Page 65 - GALIET KAFKABEL JOB, KANT AND MILTON: Omnipotence, Impotence and Rebellion IV+

Galiet & Galiet
The Heaths
“For we are like the tree trunks in the snow. In appearance they lie sleekly and a little push Should be enough to set them rolling. No, it can’t be done, for they are firmly wedded to the ground. But see, even that is only an appearance.” Kafka, The Trees362
Titorelli’s desolate heath landscapes (T163) insinuate numberless traces to the misery of exile. Each is an enduring metaphor for a Lost Eden, for the trials of the Israelites in their Exodus and deserts of Sinai and of Christ in the wilderness, for a Lost Ark of the Covenant and Temple, and a holy world, and a Word holy, and a spirit holy and a Holy Spirit. Job’s exile from his holy land of Uz to the wilderness of Jobel, a favela of outcasts and the other (30:1-8, 30:13-14), and K’s exile from his office to the wilderness of attic-corridors (T73-8) transmutes itself to the wasteland of the soul in a Lost Eden. The symbolic trees of Eden in the Heath Landscapes emblemize the winds of tears, the tumult and susurrus of agonizing dreams, the loss of presence, of innocence, the grandiosity of the stars, and man, trembling in the midst of Pascal’s two infinite abysses,363 sees history’s grief pass by, and Adam is not there, Moses is not there, and Christ risen is not there. There is silence. There is absence. Only a faint story amidst two biblical trees and the infinite distance between their beginnings and endings, between good and evil and its apple of discord and the sought-after bounty of immortal life.
There 3⁄4 one hears Job’s outcasts, the poor and homeless, cowering and hiding, as wild assess, toiling in the desert, seeking food unable to reap their own fields to yield bread for their children (24:1-8). If the dying moans in terror, and the wounded cry for help, God neglects their misery (23:10-12). There 3⁄4 Job’s heart is jarred by suffering. There 3⁄4 one sees Kafkabel’s impotent defendants, humiliated, cowering and trembling like terrified puppies or dogs,364 toiling in the attic deserts unable to reap their liberties in the endless duress of their trials (T75, 78, 192-95). Habituated, they cannot discern right from wrong, just as Job’s friends cannot. It is not so much that blocked Block cannot stand for his rights against Huld’s indignant abuse of power: he does not see it anymore (T192-93) just as Lady Justice cannot see through her blindfold (T145). They deny the horrible character of things365 K and Job so well grasp, and hence, lose their ground beneath the tyranny of custom. They only regurgitate the practical folly of a nefarious retributive theodicy (Job) and a high moral-criminal court (K). As if shackled prisoners in Plato’s den 3⁄4
362 Kafka, Franz. The Complete Stories. “The Trees.” Ed. By Nahum Glatzer. New York: Schocken Books, 1971. 382
363 Pascal sings best of this wondrous paradox. Humanity contemplates the majesty of the universe 3⁄4 the “infinitely vast” 3⁄4 and is astonished. Humanity, too, contemplates the prodigy of the “increasingly large and the vanishing small” losing itself in “wonders as amazing in their littleness as others in their vastness” 3⁄4 an infinity of universes in each universe 3⁄4 and is equally marveled. Man cannot find himself in those marvels, and, as consequence, fears himself. Thus frightened, he trembles “between the two abysses of the infinite and nothing,” and, thus, little and belittled, in solemn silence, he understands himself, as she herself: they are no-things in relation to the infinite, yet everything in relation to nothingness. In this weary interlude, they hear a lute, and mute, they know they dwell in the midst of everything and nothing. And as they hear they are nothing and something, they understand the sadness and gladness of being. Pascal, Blaise. Pensées. “22. On The General Knowledge of Man.” Trans. By A. J. Krailsheimer. USA: Penguin Classics, 1995. Originally, Pensées de M. Pascal sur la religion et sur quelques autres sujets. Paris, 1670. XXII. 169-75
364 In relation to the OT and with very few and minor exceptions, a dog is a worthless object (I Sam. 24:14, H24:15; II Sam. 9:8; 16:9). The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. An Illustrated Encyclopaedia. “Dog.” By Turner. Ed. Arthur Buttrick and Emory Stevens Bucke. Volume I. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962. 862
365 Because of the horrible character of things, beings tend to lie to themselves, or act in “bad faith,” as Sartre posits. This lying, a self-negation, worse than repression, has drastic moral and ontological consequences. Josef K and Job, however, resist this form of self-deception during their trials; they neither self-negate or repress, but defy against their condition. Sartre. Being and Nothingness. Tr. Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Philosophical Library, 1943. 381
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