JEWISH ANIMISM IN HEBREW BIBLE PART 2

This is part 2 of our exploration of Jewish Animism in the Hebrew Bible. I’m going to start with ways in which other beings are like humans. Then we are going to look at the theme of the land vomiting out the residents if they misbehave by not obeying the divine. Lastly we will look at a few of the nature themes present in Psalms.

Domestic animals and land have the same rights and obligations as humans do. Here’s what it says about livestock. YHVH tells the Hebrews, “You shall give me the first born among your sons. You shall do the same with your cattle and your flocks, seven days it (or he) shall remain with its (his) mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.” (Exodus 22:28-9). See also Exodus 13:12 “that you will pass every first birth of a womb to YHVH.” Here’s what it says about land. “Six years you shall sow your land and gather its yield, but in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow….Six days shall you do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor, in order that your ox and your ass may rest” (23:10-12) These verses lay out an obvious parallel between domestic animals and humans, and then between humans and the land.

There’s an obvious difference that humans can choose to break the commandment to rest on Shabbat and thereby force their livestock to work. We can break the shmita commandment to give the land a rest and force it to produce. But the parallel seems more compelling to me. The land and the livestock, both in their own way, have the privilege to observe Shabbat just as we humans do. The livestock have the same obligation as we humans do to redeem the first born males, and that happens on the 8th day, just as the brit milah ceremony happens.

These texts advocate the position that these beings are alive, just differently bodied than we humans. We are not free to do with them as we will because they are not mere things or objects.

I want to emphasize both rights and obligations, as the parsha does. It’s not just that animals are created in the divine image and therefore have rights—it is a stronger claim than that. The fact that livestock have obligations makes them more like humans. On the other hand, it is less clear to me what we might mean by saying that land has an obligation to the divine.

People, clothing and houses can all get tzara’at, scale disease (Often mistranslated as leprosy). This greatly surprised me in my close reading of Leviticus. Our ancestors were highly concerned with the ritual purity or polluted status of humans because that determined if one could offer a sacrifice. The ability to offer sacrifices is the most basic way of being in alignment/coming into alignment with the divine. If you can’t offer sacrifices, you can’t be good with the divine.

But given that clothing and houses don’t offer sacrifices, I would not have thought the categories of ritual pollution and purity could possibly have applied to them. Yet they do. The discussion of clothing having tzara’at is Chapter 13:47-59, a lot of verses. The discussion for houses is 14:34-52, also a lot of verses. The discussions are complete with instructions on what the priest should look for to determine if the scale disease is healed or is chronic.

What do humans, clothes and houses have in common that the category of tzara’at can be applied to all of them? I believe that the answer lies in the Animism of our ancestors. This common beinghood is why humans, clothes and houses can all suffer from tzara’at, scale disease and why priests have to determine when these beings are cured from scale disease so they can reenter a state of ritual purity.

Do you believe that animals have the same rights and obligations in relationship with the divine as humans? What about land, clothing and houses? Does this extend to rivers, stones, stars? What would the implications be if we took an animist world view seriously?

“You shall not become polluted by all of these, because the nations that I am putting out from in front of you became polluted by all of these, and the land became polluted, and I reckoned its sin on it, and the land vomited out its residents.” (Leviticus 18:24-25). The reference to “these” here is all the proscribed sexual conduct enumerated previously in the chapter. .

Once the land is polluted, the land seeks to remedy this pollution not by any kind of sacrifice. That would be the more typical way to address a state of ritual pollution. Rather, the sin is so grave that it can only be repaired by vomiting out its inhabitants—a gross but striking phrase. Reading this text literally gives agency to the land. The text does not say that YHVH will remove you from the land, it says the land will remove you from the land.

It is obviously possible to read this metaphorically and deny the agency of the land but attribute the action of the land to YHVH instead. That’s the traditional reading. It’s the only possible one if you reject the Animist orientation that extends sentience and agency to the more than human world as a whole. I invite you to consider reading the text literally.

The idea of the land vomiting out its inhabitants seems prescient to me. Is this not a way to understand the reaction of the more than human world to the excess CO2 we humans are pumping into the atmosphere? Vomiting us out of the land is a blunt instrument, harming equally those who seek to be more responsible, total innocents such as all the beings who live in the woods that burn, the fields that flood or the trees that are destroyed in hurricanes, along with those who directly encourage and profit from human profligacy (though all of us humans contribute). Maybe a blunt instrument is all the more than human world can wield, or maybe a blunt instrument is needed to capture our human attention, I don’t know. But that the land is vomiting out a myriad of beings cannot be in question. What is in question is our level of noticing it.

We can also ask ourselves how the land feels about all this. Hosea gives us a beautiful text. “Therefore shall the land mourn, and everyone that dwells in it shall languish, along with the wild beasts, and the birds of the sky; indeed, the fish of the sea also shall be taken away. (Hosea 4:3)

To what extent do you think of the damage caused by climate change through a scientific lens and to what extent through the moral agency of a fed up more than human world? How, if at all, would your life change if you believed that the land was alive and capable of exiling you from all you hold dear?

Psalms is a great reservoir of the invocation of the more than human world. It’s also a source of many of our prayers. There’s even a sect of Judaism, the Karaites, that reject Rabbinic law, authority and prayers, and utilize psalms as the primary source of their prayers.

The collection of snippets from psalms that I’m posting below all have the more than human world responding to the divine, usually praising God though Psalm 68 attributes jealousy to Mount Bashan towards Mount Sinai. Typically we gloss over these lines and read them metaphorically, if we comment on them at all. But again, I invite you to read them literally.

“The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky proclaims his handiwork” (19:1)

“There is a river whose streams gladden God’s city, the holy dwelling place of the Most High.” (46:5)

“Answer us with victory through awesome deeds, O God our deliverer, in whom all the ends of the earth and the distant seas put their trust.” (65:6)

“O Majestic mountain, Mount Bashan; O jagged mountain, Mount Bashan, why so hostile O jagged mountains towards the mountain God desired as his dwelling? (68:16)

“The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you and were convulsed., the very deep quaked as well.” (77:17)

“Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult; let the se and all within it thunder, the fields and everything in them exult then shall all the trees of the forest shout for joy at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming, for he is coming to rule the earth. He will rule the world justly and its people in faithfulness.” (96:11-13)

“Let the sea and all within it thunder, the world and its inhabitants, let the rivers clap their hands, the mountains sing joyously together at the presence of the Lord” (98 7-9).

“The sea saw them [Israel] and fled, Jordan ran backward, mountains skipped like rams, hills like sheep.” (114:3-4)

Praise God Sun and Moon

Praise God all you shining stars

Praise God you highest heavens

And your waters above the heavens

Praise the Lord from the earth

You sea monsters and all deeps

Fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling God’s command (148)

“Let all that breathes praise the Lord.” (150:6)

Here’s the exercise we are going to do instead of responding to some questions. Since almost all of these are offering praise, I want you to take a few minutes and ask yourself and choose a non human being to praise the divine or the world. Who would that being be—mountain, waterfall, river, dark forest, lush pasture, your dog, the stars. Once you settle on a being, what would they praise the world or the divine for—what would their song be? Let’s take a few minutes and then we will share.