Friday, July 19, 2019

"And if the darkness is to keep us apart"

Coincidences are interesting. This past week, in conjunction with my reading of Primo Levi’s collected short stories, I started reading Robert Alter’s The Five Books of Moses, which I have owned since it was first published in 2004, I believe. Yesterday evening, in addition to reading Alter’s translation of this Sunday’s first reading (Genesis 18:1-10a), I read his translation of the first chapter of Genesis. Alter’s book is not only a translation, it is also a deeply insightful and very useful commentary.

Alter’s first comment in his commentary on Genesis is made with reference to Genesis 1:2. He translates the Hebrew phrase, transliterated tohu wavohu, as “welter and waste.” In his first comment, he notes that this phrase is used only two more times in the entire corpus of the Hebrew Bible. He also points out that in both of those instances a clear allusion is being made to this passage. His translating the phrase thus is the result of his trying to maintain the phonetic rhythm of the original. Personally, I like it.

The first section of his essay "Introduction to the Hebrew Bible" with which he begins The Five Books of Moses is entitled "The Bible in English and the Heresy of Explanation." His main point in this section is that most English translations seek to explain rather to translate. Explanations require both assumptions and, too often, presumptions. In short, it is not a good approach to complex and often highly nuanced ancient texts. Most valuably, Alter provides a number of examples that demonstrates his main point and subpoints very well.



In addition to Morning Prayer and practicing lectio divina with the readings for the upcoming Sunday Monday-Wednesday, I very slowly read a spiritual book. Yesterday, I (finally) finished John O’Donohue’s brilliant Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom. I found this book sublime and quite practical. I did not like the final two sections of the final chapter in which he writes about death. His take is far too disembodied ethereal for me. Stated forthrightly, O'Donohue comes up a bit short on resurrection.

This morning I began Dom Erik Varden’s The Shattering of Loneliness: On Christian Remembrance. I was so excited about this book by the Cistercian Abbot of Mount Saint Bernard, located near Coalville, in Leicestershire, England, that I pre-ordered it and awaited its publication. Varden, a native Norwegian, who prior to becoming a Cistercian monk was a Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, is a deeply insightful commentator and spiritual guide. Besides, while far from identical, his conversion story bears enough resemblance to mine to resonate with me.

On the fifth page of his "Introduction" to Shattering of Loneliness, Varden makes reference to “the tohu wavohu.” He gives the translation of this phrase as “formlessness and void,” which is a fairly standard English rendering. To make yet another inexplicable yet highly relevant connection, the general context in which Varden makes reference to this Hebrew phrase comes toward the end his writing about his youthful interest in the lives and writings of those people who survived and bore witness to the Nazi’s attempt to eradicate all Jews in Europe during Hitler’s 11-year reign of terror. Among those whose lives and writings he studied and who made a lasting impact on his life he lists Primo Levi. More specifically, he employs tohu wavohu when discussing the fifth movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony, popularly known as the “Resurrection Symphony.”

Of Mahler’s Second Symphony, Varden writes: "Out of its peace, the fifth, final movement arises like a thunderstorm. It conjures up images of chaos, a world in the grips of the tohu wavohu, ‘formlessness and void’, of the first verse of Scripture.” Well, it’s actually the second verse but that is a minor detail. Referring to the chorus, Varden asks, “Could it be true? Before disbelief had time to configure, it was hushed by voices singing of a hope that must, in secret, have gestated in my depths…”

It might stand to reason that the fifth movement of Mahler’s Symphony number two would be our traditio for this penultimate Friday in July. However, it is not. The simple reason is that it is more than a half-hour long, at least the Zubin Mehta-conducted performance, featuring Silvia Greenburg as soloist, I had in mind is. Rather, in sticking with the theme of the irrepressibility of hope while continuing to maintain that hope transcends optimism, our traditio is a stripped-down cover of my favorite late-period U2 song, "Walk On":

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