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Falasha Anthology
"Falasha Anthology is the first English translation of specimens of Old testament texts and prayers which are representative of Falasha religious literature. . . . Leslau's book points scholars of Falasha social history toward the analysis of oral literature and documentary materials, notably Ethiopic manuscripts, as a method for reconstructing past political events and the nature of structural transformations of Falasha society."-William A. Shack, Reviews in Anthropology
266 pages, Paperback
First published September 10, 1987
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August 16, 2019
I'm not entirely sure what to make of this. I saw it at the library downtown when I was there on an unrelated errand and grabbed it, but I didn't realize that it was published in 1951. A clue probably should have been the continual use of the term "falasha" for the Beta Israel, a term nowadays recognized as extremely offensive. That was also before most of the Jews of Ethiopia relocated to Israel in a series of evacuations, so most of the cultural information contained herein is obsolete. The kessoch priesthood--possibly the last group of Jews to have priests who still perform sacrifices--will end with this generation, and most Ethiopian Jews grow up speaking Hebrew and attending Israeli schools. All the parts of this book about their monastic tradtion are obsolete--the last Beta Israel monk died at the beginning of the 21st century. Their millennia-old culture is being subsumed into modern Israeli culture, though hindered by the racism they still face.
It's a disadvantage of Israel, I suppose. In the diaspora we longed for Jerusalem and were at the mercy (or mostly the lack thereof) of the surrounding population, but there were so many groups. The Ashkenazim and Sephardim, of course, but also the Italki, the Romaniote, the Bnei Menashe, the Kaifeng Jews, and all the Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa, almost all of which are gone or vanishing. Who can blame them for wanting to move to the Jewish state, with a Jewish army guarding its borders, where they don't need to be afraid of their neighbors. But with all change, something is lost.
The interesting part of the book is the translation of the sacred texts of the Beta Israel, some of which are unique to them and some of which are very similar to their Christian neighbors with the Christian elements expunged. The most interesting to me was probably "The Commandments of the Sabbath," where the phrase "Shabbat Bride" seems to be taken literally as Shabbat is not just personified, but appears as an actual character in the story. The creation of humanity took a lot more effort than in Bereshit, since G-d had to send multiple angels to collect the necessary dust as the ground kept shrinking away and preventing it from being collected. It relates the story of Abraham smashing Terah's idols, a story which nearly every religiously-conversant Jew knows but which comes from a midrash and not the actual Torah. And the horn that will be blown when the Moshiach comes was taken from the ram that was sacrificed in place of Isaac, which I thought was a nice touch.
There's a big focus on punishment and temptation. The "Book of the Angels" was very dualistic in character, with the "angels of light" and the "angels of darkness" contending for the souls of humanity. This isn't entirely alien to Judaism, especially pre-modern Judaism--compare all the tales of Ashmedai, King of Demons--but it's not a big part of it now, so seeing it show up repeatedly was kind of odd. The apocalypse "Baruch" had a lot of similar imagery, with Baruch being taken through Gehenna and seeing all the punishment that sinners undergo, or the "Apocalypse of Gorgorios" which showed the contrasting fates of a good soul and an evil soul.
I also liked the account of Moses's death. It's a big thing in Judaism that we don't know where Moses's grave was, the better than it not become a pilgrimage site or take any devotion away from G-d, and "The Death of Moses" explains it in an extremely gothic way. Moses is told by G-d that he will die, and after he tells his wife and children and gets a reassurance that G-d will look after them after he is gone, he leaves and travels out into the desert. There he finds three men digging a grave, and after he assists them with their task, they ask him to lie in the grave so that he can help them measure its size. Of course, they're angels and it is his grave they're digging, and once he lies down they reveal their true forms and then he dies.
The prayers section honestly reminds me a lot of Gehenna ebooks, though there are some really metal sections like this one:
It's a disadvantage of Israel, I suppose. In the diaspora we longed for Jerusalem and were at the mercy (or mostly the lack thereof) of the surrounding population, but there were so many groups. The Ashkenazim and Sephardim, of course, but also the Italki, the Romaniote, the Bnei Menashe, the Kaifeng Jews, and all the Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa, almost all of which are gone or vanishing. Who can blame them for wanting to move to the Jewish state, with a Jewish army guarding its borders, where they don't need to be afraid of their neighbors. But with all change, something is lost.
The interesting part of the book is the translation of the sacred texts of the Beta Israel, some of which are unique to them and some of which are very similar to their Christian neighbors with the Christian elements expunged. The most interesting to me was probably "The Commandments of the Sabbath," where the phrase "Shabbat Bride" seems to be taken literally as Shabbat is not just personified, but appears as an actual character in the story. The creation of humanity took a lot more effort than in Bereshit, since G-d had to send multiple angels to collect the necessary dust as the ground kept shrinking away and preventing it from being collected. It relates the story of Abraham smashing Terah's idols, a story which nearly every religiously-conversant Jew knows but which comes from a midrash and not the actual Torah. And the horn that will be blown when the Moshiach comes was taken from the ram that was sacrificed in place of Isaac, which I thought was a nice touch.
There's a big focus on punishment and temptation. The "Book of the Angels" was very dualistic in character, with the "angels of light" and the "angels of darkness" contending for the souls of humanity. This isn't entirely alien to Judaism, especially pre-modern Judaism--compare all the tales of Ashmedai, King of Demons--but it's not a big part of it now, so seeing it show up repeatedly was kind of odd. The apocalypse "Baruch" had a lot of similar imagery, with Baruch being taken through Gehenna and seeing all the punishment that sinners undergo, or the "Apocalypse of Gorgorios" which showed the contrasting fates of a good soul and an evil soul.
I also liked the account of Moses's death. It's a big thing in Judaism that we don't know where Moses's grave was, the better than it not become a pilgrimage site or take any devotion away from G-d, and "The Death of Moses" explains it in an extremely gothic way. Moses is told by G-d that he will die, and after he tells his wife and children and gets a reassurance that G-d will look after them after he is gone, he leaves and travels out into the desert. There he finds three men digging a grave, and after he assists them with their task, they ask him to lie in the grave so that he can help them measure its size. Of course, they're angels and it is his grave they're digging, and once he lies down they reveal their true forms and then he dies.
The prayers section honestly reminds me a lot of Gehenna ebooks, though there are some really metal sections like this one:
Holy, holy, holy, Lord of prayers, above all mercy; Lord of all, who kills the souls, without end.There's a lot of interesting material in here, but still...1951. Almost all the information that's not translations of sacred texts is totally outdated, and I'm not even sure if the Beta Israel still read the "Book of the Angels" et al or if they're studying the Talmud now. At this point, this is a curiosity, nothing more.
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