I don’t
know the constructor of today’s puzzle, Jacob Stulberg, or anything about him, but
I’d be willing to bet a few shekels that he is pretty knowledgeable about the
Torah. I am so confident in this assertion, because there is an erudite yet
playful Biblical theme hidden in plain sight in today’s puzzle, which is
overtly merely on the theme of what is “inane” or “foolish”. That hidden Biblical
theme is the icing on a layer cake of clever connections I will now unpack for
you, step by step.
First,
there are three clues which each has a Biblical resonance:
4D:
Biblical mount = ass
10D:
Region bordering Lebanon = Galilee
53A:
Jacob’s father in law = Laban
Second,
if you knew the Torah story of how Jacob first marries Leah and then Rachel,
you knew right off that the answer to 53A was “Laban” (who is actually doubly
the father in law of Jacob). Bu if, after you’d completed the entire puzzle,
you took a final look at the filled-in grid, you might have recalled not only
that Jacob flees from Laban’s house into an area just south of the Sea of “Galilee”
(10D), but also that Jacob’s flight from Laban was “on the sly” (20A: Sub rosa)
because Jacob “misappropriates” (12D Embezzles, e.g.) Laban’s household gods. Just
a random coincidence?
Well,
that brings us to the third layer. If you were a serious “Yeshiva Bucher” (or
like myself, a secular Jew who has seriously studied the complex
multi-authorial origins of the Bible, including Richard Elliot Friedman’s claim
that the David stories in the Book of Samuel are actually the second half of
what Harold Bloom dubbed “the Book of J”), you’d have also known that LABAN in
that first half has his counterpart (both in the literal reversal of letters in
his name, but also in his conflict with the hero) in that second half in the character of NABAL, the rich Calebite whose
wife Abigail (just like Rachel) flees his home “on the sly” with David (whom
she eventually marries), and “misappropriates” her husband’s property!
But
here’s the punch line --- “nabal”, in Hebrew, means “foolish”----which of
course is the overt theme of this puzzle! So I quickly realized that this must
be Stulberg’s way of winking to the Torah-savvy solver that this subtext is not
a mirage, it’s real!
And that
brings us to the fourth and perhaps most exquisite, layer of this covertly Torah-themed
puzzle. Take a closer look (or should I better say, a closer listen) to the master theme clue of
this puzzle, 49D:
“Foolish….or,
when read as three words, how this puzzle’s other four ‘foolish’ answers are
arranged”
The answer
to 49D is “inane”, which when read as three words, becomes “in an e” –which superficially
does describe the way those other four “foolish” answers are arranged in the
grid –i.e., in the shape of a capital letter “E”, with (21A) “silly”, (35A) “empty”
and (51A) “sappy” being the three horizontal parts, and (21D) “senselessly”
being the vertical part whence the other three spring to the right.
But……when
you listen to the sound of the three words “in an e” as spoken aloud, does it
ring any bells for you? It sure did for me --- I quickly realized that these
three words in English sounded almost identically to three rather famous words
in (where else?) the Torah—specifically in Genesis 22:1, when Abraham first responds
to God calling his name:
“And it
came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him,
Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.”
You
see, “here I am” in Hebrew is pronounced “hi-nei-ni” – and that’s anything but inane
or foolish! And I hear in that hidden “hineini” the voice of Jacob Stulberg,
the “god” of this puzzle, making his final announcement to the solver who has
gotten this far, confirming that “Yes, here I am, and how do you like my clever
puzzle?”
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
onTwitter
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