Tag: flesh

Parallel Journeys

Posted on by jovial_cynic

וַיֹּ֖אמֶר נִסְעָ֣ה וְנֵלֵ֑כָה וְאֵלְכָ֖ה לְנֶגְדֶּֽךָ׃
And [Esau] said, “Let us start on our journey, and I will proceed at your pace.”
Genesis 33:12 (Revised JPS, 2023)

There is a teaching among the rabbis that when Esau and Jacob separate here, Esau is saying something that should be understood theologically.

“I will proceed at your pace” can mean “I will travel parallel to you.” The Midrash speaks to a division of the world – a picture of this life and the hereafter.

I see it similarly, but within a slightly different framework.

My journey through Genesis has led me to believe strongly in this repeated theme of heaven and earth. Not the “future heaven” of the afterlife (that’s “resurrection”), but in the present spiritual reality of heaven, where God currently dwells. Genesis 1:1 speaks of God creating heaven and earth, and I think this describes “twin realities.” And here in this part of Genesis, we are shown a parallel path for Jacob and Esau. Twins.

The Jewish writings describe Esau as a sort of wickedness and evil incarnate, and point to repeated passages where God has rejected Esau. He appears irredeemable. But maybe the picture isn’t meant to be a picture of “good vs evil,” but rather “spirit vs flesh.” It is our flesh that craves the things of Esau. His stomach, his lust, his desire for blood. In the same way the Flood narrative specifically calls out an end to “all flesh,” I think the text is telling us that the corrupted flesh is dying, and that no flesh will survive. The spirit survives, and longs for a day of resurrection, where all flesh will be made new again.

Adam and Eve, too, are a story of flesh and spirit. Read the text carefully and see where death is assigned, and where life is assigned. It’s a repeated story.

So when Esau says “I will travel at your pace,” we’re being told a plain truth: our spirit and our flesh are twins. They are the same. And this is just like the way Adam and Eve came from the one body, cleaved in two, but are one.
Strangely, Jacob will INSIST on separating from Esau, and the next chapter is the tragedy at Shechem. I think this is related.

We are flesh AND spirit. We are not spirit that happens to inhabit a random body. We are not a body that happens to have a soul. They are linked as one. To try to separate this identity in the present life means to ignore the needs of the present life. The story of Dinah seems linked to a failure to see this.

Two Camps

Posted on by jovial_cynic

When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”
In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well. He thought, “If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape.”
Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, Lord, you who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,’ I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two camps.
Genesis 32:6-10 (NIV)

This will only make sense if you have been following me from the very beginning of my Genesis journey.

The two camps of Genesis 32:6-10 is the splitting of ha’adam into Ish and Isha of Genesis 2-3.

This is an echo.

Bones and Flesh

Posted on by jovial_cynic

וַיֹּ֘אמֶר֮ הָֽאָדָם֒ זֹ֣את הַפַּ֗עַם עֶ֚צֶם מֵֽעֲצָמַ֔י וּבָשָׂ֖ר מִבְּשָׂרִ֑י לְזֹאת֙ יִקָּרֵ֣א אִשָּׁ֔ה כִּ֥י מֵאִ֖ישׁ לֻֽקְחָה־זֹּֽאת׃

Then the Human said,
“This one at last
Is bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh.
This one shall be called Woman,
For from a Human was she taken.”
Genesis 2:29 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS 2006)

When Laban uses similar words to identify his relationship to Jacob in Genesis 29, we notice a striking difference.

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר לוֹ֙ לָבָ֔ן אַ֛ךְ עַצְמִ֥י וּבְשָׂרִ֖י אָ֑תָּה וַיֵּ֥שֶׁב עִמּ֖וֹ חֹ֥דֶשׁ יָמִֽים׃

and Laban said to him, “You are truly my bone and flesh.” When he had stayed with him a month’s time,
Genesis 29:14 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS 2006)

Laban is not indicating oneness or equality with Jacob. The language he uses shows a hierarchy. He sees Jacob as inferior. Jacob is someone to possess and use.

Cut Off

Posted on by jovial_cynic

But as for an uncircumcised male, one who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”
Genesis 17:14 (NASB )

There are two instances of word play happening here in the text.

1. “Person” here is nefesh, or “soul.” As in, spirit. So there is an interplay between flesh and spirit.

2. “Cut off” is the same word for establishing the covenant: one “cuts a covenant” through circumcision.

Driven Out

Posted on by jovial_cynic
We read in Genesis 3 that after disobedience, God “drove out” the man from the garden. It feels like we’ve been kicked out. Banished. Hell?

The word is used again later in a story linked to something important: it’s the word used when Sarah drives out Hagar.

And she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”
Genesis 21:10 (NIV)

While we wrestle with Sarah’s unkindness and Abe’s foolishness and Hagar’s slave-status, there’s something that Paul says later about this story that we have to understand. These characters represent something.

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.
Galations 4:22-23 (NIV)

There’s so much talk about “works” and “faith,” and Paul links these concepts to slavery and freedom as it relates to God’s promise to us.

When Sarah demands that Abe “get rid of” Hagar and the boy, she is using this same word of “banishing” as Genesis 3.

The link should be viewed through an eternal lens: God is banishing the slavery of works and our own attempts at attaining status and relationship from the garden. The Garden is Holy.

He’s not kicking US out. He’s kicking out the works of the flesh.

How do we know this?

Because if you read the text closely, God only banishes Adam from the garden, and not Eve, who represents Life. The spirit. The one through whom God promises to bring redemption. Not through through One born of the flesh, but born of the spirit.

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:22-24 (NIV)