(For Parashat Shlach Lekha)
“It’s been 39 years,” she said, “and I know I will die in this Wilderness. I will not be setting foot in that place they call the Promised Land.”
Grandmother had a grave tone in her voice, directing me to listen.
“I will not see that place,” she said, “nor do I need to. But you will. You young people will go, because soon there will be none of us left to keep the generals from having their way. They have raised your generation to trust them and to trust in the promise of arms. Soon, when when they say, ‘Let us take the highlands; let us take the Negev, let us fight a battle at Jericho,’ the people will envision tumbling walls and will say hooray.”
We were sitting on a rug in Grandmother’s tent. I loved being there with her. It was full of trinkets from Egypt – shiny things, some that could be worn, some that just felt good in your hand. Other curious objects too, that she had acquired over these wandering years. Tools. Incense. Polished animal bones. Yarns she purchased from Moabite merchants. A dried flower that was a gift from an Amalekite under circumstances she has never fully disclosed. She was wrapping up many of these items in small squares of cloth, preparing to give them out as gifts. Grandmother seemed to think she didn’t have much time left. I helped with the wrapping as she continued.
“I’m going to tell you today about Peacemakers, Ketet.” I liked liked when she called me that. Egyptian for little one. “Peacemakers and Warmakers. Sometimes Peacemakers hold sway, as we have over these years in the Wilderness. And sometime the Warmakers do. We are Peacemakers, Ketet, but we are living in a time when the Warmakers will soon outnumber us.
“You see, when we left Egypt – no, I guess I don’t need to tell you that story. We tell it so much. And don’t think we don’t see the young ones rolling their eyes when we do. There they go again. The flight from slavery, the Sea, the Mountain.
“Yes, we do tell it a lot. But it was immense. Really, my dear, it was. Beyond belief. The terrible last days in Egypt. Then making our way to the Red Sea and across it. Then to Mount Sinai. Marching with everything we owned on our backs and in our ox carts. Until one day we reached the river called Jordan. Beyond it is where we had hoped to settle. They said the way was clear. It was the home of our Grandfather Abraham and our Grandmother Sarah, and we began to feel the desire to return to our ancient wells and our ancestral graves.”
She paused here, seemingly lost in thought. She lit a pipe filled with dry, crushed desert leaves and took a puff. A warm breeze blew through the tent and I inhaled the sweet smoke.
“A scouting party was sent; a representative from each tribe, 12 of them altogether. Off they went and they were gone for 40 days. They came back and told us how green and rich it was, and I will confess that after being gone from Egypt for many months, I longed to see green again. The scouts brought back fruit. They talked about milk and honey. But they also talked about the people who live there. Their farms and their industry. Markets and music. Palaces and tenements. Noisy festivals, daily worship, and the hard work of drawing bread from the land.
“The Scouts were clearly moved. They talked about the towering culture of this place. And how small they felt in comparison. After all, once we left Egypt, everything was new, our own culture was only beginning to take form.
“Two of the scouts – you know them Ketet, they are our generals Joshua and Caleb – said ‘Let us go up and take this land. We are strong enough and numerous enough to dispossess the people, those Canaanites and Jebusites and Amorites and Hittites.’
“We called an immediate meeting of the Great Council. The grandmothers and grandfathers of the time and others too. I was still young but I had been an artisan in the building of the mishkan. I had led a detail of weavers who produced some of the beautiful cloth needed to cover the ark. People appreciated my skills and trusted my leadership, and so I was invited.
“So we held that Great Council. Now this is where I assume they will one day write that we were afraid, weeping and trembling. They will say we were unsophisticated, and that slavery had robbed us of our ability to think clearly or to think at all.
“But even in slavery we were hatching our plans. We were imagining a better life and how we would organize it. And once we were out of Egypt, we weren’t bewildered. We were jubilant and alive. Everything was new and our minds and senses were awake. We had plenty to say about who we wanted to be in this new life. And what we did not want to be was conquerors, overlords, oppressors. We had lived under Pharaoh’s oppressive rule for so long. We saw him drunk with power and we saw the corruption of his government. We saw the cruelty that emerged at every level of the world he created. And we wanted something different. We wanted to govern ourselves in a place of peace. Just as we did not want to suffer Pharaoh, we also did not want to become Pharaoh.
“We debated long hours. Caleb and Joshua argued for swift military action. No one would be expecting that kind of strength from us, a migrant population of former slaves. We had the advantage of surprise.
“But good sense prevailed, at least in my view. We considered going back to Egypt, but we knew no good would come of that. So we chose the middle path. We chose to make the Wilderness our home. To make the Journey our home. The Wilderness was not unfriendly. There was plenty for our livestock to eat. There was water most of the time. We could move with the seasons or stay put for a while and grow things, learn what of the seeds we brought from Egypt would thrive in this rocky soil. It would not be a life of riches. But we had been slaves. We were hearty and we knew we could do anything. So we voted for a Wilderness life. And that is the life you were born into my child. I know it has sometimes been harsh. But you know the sky and the song of the water. You know which leaves kill and which leaves heal. Your feet are firm and the journey is in your blood. The road is your homeland.”
I looked at her and saw the fatigue in her body and the resignation in her face. Our fingers, busy with wrapping and tying, slowed to a halt.
“Ketet, after I’m gone, the Warmakers, as I call them, will hold sway. They are very powerful, not because they are strong but because they tell a good story. They will paint defeat as victory, and victory as worthiness. They will gain power on the backs of many lives. And to hold onto that power, they will endanger us all. When they have exhausted one enemy, they will name another. They will talk about the terrible threat we face, and how it could be the end of us, and people will band together behind them. I saw this again and again in Egypt.
“But there will come a time when the cost is too high, and the Peacemakers will again step into the light. We Peacemakers, we must survive. We must be light and numble. We must be able to gently jump out of the way of the Warmakers’ crushing fist. We must be grasshoppers.
“So I tell you this so that you can tell others. One day, the Warmakers will find themselves out of power, and we will need to begin to heal the damage they will have wrought. So you must know the story, the true story, and not how it will be written on parchment. You must know that people want peace. They want to sit under vines and fig trees and they do not want bloodshed to be the price of it.
“Learn the peace prayers, Ketet. The songs and poems, the dances. Keep the Peacemakers talking to each other, and teach these things to your children. When your time comes, you must be ready to offer guidance. You must be determined and joyful too. You must jump, like a grasshopper, to take the opportunity to sing a new song.”
Grandmother grew silent. Outside the tent, the sounds of children playing, of men learning warcraft, of sheep complaining, began to ebb. The sun was low and a new quiet was wafting in. She emptied the ash from her pipe and looked up at me.
“Peace is the natural state of things, Ketet. Like the quiet of a desert evening. When the noise of war and conflict are finally abandoned, it is the sweet hum of peace that is left. But that’s enough serious talk. There is still dinner to cook and a sunset to watch just outside. Shall we?”