As we strolled in the Village Of The Elect, we beheld a wild-bearded prophet, screaming and beating his fists on a traffic-control tabernacle upon which an artist had painted words of doom. We crossed the street to avoid the prophet, but upon recrossing discovered torn pages littering the path where he had walked.
The pages' source was the English Standard Version of the Bible, and the pages had been ripped from the Book of Numbers, Chapter 24, which chronicles the predicament of the Moabite King Balak.
It seems the Israelites, after their long caravan journey from Egypt, have camped on the eastern side of the Jordan, across from Jericho, about to enter the place they call their Promised Land. Balak, for his part, prefers to call the place Moab, and wants to keep it: “This horde will now lick up all that is around us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field," he warns his Midianite neighbors. Figuring he had better lay a curse on the intruders, Balak sends for Balaam, a man regionally known for possessing powerful divine associations. Although Balaam could use the bribe money, his talking donkey helps him realize he can't curse a people whom God has chosen. Instead, "the man whose eye is opened" is inspired to utter oracles against the local peoples: God "shall eat up the nations, his adversaries, and shall break their bones in pieces and pierce them through with his arrows."
Today, now that the God of Love has fallen out of fashion, we have to deal with the Old Testament God encountered by Balak -- the God of the Flood, the God who burned Aaron's sons alive for bringing him the wrong kind of firewood, the God who ordered the massacre of every Midianite male (including God's former friend Balaam) and every non-virginal female.
So before we launch our next round of curses, expulsions and slaughters, we should try to discover whether God harbors any affection for the prospective victims. And I know just the prophet to consult.
"Caravan"
PHOTO OF TEL AVIV ARTIST NITZAN MINTZ'S IMMIGRATION-THEMED LOS FELIZ TRAFFIC-CONTROL TABERNACLE, "THE BONES ARE MADE OF DREAM. ONE FINAL EFFORT BEFORE THE SUN SETS," BY FUZZY BARAK.