Whack the Weeds, or Wait?

He threw another story beside their own personal stories:

The royal palace in the skies is like someone
who planted good seeds in her garden
and while the people were asleep
her enemy came and and planted the seeds of weeds among the seeds of flowers
and went away.
When the flowers flowered
then the weeds also appeared.
The garden attendants came to the gardener,
and said to her,
"Ma'am, didn't you plant flower seeds in the garden?
Where do the weeds come from?"
The gardener told them, "My enemy did this."
"Do you want us to go and whack them down?"
said the garden attendants.

[to be continued]

Today, some of my favorite bloggers are asking questions:

Samhita at feministing asks Why "there is preference for male children" in India, where female babies are aborted?

David Ker of Lingamish asks "How can my kids navigate the net when it is full of nut jobs and porn?"

April DeConick at the Forbidden Gospels Blog asks "Can we ever have another leader with a higher social vision?"

The Feminist Chemists ask "How many times have you heard the argument that men are more rational than emotional, whilst women are more emotional than rational? So, where does this idea come from in the first place?"

Sounds to me like some of the kinds of questions Mohandas Gandhi and Joan of Arc and Martin Luther King Jr. and Nechama Leibowitz had to ask. (Leibowitz in the taxi cab with a baal agalah as equal, is also really asking, as we all might: mah kasheh leRashi?) So when the work of an enemy is so overwhelming: What to do, what to do, what to do, what to do?

[the story beside mine and yours continues]

"Ma'am, didn't you plant good seeds in the garden?
Where do the weeds come from?
Do you want us to go and whack them down?"
said the garden attendants.
"No, in whacking down the weeds you would whack down the flowers.
Let both grow together until it's time to cut the flowers for the arrangements.
Then I'll tell the flower arrangers,
'Now whack the weeds and rake them in piles to burn,
but put the flowers in my vases.'"

When it's time,
you'll know what to do.
I've just retranslated
Willis Barnstone
retranslating
Matthew
retranslating
Yeshua Ben Yosef
retranslating
me
and
you.

Here's what Matthew hears:

ἄλλην παραβολὴν παρέθηκεν αὐτοῖς λέγων

ὡμοιώθη ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ἀνθρώπῳ
σπείραντι καλὸν σπέρμα ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ αὐτοῦ
ἐν δὲ τῷ καθεύδειν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους
ἦλθεν αὐτοῦ ὁ ἐχθρὸς καὶ ἐπέσπειρεν ζιζάνια ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ σίτου καὶ ἀπῆλθεν
ὅτε δὲ ἐβλάστησεν ὁ χόρτος καὶ καρπὸν ἐποίησεν
τότε ἐφάνη καὶ τὰ ζιζάνια
προσελθόντες δὲ οἱ δοῦλοι τοῦ οἰκοδεσπότου
εἶπον αὐτῷ
κύριε οὐχὶ καλὸν σπέρμα ἔσπειρας ἐν τῷ σῷ ἀγρῷ
πόθεν οὖν ἔχει ζιζάνια
ὁ δὲ ἔφη αὐτοῖς ἐχθρὸς ἄνθρωπος τοῦτο ἐποίησεν
οἱ δὲ δοῦλοι λέγουσιν αὐτῷ
θέλεις οὖν ἀπελθόντες συλλέξωμεν αὐτά
ὁ δέ φησιν οὔ μήποτε συλλέγοντες τὰ ζιζάνια ἐκριζώσητε ἅμα αὐτοῖς τὸν σῖτον ἄφετε συναυξάνεσθαι ἀμφότερα ἕως τοῦ θερισμοῦ καὶ ἐν καιρῷ τοῦ θερισμοῦ
ἐρῶ τοῖς θερισταῖς
συλλέξατε πρῶτον τὰ ζιζάνια καὶ δήσατε αὐτὰ εἰς δέσμας πρὸς τὸ κατακαῦσαι αὐτά τὸν δὲ σῖτον συναγάγετε εἰς τὴν ἀποθήκην μου