SO IT SHOULD BE READ

SO IT SHOULD BE READ

SO IT SHOULD BE READ

New book of Moshé Liba «Bush Meat» is a refined pattern of a post-Bible reflection, where Secrets of Spirit rigidly open through unusual poetic-naturalistic synthesis ― is an utmost combination of symbolical tragedy and of the concrete horrifying doc

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SO IT SHOULD BE READ

(A book of Moshé Liba «Bush Meat»)

 

No longer any need to run

no reason for fear

but this tune still turns round in my head.

And so, I will arrive

here, today, yesterday,

tomorrow

in front of the musicians’ photo:

an orchestra leading

the endless file of those who walk

in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

(Moshé Liba)

 

 

New book of Moshé Liba «Bush Meat» is a refined pattern of a post-Bible reflection, where Secrets of Spirit rigidly open through unusual poetic-naturalistic synthesis ― is an utmost combination of symbolical tragedy and of the concrete horrifying documentary of life. Having bowed out, the author, the former diplomat, every second painfully realizes (again and again!) himself initial mission: «Being a diplomat is difficult; being Jewish is difficult. Being a Jewish diplomat is ten times more difficult. Being an Israeli Jewish diplomat ― that’s really something! It is living with anti-Semitism. It is living with anti-Zionism. It is seeing the hatred behind so many disguises. It is meeting often the enemies with a glass in hand. It is being unique, different…» For this reason Moshé Liba at once severely places the reader between rough… dangerous… but honest walls of a labyrinth of «life-death» or wisely dooms him to purificatory wanderings in «Shadow of Death». In his short stories there is no false «sentimentality» or false «moral admonitions» in relation to the man, but there is only a sudden truth of the pity and the compassion, originating in exclusive faithfulness of the author to his race.

 

I will come here

morn by morn,

day by day,

with that music haunting me,

to the images on the wall

and to the stench in my nostrils

which only I can perceive.

 

Moshé Liba is able to express a great array of the most hardly perceptible (hard-to-reach) feelings and purports in short phrases. He is able to arouse the reader (enlightenment!) simultaneously and by means of habile poetry, and by means of unexpected «text beat». So in the story «The Shepherd» we read: «The blood spurted all over the place, the flesh, the fingers flew everywhere, while the shepherd screamed ― but did not tell us anything. And then he fainted!». Here, involuntarily, arises a question: can be indeed in the Beginning of the Beginnings there was not a blissful Divine Word (Eternal Logos), but existed the infinite «tortures» and the woeful «meat» for this purpose? But then, through thoughtful perusal, the answer suddenly comes ― only the fearless truth of life is forming Necessary Will for reinforcing of the man. So the same shepherd (under tortures!) suddenly becomes almost Saintly, he doesn't ask enemies about mercy, but with a pain in his soul asks about destiny of the sheep. That is: a question, which is rising from depths of heart«where are my sheep?» ― for Moshé Liba there is the universal formula of compassion only existing Eternally and contrary to all humiliations, tortures, death! Impossibility of «oblivion» of another's pain, suffering and death ― here the main key to understanding stoical position of Moshé Liba as truly Great writer for whom Holocaust it isn't simple «trite phrase», «cliché»… but:

 

My Holocaust

is something very personal

only between me and myself.

 

In other autobiographical story, which provided title of book «Bush Meat», it is told about eternal impossibility to stop unexpected Blow of Death. When his daughter Sigalit comes in to the market, to buy the little monkey, she asks the vendor:

 

     “Where is it, I cannot see it?”

 

     “Right there,” he (vendor) said and showed me a small pile of meat chunks and grey fur with, in the middle, the small head of a monkey with eyes wide open, all full of blood.

 

     When I started shouting: “Where is the monkey, the monkey?” the man at the stall just said: “What is your problem, it is only bush meat!”

 

Yes, Death comes suddenly and the pain doesn't leave us Never. And even if we will revenge a pain by means of Good and Love ― the pain will not be dying. The Pain and Death always will come again and again. But (only!) for this reason:

 

Hindu People go

to the Ganges river

to purify

in its holy waters

 

Only for this reason:

 

At the end of the building

 

a sign said:

 

Entry to

 

Shakespeare’s birth house.

 

Every person is taking the gauge of length of short life by that Eternity which is measured out. It is necessary to love not simply life, but always bravely to struggle for life, fearlessly to protect life. In other words: the word «Liba» is very close to a German word «Leben» ― a Life… an Existence…

 

A legend.

 

So it should be read.

 

And so it should stay, for ever and ever.

 

Written by Azsacra Zarathustra