Setting: Genesis 11:29-30
Extra-biblical Sources: Sanhedrin 69b:13
A marriage of Abram and Iscah seems fitting in its own tragic way. Abram, who criticized the sacred fertility rites at every opportunity, marrying the beautiful young woman for whom they never produced a cure. Abram, who never seems anxious to take for himself, claiming the one who has nothing to give.
I saw Haran burned before my eyes, a terrifying sacrifice to Nusku. And in another way I watch Abram’s life offered up before my eyes as well. For what is it but the destruction of his life, for Abram to marry a barren woman? And what is manhood but the exchange of the fertile mirage of potential for the merciless rigidity of fate?
This is what mothers do. We care for our sons, and protect them from harm, and then we offer them up to a world that sooner or later will char them into a pile of lifeless bones. We place them on the altar and allow the gods to have their way. We place them in a little basket on the rushing river and send them on their way.
Our sons are no different from ourselves. We all trade life for death, and descend into Ersetu where our only food is clay, our only drink is dust, and there is no judgment and no hope, but only shadows.
It is the secret of happiness to dance amid the flames, to laugh despite the searing heat, to lie under the stars and feel one’s heart ache and utter no complaints.
My sons are dying. Even so, Nanna, you are bright.