192 Jonathan Cohen
grandeur of the creation story, and these key words have not occurred in
this kind of sequence during the long interim between the two accounts.
Th e reader is arrested by a sense of dissonance. What are these words doing
here, and what could possibly connect these two disparate narratives? For
Buber and Rosenzweig, what we have here is a deliberate puzzle that chal-
lenges the reader to respond. One can no longer continue harmoniously as
before — one is stopped in one’s tracks. Sometimes, at points like these, a
“revelatory” moment will be released by the seeming disjuncture planted
in the text.
Th e surprising repetition of the Genesis word pattern in the Tabernacle
narrative generates a lyric illumination. With the creation of the world,
God acts to build a home for human beings. With the building of the Tab-
ernacle, God shows the pattern of the structure to Moses, but all of the “do-
ing” must come from human hands.31 Humankind must build a home for
God within the home God built for humankind. Th e Tabernacle narrative,
then, generates a command that we become partners with God in complet-
ing creation, that we take part in a reciprocal “home building.” Once an
illumination like this descends on one, one senses that one cannot authen-
tically steer the course of one’s life in the same way again.
If we turn again to the Jacob narrative, it will become apparent that the
reader cannot help but be scandalized by the course of events, even if the
narrator is silent. Jacob is to inherit the way of God from Abraham and
Isaac, the way of righteousness and justice. In order to ensure that he re-
ceives both the blessing and the birthright from his father, Jacob, on the
instigation of his mother, deceives his father by dressing like his brother in
order to receive the blessing (beracha), and he exploits Esau’s fatigue and
hunger in order to gain the birthright (bechora). Th is is hardly consistent
with God’s way.
An irritant has again been planted in the text, which generates a ques-
tion that gives the reader no rest. How could God (or the Bible) counte-
nance the transmission of His way by devious, unjust means? What kind
of a model is Jacob — who subsequently avoids looking his brother in the
face by escaping to the land of Laban at the instigation of his mother? Does
God realize His ends by encouraging injustice? Th e textual and moral dis-
sonance refl ected in this narrative seems to go unresolved.
Th e reader, then, is temporarily beset by what might be called a “planned
discontent.” Later on in the narrative, however, an important “leading
word” will modify this discontent — although it will not (or at least should
not) dispel it altogether. When Esau realizes that someone else has received