A timely reading for Passover, given what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and so many other peoples
From Schoenberg’s opera Moses und Aron:
whensoever you employed those gifts for false and negative ends,
and whensoever you had abandoned the desert’s renunciation
and your gifts led you to the highest summit,
then as a result of that misuse
you were and ever shall be hurled back
into the desert.
Chag Sameach.
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3 Comments
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Exodus 22:21:
“Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt”.This is the KJV which I have been told is the true word of God.
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raymonddeane
Interesting. My theory as to why Schoenberg was unable to complete Act III of this stupendous opera has always been that, while the libretto entailed foregoing entry to “the Promised Land”, he was himself a Zionist. This conflict could only have been resolved by changing the libretto, and he was unwilling to do that.
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Seekonk
Scripture contains a mix of fact and fancy. Jonah’s encounter with the whale and Balaam’s talking donkey are kinda dubious, but there may have been a Judean named Jesus, and there IS a Red Sea.
Not to offend, but this is the season to note that if the Passover story has a factual basis, it apparently contains one of the first recorded incidents of terrorism — killing the Egyptian babies. If the Angel of Death, or the Lord in the King James version, had been the actor, s/he wouldn’t have needed the marked doorways to know who was who.
One can argue that the Hebrews were justified in striking at their captors in that “asymmetrical” manner. Let my people go!
