Genealogy of an Absurd Jew – Part 2

The son’s myth of the mother’s myth of her husband

Scenography (Sc.)

Fathers come through doorways

Car door

Front door

Bedroom door

A force entering the room

Any room

Every room

Father:

Conquer death

With knowledge, skill and force

Shape the world to your will – and god’s will

Re-shape the human body to avoid death

(A Jewish response to death anxiety: become a doctor)

Wild eyed with purpose

Intoxicated with god 

Becoming god-like

Eating from the burning tree of knowledge

Demonstrating your power

The thrill of hunt and dominance

You:

He leads the family to Sinai

Confers with god

Is gone for long periods

So we relax and we play

Nothing so pure as play

We build treehouses and campfires

We conjure a Golden Calf

Then father returns

Descends Sinai

Home from work

Sees you and your golden calf

He feels disrespected

Even humiliated

Mother:

Don’t humiliate your father

You:

We are punished harshly

Master of Scenarios:

You can leave the details of punishment for another time

You:

Why are we being punished?

Sc.

Master of Scenarios transforms into a concentration camp guard

Master of Scenarios:

Why? There is no why here!

(Reference: Primo Levi, If this is a man, 1958)

Mother:

All explanations are rationalisations

Council Members:

(Ritual chant)

Because of the cause of the cause of the cause

Because of the cause of the cause be the cause

Sc.

The son suddenly awakens from trance

Master of Scenarios:

(Slowly, calmly)

All is well

You are participating in a ritual design workshop

Remember?

You are designing your symbolic immortality project

You:

I’m afraid

Master of Scenarios:

Of what?

You:

He doesn’t deserve this

This is a wild exaggeration

It’s archetypal

Master of Scenarios:

How would you feel?

You:

I’d try not to take it personally

Master of Scenarios:

There you go, then

Don’t take it personally

Close your eyes and continue

You:

He leaves again

Comes and goes

Play and punishment

Mother:

Learn to lie quietly and play quietly

Council Members:

(much less jovial, suddenly and uncharacteristically serious)

Lie quietly

Play quietly

Be invisible

You:

Venture into his temple

Find a hidden scroll

Deep in the recesses of the ark

Illuminating mysterious rituals

Materials for putting on a play

Serious and mysterious play

Exciting and dangerous play

Secret play

Master of Scenarios:

More later on what this ‘play’ looks like? 

You:

But he always returns

Forty days or hours later

Down the mountain

Through doorways

Up the staircase

On a rampage

Filling the hallways, rooms and spaces

Sacrificing priests on their alters

And children on their beds

Council Members:

The scroll in the closet says so

You:

Guilt somehow sooths

Guilt makes us feel better about ourselves

I am more noble for my guilt

I’m not evil, after all, simply flawed

I’d rather be weak than evil

Funny that

Ritualised repentance

Sc.

Abraham, Moses, Fathers, Priests

They nail mezuzahs on the gates of the camp

Inside, on tiny scrolls, it is written:

“Do not stray

Stay out of my way

Avoid my wrath”

You:

Warnings abound

Mother warns you

Aunts and older siblings warn you

Inherited warnings

Wired into your chromosomes and anxieties

History warns you

The core mythic narrative of the universe is a cautionary tale

Council Members:

Prosecutor

Adversary

Demon

Serpent

Staff

Phallus

Sc.

The staff of Moses

Leans against a tree

Morphs into a serpent

Embodied as a penis

Circumcised

Council Members:

God’s gift to Moses

God’s magic trick

A sufficiently advanced technology

The prototypical tool that builds and destroys

Absent of free will

Follows orders – god’s and one’s own

Goal orientation

By any means necessary

Confront mortality through heroism

Scapegoat as strategy

Even family – even children

The Holocaust Principle

Exploit what you can and kill the rest

Kill the infection, the tumour, the impure – the other

Leverage neural pathways of disgust

Perfect rationality

To eat children

Yes, fathers sometimes eat their children

Sc.

You sit up suddenly, as if awakening, temporarily

You:

What's the deal with fathers eating their children?

Master of Scenarios:

You tell me

You can go back in

Relax and sit back

Hands on the controls

Close your eyes

You:

(To the mother)

What the hell is going on here?

Mother:

Some people think this

Some people think that

You:

Yes, but what do you think?

Sc.

Multiple screens

You and Mother are watching Holocaust films

And golden calf sequences

Mother:

(In whispers, looking over her shoulder, someone’s coming)

Nuclear families in cities, ghettos and death camps

Caldrons for cooking humans

Under stress and duress, we regress and devolve

Lose compassion and mercy

We don’t think – can’t think – try to escape

Claw at the sides

Skulls as stepping stones

Hide food from each other – from the children

We turn more fully into the monsters inside us

Sc.

Father leads ritual prayer

Pushing against the western wall

Propping up the retaining wall

Father

We do this

We do this

We do this

To keep ourselves from descending into chaos

(Looks at you)

Sometimes you must fight for your freedom

(Accusingly)

Oh, Israel

Council Members:

In other words, we’re fucked if we have to rely on you

You, the younger:

Who am I fighting?

When and why?

And how?!

What does fighting even look like?

You are going to tell me these things, right?

Sc.

The father mumbles something you can’t hear

You struggle to hear but cannot

Father:

(Sternly, with frustration)

Eat your dinner

Sc.

The mother places a plate of thick steak down in front of you

She cuts a few mouth-sized pieces

You stab a piece and put it in your mouth

You chew and chew but it never gets smaller

The mother looks at you with worried compassion

Father:

You’re going to sit there until it’s finished

Sc.

You continue chewing

Looking downward

Avoiding eye contact

You and other children

Kneeling in a row on the grass

In front of flowering dandelions

A ritual of fear and submission

Father:

Eat them

Submit or I will eat you alive

Submit – I may still eat you

You:

(A spontaneous prayer of confusion, diversion, dissociation)

Who is saying what?

What is the meaning of who?

If there isn’t a who

Is there even a me?

Then who is the meaning of what?

Master of Scenarios:

You’re distracting yourself - procrastinating

Avoiding strong emotions

You:

How might this moment differ from all other moments?

You eat the dandelion 

You feel a warmth in your groin

What the hell is sexual about this?

How might this eternal moment be the one glorious and blissful eternal moment?

Master of Scenarios:

These are among the stories you tell yourself

When you’re not looking

Core mythic narratives

You:

Absurd stories

Council Members:

(All together)

Absurd Jew

You:

Abraham

The father that binds

Scapegoats

Sacrificial sons

Fathers love

Fathers kill

They approach the tree of knowledge

Bursts into flames

Burning point of consciousness

Terrible and wildly successful inheritance

Council Members:

(in unison)

The burning bush is the tree of knowledge

Burning releases knowledge

Illumination toward transcendence

Mother:

(Coaching the son)

How is knowledge used?

All the better to know your enemy

All the better to devise technologies of destruction

Knowledge doesn’t abolish fear

What do you do when confronted with god?

The myth of the protective mother

Sc.

A mother paints her menstrual blood around the child’s bedroom door

Then the father approaches the doorway

Council Members:

Prosecutor

Adversary

Demon

Serpent

Staff

Phallus

Son:

Framed by posts and lintel

Painted with mother’s blood

A proximity warning

Bedroom doorway as selectively permeable membrane

The mother’s blood says: 

Pass by this door

Your husband then leaves

Taking Shabbos and the nod to kashrut

One of two sets of dishes and silverware

And the children?

Sc.

Mother glances over at the son, under her bedroom door

Mother:

(Defensively)

The children are fine 

Safe in suburbia

Middle class food, clothing and shelter

Middle class education and critical thinking

They question authority

They respect diversity

I surround them with the arts

With clues

We go to museums

Watch obscure films

Meet interesting people

Protest the war

We send them to Hebrew School

Theatre Beth El

A day in the life of Hebrew School

You:

Temple Beth El

House of God

Holocaust films

Skin-draped skeletons

Sliding down sliding boards

Into mass graves

Piles of corpses

Piles of tens

Piles of hundreds

Piles of thousands

Sc.

Children in a row watching the film

A corpse crawls out from under the pile

Moves toward the camera, toward the screen

Presses against the screen, which bulges toward you

An old man now stands in front of the screen

The sliding board imagery projected onto him

He pushes up his sleeve to reveal his tattooed forearm

One two three four five six million

Son:

Stories of camps

Stories of Israel

Creating and defending

Prayer and song

In ancient language

Without translation

The feel of the language

The minor melodies

Baruch atah Adonai

Barchu et Adonai homvorah

A shrine at the entrance

Like a massive mezuzah

Six candles for six million

Then off to play basketball

Hebrew school

Holocaust

Israel

Circumcision

Art on the wall

Books on the shelf

(To mother)

And your words

Your rituals

Cecil B. DeMille

Bus stop

School bus

Migraines and vomiting

Dark Shadows

Bugs Bunny

The Cisco Kid on Saturday mornings

Mother:

What is important?

What ought one do?

What might you leave behind?

What might you do while waiting for the Holocaust?

Delay?

Delay the next Holocaust?

What right have you to speak as a Jew?

The father archetype becomes community archetype

The Jewish Community:

What right have you

To speak as a Jew?

Did half your family perish in the camps?

Did the other half fight for a Jewish homeland?

You’re an absurd Jew

Your parents successfully mated – that’s all

Sc.

The Mother looks at you with a combination of compassion and curiosity

As if to ask: How will you respond? 

It’s a universal expression, isn’t it?

Compassionate curiosity

Mother:

How might you coach your younger self?

Son:

I would begin by thanking them for their authentic offering

Some of which is nonsense

Mother:

More confidently

Son:

That was absurd

Sc.

Mother and son have a brief laugh, together