Monday, May 7, 2018 12:55 AM

In Hebrew class, we wrestle with an essay on a Biblical text. I find it familiar, though it's foreign to others. They stumble over odd brief words that I recognize as labels for a book, chapter, and verse. The old language easily comes back to me, though I haven't used it much in forty years. We look at where texts collide, where forgotten tales peek through the surface of much-told stories worn thin. Who really killed Goliath? If not David, was it this Elchanan? If it was David, who did Elchanan kill? Was it Goliath's brother? Or were he and David one and the same? I picture Elchanan, aged and tired, sitting where his sheep once roamed. "If they want to say it was David, let it be David. I've seen his drama, lived through it from afar. Once I killed the giant, my life grew quiet. Let it stay quiet. If history remembers me, even in a sentence somewhere, that will be fine. If not, I won't care. I won't know."