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Following in a now familiar pattern, the Israelites, post-Joshua, continue on with conquering and integrating into the Promised Land. While doing so, they apparently will once again lose faith, despite having just sworn up and down to Joshua that they won’t. God will be pissed and threaten to destroy them. Someone will intercede and talk him down. He’ll pick a new champion. Rinse and repeat. In this era, the champions will be the biblical judges, as the Israelites struggle to found a politically based kingdom.

1. Despite the litany of conquered towns and territories, there was an entire region of the Promised Land still unconquered after Joshua’s death. So, it falls to the various tribes to go and conquere the various cultures that exist in, around, and north of Jerusalem. Most of them, led by the hand and favor of God, succeed, killing of tens of thousands of people who lived in the various regions. A few of the tribes decide it’s better just to live in harmony with the existing peoples. God, of course, favors the conquering types.
2. God sends an angel to one of the tribes that decided to negotiate, integrate, and/or assimilate, to remind them that they swore not to do that. In retaliation for their straying from the path, God tells them that they’ll be oppressed by their newfound neighbors. A generational cycle begins, with the Jews being oppressed, then repenting, God sending a champion to help them take back the territory and destroy the local culture, and then the next generation falling into old ways again. Over and over until God says, I’m not helping anymore.
3. We continue this cycle of disappointing God by assimilating and adopting local worship and behavior customs. Over and over. And why? Because succeeding generations only hear about history as a story, they didn’t experience it and don’t learn from it. A focus on the Benjamites, who have integrated into the kingdom of Moab, led by King Eglon. God sends a champion, Ehud, who, we are informed, is left-handed, and conceals a dagger on the opposite side of his body from where he might be searched. He gains an audience with Eglon. After presenting gifts to Eglon, he asserts that he has some privileged, secret info, and Eglon dismisses his courtiers. Alone, Ehud stabs Eglon to death, ripping open his belly. He then cleans up, locks up, and leaves, making a clean getaway before his act is discovered. With Eglon out of the way, Ehud leads the Israelites in the slaughter of 10,000 Moabites, conquering yet another small city-state.
4. Next round. Ehud’s dead. Now another group of Jews are subject to the rule of Sisera, another Canaanite leader. Twenty years go by, and the judge Deborah calls Barak, the commander of the Israelite forces and announces a 10,000 man march on Sisera’s forces. Barak hems and haws and finally says he’ll do it if she’ll accompany him. She says “cool, but all credit goes to women!” They march, kill Sisera’s troops. Sisera escapes to a nearby city where Jael, wife of Heber, a Jew who kept the faith during the past decades, greets him. Not knowing who she is, he asks her to set him up in a tent, and make sure no one knows he’s there. She agrees, waits until he’s asleep, and then takes a tent stake and a mallet and drives the stake through his temple, nailing him to the ground. All credit, indeed, to the women.
5. Pleased with themselves, Deborah & Barak, commander of the troops, break into song, recounting the battle and extolling the glory of fighting on behalf of, and worshipping God. At the end of the song, the Israelites then have 40 years of peace and harmony. Time jump!
6. Another group of Jews has abandoned God and started worshipping Baal. So God lets the Midianites drive them from their homes, forcing them to live in the hills, and further, the Midianites keep raiding their livestock and produce. The Jews cry out to God for help. God responds that they abandoned him first, so what did they expect? But he sends an angel, who appears in front of Gideon, son of Joash, a local farmer. The angel tells Gideon that he will be the new messenger and champion of God. Being your average farmboy, Gideon is skeptical. He notes that he’s the youngest of an insignificant family. And, he wants some proof, so he asks the angel to wait. He then prepares a meal and presents it to the angel, who tells him to place it on a nearby rock. The angel points his staff at the rock which bursts into flame. The meal is instantly consumed. Gideon builds an altar to God on the spot. God tells him to go and tear down the community’s altar to Baal and replace it with one to him. Afraid, Gideon and some friends do so in the middle of the night, and then sacrifice a bull. Next day the townspeople are pissed and want to kill Gideon, but his dad, Joash, convinces them that if Baal is upset, he can come for Gideon himself. Then Gideon blows a horn that he had lying around and rallies all the nearby Jewish communities to battle. But he’s still skeptical, so he asks the angel for another bit of proof, placing a piece of cloth on the ground and asserting that if God is truly with him, in the morning the cloth will be dry while the surrounding ground will be covered in dew. Next morning, that’s the case.
7. Gideon and the troops are ready. They number 32k. God says to Gideon, “Woah, that’s too many. If you conquer the Midianites with 32k troops, y’all are going to take credit for the win. Ask for volunteers to go home and not fight.” Gideon does, and 22k choose to leave. God says to Gideon, “Still too many. Take them to the river and let them drink water, I’ll figure it out.” They go to the river, and while 300 lie down and lap the water like dogs, the others go to their knees and scoop water. God tells him to send the kneelers home. He does. He then tells Gideon to sneak into the Midianite camp and listen in on conversations. Gideon does, and overhears a dream about the tent camp being overturned. It gives him an idea. Don’t ask me how. He goes back to his 300 and equips them with horns and jars with torches in them. He splits them up, they approach the camp on three sides, then they all blow their horns, shout battle cries, and smash their jars with torches in them. This, apparently, causes the Midianites to lose their minds, and they all run away to the open side. Gideon’s troops pursue. They kill as many as they can as they pursue, and in the end, capture the two Midianite generals, cutting off their heads and bringing those back to Gideon.
8. Gideon and his 300 men are still in pursuit of the remaining 10k enemy troops the two Midianite kings. They’ve already, with God’s help, killed 120k enemies. As they pass through different towns, he asks locals for sustenance for his men, and each time is refused. The general response is, “why should we feed your men if you haven’t captured and killed those kings?” Gideon swears revenge. In the end, he and his men kill the remaining enemy troops and capture and kill the kings. On his way back, they destroy the towns that mocked them. And, kill most of the inhabitants. Segue, much pleased with himself, Gideon retires, lives out 40 more years of life with multiple wives and concubines, fathering 70 children, including Abimelech, son of one of the concubines, who I gather we’ll get back to. Gideon dies. The people go back to worshipping Baal. I told you this was going to be a lot of “rinse and repeat”.
9. Back to Abimelech, son of Gideon and a concubine. He’s pissed off that dad’s family doesn’t recognize him, so he goes to mom’s family and gets them to follow him, and kill off all 70 of his half brothers, except the youngest, Jotham, who hides. Then Abimelech sets himself up as local king over his parents’ tribes, and he rules for three years, until Jotham organizes an insurrection. Fast forward, various battles, lots of pursuing and killing, Abimelech setting fire to a people-filled tower and burning them alive. In a last ditch effort, a woman in the tower drops a millstone on Abimelech’s head, nearly killing him. Dying, he calls his adjutant and asks to be put to death by stabbing, so that no one knows he was killed by a mere woman. Abimelech is dead. Battle over. Everyone goes home.
10. After Abimelech, Tola arises and leads the Jewish people for 23 years. Then Jair takes over and leads for another 22. But somewhere in there, the people start to revert to their old ways, or perhaps simply assimilating with their neighbors, and begin to worship Baal. God’s had enough, and lets the Philistines and Ammonites oppress the Jews, for 18 years. They cry out for his help, lamenting that they screwed up. Yet again. But he’s having none of it. Reminds them how many times he’s saved them from enemies. Suggests they ask the other gods for help this time and see how that goes. Smartly, I’m going to assume, they destroy all the altars and idols to Baal and other gods. They muster their troops, and the military leaders agree that whoever stands up successfully to the Philistines and Ammonites will be the next leader over their people.
11. Jephthah, son of Gilead and a prostitute, is thrown out of the family house by Gilead’s “real” sons. But now that there’s trouble brewing with the Amonites, the elders think he’d be a good commander of the troops, as he’s a trained warrior. They ask him to come back. He’s like, “You kicked me to the curb, why should I help you?” They’re like, “Help us and we’ll make you commander over all the troops.” He agrees, and he sends messages to the enemy kings, asking why they’re massing to attack. One and all reply, “Dude, you guys took our lands.” He responds, “We didn’t take them, we sent you messages asking to let us pass, you refused, so God conquered you with our help and told us we could have the land. Wouldn’t you keep the spoils from anything your god (Chemosh) gave you?”They’re like, “Prepare for war dude.” Jephthah vows to God that if God helps him conquer all the enemies, when he gets home, he’ll offer up “whatever” first approaches him as a burnt offering. God helps him conquer all, Jephthah heads home. But, instead of an animal, his only daughter is first to approach him. They talk, she’s like, “Well, you promised, so, hey, give me a couple of months to go hang with some friends, lament the loss of my future, and then I’ll be back and you can burn me on the altar.” So, he burnt her alive. Dude, really? You couldn’t ask God for a renogtiation?
12. The Ephraimites, another one of the Jewish tribes, approach Jephthah, pissed off that he fought against the Amonites without consulting or inviting them to fight alongside him. He claims he sent them missives, they claim not. This is apparently really offensive. Because, the Ephraimites attack Jephthah and the folk of Gilead, simply for not having been asked to participate. The Gilead folk massacre them for not being able to pronounce shibboleth – 42k of them die. Jephthah leads for another six years, then dies. He is followed by Ibzan, who leads for seven years, managing to sire 30 sons during that time, I’m assuming with more than one wife and/or concubine. Then Elon (can we use that name?) leads for ten years. Then Abdon, for eight years, fathering a whopping 40 sons! And so, that’s 31 years of relative peace, and the people following God’s rules, which, as this page closes, you just know is a setup for another failure, right?Side note: There’s a whole lotta killing in the Bible with God’s assist, in case you hadn’t picked up on that. Author Steve Wells in an exhaustive count, notes nearly 3 million actually noted with numbers, but estimates 25 million total. Satan killed 10. Not million, 10.
13. As predicted at the end of the previous chapter, the Jews once again turn away from God, who lets the Philistines take over their cities. Forty years on, and one day, the wife (unnamed) of Manoah, a farmer, is approached by a mysterious man. Now, Manoah’s wife has been unable to conceive a child, but this man tells her that if she abstains from alcohol and other forbidden foods, she will bear a child, who must be raised as a Nazirite, a sort of ascetic Jewish monk. She runs and tells Manoah. In her view, the man might have been divine, so Manoah prays to God for the man to come back. He reappears to the woman, who gets Manoah, and they ask for detailed instructions on raising the child. Then they offer the man a meal. He refuses, saying to burn it as a sacrifice. They do so, and the man steps into the flames and disappears in a puff of smoke. Realizing that the man was an angel, they follow the rules given, and soon, she bears a child, who they name… Samson. Time jump. Samson is now a young man.
14. This is not the story of Samson that lurks in my childhood mind. Sampson spots an attractive Philistine girl in a nearby town. He goes to his parents and asks them to obtain her for him. Like any Jewish parents, they lament that he doesn’t want a nice Jewish girl. He insists, and they accompany him to the town to arrange things. Off on a wander, he is attacked by a lion, who he rips apart with his bare hands, but tells no one. He returns to his parents, and they negotiate for his betrothal, with the wedding to take place in a year. Returning a year later, he encounters the lion’s skeleton in which a colony of bees has created a hive. He takes some of the honey and eats it, and feeds the rest to his family. In Philistine tradition, the bride’s family assigns thirty young men as attendants to the wedding. Samson posits a riddle to the attendants, related to the lion and honey, a story he still hasn’t told anyone, offering that if they solve it in a week, he’ll pay for their wedding clothes. They don’t understand the riddle, and pull the bride aside and demand she get the answer. It takes her the whole week of trying to weedle the answer out of Samson, but she finally does. When, on the last day of the week, they are suddenly able to answer the riddle, he gets furious, asserting that she has been unfaithful to him with at least one of them. Then he goes and kills thirty men from a different town, who are completely unrelated to anyone in the story at this point, strips off their clothing, gives it to the wedding attendants, and storms out, voiding the wedding agreement. His bride marries one of the attendants.
15. Now, keep in mind, that because Samson had been betrothed to this Philistine girl, even though her father married her off to one of the wedding guests, Jewish custom considers the betrothal ceremony like a valid marriage. So Samson still considers her his wife even though he went back home and hasn’t seen her since. He shows up one day with a freshly slaughtered goat, planning on having her cook it for dinner. Her father refuses to let him in, saying, “you abandoned her at the altar, I married her to someone else, go away”. Samson isn’t having any of this. After all, she’s his property, right? So he captures 300 foxes, attaches burning torches to their tails, and lets them loose in the Philistine city, where they run around, setting things on fire, and presumeably burning to death themselves. Samson goes and holes up in a cave. The Philistines are pissed, and start off by killing Samson’s wife and her father for being instigators. Then they head to where Samson is, demanding to arrest him. His clan goes to him, asks what happened and he explains. They’re like, dude… overreact much? They take him prisoner, bind him, and turn him over to the Philistines for trial. He breaks free, grabs a donkey’s jawbone that he sees lying on the ground, and proceeds to kill 1000 Philistines. Thirsty work. God sends him water.
16. So, Samson goes to Gaza. Yes, that one. And he sleeps with a prostitute. While with her, the Gazans surround the brothel intending to ambush him. Somehow, the story jumps from there to him leaving town carrying the town gates on his shoulders. Where’s the ambush? Visiting another town, he falls in love with another Philistine girl, Delilah. Her fellow citizens prevail upon her to find out the secret of Samson’s strength. She tries to weedle it out of him, and three times in a row, he lies to her, she tries to bind him, and he breaks free. Now, for most people with common sense, having a girlfriend who keeps trying to tie you up and turn you over to a murderous mob, might just be a red flag. But for Samson, it’s apparently par for the course, or he’s just over confident. So finally, he tells her the truth. And, she cuts his hair and binds him, and turns him over to a murderous mob. The dig out his eyes, put him to work in a mill, and plan his execution. His hair grows back, and he prays to God to return his strength. While being marched to public execution in an arena we have a dance interlude, and then, he convinces one of his jailers to take off his shackles. Really? And then he pulls down the arena’s pillars, killing himself and three thousand Philistines.
17. Samson gone, the Israelites find themselves king-less. Shift scene to Micah, a man who lives in the hills. The story opens with him admitting to his mother that the silver that disappeared from her purse many moons ago, causing her to swear, was taken by him. He returns the money, she forgives him, she donates most as an offering, but gives him some of it to create both a sculptured and molten image, which he uses on an altar, and he makes one of his sons the priest of the “house of God” he creates. One day, a young man wanders in, and turns out to be a Levite, an actual priest. Micah convinces him to stay with him in his home, for the foreseeable future. I don’t know, I’m getting a bit of a “wink, wink” vibe here, especially when Micah offers to pay him, and room and board. The only condition, that the young man act like Micah’s daddy and mentor… yeah, I’m definitely getting that vibe. I’m also a little stuck on wondering about this whole scultpured/molten image thing going on – I thought that was forbidden?
18. It’s now the turn of the Danites, the clan of Dan. They’re just itching to conquer someone, it’s been decades of peaceful living with no oppressive ruler, and that just doesn’t seem right to them. First, they arrive at Micah’s house and chat up the young priest. He tells them that their future is bright and they’ll be successful. They’re pleased, and continue on, to the area of Laish, where they find people living happily and carefree. That’s just not right, they think. They go back to their home city and plan out their conquest. Six hundred strong, they head out to Laish, but enroute, they stop back at Micah’s place and convince the priest to dump Micah and come with them. They take all the idols and the altar too. Micah’s men come after them, but when challenged, being outnumbered, they turn back. The clan of Dan continues on to Laish, slaughtering those peaceful, carefree folk, who clearly didn’t deserve to live, and rebuild the town as a new, secondary home base, setting up the priest and his altar as their good luck totem. I don’t want to start anything, but just noting that the clan of Dan is considered the lost, 13th tribe of Israel (maybe we’ll get to that), and is often claimed by the Black Hebrew Israelites as their progenitor.
19. I’m… aghast. I don’t even want to summarize this chapter, though I will, but fair warning, it’s horrific. A priest is living with his concubine, a sort of secondary wife. After four months of living together, she leaves and goes to her family’s home far away. The priest follows her to get her to come back. Her father likes the priest, and his daughter’s prospects with him, and prevails on him to stay for several days, and finally convinces his daughter to go back with the priest. They stop in the village of Gibeah for the night. No one takes them in, until an older man offers them food and shelter for the night. Some villagers come to the door, demanding that the priest be sent out so they can rape him. The older man invokes the law of hospitality, that the priest is under his protection. The older man offers his own virgin daughter and the priest’s concubine in trade, to do with as they will, just leave the priest alone. The villagers spend the night raping the two women and then leave them at the doorstep, the concubine dead. The priest puts her body on his donkey, takes her home, cuts her up into twelve pieces, and sends one piece to each of the leaders of the twelve tribes, letting them know what happened.
20. I was on pins and needles over the Sabbath break, awaiting the Israelite response to the despicable behavior of the folk of Gideah. En masse, the Israelites rise up and march on the town of Gideah and the Benjamites who run that region. There is some concern, after all, the Benjamites are one of the Israelite tribes. But after consulting with God, the battle is engaged. Over two days, the Benjamites rebuff the attack, killing tens of thousands of the attacking army. On the third day, God agrees to jump in. They attack, kill off tens of thousands of Benjamites, ambush the town of Gideah and kill every inhabitant. Only 600 Benjamites remain, they flee to the hills and hole up there for four months… we are left in suspense until, I assume, tomorrow, as to their fate.
21. Now, there are very few Benjaminites left, following this battle. And the rest of the Israelites swear that because of their behavior, no one from the other tribes will ever marry into the Benjaminites, leaving them on their own. But, that seems unfair to them so of course, the solution is to march back into Gideah and kill everyone who’s left, except the virgin girls (who, it turns out, number 400). They are taken into the other tribes and married off. Now all that remains are those 600 men holed up in the hills. They beg for forgivness. It’s semi-granted, but without lifting the proscription against intermarriage with them. Instead, it is suggested, they go raid a nearby area, Shiloh, and capture themselves 600 women and force them into marriage. Thus, while leaving the clan of Benjamin as an outcast, lost tribe, apart from the rest of Judaism, it remains, nebulously, somewhere out there as an extant, but “less than” culture of sort of half-Jews. The book ends with “everyone does what they want” with no leadership.

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“Hey Moses, God here. What say you guys come over to the home you just built me and hang a bit?”

Leviticus picks up the story of Moses and the Israelites after the building of the Tabernacle. When Exodus ends, God has settled into the tent as a big puffy cloud. The Israelites wait for God to finish checking the place out and head back to heaven, so they can continue on the trek from Mt. Sinai, where they’ve been camped out for over a year now. After all, God promised them, through Moses, that one of his avatars would lead the way to the Promised Land, the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… i.e., Israel. And they’re anxious to move on and get back to the home of their ancestors. But God just wants to be a part of it all, and now that he’s got himself a pretty new tent with an altar for sacrifices and an ark for storing sacred writings, he doesn’t seem quite ready to pick up and head out. After all, those things were built for more than show. Perhaps some rules and rituals will bring it all together.

1. God is apparently a bit peckish, demanding the Israelites bring cows, sheep, goats, turtledoves, and/or pigeons as burnt offerings to him. Aaron and the priests are given explicit instructions on how to slaughter, dismember, disembowel, and exsanguinate the animals. Lots of blood splashing about the altar, lots of gruesome tearing and ripping and chopping. Lots of slow smoking over wood fires… basically, God has anointed Aaron as his official pitmaster.
2. Flour or grain offerings are also wanted, preferably in the form of griddle cakes, mixing the flour or grain with oil. A portion of the offering is burned on the altar for God, after mixing with frankincense (presumably to cover over the burning smell of the flour). The rest of the offering is eaten by the priests. With salt. No flour or grain offerings can be eaten without salt. It’s literally ordered by God to salt your food. Tell that to your cardiologist!
   1. Addendum: Robert Alter, in his book The Hebrew Bible, seems troubled by the exclusion of leavening and honey from burnt offerings of grains/cakes. I’m only speculating, but we’ve seen in other writings that the sages realized that leavening was a living organism. It may simply be that they didn’t want to burn a living being alive, sentient or not. As to the honey, the idea is for a “pleasing aroma” for God. Have you ever smelled burning honey? Especially date honey?
3. When a cow, sheep, or goat is brought for sacrifice to the Tabernacle, it is slaughtered at the entrance. The priests drain its blood, which is then cast about the Altar. They remove all the fat around the entrails, organs, and loins, and burn it on the Altar. And this is where the whole method of kosher ritual slaughtering comes from. Since all the blood and fat were required to be offered to God, the people, the Jews, are forbidden from eating either blood or fat. It’s why kosher meat is so often dry and flavorless.
4. In the event of unwitting violation of any of the Commandments, an offering is made in atonement – the blood of the animal is splashed on the altar and poured at its base, the fat is burned on that altar, and everything else is taken outside the camp and burned. If the offender is a priest or community leader, the offering must be a bull. If the offender is a tribal chieftain, it must be a male goat. If anyone else, it must be either a female goat or sheep. Noting, this is when the violation is “unwitting”.
5. If a person commits an offense against another person, and doesn’t realize it until afterwards, he is required to confess, pay restitution, and bring an offering to the Tabernacle, where, yes, the blood is splashed about, and the fat is burned. Sensing a theme here.
6. The sacrificial fire of the altar is never allowed to burn out, it is tended by the priests, kept going, and each morning a priest is assigned to remove the ashes from the previous day’s sacrifices, and take them out of camp and bury them in a sacred spot. While the priests are entitled to eat the portion of a sacrifice that isn’t burned, that does not hold true if the offering is made by, or on behalf of, a priest himself, in which case 100% of the offering is burned.
7. A rehash of all of the above. Selecting of sacrificial animal, dashing of blood around the altar, burning of fat, priests eating the remaining parts of the offer. Reminder that others can’t eat fat or blood, the start of the kosher meat rules. One addition, if there are leftovers of the sacrificial meal, the priests can eat those the next day, though leftovers can’t be eaten the third day, they must be burned. Every Jewish mother on the planet is guilty of violating that precept. Leftovers are re-served until finished!
8. God tells Moses to gather the priests and community leaders together, and institute the new sacrificial system. Moses washes the priests, anoints them with oil, and demonstrates the process of slaughter, blood splashing, and fat burning with a calf. He has them repeat the steps with a ram, and then marks them with blood on their right ear, thumb, and big toe. The symbolism is to remind them of the sacredness of listening, action, and walking a righteous path through life. Then they boil the remaining meat and eat it.
9. Having gotten Aaron and the priests sorted, Moses turns to the people and has them bring three offerings; of sin, of burning, and of well-being. They bring a goat, an ox, and a ram. Slaughter, blood splashing, fat burning, priests eating. Everyone got the system now?
10. Aaron’s two sons Nadab and Abihu, not quite getting the whole new system, bring an incense offering into the Tabernacle and burn it on the altar, presumably a vestige of past worship practices. God, incensed himself, kills them in a flash of rage. On instruction from God, Moses tells Aaron he’s not to mourn his sons, and their bodies are to be placed in the public square for the community to learn obedience from. Aaron is also told to eat his daily sacrificial portion, since he’s not allowed to fast in mourning. Aaron’s nephews, cousins of the two dead sons, quietly burn the offering so that Aaron doesn’t have to eat it. He then pleads with Moses that after all, he’s a father who just lost his sons, and it’s unreasonable to expect him to not mourn. Moses agrees. This is so… not anything that I remember learning as a child. I mean, I knew there were the whole vengeful God bits, but this is just downright petty.
11. God starts in on the kosher laws. The Israelites may eat of any land animal that has true, cloven hooves and chews its cud. Four mammals are singled out as unacceptable – camels, hyraxes, hares, and pigs. These are noted as “impure”. From the water, anything with fins and scales. Anything else from the water is an “abomination”. From the air, a list of birds (and bats) that are abominations, but no definition of which are acceptable, other than by not being on the list, one presumes. Locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers are fine to eat, but no other insects, particularly multi-legged ones. No animals that walk on paws. No lizards nor snakes. Touching or eating any of those prohibited makes one impure. Until sunset. Yup, impure you may be, but you get a reset.
12. You know, given the intense Jewish focus on procreation, the whole be fruitful and multiply thing, you wouldn’t think that God would make childbirth an example of spiritual impurity. But, after giving birth, a woman is considered impure for thirty-three days. On the eighth day, if she had a son, he is to be circumcised. On the thirty-third day, she makes a “sin offering” of a lamb and a dove at the Temple in order to be purified. A “sin”. Really?! If she’s poor, two doves. Or pigeons. Sacrificing pigeons is okay in my book too. Somehow or other, this morning, I completely missed that if she has a daughter, the time the mother is considered impure is doubled, to sixty six days. Makes the misogyny worse. But still might need to sacrifice extra pigeons. Everybody sacrifice pigeons!
13. Skin scales, rashes, eruptions, and discolorations are to be reported to the Temple priests. They will examine these, and depending on their coloration and severity, will decide if the person is pure or impure, and/or needs to be isolate for a week, or long-term. The same is to be done with clothing or fabrics that suddenly show signs of some sort of “infection” – molds and mildews. Although the Tanakh and Talmud talk about “leprosy”, it was a catch-all term for multiple types of infections affecting the skin or clothing.
14. Week to week, the priest re-examines the person, clothing, or home for evidence that the infection is still present or is cleared up. If cleared up there’s a whole ritual involved that involves shaving heads, intense washing, or tearing out stones and re-plastering. Then, of course, sacrificial rituals involving lambs (yummy!), pigeons (yay!), and the smearing of blood on the right ear, thumb, and big toe. If, the infection hasn’t cleared, there’s more isolation, or in the case of clothing and homes, burning and/or dismantling.
15. If a man has an STD, he is considered impure for a week. Anyone who touches him, his clothing, or his furniture, is impure until nightfall. At the end of the week, the man is considered pure. After sacrificing two pigeons of course! When a woman has her period, she is considered impure for a week. Anyone who touches her, her clothing, or her furniture, is impure until nightfall. At the end of the week, the woman is considered pure. After sacrificing two pigeons of course! If a man has an orgasm during intercourse, masturbation, or spontaneously, he is considered impure until nightfall. Then he takes a bath, washes any clothes that were stained by semen, and is considered pure. I think bathing and washing the clothes earlier would be a good idea.
16. Aaron, or the High Priests who follow him, once a year on the 10th day of the 7th month are to enter the Tabernacle with a bull, a ram, and two goats. He is to sacrifice the bull and sprinkle its blood around the altar with his fingers. The ram is a burnt offering. He burns incense in front of the curtain leading to the Ark, obscuring it so that he can enter the room housing the Ark without being overwhelmed by the presence of God and dying. Then, he sacrifices one of the goats. The other is endowed by him with the sins of the community. A designated guide takes the “scapegoat” to the wilderness and lets it go, taking the people’s sins with it. Then Aaron and the guide, strip, bathe, re-dress, and Aaron blesses the people for the next year. The day is spent in self-denial and not working. Welcome to Yom Kippur.
17. Stop worshiping goat demons and drinking the blood of sacrifices. Any ox, goat, or sheep that is killed, its blood and fat must be offered at the Temple in sacrifice, and any remaining blood is to be poured on the ground and covered with earth. That is all.
18. Don’t be like the Egyptians or Canaanites. That’s to say, apparently, no incest, no adultery, no homosexuality, no bestiality, no sex with both a woman and her daughter. We’ve all seen/heard this list. A couple of notes. First, all of these are prohibitions for men. The only one of these that women are specifically prohibited from is bestiality. Second, all of the various incestuous relationships are specified, with one exception; sleeping with one’s own daughter, which is not covered in the extensive list. Third, in re homosexuality…. The ancient Hebrew word used in this listing is a specific one that refers to an actual or simulated act of procreation – i.e., vaginal, anal or intercrural (between the legs) penetration. No other sexual acts are mentioned for any of these prohibitions.
19. Summing this up would be hard, since it’s basically a bullet-point listing of dos and don’ts with no organization. Examples include no making, talking to, or worshipping idols, spirits, or ghosts; leaving a portion of fields unpicked for the poor to eat; no tattoos; no stealing; no cheating; no falsifying weights or measures; no insulting deaf people (Talmudic rabbis, take note, please); no creating obstacles for the blind; no grudges or revenge; no hybrid breeding of livestock, or plants. It’s a grab bag of seemingly random rules.
20. Parents who practice child sacrifice to Moloch (a bull god) are to be put to death, and their relatives excommunicated and exiled. Remember all those sexual prohibitions in chapter 18? All of them are punishable by death. Not just homosexuality, all of them. That means incest, adultery, bestiality, and more. Same punishment. Death. Oh, plus, a couple who engages in sex while the woman is menstruating are to be excommunicated and exiled. Remarkable how selective some people get in talking about abominations.
21. Temple priests have to be pure. They can’t: touch a dead body except immediate family; shave their heads or sideburns; scarify themselves; marry a harlot, widow, divorcee, or any non-virgin. If their daughter is a harlot, she’s to be burned to death. Physically they must be unblemished – not blind, lame, or with limbs of unequal length, no misshapen bones, hunchbacks, dwarves, growths in the eye, boils, scurvy, or non-functioning testicles. That’s just the first page of the application.
22. Priests need to make sure that any sacrificial donations are up to snuff, unblemished and all that. If the priest is in a state of impurity they shouldn’t handle the sacrifice. And, they shouldn’t take more than their allotted portion of the sacrifice. ’nuff said.
23. God has set aside specific festivals that must be observed – Passover, Yom Kippur, and Sukkoth – along with some specific practices for each. A preamble, which many biblical historians apparently assert was added later, adds in the weekly Shabbat celebration. Of particular note, only one of these has a punishment for not keeping it – Yom Kippur. Working on Yom Kippur is grounds for excommunication and exile.
24. Each Sabbath, the priests are to place offerings of olive oil, twelve freshly baked loaves of bread, and incense in front of the altar. God likes the aromas, you know? Later, they get to eat the bread. God isn’t having it when someone uses his name as a curse, and demands that the community as a whole throw stones at him until he’s dead. Lex talonis is introduced; an eye for an eye – anyone who murders, maims, or injures another person is to receive the same in punishment. Apparently using God’s name as a curse is equivalent to murder.
25. On returning to Israel, for those in agriculture, every seven years, fields are to be left untouched. Your family, your servants, slaves, and livestock can eat whatever grows naturally, but no work is to be done. This cycle is repeated seven times, forty-nine years. Then, the fiftieth year, the Jubilee year, all remaining debts are to be forgiven, slaves and indentured servants released, and, if you purchased the land during those fifty years, the original seller is given the right to buy it back at an agreed on price. Timing is everything!
26. So God, what do we get in return for following all these rules? Glad you asked! I’ll give you great weather, abundant crops, make you fertile and strong, destroy your enemies, make you favored among all. In short, the chosen people of God. But if you don’t follow the rules, I’ll make things hard on you. Like really hard, to the point of breaking your body and spirit. And if that doesn’t work, trust me, I’ll destroy you. You’ll be the lowest of the low. Despised, destitute, distraught, hey, I may even throw in some cannibalism.
27. A somewhat confusing ending to this book, which also seems far shorter than I’d remembered or imagined. A person can pledge money, livestock, or land as a votive offering, a ritual dedication to God while in adverse circumstances, with the intent to redeem it later. But not just any amount, there are actually set amounts based on whether you’re male or female, and your age bracket. The amounts can be altered by priestly assessment if you can’t afford them. There are penalties for changing your mind, and there’s interest to pay on redemption.

Previous Book, Exodus

Nest Book, Numbers

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The Book of Kings, like Samuel before it, has been divided into two in the modern bible. Originally, Samuel and Kings were part of one book called The Book of Kingdoms, though with four clearly defined historical periods, which is what led, later on, to the divisions (various version, in both Latin, Greek, and English translations, before we get to the one we’re familiar with in modern day). Kings covers the period from the end of David’s reign through the destruction of the kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians, into a period of exile, and then redemption from exile. It has been proposed, and generally, though not universally accepted, that the book was penned by the prophet Jeremiah, as witness to that period. Much of the book, apparently, will be devoted to the schism between political and religious leadership. We shall see!

1. David is old. His advisors get him a young, beautiful girl to attend to his dying days, though it is made clear they are never intimate. Meanwhile, Adonijah, younger brother of Absalom (David’s son who was killed for treason), follows in his brother’s footsteps. He goes around proclaiming that he is the next king, organizing feasts and sacrifices and making alliances with various of David’s commanders. But apparently, David had promised one of his other sons, Solomon, with Bathsheba, to be king. Political intrigue ensues. Various advisors and prophets approach David to let him know that Adonijah is attempting to usurp the throne. David musters some of his last strength, sends for Bathsheba, re-avows that Solomon will be king, sends for Solomon and all the high priests, and annoints him king. Adonijah is informed by messenger, in mid-feast for his ascension, gets scared that Solomon will have him killed and runs to the Altar, basically chaining himself to it. Solomon, now king, promises that if he behaves himself he won’t be harmed, and has him removed from the Altar.
2. David is down to his last breaths. He tells Solomon to obey God, follow the rules in the Torah, and avenge David by “doing what is right” to everyone who ever wronged him. Then he dies. Solomon arranges for all of David’s past enemies to be whacked. This even includes Adonijah, David’s half-brother who tried to usurp the throne and whom David promised could live peacefully and without harm. Then again, Adonijah tries a scheme to get Solomon to give him that lovely attendant who took care of David in his final days.
3. Now, this gets interesting. Solomon marries outside of Judaism, the daughter of the Pharaoh, in order to create a political alliance. And, while he observes Jewish ritual and follows commandments, he also performs sacrifices and rituals with the Egyptians. That seems a violation of the Torah commandments. But apparently neither he nor God see it that way. God visits him in his dreams and asks what he can do for Solomon, whose response is to ask for wisdom in justice as a ruler. God says, cool, and because you didn’t ask, I’m also going to grant you long life. So Solomon didn’t pop on the scene as a wise man, he got that later. Then we have the familiar story of threatening to cut the baby in two in order to determine its real mother. Yawn.
4. A list of Solomon’s various court and regional officials and their job descriptions. The lands of Judah and Israel are filled with happy, well fed people. You just know this is a setup, right?
5. Solomon is considered the wisest of all men. He’s also pretty rich, levying massive taxes in the form of taking grain, fruits and vegetables, livestock for his palace. And, he decides it’s time to build the promised house of God that David wasn’t allowed to. And so, he arranges with Hiram, who has teams of loggers, to provide the wood for the Temple. And he forcibly drafts over 100,000 citizens into laboring on the quarrying of stone, carrying of supplies, and building of the Temple. Because wise as he is, apparently he didn’t learn anything from the history of Jews being enslaved in Egypt.
6. The text notes that it’s been 480 years since the Exodus from Egypt when Solomon starts the building of the Temple. We are treated to a detailed architectural description of the design, window treatments, and use of precious metals and woods in its construction. It takes seven years to complete. I’m still thinking about the 100,000 people pressed into involuntary servitude to build it.
7. Having dispensed of his obligation to build the Temple, Solomon turns his attentions, and, let’s call them what they were, paid slaves, to the building of his own palace. The Temple took 7 years, this takes 12 more. Far more elaborate and costly than the Temple. Because, you know, he and his wife, daughter of the Pharaoh, need some lux in their lives, and David’s old palace just won’t do. It includes a separate mansion for her. Once it’s complete, he brings in all the treasures of David’s conquests and has them deposited in the treasury.
8. The Temple is built. Solomon sends the priests to Zion to retrieve the Ark and its Tabernacle. They return and place it in the Temple, which is immediately filled with a dark cloud, driving them from the Temple. God checking out his new digs and all that. Solomon gives a long winded speech in front of the altar reminding God that they’ve done everything he asked, built him a new house, sacrificed 22k oxen and 120k sheep over a week, and then enumerates all the promises God made to David as long as the Jews keep the faith. He says, look God, we keep the faith, or repent when we don’t, & you keep you promises. There’s no or else mentioned, but one has to wonder what’s Solomon’s intent. After all, what is he, or anyone, going to do if God just hangs out in the Temple and doesn’t keep his word?
9. God appears to Solomon, the first time in 20 years, since he granted him wisdom. He gives his conditional stamp of approval on his news digs, the Temple, subject to that the Jews continue to worship him and no other gods, in perpetuity. If, however, they stray, he reserves the power to toss them from favored status and have the world look askance on them. Solomon agrees. Back to mundane affairs, Solomon gives reign over a territory of 20 towns to Hiram, who supplied the gold and wood for the Temple. Hiram’s not overly thrilled, given how much he contributed, opining that the area given, more or less, sucks. So Solomon makes all those forced labor Jews to become warriors, and subjugate the non-Jews in the area as slaves, to rebuild the borderlands for Hiram.
10. The Queen of Sheba comes for a visit and to test Solomon’s knowledge. He was able to answer all her questions. She was flustered, having been sure she could trip him up, but has to acknowledge his wisdom. She gifts him lots of gold, gems, and spices. Add to that the vast quantities of similar tribute that area rulers sent to him, Solomon was not only the wisest, but the richest king in the world. And, he loved to flaunt it. Carved ivory throne, gold utensils, even his soldiers were outfitted in gold. Which, doesn’t seem like a great idea in terms of protection, since gold isn’t one of the harder metals, but so be it, they looked shiny.
11. I told you, I told you, I told you. Solomon thinks he’s better than everyone else. He thinks he doesn’t have to follow the rules. God said no other gods. God said don’t get involved with women from enemy lands. But Solomon thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. And, in some ways he may be. But, he falls for women from across the lands – quite a few of them – 700 wives and 300 tconcubines. And, more and more, he turns away from God and joins one or another of his women in praying or offering sacrifice to another god. So God says, “I’ve had enough, your lineage is through. I’m taking the kingship away from your tribe and giving it to the other tribes. Out of deference to your father David, I’ll wait until you’re dead… soon… and have them attack and take it away from your son. Solomon ignores this, continues to do what he wants, and soon dies, after forty years as king. His son Rehaboam takes the throne. Meanwhile, God has enlisted the service of various of the now grown youngsters who escaped David’s slaughtering of their people decades ago.
12. So, Rehoboam heads to where he’ll be acclaimed king. He’s approached by one of his family’s enemies, Jeroboam (these are wine bottle sizes, just sayin’), who says, “look, dude, your granddad screwed us, your dad put us in slavery, what are you going to do about it?” Rehoboam asks for three days and then consults with his advisors, who tell him to apologize, be kind, and promise to do better, and then do so. But Rehoboam also consults with his frat buds, who advise telling the “malcontents” to f*k off. Guess who he listens to? Like grandfather, like father, like son. Rehoboam is forced to retreat and call up his army. But God sends a messenger to the leader of his troops to tell them to stand down and not support Rehoboam against the rest of the Jews. Meanwhile, Jeroboam has, in order to create places of worship for his troops, erected two golden calves in two nearby towns, so God’s not all that happy with him either.
13. It seems we’re going to focus on Jeroboam for the moment. He’s hanging out at one of his golden calf altars, in Bethel. God sends a messenger who tells him to cut it out. Jeroboam points at him and tells his soldiers to kill the messenger. Doesn’t he know the adage? God freezes his arm in place and protects the messenger. Jeroboam apologizes and God lets him have the use of his arm back. Jeroboam invites the messenger to dine with him, but he refuses, saying God told him not to eat there, and to return home immediately by a different route. He sets out, and is waylaid by a man claiming to be a prophet who likewise invites him to dine. He refuses, but the man convinces him. They dine together. The messenger sets out again, but is attacked and killed by a lion. God appears and says, “I told you not to eat there.” His body is left at the side of the road, then the fake prophet comes and takes it away and buries it in an unmarked grave. Jeroboam hears about all this and decides that killing the messenger was the right move, so he goes back to building altars and appointing priests.
14. Jeroboam’s son, Abijah, is sick. Jeroboam sends his wife, in disguise, to a prophet, Ahijah, with gifts, asking for a prediction. God appears to Ahijah, and tells him that Jeroboam’s wife is coming, in disguise. When she arrives, Ahijah asks her why she’s disguised. She admits who she is, and asks for about her son’s future. Ahijah, on God’s instruction, tells her that Jeroboam screwed things up, and his entire lineage is to be wiped from the face of the earth, like washing dung from the streets. She goes home. Abijah dies as she enters. Jeroboam’s lineage ends. Meanwhile, Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, has followed in his father’s footsteps, worshipping idols, offering sacrifices to other gods. The even had, horror of horrors, male prostitutes working the street corners. God sends the Egyptians to loot his palace. But, he doesn’t stop, and eventually dies, leaving his son (yet another similar name), Abijam, to ascend the throne.
15. Abijam reigned for three years, continuing in his father and grandfather’s transgressions. He dies. His brother, Asa, takes over, and reigns for forty-one years. In a break with his predecessors, he returns to the tenets established by David and gets right with God. He expels the male prostitutes from the region, and smashes all the idols. He continues the good fight against Jeroboam’s reign on the other side of the country (if I didn’t note it, Jeroboam is king of Israel, Solomon’s line is king over Judah, they haven’t yet combined). Asa also deposed his mother as queen monarch, since she was much of the source of the idolatry that his predecessors engaged in. So much for honor thy mother and father. He continues the war, now against Baasha, who took over from Jeroboam after his death. Baasha continued the ways of his predecessor, Jeroboam (actually, there was a brief, two year tenor of someone named Nadab), worshipping idols.
16. The nutshell version of the various folk who now follow Baasha: his son Elah; who was then killed in a military coup by Zimri; who then committed suicide and burned down the palace when threatened with another military coup by Omri; to a split between Omri and Tibni, another military leader; to Tibni’s death and Omri taking over again; to Omri’s son Ahab. Suffice it to say, all were guilty of the same heretical behavior as Jeroboam, now decades ago. And God is still not amused.
17. Elijah appears on the scene. God has him tell the errant king that a drought is coming to destroy his kingdom. He also has Elijah go sit alone, and ravens bring him food and drink. After awhile, he has Elijah go to a small town and approach a single woman. She’s poor, has nothing to offer, but Elijah convinces her to feed him, and she does. In return, God makes sure her food and drink are replenished, magically. Then, her son gets sick and dies. She decries Elijah, after all, she’s done everything he asks, and now her son is dead. Elijah takes the boy’s body into his bedroom, prays to God, who restores the boy’s life. Then Elijah brings the boy back down to her. Shazam! She’s like, damn….
18. Back at the corrupt palace, Ahab and his majordomo, Obadiah, split up the country and set out in search of food and water for their people. Elijah approaches Obadiah, who in the past has been faithful to God and even hidden the faithful from Ahab. Elijah tells him to go get Ahab, it’s time for a showdown. Obadiah, in fear for his life, does so. Elijah challenges Ahab to a duel of power, himself against 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah. Ahab, feeling cocky at his odds, accepts. Elijah sets the terms – each side slaughters a bull, sets it up on their altar, and invokes their god to light the flames and accept the sacrifice. The Baal prophets do so (the Asherah prophets disappear from the narrative), and spend the day praying, dancing, and bloodletting. Nothing happens. Elijah sets up an altar, puts the wood and the bull on it. Douses the wood in water. Calls on God, who lights the fire and consumes the bull. The people acknowledge Elijah and God. Elijah slaughters all 450 Baal prophets. Ahab flees for home. Elijah races him.
19. Ahab beats Elijah home and reports what happened. Jezebel (where did she come from?) sends a messenger to Elijah promising his death. He flees. Twice, while fleeing, he collapses, with no strength and an angel appears and gives him food and water. He makes it forty days to Mt. Horeb where he hides in a cave. God appears and asks him what he’s doing there. He replies that there are too many unbelievers, they’re too strong, and he’s just one guy, and wants to die. They go back and forth – it’s kind of a scene from Oh, God! Eventually the pep talk works and God sends Elijah to appoint two new kings over the regions, and a new prophet to replace himself, and those three will slaughter all the Baal worshippers, leaving only 7000 faithful to the real God in Israel.
20. I have to admit, I’m not getting the flow of this. God keeps saying he’s going to wipe Ahab and his ilk off the face of the earth, and he’s already had surrounding rulers kill off most of his subjects. Is he just toying with Ahab? Cat and mouse before the kill? I Kings 20. I have to admit, I’m not getting the flow of this. God keeps saying he’s going to wipe Ahab and his ilk off the face of the earth, and he’s already had surrounding rulers kill off most of his subjects. Is he just toying with Ahab? Cat and mouse before the kill? Then God sends another prophet to Ahab to tell him he’s going to lose in the future, and Ahab, despite that he’s basically beat the odds everytime against God, turns sullen and goes home again.
21. Time jump. There’s a guy named Naboth who has a vineyard near to Ahab’s palace. Ahab wants the property for a vegetable garden and offers either pay, or a different vineyard. Naboth refuses. Ahab cries himself to sleep. His wife, Jezebel, says she’ll handle it. She organizes for Naboth to be honored at a festival, but arranges for a couple of scoundrels to accuse him of bad dealings, and for the elders to find him guilty, and then stone him to death. Ahab gets his vegetable garden. God sends Elijah to Ahab to tell him, again, bad boy. He gets a long lecture from Elijah, and a list of all the ways God is going to destroy him and his lineage. Then Elijah leaves, Ahab goes back to doing whatever he wants, and God, apparently, sits around sulking.
22. Well, finally. We jump another three years into the future. We meet Jehosophat, as in “Jumping Jehosophat!”, I assume, who is a regional king. He meets up with Ahab, they consult various prophets as they parlay over going to war with each other. As best I can tell, the only reason for going to war with each other is that Jehosophat is a follower of God and believes it’s his duty to bring down Ahab. They go to war. Ahab is finally killed. His son Ahaziah takes over and continues everything his forefathers did. Although Jehosophat goes out of his way to try to right things (aanother segue into the clearing out of remaining male prostitutes, it seems to be a thorn in God’s side), in the end, Baal worship continues, and God’s promise to end Ahab’s line remains unfulfilled. End book.

Previous Book, II Samuel

Next Book, II Kings

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“Ask yourself this: Which is more important to you? Who is on the bus with you or where the bus is going?”

Now, my answer to that question was and is “who”. And that got to apply to some new fun changes in my life. As of July 2005, I set out, for an indeterminate amount of time, traveling. I had said that I was now an “itinerant traveler” and went and looked up the definition to make sure I’d got it right. Turns out that that’s redundant – itinerant means either as a noun someone who travels from place to place, or as an adjective, the same. I was merely an itinerant. E-mail, instant messaging, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, have become the methods of communication with my friends and family back in “the States.”

These days I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with the “who”, my husband, Henry Tapia. We have a lovely little duplex apartment in the Recoleta neighborhood, with two patios and a garden. I run what here is called a restaurant a puertas cerradas, or closed door restaurant, called Casa SaltShaker, but prefer to think of it like the dinner parties I used to run in New York, the Second Sunday Supper Circle. The “motto” is “Food. Wine. Conversation. New Friends.” and several times every week I bring together people from all over the world, from diverse backgrounds, of different ages, to eat, drink, converse, and, hopefully, make amigos, over the dinner table. Henry helps me out in the restaurant most nights, but his primary passion and career is teaching tango and folklore dance.

I’m not going to get into a detailed bio and work history, suffice it to say, I’m a trained chef (originally via apprenticing, later through Peter Kump’s Cooking School, now the Institute of Culinary Education), a trained pastry chef and baker (Roberto Goni’s Escuela de Pasteleros), and a certified Advanced Sommelier (Court of Master Sommeliers), and have a Higher Certificate from the Institute of Masters of Wine. I’ve worked in both award winning and unnoticed restaurants since 1973, with a few years off here and there to try my hand at other things. I’ve had both my food and wine lists win awards and garner ink in national and international press and magazines (primarily US and Argentina), and even more electrons, have been spilled over both. But I’ve probably spilled more of each writing things myself. I’ve been writing since my first journalism and creative writing classes in high school (thank yous go out, respectively, to Brad Spencer and Oakley Winters, my teachers in those), wrote for my high school paper, a local “underground” paper, and newspapers and magazines ever since. I went through a “phase”, no, that’s not fair, I gave a turn at performing at stand-up comedy at one point, and I’ve got clips from some of my shows here. And, not particularly relevant to what I do these days, but I went to University of Michigan for a BS in Bio-Psychology and thrust an incomplete stab at a PhD in Clinical Psychology at Long Island University.

Mostly, these days, I write about food and wine, and a bit of travel, but the “historic” archives include a bit of other stuff too – GLBT issues, humor, space exploration, and more. The intent of this website is to bring together an archive of all of it, bit by bit, along with various scribblings that I just feel like collecting here. I’ve written three books, one a Spanish-English and vice versa food and wine dictionary: SaltShaker Spanish – English – Spanish Food & Wine Dictionary (Bilingual) (English and Spanish Edition)” (now in its second edition: SaltShaker Spanish-English-Spanish Food & Wine Dictionary – Second Edition“), the other, Don’t Fry for Me Argentina, a collection of stories about living here in Buenos Aires, with recipes. The third, a cookbook from our restaurant, replete with recipes and lots of pretty photography, Eat Salt. And, I write a separate blog a couple of days a week about the wine and food scene – SaltShaker. It’s not all food and wine. Buenos Aires is a great city for all sorts of cultural things, and I try to make the most of it. And, one needs a bit of exercise – I try to maintain being in reasonably good shape, and still practice kenpo, which I was quite active in while in NYC, and in 2015 received my third-dan blackbelt, along with studying tai chi here in Buenos Aires.

Last note about this website. Obviously, if you stop to think about it, blogging didn’t exist at the time when a good percentage of these articles, menus, etc., were written or happened. But I decided for organizational purposes it made sense to date things to when they happened, and here and there I’ve added commentary that is obviously from my perspective looking back from today.