{"id":300,"date":"2011-12-02T12:17:22","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T16:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=300"},"modified":"2011-12-10T21:42:13","modified_gmt":"2011-12-11T01:42:13","slug":"the-key-to-the-treasure-is-the-treasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=300","title":{"rendered":"The Key to the Treasure is the Treasure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sita<\/a>Sita Sings The Blues<\/em> is a full-length feature film produced by Jewish superwoman artist-cartoonist Nina Paley (available for free download at http:\/\/www.sitasingstheblues.com\/watch.html<\/a>). In the film, Paley mines an ancient Sanskrit epic to retell an archetypal story: Devoted woman gets done by the egocentric man she loves.<\/p>\n

The narrative of the epic (Sita and Rama love, lose, and love again only, in the end, to lose big time) is Paley\u2019s comment on her own ex-husband-bum\u2019s behavior, but the film is ever so much more than that. Envision diamonds and rubies and sapphires, golden tiaras and cascades of silver filigree. Sita Sings the Blues <\/em>is so dazzling you simply can\u2019t take it in in one go.<\/p>\n

The key to the treasure is the treasure, as John Barth\u2019s Scheherazade points out in Chimera.<\/em> The key to Sita Sings the Blues <\/em>is not \u2013 appearances aside \u2013 the wild display of color or the imaginative jazz soundtrack, but Paley\u2019s willingness to ask questions, to provoke her audience. Sita and Rama are not All Nice, and their actions cause pain and suffering \u2013 even death. The shadow puppets who narrate events also comment on the epic, noting the difficulties with standard interpretations that paint the hero and heroine as paragons of virtue. One narrator points out that Sita\u2019s demands cause a terrible loss of life for those who would save her (she\u2019s a bloodthirsty woman, the narrator exclaims). Another counters immediately: \u201cDon\u2019t challenge these stories!\u201d<\/p>\n

When I visit churches to speak about biblical texts, when I unpack them in university settings, I often find folks in the pews or students in my classroom growing nervous. I ask questions, and they proffer the formulations they learned in Sunday school,\u00a0interpretations that will reconcile difficulties.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve been taught these readings as if they were the text itself. But the interpretations they offer are often designed to obscure contradictions, to paper over ambiguities, to create more comfortable characters and a reassuringly omnipotent deity. They don\u2019t want to challenge God.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think God would fear the challenge, though.<\/p>\n

The God of Tanakh is compassionate and mothering, tender and loving. But YHWH also bumbles, fumbles, and grumbles. God complains. God worries. God roars.<\/p>\n

YHWH is a moody deity, even murderous.<\/p>\n

In Exodus 3-4, God entreats Moses to agree to take on the mission of saving his people. Almost immediately after Moses finally sets off for Egypt, God launches an inexplicable and vicious attack on his prophet. Of course, there are many readings attempting to make sense of this bizarre passage, including the claim that Moses is threatened with death because he has failed to observe an important Jewish ritual. (Just guess which\u2026)<\/p>\n

But seriously, now. God first commissions Moses for a really big job, and then, in the middle of the night, reminds him of forgotten obligations? This particular divine reminder comes in the form of a direct assault on Moses\u2019 life.<\/p>\n

Seems just a tad over the top, no?<\/p>\n

Interestingly, it is Moses\u2019 wife, Zipporah, who figures out how to propitiate the deity. She takes a flint and manages to circumcise their son — in the middle of the night, no less. Tanakh is dark in places.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also hilariously funny.<\/p>\n

Take Genesis 2:5 \u2013 3. In the entertaining second version of How Things Worked (Genesis 1 tells the story of creation quite differently), God creates Adam, decides he needs a helpmeet and parades a slew of animals before him for inspection. Turns out, our presumably omniscient deity is a bumbling yenta<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Imagine the scene: God and Adam just hanging out, being guys together, checking things out.\u00a0 Both are strangely unaware that chickens and porcupines are not appropriate playmates for the recently created man-person. Woody Allen would have a field day with this material. He should, actually.<\/p>\n

Adam, so the rabbis say, tries out each and every creation God produces. But the plumbing isn\u2019t compatible. \u00a0No \u201cfitting helper\u201d was found. The rabbis conclude: \u201cAdam attempted to have sex with all the beasts and animals, but his sexual desire (knowledge) was not cooled off by them\u201d (see b. Yevamot<\/em>, 63a).<\/p>\n

You can imagine the response of my students and church audiences to rabbinic interpretations of this sort.\u00a0 You can imagine their response when I point out that our Bible is \u2013 at least sometimes– awesome burlesque.<\/p>\n

What I love about Tanakh and, in fact, any great literature, is the refusal to offer pat answers, to make life\u2019s questions easy. The whole point is to challenge these stories, to ask questions, to wonder, to laugh out loud. Curiosity is a good thing \u2013 a great thing. No religious tradition should be without it.<\/p>\n

Sacred stories can and ought to bear challenges of all kinds. That\u2019s what keeps them alive.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the questions that give us the rewards we seek. The key to the treasure is the treasure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sita Sings The Blues is a full-length feature film produced by Jewish superwoman artist-cartoonist Nina Paley. In the film, Paley mines an ancient Sanskrit epic to retell an archetypal story: Devoted woman gets done by the egocentric man she loves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[71,70,69],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-moses","tag-tanakh","tag-yenta"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":323,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}