#ten commandments
New Ten Commandments liveblogging time!
The thing to remember: this is 1956.
Lark: Oh, Woody Strode is the king of Ethiopia! Cool. And at least they cite their sources. They’re not good sources, but at least they cite them.
Also Lark: I do not like this font. The Y in Yvonne De Carlo is fancy but the last names aren’t.
Lark: I do like the fact that this one priest is just wearing leopard print. Clearly leopard print never goes out of fashion.
We do like the thousand yard stare on the mother whose child was just murdered. Give that woman some lines.
Lark: now here’s a question: if Moses doesn’t have a name, was he circumcised?
Rose: No, probably not.
Lark: Yeah, probably not until he came back.
Just because you have stairs built down to the Nile doesn’t mean that there aren’t still crocodiles there!
Lark: wouldn’t everybody just know that she… didn’t have a baby?
Rose: I know right?
Lark: apparently Moses is the first virgin birth. Or, well, pseudo virgin birth.
Rose: How do they know what that specific cloth means? Like that it’s Jewish, fine, but Levite specifically? Dude. Also Miriam is really not well-hidden.
Lark: That is some really shitty hiding of the cloth. And why don’t you just let that basket float away? Clearly Bithia failed her observation check.
That is a lovely painting of the sky. Do you love the color of the sky?
Rose: Yul Brynner is a total thirst trap.
Lark: Oh yes, that’s why I got quiet. I would lick Yul Brynner’s abs and they’re not that well-defined. It shows a man doesn’t have to have an eight pack to be attractive.
Lark: Is a pope hat or a penis hat that that the Pharaoh is wearing?
…Is that ragweed that she’s throwing?
Is that Bithia or Anne Baxter? Because she is definitely not wearing any underwear.
Lark: As I said, leopard print never goes out of style.
Rose: Also what is this, a wedding? Do we need sprinkles of flowers?
Lark: These are bad belly dance outfits. And that is definitely a penis hat.
Charlton Heston: not a thirst trap, even before he went off the wall with politics.
Lark: And notice Charlton Heston standing one step down from Yul Brynner to make them look the same height. It’s fun to play “How do they make Charlton Heston not look so much taller than Yul Brynner?”
“You conquered us, so let us give you our most valuable possession!”
Lark: This green stone, which is Kryptonite.
Lark: Sadly, to be fair to 1956, this is amazing representation. It’s showing Black people as a good culture.
Rose: It’s still racist as fuck but…you’re right, it’s amazing representation for the time.
Lark: …Trees of myrrh? No. Myrrh is the sap of specific trees.
Moses, Moses, Moses, it’s like Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!
Let’s play: can we see Anne Baxter’s nipples? Because she is definitely not wearing a bra.
Lark: your fragrance is like the whore of Babylon? That’s one interesting fragrance!
(The line is the wine of Babylon but…)
Lark: This is ancient Egypt, there is no such thing as girdles! Look at Bithia, she is clearly wearing a fucking girdle.
Rose: Also why doesn’t he have a shaved head?
Lark: Because Charlton Heston said no? Seriously how much is due to Charlton Heston’s ego? We should be playing spot the ego.
Lark: I do have to give this film 1950s credit, it has great special effects.
Lark: This is not what they used the slaves for. Mausoleums and pyramids require skilled labor. They used the slaves for the fields!
Dathan, who is the Jewish collaborator.
Rose: I love that Yul Brynner is going “I’m wearing a skirt and I look fucking awesome.”
Lark: I enjoy watching Yul Brynner lounge casually so the camera is focused on his genitals and then waving his spear over his genitals.
That is definitely not real stone. Foam? Plywood? Something else?
Lark: I am not sure this is how they did the movement.
Rose: We know more now though?
Lark: Where is my OSHA compliance? Why would you wear loose stuff around this! She’s not going to smooth the way, she’s going to make it difficult for you to move it! Bones are not lubricant.
Lark: Let’s show how horrible Egypt is by having them kick the old woman. Though that was really good stunt work sliding down.
Rose: Her hair and veil are asking to be pulled into machinery.
Lark: She’s wearing two fucking veils of really bright colors that don’t go with the rest of her outfit. I understand it’s to make her stand out but…
Lark: Why doesn’t she have a knife to cut herself free?
Rose: yeah, they need them for everyday stuff.
Lark: Oh look it’s Vincent Price. Also I really do not like the brownface. Though it is amusing to play “spot the bad brownface applications” – where they’ve slathered it on and it streaks or runs. Armpits are really good for that.
Rose: The whole “God will choose when to set us free” is very fatalistic and not very Jewish. It’s very Christian.
Lark: That is terrible grain rationing. Very bad! This is how you get ants. Do you want rats? This is how you get rats. You’re asking for the plague here!
Rose: Oh it’s the seeing her nipples scene. She’s wearing the blue dress.
Lark: Yup, it’s the nipples dress. They put so much work into the costumes and then they put Cecil Hardwick in gold lame.
Lark: Now I don’t know if that breaking of the staff was intentional or just a really nice throw it in moment.
Lark: Every woman must be compared to a dog or a horse.
Rose: Is it just me or was this filmed in two pieces? The back is not in the same place as the first.
Lark: Yeah, the backdrop is a screen and it’s being projected.
Lark: Cowprint also hasn’t gone out of fashion. Look at the background, there’s people wearing cowprint.
Lark: This is a little too early for obelisks, but cool?
Rose: You can tell this was made a long time ago. See how those statues are still white, they would’ve been colored.
Lark: But they are still being moved, you don’t paint them until they’re in place.
Lark: Yul Brynner is already doing the etcetera, etcetera, etcetera pose.
Lark: Even Nefertiri knows that yellow sucks.
Lark: were persimmons around then? It’s an Asian fruit.
Rose: *looks it up* Yup, China 2000 years ago.
Lark: Let’s try and keep the anachronisms to a minimum.
Rose: I will give Anne Baxter credit for the acting though.
Lark: Anne Baxter was a fabulous actress. There’s an interesting prophecy happening in this movie – Bithia says “If you breathe a word of it, it will be your last” and then she breathes a word and it is her last.
Lark: I do like that they actually decorated the walls of her room because they would have been.
We will now pause our watching to break out our Bibles to find out what actually happened here.
Lark: How would she know the mother? How would Memnet know who Yoshebel was? There’s a plot hole large enough to drive a truck through!
Lark: I do like that she’s actually doing a viable pastime but that’s not something that would’ve been done by someone of her rank.
We both really hate how fast he throws over his adopted mother.
Okay, looking at the Bible, this all happens really fast. (Rose reads the Bible section)
Lark: Okay so this explains how he’d know his mother’s name. Why didn’t they plug the plothole with the actual plot?
Lark: You know, I feel sorry for both of the women.
Rose: Can they just get married and raise him together?
Lark: I’m cool with a lesbian relationship for those two. Have no conversions, keep their religions, and raise him in both.
(And then we had a whole discussion about adoptive parents vs. birth parents and we both completely agree that his adoptive mother is in fact his mother and he completely throws her over for his birth family. We both understand him having complex feelings (especially since he literally just found out he’s adopted) but she’s still his mother.)
Interesting note!
The Bible (in the original Hebrew) does NOT use the word basket for what Moses was sent down the river in. The word it uses is “ark” – the same word as is used for Noah’s ark.
Lark: You do have the right to do family of choice, especially if your parents are abusive, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
Rose: Yeah I get why he wants to know where he came from, but she’s still his mother.
Lark: Is wheat even what they were using then?
Rose: Does wheat even grow in Egypt?
Lark: We’re back to the artistically smeared mud.
Rose: And she’s once again wearing clothing that’s going to get caught in stuff.
Lark: It feels like they’re trying to make this analogous to the Black slave experience, but I don’t know that the Jewish slave experience was the same.
Rose: No, I don’t think they were. The whole “house slave” thing is very…
Lark: Yeah, they wouldn’t have done this.
Lark: The closed captioning needs some work. And considering how old this is, they could’ve captioned properly.
Rose: You also notice how they have Black people carrying the guy? Like not actually having the white people playing Jews acting as slaves in that way?
Lark: Especially since Black Africans wouldn’t have been slaves in that time period.
Rose: Yeah, wasn’t Punt, which was Egypt’s biggest trading partner, probably African?
Lark: Yes, and no one knows where Punt was.
Rose: …Because rich ladies totally come to tour the slave fields.
Lark: the very dirty one that is not dirty at all. No, Charlton Heston is more oiled than dirty.
Back to the Bible: he’s hidden for three months after his birth, so he should in fact be circumcised and named.
Lark: It’s a bad projection. It’s like the film got ruined and they didn’t have a backup.
Rose: I mean, she does have a point, that if he’s in charge, he could’ve changed things.
Lark: Yeah, as he said before, only Pharaoh can free a slave – if he’d become Pharaoh he could’ve freed all the slaves. He chose a more difficult path.
Lark: Gold fringe: totally de rigeur in Ancient Egypt.
Rose: you know what it looks like to me? Like they took a European depiction of Pocahontas and turned the outfit into gold.
Lark: Beards of shellfish? Oh my god I do not want to smell that gown!
Rose: I like the Tarzan leap.
Rose: I love how he’s not stopping them from tying him up at all.
Lark: No, he’s helping them. And they tied him really shittily. He must be really into BDSM. If you can’t get out of those knots, you’re not trying.
Lark: what the…is he wearing legwarmers? They’re trying to be cavemen, wearing uncut leathers! Look at Charlton Heston, he went back to Planet of the Apes.
Rose: I think Joshua is wearing boots.
Lark: the blacks don’t match, this bothers me that the blacks don’t match!
Lark: I could scrounge this outfit out of my closet right now. I could totally make Yul Brynner’s outfit for Halloween.
Lark: How much of this is us being thirsty over Yul Brynner?
Rose: Only the parts that aren’t us being thirsty over Anne Baxter.
Lark: I know that’s supposed to be a scarab but it looks like Dathan is wearing a Buddha necklace.
By the way, for anyone who wants to avoid this, we’re tagging everything with “#10k liveblog” so you can!
Oh god it’s the terrible lime green dancing outfits. With pompoms at the end of their hair.
Lark: Some people watch The Ten Commandments because it’s their Easter tradition. We watch it because it’s unintentionally hilarious.
Lark: Seriously, I think Charlton Heston made a career out of standing around in chains looking buff.
Rose: We’re two hours into this movie and we haven’t even gone through a whole chapter of the Bible.
Lark: But how much did Cecil B. DeMille come up with himself versus came from other sources?
Rose: Yeah, probably some came from extra-Biblical sources.
Oh look it’s time for a hot not-quite-threesome scene!
Lark: at some point we should do a recast of this.
Rose: YES!
Lark: That flower does nothing for her.
Lark: …Is he wearing an H on his chest?
Rose: Yes. I mean I think it’s supposed to be buildings but…
Lark: but it’s a fucking H. Oh I know what the H stands for! H stands for Harvey Weinstein!
Rose: *bursts out laughing*
Lark: The desert looks remarkably like Mars. Please go find Mark Watney.
Rose: And Charlton Heston is growing a beard.
Lark: Charlton Heston is growing a beard? I didn’t know he was gay!
(Charlton Heston was in fact very very homophobic.)
Lark: At the right angle, his rod does look like a penis.
Lark: Does he not know? I see green! Go toward green!
Rose: These girls are thirsty.
Lark: Oh god yes. They’re going to settle for Charlton Heston. I’m so sorry.
Rose: Those runes on the well look remarkably Norse to me.
Rose: This is seriously Jesus imagery.
Lark: It should be, Cecil B. DeMille wanted to tell the story of Jesus but couldn’t get away with it.
Lark: He’s the sheikh of Midian? I’m pretty sure that’s Arabian, not Egyptian.
Rose: The Bible says priest.
Rose: Why are they just washing his feet? What about the rest of him?
Rose: You’re a man, so you’re going to sit with Daddy and we’re going to serve you!
Lark: Congratulations, we have every neckbeard’s dream. And Charlton Heston does have a neckbeard.
Rose: Also was Bedouin even a group back then?
Lark: The people have been around for a while but they didn’t use the name back then.
Rose: Her brownface looks slightly orange.
Lark: It’s because they used too much bronzer on her.
Lark: Charlton Heston is the most arrogant Moses ever to Moses.
Lark: Well there’s some slut-shaming going on here.
Rose: Uh huh.
Rose: This is like… headbanging before there was headbanging.
Lark: It’s belly dance before there was belly dance!
Lark: Notice how Moses does a totally man thing and picks the one who doesn’t want him?
Lark: Is Mount Sinai a volcano?
Rose: No. No it is not.
Lark: …Her skin was as white as curd?
Rose: I know, right?
Lark: …I heard wine of desire, the closed captioning typed whore of desire.
Lark: The cinematographer does not know how to light it.
Rose: On the other hand, you can actually see their faces, which is better than some modern movies.
And we are now joined by the awesome @randomnoteforfuturereference!
Lark: I do appreciate that closed captioning does not actually caption the commercials.
Rose: My neck looks at that position and aches.
Lark: Leopard print: still in style.
FFR: Oh I forgot, Sinai God is watching you have sex.
Rose: Oh look, we finally got out of Chapter 2 of Exodus!
Lark: Puppy! I want to pet the puppy!
Rose: Seriously Charlton Heston has already aged how much while Joshua hasn’t at all?
Rose: Oh look Sephora’s not a virgin anymore so she’s not wearing white.
Lark: You can wear white after Labor Day!
That is definitely a German Sheppard, which wouldn’t have existed in Egypt in that time period.
(And then we got into a discussion of dog breeds and what they would’ve had/wanted.)
Lark: And it’s not time for Charlton Heston to talk to himself.
Lark: Charlton Heston trying to feign humility is really painful to watch.
FFR: It feels awkward.
Lark: The holy mountain is forbidden to men clearly means it’s for women.
Rose: Also look how much grayer his hair got.
FFR: God gave him product.
Lark: And Rogaine.
Lark: Is it wrong that I sort of want to reach out and squeeze Joshua’s boobs?
FFR: Or poke his belly.
Lark: I just heard “I will lead the army against the army of Midol.” I am pro fighting PMS.
FFR: One thing I can’t get over is how much the soldiers look like Romans.
Rose: It gets worse, wait for the Mongolians.
Lark: No no outfits bad! No biscuits!
Lark: Granted, we now have Yul Brynner wearing the penis hat. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
FFR: For it’s time, that special effect was spectacular.
Rose: That child is much darker than either of his parents.
Lark: I think the three kings came a little early. It keeps flashing to these three guys wearing fancy hats, clearly they’re the three kings.
FFR: Cape swirl!
Lark: I’m getting a definite Wonder Woman 1984 vibe out of Nefertiri with that dress.
Lark: You still can make brick without straw, it just will be shitty brick.
Lark: That spray of pink flowers, are those snapdragons?
Lark: She’s got a bit of crazy eyes going on.
Seriously the blackface in this is not okay.
New Ten Commandments liveblogging time!
The thing to remember: this is 1956.
Lark: Oh, Woody Strode is the king of Ethiopia! Cool. And at least they cite their sources. They’re not good sources, but at least they cite them.
Also Lark: I do not like this font. The Y in Yvonne De Carlo is fancy but the last names aren’t.
Lark: I do like the fact that this one priest is just wearing leopard print. Clearly leopard print never goes out of fashion.
We do like the thousand yard stare on the mother whose child was just murdered. Give that woman some lines.
Lark: now here’s a question: if Moses doesn’t have a name, was he circumcised?
Rose: No, probably not.
Lark: Yeah, probably not until he came back.
Just because you have stairs built down to the Nile doesn’t mean that there aren’t still crocodiles there!
Lark: wouldn’t everybody just know that she… didn’t have a baby?
Rose: I know right?
Lark: apparently Moses is the first virgin birth. Or, well, pseudo virgin birth.
Rose: How do they know what that specific cloth means? Like that it’s Jewish, fine, but Levite specifically? Dude. Also Miriam is really not well-hidden.
Lark: That is some really shitty hiding of the cloth. And why don’t you just let that basket float away? Clearly Bithia failed her observation check.
That is a lovely painting of the sky. Do you love the color of the sky?
Rose: Yul Brynner is a total thirst trap.
Lark: Oh yes, that’s why I got quiet. I would lick Yul Brynner’s abs and they’re not that well-defined. It shows a man doesn’t have to have an eight pack to be attractive.
Lark: Is a pope hat or a penis hat that that the Pharaoh is wearing?
…Is that ragweed that she’s throwing?
Is that Bithia or Anne Baxter? Because she is definitely not wearing any underwear.
Lark: As I said, leopard print never goes out of style.
Rose: Also what is this, a wedding? Do we need sprinkles of flowers?
Lark: These are bad belly dance outfits. And that is definitely a penis hat.
Charlton Heston: not a thirst trap, even before he went off the wall with politics.
Lark: And notice Charlton Heston standing one step down from Yul Brynner to make them look the same height. It’s fun to play “How do they make Charlton Heston not look so much taller than Yul Brynner?”
“You conquered us, so let us give you our most valuable possession!”
Lark: This green stone, which is Kryptonite.
Lark: Sadly, to be fair to 1956, this is amazing representation. It’s showing Black people as a good culture.
Rose: It’s still racist as fuck but…you’re right, it’s amazing representation for the time.
Lark: …Trees of myrrh? No. Myrrh is the sap of specific trees.
Moses, Moses, Moses, it’s like Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!
Let’s play: can we see Anne Baxter’s nipples? Because she is definitely not wearing a bra.
Lark: your fragrance is like the whore of Babylon? That’s one interesting fragrance!
(The line is the wine of Babylon but…)
Lark: This is ancient Egypt, there is no such thing as girdles! Look at Bithia, she is clearly wearing a fucking girdle.
Rose: Also why doesn’t he have a shaved head?
Lark: Because Charlton Heston said no? Seriously how much is due to Charlton Heston’s ego? We should be playing spot the ego.
Lark: I do have to give this film 1950s credit, it has great special effects.
Lark: This is not what they used the slaves for. Mausoleums and pyramids require skilled labor. They used the slaves for the fields!
Dathan, who is the Jewish collaborator.
Rose: I love that Yul Brynner is going “I’m wearing a skirt and I look fucking awesome.”
Lark: I enjoy watching Yul Brynner lounge casually so the camera is focused on his genitals and then waving his spear over his genitals.
That is definitely not real stone. Foam? Plywood? Something else?
Lark: I am not sure this is how they did the movement.
Rose: We know more now though?
Lark: Where is my OSHA compliance? Why would you wear loose stuff around this! She’s not going to smooth the way, she’s going to make it difficult for you to move it! Bones are not lubricant.
Lark: Let’s show how horrible Egypt is by having them kick the old woman. Though that was really good stunt work sliding down.
Rose: Her hair and veil are asking to be pulled into machinery.
Lark: She’s wearing two fucking veils of really bright colors that don’t go with the rest of her outfit. I understand it’s to make her stand out but…
Lark: Why doesn’t she have a knife to cut herself free?
Rose: yeah, they need them for everyday stuff.
Lark: Oh look it’s Vincent Price. Also I really do not like the brownface. Though it is amusing to play “spot the bad brownface applications” – where they’ve slathered it on and it streaks or runs. Armpits are really good for that.
Rose: The whole “God will choose when to set us free” is very fatalistic and not very Jewish. It’s very Christian.
Lark: That is terrible grain rationing. Very bad! This is how you get ants. Do you want rats? This is how you get rats. You’re asking for the plague here!
Rose: Oh it’s the seeing her nipples scene. She’s wearing the blue dress.
Lark: Yup, it’s the nipples dress. They put so much work into the costumes and then they put Cecil Hardwick in gold lame.
Lark: Now I don’t know if that breaking of the staff was intentional or just a really nice throw it in moment.
Lark: Every woman must be compared to a dog or a horse.
Rose: Is it just me or was this filmed in two pieces? The back is not in the same place as the first.
Lark: Yeah, the backdrop is a screen and it’s being projected.
Lark: Cowprint also hasn’t gone out of fashion. Look at the background, there’s people wearing cowprint.
Lark: This is a little too early for obelisks, but cool?
Rose: You can tell this was made a long time ago. See how those statues are still white, they would’ve been colored.
Lark: But they are still being moved, you don’t paint them until they’re in place.
Lark: Yul Brynner is already doing the etcetera, etcetera, etcetera pose.
Lark: Even Nefertiri knows that yellow sucks.
Lark: were persimmons around then? It’s an Asian fruit.
Rose: *looks it up* Yup, China 2000 years ago.
Lark: Let’s try and keep the anachronisms to a minimum.
Rose: I will give Anne Baxter credit for the acting though.
Lark: Anne Baxter was a fabulous actress. There’s an interesting prophecy happening in this movie – Bithia says “If you breathe a word of it, it will be your last” and then she breathes a word and it is her last.
Lark: I do like that they actually decorated the walls of her room because they would have been.
We will now pause our watching to break out our Bibles to find out what actually happened here.
Lark: How would she know the mother? How would Memnet know who Yoshebel was? There’s a plot hole large enough to drive a truck through!
Lark: I do like that she’s actually doing a viable pastime but that’s not something that would’ve been done by someone of her rank.
We both really hate how fast he throws over his adopted mother.
Okay, looking at the Bible, this all happens really fast. (Rose reads the Bible section)
Lark: Okay so this explains how he’d know his mother’s name. Why didn’t they plug the plothole with the actual plot?
Lark: You know, I feel sorry for both of the women.
Rose: Can they just get married and raise him together?
Lark: I’m cool with a lesbian relationship for those two. Have no conversions, keep their religions, and raise him in both.
(And then we had a whole discussion about adoptive parents vs. birth parents and we both completely agree that his adoptive mother is in fact his mother and he completely throws her over for his birth family. We both understand him having complex feelings (especially since he literally just found out he’s adopted) but she’s still his mother.)
Interesting note!
The Bible (in the original Hebrew) does NOT use the word basket for what Moses was sent down the river in. The word it uses is “ark” – the same word as is used for Noah’s ark.
Lark: You do have the right to do family of choice, especially if your parents are abusive, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
Rose: Yeah I get why he wants to know where he came from, but she’s still his mother.
Lark: Is wheat even what they were using then?
Rose: Does wheat even grow in Egypt?
Lark: We’re back to the artistically smeared mud.
Rose: And she’s once again wearing clothing that’s going to get caught in stuff.
Lark: It feels like they’re trying to make this analogous to the Black slave experience, but I don’t know that the Jewish slave experience was the same.
Rose: No, I don’t think they were. The whole “house slave” thing is very…
Lark: Yeah, they wouldn’t have done this.
Lark: The closed captioning needs some work. And considering how old this is, they could’ve captioned properly.
Rose: You also notice how they have Black people carrying the guy? Like not actually having the white people playing Jews acting as slaves in that way?
Lark: Especially since Black Africans wouldn’t have been slaves in that time period.
Rose: Yeah, wasn’t Punt, which was Egypt’s biggest trading partner, probably African?
Lark: Yes, and no one knows where Punt was.
Rose: …Because rich ladies totally come to tour the slave fields.
Lark: the very dirty one that is not dirty at all. No, Charlton Heston is more oiled than dirty.
Back to the Bible: he’s hidden for three months after his birth, so he should in fact be circumcised and named.
Lark: It’s a bad projection. It’s like the film got ruined and they didn’t have a backup.
Rose: I mean, she does have a point, that if he’s in charge, he could’ve changed things.
Lark: Yeah, as he said before, only Pharaoh can free a slave – if he’d become Pharaoh he could’ve freed all the slaves. He chose a more difficult path.
Lark: Gold fringe: totally de rigeur in Ancient Egypt.
Rose: you know what it looks like to me? Like they took a European depiction of Pocahontas and turned the outfit into gold.
Lark: Beards of shellfish? Oh my god I do not want to smell that gown!
Rose: I like the Tarzan leap.
Rose: I love how he’s not stopping them from tying him up at all.
Lark: No, he’s helping them. And they tied him really shittily. He must be really into BDSM. If you can’t get out of those knots, you’re not trying.
Lark: what the…is he wearing legwarmers? They’re trying to be cavemen, wearing uncut leathers! Look at Charlton Heston, he went back to Planet of the Apes.
Rose: I think Joshua is wearing boots.
Lark: the blacks don’t match, this bothers me that the blacks don’t match!
Lark: I could scrounge this outfit out of my closet right now. I could totally make Yul Brynner’s outfit for Halloween.
Lark: How much of this is us being thirsty over Yul Brynner?
Rose: Only the parts that aren’t us being thirsty over Anne Baxter.
Lark: I know that’s supposed to be a scarab but it looks like Dathan is wearing a Buddha necklace.
Some finished shots of this Moses and the Ten Commandments freehand sleeve by artist Jonathan Silva at Empire Tattoo Boston!
@empire_tattoo_bostonPost link
The pervert inside me loved this image from Nanatsu no Taizai episode of this week. Hope you like it too.
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Nntober Day 2: Demon clan
This morning, I was still hesitating between drawing Derieri and Rajine, drawing the demon that Rou meets during his childhood, or drawing Fraudin… Finally I decided to draw Gowther and Glariza !
![“Is it too modern to notice that there is nothing [in the ten commandments] about the protecti](https://64.media.tumblr.com/52616b34132b971f5628c08876f12734/a7a911001a8ad839-56/s1280x1920/77b3f90c36b77a28d82bdf21c2d1472f8deb3021.jpg "“Is it too modern to notice that there is nothing [in the ten commandments] about the protecti")
“Is it too modern to notice that there is nothing [in the ten commandments] about the protection of children from cruelty, nothing about rape, nothing about slavery, and nothing about genocide? Or is it too exactingly ‘in context’ to notice that some of these very offenses are about to be positively recommended?”
– Christopher Hitchens
The temporal morality of an eternal being.
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Yehudim Baim - 10 Commandments (with English Subtitles)
This is just glorious. It’s effectively an amusing modern-day exposition on the 10 Commandments that will make you think, with a punchline at the end that’ll crack you up. Worth a watch!
Last week, I had the honor of giving the D’var Torah at my synagogue’s Saturday morning services. Here is the speech I gave!
Welcome to the Book of Exodus! We begin with Parshat Shemot, and everything that happens in this week’s Torah portion will sound familiar to anyone who has ever been to a Passover seder or seen movies like The Prince of Egypt orThe Ten Commandments. This parsha shows the Children of Israel becoming slaves in Egypt, the birth of Moses, the burning bush, all the way up to Moses’s first attempt to get Pharaoh to “let my people go.”
As I read through Shemot, it occurred to me that this parsha keeps going back and forth. It’s full of twists – reversals of fortune – moments where the characters circumstances suddenly change direction.
The Children of Israel begin this parsha “fruitful and filling the land,” happy members of Egyptian society – and then a new king rises over Egypt, and this Pharaoh fears the Children of Israel, and he makes them his slaves. This is the first reversal – a change from a prosperous time, to a time of suffering.
Then Pharaoh commands that every son born to the Children of Israel shall be cast into the Nile River. But one mother puts her baby in a basket in the Nile. And instead of drowning, this baby is adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter! Another reversal, this time from death to the literal lap of luxury.
Pharaoh’s daughter names the baby Moses. And we would expect at this point for Moses to be raised as an Egyptian prince. That’s how the Dreamworks movie explains it. But then the baby’s sister – she doesn’t get named here yet, but we know it’s Moses’s sister, Miriam – Miriam offers to bring a wet nurse for the baby. And she brings Moses’s birth mother to the palace! Another reversal – Moses is raised by his Hebrew mother!
So Moses grows up, and one day, he sees an Egyptian man beating a Hebrew man. Moses kills the Egyptian, and he realizes that he has to flee from Egypt to avoid being punished. If anyone’s keeping track, we’re now up to four reversals of fortune. Moses was a Prince of Egypt, and now he’s on the run in the desert.
And Moses might have died out there in the desert, except that along the way, he helped the daughters of a Midian chief protect their flocks! And suddenly, Moses is a welcome member of this community in Midian, with a wife and a baby, and a flock of sheep to herd. A fifth reversal of fortune.
And then the Torah says, “God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.” And God decides that it’s time to call to Moses, through a burning bush, and tell him to go back to Egypt and free his people from slavery.
And Moses says – “NO WAY.”
I am obviously paraphrasing here. Moses gives a lot of excuses. “Who am I to do this? What if the Children of Israel don’t believe me? I’m a really bad public speaker!”
God has an answer to each of Moses’s excuses. When Moses says, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” God says, “Don’t worry; I will be with you.” When Moses says, “What if the Children of Israel don’t believe me?” God says, “Here are some miracles you can show them, so they will believe you. When Moses says, “I’m a really bad public speaker!” God says, “You can have your brother Aaron help you.”
And only then does Moses finally agree to return to Egypt.
Why does Moses argue so much with God about this? Why doesn’t he want to go back to Egypt and free his people? I don’t think it’s as simple as Moses not thinking he’s the right man for the job. We know that Moses cares deeply about the Children of Israel and is willing to take action to protect them – he already killed someone to protect a Hebrew slave! And it should be clear to Moses that with God and God’s miracles on his side, he would be a formidable force in Egypt. So why does Moses resist God’s call?
I think that we should keep in mind that, by this point, Moses has been through a lot. [count on fingers] Hispeople were made slaves, he narrowly avoided being drowned in the Nile, he unexpectedly found himself with his Hebrew mother again, he had to go on the run in the desert, and he became a family man. Moses’s life has been completely uprooted five times – sometimes in objectively good ways, sometimes in objectively bad ways, but each of these five times in an unpredictable way, with factors outside of his control – and now God wants to make it six times. And Moses is afraid of this change.
I empathize with Moses! Now, my circumstances are nowhere near as extreme as his. But I understand the fear that comes from having to uproot your life too many times due to factors outside of your control.
I graduated from college four years ago, and in that time frame, just four years, I have packed all my belongings into moving boxes six separate times. I have driven three different cars. I have fallen in love and gone through break-ups twice. I have had four different jobs, I was accepted to a fifth job that was canceled because of the pandemic, and my current job, which I really like, at first only promised me work until the beginning of January, and they just recently surprised me by promising me work until the end of January. And I have no idea what’s going to happen after that. These changes are outside of my control.
Uncertainty is my least favorite thing in the whole world. When I find a piece of solid ground, I cling to it. So I feel that if someone came to me right now and said, “Pack your bags; we’ve got a job for you in California!” …I would be hesitant!
Even if they were offering me an amazing opportunity to change the world, to put my skills to work, to tell stories that would make a real difference in people’s lives, I would be scared! I would make excuses! I would be like, “I just signed a lease! I just built a desk and a bed, I just found some really good roommates, and I’m making friends at work, and I’m a member of a wonderful congregation… Why can’t I just stay where I am?”
In case my parents are listening in on Zoom – IF SOMEONE OFFERS ME A REALLY COOL WRITING JOB IN CALIFORNIA, I WILL TAKE THE JOB. I WILL MAKE SMART CAREER CHOICES.
The point is, I would be scared. I’m already scared, a lot of the time. Because change is scary. Not knowing what the outcomes of your actions will be, or what the world is going to throw at you next, is scary. Stability, staying where you are, is much more appealing.
In Parshat Shemot, the Torah shows us a very human response to change. Moses resists. He makes excuses. But God has an answer for every excuse that Moses makes. The Torah encourages us to not resist change, even though it is scary. But the Torah also promises us that we will not face change alone.
Moses finally agrees to return to Egypt because God promises him that he will have allies there to help him. And Moses has allies through every change in his life. He has his mother – both his Hebrew mother who put him in the river, and his adoptive Egyptian mother who drew him out of it. He has his sister, who kept watch over him and spoke up on his behalf, and he has his brother, who will speak for him in Egypt. He has his wife Zipporah who goes with him to Egypt. He has the Children of Israel, waiting for him there. And he has God – God who believes in Moses and who won’t take no for an answer.
And all of us here today, reading this parsha, we have allies, too – our family, our friends, our coworkers, our congregation, and God. So whether the next big scary reversal of fortune in our lives brings us to something good, or something bad, or something unpredictable, we will be able to face it together. Shabbat shalom.
