Understanding a Runaway Soul

June 06, 2009 The poet and critic T.S. Eliot emphasised that one of the important social functions of literature is to preserve a “historical sense” of its connection to previous texts. The Ships of Tarshish, Ariel Zinder’s first book of poetry, fulfills this ideal to a marvellous degree.

The title of the book brings to mind the great merchant ships that sailed the Mediterranean and Red seas in ancient times. These ships were named after a Mediterranean city [whose exact identity is a matter of debate]; some say they were built to carry precious metals and ores from distant places, and were specially reinforced to withstand waters difficult to navigate. The allusion to strong vessels bearing natural treasures appears to signify poetry, or life laden with the treasures of poetry.

In this context, the book’s epigraphs are surprising. The first is a verse from Isaiah 23:14: “Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is laid waste,” about the sorrow of Tarshish shipping merchants over the destruction of the city of Tyre, which had served them as refuge and home. The second is from poet Israel Eliraz, with whose work Zinder conducts an intensive dialogue: “But you continue to live east of yourself.” [The associative power of the Hebrew language, which stems from the fact that words are based on roots comprised of several letters means that] the linkage of destruction with exile in these citations [leads the reader to connect] the idea of impoverishment [hit-ro-sheh-shoot in Hebrew] to the city of Tarshish, inherent in the root of the name, and questions the actual strength of these ships.

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In the context of Judaism, Zinder’s poetry raises the subject of the spiritual and cultural quest – for which his work longs and from which it flees. This search tosses the ships in his title from west to east and back again, and brings them aground against the rocks of love and loss, but does not manage to obscure his deep connection to the cultural source of his consciousness and identity.

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His poetry draws distances together and connects ordinary personal experiences to mythological events. The Tower of Babel story is read in the context of a couple’s dialogue; the open-air Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem is the site of a visit by three angels.

The poem ‘To the Weak, the Fearful and the Faint-hearted’, with the prophet Jonah at its center, is key to understanding the book’s poetics, and provides a good example of them. In the biblical story, Jonah boards a ship sailing to Tarshish in order to escape from God. The destination is repeated three times in one verse, leading to the conclusion that the city is not a random choice: “But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to [Jaffa] and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.” (Jonah 1:3). And in his prayer to God, Jonah says later: “. . . is this not what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish . . .” (Jonah 4:2).

What then is Jonah looking for in Tarshish? It may be that he wants to go as far as he can in the opposite direction from eastern [and wicked] Ninevah [where God ordered him to go], as Tarshish is to the west. It’s also possible to consider the suicidal aspect of this choice, connected to the fact that the ships of Tarshish sailed the open sea and often broke up on rocks, as it says, for example [ . . . ] in Psalm 48.

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In the new Hebrew poetry preceding Zinder, Jonah’s flight from God is interpreted as an individual’s flight from oneself. Poems by Yakov Fichman, Gabriel Preil, Zelda, Maya Bejerano and others focus on the isolation of the self . . . Zinder’s innovation is the way he uses a particular biblical context to the Jonah story, the list of conditions, according to Jewish law, for which one may be released from war service, and which are alluded to in the title. This list includes four situations [of incomplete actions]: a man who has built a home but has not moved in; a man who has planted a vineyard but not yet fenced it; a man who has become engaged but not yet married; and a man who is “fearful and faint-hearted”. The final instance stands out, because it is not one of an important act which has not yet been completed . . . Rather, it concerns a person who is likely to have a bad influence on his army comrades and weaken their spirit. The poem creates a parallel between Jonah and the “fearful and fainthearted”. In both cases a man has a certain social function, but he does not fulfill it due to psychological reasons. In this way, Zinder marks Jonah as the center of interest in a social context – the poet-prophet who flees life’s battles and his common fate with others, and goes it alone to another place.

The poem is located in Jaffa, the port city from which Jonah intended to sail to Tarshish, and ran to catch the boat: “Jonah goes running through the alleys. The ship is already at anchor, the quayside stirring to life.” The third-party speaker of the poem faces the beggars on the dock, who reach out their hands toward the fleeing Jonah; the speaker asks them to leave him alone and not to cause his delay. The speaker understands the soul of the runaway, the oppression of Jonah, the “man who is running through alleys, who tramples the past and gulps the future, spitting out minutes one by one”, lacking “the pulse of the moment”, and he feels sorry for him.

The speaker, whose affinity with Jonah and Jonah’s motives is obvious, places himself as a go-between between the beggars and the clueless Jonah. He seems to depict Jonah in some way as though he were describing himself. Nonetheless, Jonah is pictured in a coldly mechanical way, while the poor beggars are portrayed in terms of hearts and hands reaching out. The difference between Jonah and the beggars may be discerned in their relation to time. Jonah has no present, but only a past and future. The beggars, that is, humankind, live only in the present time. Jonah is described in terms of characteristics that exist in opposition to each other. One the one hand he is weak, trapped, and despairing, and on the other hand he is arrogant. In any case, it is clear that he “will not submit”. Jonah’s intentions in heading toward Tarshish are clear and there is no stopping them.

The three final stanzas describe Jonah’s return from the speaker’s point of view. When Jonah disembarks from the journey on which he was shot like an arrow, he is beaten and impoverished, “an abyss in his gaze, his watch slipping into the waters.” That is, he remains in the present time alone. Now his stance before the city beggars is completely different: “How he’ll envy you . . . how he’ll whisper, along with you.” Zinder is not stooping to cliché here. Jaffa is no less nauseating, as her garbage heaps “are well-springs bubbling forth”, and yet, the change that has begun to take place in Jonah allows for a new bond with the human [element]. This reversal in his perspective is expressed in the metaphor Jaffa’s “alleys are gold”. That is, what is human is depicted in the [same] legendary light of Tarshish, which he never reached. Dr. Inbar Raveh is a lecturer in rabbinical literature.
All extracts quoted from Zinder’s poems are translated by Jennie Feldman.