Vayeylekh and the Importance of narrative / וילך און די וויכטיקייט פֿון נאַראַציע

This is a weekly series

of parsha dvarim (Tōrah commentaries) written by an orthodox atheist transsexual anarchist, with guest posts from comrades. It's the work of each generation to extricate meaning from our cultural and religious inheritance, and it's crucial that we resist the narrative that Zionism owns Judaism. We aim to offer comment which is true to the pshat (i.e. engages with the plain meaning of the text, especially when it's difficult) and uses Tōrah like a light to reflect on our modern times.

An appeal

My friend Kamal needs help to afford food and medicine for his family in Gaza. Please donate what you can.

Content note

Genocide in Palestine, reference to Nazi genocide

The narrative of Tōrah is coming to a close. This week, Mōshe Rebeynu prepares to die and appoints Yehōshua as his successor. Then, we're given some meta-narrative:

Mōshe wrote down this teaching (or this Torah). The text which we are currently reading and commenting on, featuring protagonist Mōshe, was written by Mōshe.

At this point in the text, it feels as if Mōshe is writing in real time: Tōrah is first written on the banks of the Jordan, looking toward the land and remembering the creation story, the patriarchs and matriarchs, the bondage, and the wandering, and foretelling his own death and its aftermath. The beautiful and surreal nature of time characterizes Jewish culture (and I think is one of the greatest losses in translation between our texts and the adapted Christian ones).

There is undoubtedly power in writing our own narratives. We produce and reproduce our own culture and propaganda. Whatever is lost in objectivity—if such a thing could exist—in writing our own stories is a fair bargain for the creation of primary sources to be consulted later, to refute the inevitable claims by cowards that they were "always" against the genocide.