Pele'yah - A Reader's Guide

Some find Pele'yah difficult to read. It isn't. But it does take some thought to hear, to see, and to feel the impact. Have you ever been so distressed that you felt like falling down? That you caught yourself in agony, perhaps in prayer too? Well, Pele'yah was in distress and he needed the steady presence of his Maker.

A reviewer wrote "the largest and most confusing issue was the way the three stories combined - Christ, Pele'yah and Tsame's family. It seemed that the title character was relegated to the sidelines. If the story is about the narrator's (and her mother's) search for legitimacy, then the donkey becomes incidental. If it was the donkey's experience that was central to the theme, then Tsame and her mother are unnecessary."

There is nothing that I have written that is confusing for me of course - but I realize that clues must be in the text - and I think they are, as much as they are in the Biblical text. Biblical reading for children should deal with their reality - life, curiosity, death, fear, desire, security, and determination.

My response: First, I did not use the word Christ in the story, only names around the Hebrew and Greek forms of Jesus. This was deliberate and is quite important. This first story does not begin with a claim to pre-eminence but a statement of humanity and trouble. The pre-eminence of Jesus as the anointed one (Christ) will come later. As for the title character being on the sidelines, he is at the sidelines on the last two pages, but not before then. Tsame, the narrator, never met Jesus - so she learns through the donkey's silent speech, much as some I know learn love from their pets. Tsame and Mayim's story is crucial - it is their longing for the presence of God that Pele'yah had taken for granted all his life.

I have put some more of the story here with a reader's explanation. I have had children still for 45 minutes with one reading - they are captivated even when alone and sick as one was on the plane - his name, Jacob Waters, allowed me to put him into the story since Jacob and Waters are both there to begin with. If your goal is to draw your young reader into Biblical study through an enticing story, I hope Pele’yah: A Wonder of God will allow you to read with more historical context, more cultic context, and more understanding of the fire of love that we so desperately need for our wholeness.

	That was the donkey named Pele'yah. That’s Pe, with a short 'e', and le, with just a hint of a 'lay', and then a stop -'- followed by 'yah', with the stress on the last syllable: Pe-le'yah. He has a short name too: Pele, with the stress on the first syllable. Here is what the letters look like. Read them right to left - the opposite direction to Latin and Greek: - Peh - La-med - Aleph -Yod - He.
	Explanation	In your reading, distinguish He from He How can I do that? you say. He as in Here is the English pronoun; He as in the Hebrew letter sounds like Heh but is spelled like He! So the next word below is the pronoun not the letter - tricky eH?
		He has large brown eyes shaped like a Peh. They say that a donkey speaks with his eyes. It was not just from his eyes that I learned his story, but from every letter of his name.
		The La-med is for his legs, which leap and gambol when he is without a burden.
		The Aleph is for gait, not always cooperative. It is the stop in his name.
		The Yod is for mystery. We cannot know everything about the life of a creature. The Name of the Lord is sometimes written with a double Yod.
		The He is for spirit. It sounds like a breath of air. It can also be seen as a letter that kneels.
	Altogether, his name is for his character. He is a Wonder of God. In fact, that is what his name means.
	Now you can see how much there is to learn just from letters! How creative they are. Some versions of He have a better likeness to kneeling. Have you ever known a child who is not always cooperative? But our stubbornness and even our disobedience can be life-saving. Peleyah's tenacious character was important for his survival - yet he did not save his own life.
	Skipping to page 11

	My name, by the way, is Tsame (Sadeh - Mem - Aleph; you can call me Sammy). In my language, it means longing or thirsting. I was born in Zippori, a town near Nazareth. It was a rich town, with many great buildings. Zippori is the headquarters of the Roman army for the region of Galilee. My native language is Aramaic, but I learned Greek and Latin too because Greek is spoken everywhere, and Latin is the language of the Roman empire and the soldiers of the Italian legions in my town. I also learned Hebrew, the ancient language of Israel.
	Tsame - how often the narrator gets in the way of another story! Actually, Tsame is the critical actor in this story: she saves Pele'yah; she retrieves his story; she describes the Roman and Palestinian environment; she reports her mother's experience at the cross. It was trilingual, even quadrilingual: Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Latin. This is the environment that Jesus is born into - not a unilingual English household!
	Skipping to page 15
	By the way, I was not sure that I should record what he did with the pigeons, but Pele insisted with a brush of his tail. The priest killed the birds and sprinkled some of their blood against the side of the altar. The rest he poured out at the foot of the altar. Pele insisted that I put this in the story. I hesitated, because I wasn’t sure you would want to hear about such a death.
	Life is real, isn't it? And death is real. And we can be a bit scared of what is real. But I could see and feel the confidence in Pele's coarse hair, all along his back and down his shoulders where the cross is. He said the story isn't over yet. There is more to life than death. This kind of death was a part of the law of Israel where Jesus was born. It pointed to something greater than itself.
	How may Christmas or Easter stories prepare the child for the reality of the cultic practices of Israel? It is these sacrificial realities that control human violence and focus the worship. They are not in themselves important. This sacrifice points directly to what we do to each other when we defend ourselves instead of loving our neighbour. The reality of our violence and the means to ending it is a vital understanding leading to life rather than death.
	Skipping to page 17
	When the purification was completed, Joseph, Mary and Jesus, (and Pele) returned to Bethlehem and decided to live and work there for a while. It's a beautiful country, about five miles from Jerusalem. And you can see the distant country of Moab to the south. Rachel's tomb is nearby. Rachel is one of the first mothers of Israel.
	Mothers - this story is about mothers and the gift that is hidden. Matthew points out Rachel's weeping; Genesis tells us that her tomb is near Bethlehem.
	Skipping to page 19
	If you have read about this in the book that Matthew Levi has written, you know that Joseph, Mary and Jesus, (and Pele) went to Egypt to escape from the soldiers. When Herod died, they returned and settled eventually in the north, in Nazareth, where I met them in due time. Zippori is about four miles away and we used to come to Nazareth for walks.
	By the way, I was brought up by my grandmother. My mother had never been married when I was born, and she had to move away from Chorazin where we lived. Then she married and had my half-brother, David. This is another story and we are on good terms now. I just want you to know that life can be complicated, but love is even more real than real.
	How many times have you read the Christmas story and not thought about the complexity of your own life and its myriad relationships? The story becomes unheard when it needs to be relearned. This children's story is for you too, O adults. When Jesus was 12 he already knew his mission. Hear what he tells Pele'yah about his understanding:

	Pele bowed and showed his fine chestnuts. And Jesus agreed.. "Yes, the Romans are the new Egypt. The servant, Israel will be a light to them also. He will prepare a new wine for all peoples, better than the teaching of Greece which the empire so admires." Pele remembered all these things and told me about them.
	How did Jesus accomplish this? That is the text of the rest of the book, how trouble is overcome and the impossible transformation of fear into love achieved.
	Skipping to page 25

	Jesus was also mistreated. I think you know what happened to him. Instead of the soft cross on Pele's back, he had to carry a wooden cross on his own back. My mother, Mayim, was there with Jesus' mother Mary, on the hill where they crucified him. Mayim told me how they held the sour wine to his lips in his last moments, and how he looked into her eyes and said to her, "It is complete".
	She had watched him breathe his last breath. It was as if he had handed over his spirit as breath to them. And after he had died, the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and there was blood on his side and at his feet. It was only later that we knew he had died to purify us all and that his cross replaces all altars and his body all temples. This takes a while to understand.
	What is it that we want to teach from the Bible? Is it this love? Can we answer the ones who see difficulty with the sacrificial aspect, who see it as perpetrating violence instead of absorbing it? No easy answer here, but the same self-giving. To read further, see my essay on the concepts implied in the covenant of blood. http://bobmacdonald.gx.ca/blood_in_the_liturgy.htm