284 Yael S. Feldman
Although my brief account cannot do justice to Shaked’s comprehensive
mapping of biblical themes in Hebrew poetry, it does off er two edifying
insights into the problematic nature of our topic:
- A quick glance at the poems devoted to the patriarchs and other
“leaders” shows that Isaac, traditionally considered the least heroic of
all biblical fi gures, “stars” in more poems than do Father Abraham or
Moses — the father of all prophets — or famed King David or a popu-
lar hero like Samson. If this orientation is characteristic (and it is),
then we must ask what is the meaning — theological but also psycho-
logical — of the twist taken by the modern Hebrew imagination on
the veteran distinction between the so-called Father religion and the
Son religion. - One cannot help but notice that the order of presentation of both
volumes is governed by the principal male actors of the biblical nar-
rative. So where have all the women gone? Amazingly, they are all
grouped together under the rubric “Women” (Nashim) that follows
the fi nal “male” section. Here we fi nd, again arranged by the biblical
order, Eve, the Matriarchs, the women of Judges, David’s wives, the
heroines of the Scrolls (Ruth, Naomi, Esther), and so on and so forth.
But how are we to understand this one exception to the rule, the in-
ternal order that governs the anthology? Are women given here “a
section of their own” (some 100 pages out of 460 in volume 1 and 107
out of 617 in volume 2), or are they simply relegated to the women’s
gallery (ezrat hanashim), to their traditionally excluded location in
Jewish culture and the synagogue, as author Amalia Kahana-Carmon
bitterly complained some three decades ago?15
In what follows, I use the questions raised by the latest eff ort to map
the presence of the Bible in Hebrew poetry as a starting point for my brief
sketch of the history of the appropriation of one biblical motif in modern
Hebrew literature, the aqedah. Following my recent study on the role of
Isaac’s near sacrifi ce and other biblical sacrifi cial tropes in the Hebrew na-
tional narrative of the past century, I focus here on psychological and gen-
der problems involved in that appropriation. Th ese problems emanate, I
suggest, partly from the “gender trouble” inherent in the patriarchal narra-
tives and partly from our own inability to part with both traditionally and
contemporarily received gender stereotyping.
Th e persistence in the Israeli mind of the biblical narrative of the