Hunger – Ra’av

Hebrew moves from right to left, forces a complete re-orientation to the page. Being left-handed, I find it innately satisfying. The letters themselves are hieroglyphics, descendants of ancient picture language, symbolic and eerie. I remember how the sight of them in Morocco—over the mellah gate, marking the entrance to a Jewish cemetery—made me tremble. I see why mystics spend their lives studying the possibilities of a Dalet, Gimmel or Shin. And their harsh, guttural sound  is almost painful: yareakh (moon), ekhad(one). Spoken tenderly—a father to his son, a woman teasing her man—it becomes breathless, a language of dreams that speaks in sighs, gasps, moans. Stark, a desert wind, Hebrew was created to probe existential mysteries of the universe, so sacred it cannot contain any curses. I find myself crooning words as I walk home from work, or as I lie awake at night: neshama (soul), mish-mish (apricot), ahava (love), sha’ar (gate), esh (fire) and shemesh (sun). All the way home, all night, the soft, harsh language unscrolls, a narrative without beginning or end, a staircase to the soul.

─ from Annie Mallul’s journal, February 12, 1973

I didn’t want to come to Jerusalem. I can’t sleep here. Like the entire country, I lie awake, night after hungry night. Some forget how to sleep, others are scared of the dark, or worry that the sun won’t rise. I have my own reasons for staring at the white wall of my Indian nun’s cell until morning.

I can’t breathe here either; the odor of sanctity and hypocrisy suffocates. Not one but three male gods, all competing for space. The way I see it: after a day in Jerusalem you talk to God, after a week you hear Him, after a month you are Him. Yes, this city is definitely a man, but to my surprise he’s got a woman’s heart beating inside him. That’s right, Jerusalem is a hermaphrodite; outside the...