Two years ago I was in Israel, standing at the mouth of this hole. See that ladder? Nobody descends that ladder. There is ZERO temptation to enter the hole
It’s hard to hear in the video, but that eerie sound in the background is birds. Many, many, many birds. There is a teeny tiny temptation to toss a pebble in there, but the desire to not live a scene from a horror movie outweighs the temptation.
The ladder is there not to provide entry access, but to provide an exit. Not for the birds, of course. They have their own methods.
The desert is pockmarked with holes that you wouldn’t want to stay in if you suddenly found yourself at the bottom. At least two of these holes are quite well-known.
There’s the hole in Qumran where a sheep fell in. A young shepherd who went in to help his sheep discovered the Dead Sea scrolls preserved in that hole. Everyone made it out: sheep, shepherd, and scrolls.
There’s another hole whose exact location we don’t know that Joseph was thrown into by his older brothers. We read that story in this week’s Torah portion. The brothers were tired of Joseph flaunting his beautiful coat, dreams, and status as favorite son, so they threw him into a hole like this one to die.
“The hole was empty; there was no water in it.”
Whenever I read that line in the Torah, I was perplexed about the redundancy. If it was empty, of course there was no water in it. It was empty. Rashi explained that second phrase by saying although there was no water, there WERE snakes.
That explanation never spoke to me. Until I stood at the top of this empty hole. Which was clearly empty, except that there were birds in it.
So, when I say it was empty, what was it empty of? Well… water. We think of the desert as a dry place, but in truth it does rain there sometimes during the rainy season, and that water can accumulate in holes.
Now I think when the Torah tells us the hole was empty, maybe there were birds in it. Maybe there were snakes in it. It was empty of water. Which is relevant because the brothers threw Joseph in there to die, but without drowning in water, it would be quite a while before he died in there.
Reuben, the oldest brother was counting on that. He was planning to come back later and take Joesph out of the hole. He could only do that if there was no water in the hole. Otherwise coming back later… he’d be too late.
It turned out he was too late, anyway, because the other brothers had an opportunity to sell Joseph into slavery, so they took him out of the hole to do that. They could only do that if there was no water.
Have you ever noticed that you can understand the words of a story – whether an old story or just a friend’s recounting of an event – but not fully, completely understand the meaning until you experience it yourself?
Or maybe you’ve been on the other side of that story, trying to explain it the best you can, but maybe ending with, “You had to be there.”
Standing at the top of that hole, I was there. And when I was there, it was completely clear to me how a hole could have something in it (birds, in this case), and yet still be considered empty. The emptiness refers to the water. Standing there I understood perfectly why the text says, “The hole is empty; there is no water in it.”
At the end of this video, I pan to the side where there is a sign with that quote on it. This hole is in a place in Israel called Neot Kedumim, which strives to bring the bible to life. It’s a cool place to visit. You can see a replica of Abraham’s tent, olive presses, and so much more – including holes that are empty, but there are birds in there.
The stories on this website are a selection of the stories compiled into A Story Every Week (Three Gems Publishing, Sept. 2018). Sign up here to get notification when the book is released. It will be free for the first few days of publication.
