cross, one that he has feared ever since beginning this journey: confrontation with his twin, Esau.

Immediately as he and his family entourage leave the precincts of his pact with Laban, we get signals that more important events are in the offing. Angels surround Jacob, and he names the place “Machanaim,” saying “This is God’s camp.” The twin uses the name listeners would have recognized as a dual form and for its Aramaic meaning of a pile of stones or an altar. The vision (ritual) is accompanied by the place naming (liturgy).

The procession crosses the Jabbok, leaving Laban’s territory, entering Jacob’s home region. But it is also Esau’s home, and Jacob fears the retaliation of his brother for ancient misdeeds. His fright is made clear shortly after the family cross the Jabbok. For it is then that Jacob meets a strange being the text simply identifies as a man. The fear takes the form of the wound he receives from “the man” as he stands alone. Jacob gives this figure his name, but when he asks for the stranger’s name in return, he receives the answer “Why do you ask my name?” Instead of telling him his name, the person blesses Jacob, a second blessing Jacob receives, this time without asking for it. The earlier blessing gave him control over Isaac’s estate and family. This one denies him control. This is a power play in which Jacob loses, as he had lost his strength in the fight. The man controls Jacob, knowing his name. By renaming him, he extends his control over the victim. Jacob takes the name the man gives him, thus putting himself within the man’s power.

So Jacob enters new territory, weakened spiritually by the name struggle and physically by the wound on his hip. And he has entered Esau’s territory. He is to meet Esau in open country. His brother is a man of the fields. So Jacob now enter’s Esau’s field much as Esau entered Jacob’s tent. The twins’ roles have been reversed.

The reversal is signalled by the reversal in their conversation. When Esau had rushed into Jacob’s tent, it was he who pleaded with his younger brother for food. The curtness of his brother’s remarks, a function of sound and rhythm, contrasts sharply with the volubility of Esau’s. Now, when the two meet in open field, it is Jacob who becomes the verbose one. He addresses Esau with the formality Esau had given him in the tent. Jacob addresses him as “my lord” (hbst), and when Esau objects to all the gifts, saying he has enough, Jacob responds with many words:

No, I pray you; if you would do me this favor, accept from me this gift; for to see your face is like seeing the face of God, and you have received me favorably. Please accept my present, which has been brought to you, for God has favored me and I have plenty.

By now, the third act of our dramatic rite is all but finished. The first act involves the announcement and birth of the twins . The second, some 20 years later, sees Jacob getting the birthright and Isaac bless Jacob, not Esau. The final act dramatizes Jacob’s life as an adult, his marriage, a growing family and eventually his forgiveness by his older brother.

Each act is accomplished by ritualistic and liturgic devices that involve us as audience in the action. And if the Greeks were correct, we partake of the catharsis provided us by the ritual and liturgy of the narrative.