What we know for sure, what we can feel in our bones, is that it all took place in the desert, and the coastal plain and hill country. 

In the Jezreel Valley and Jericho and Jerusalem.

Among the tribes of the Canaanites.

When a god was carried from the south, from the wilderness.  A god of war and rain.

The shepherds brought their first lambs to be sacrificed on his altar. The farmers brought their first grain in early summer, their first fruits in fall.

The men were circumcised. 

Back before Ashkenazi and Ukraine, and pale skin and glasses.  Back before rabbis and bibles, before even the First Temple!

I was a Canaanite.  But not eating certain things.   

And you, who I sit with at brunch:  you were on line with me at our hilltop altar.  You lugged sacks of plums and lemons; I brought dates and persimmon, scraped from the rocky ground.

The blood of my lamb oozed onto the still wet blood of yours.

Who was our God?  Was he the god, even then, of love thy neighbor?  Of pay your farmhands?

There is no image of him up here.  Our minds work in the empty space.  Beyond the altar, the valley stretches out… 

Please bring rain so we can stay here.  Be with us, give us the advantage, as we fight for this valley.

With empty grain sacks, washing our hands, we stop for a moment to catch up, to kibbitz.  We share a local slang—the first Hebrew.