Isn't It Time? Coming Forth

-- About what is meant by "millstone" here --

When the New American Haggadah included a millstone in their 2012 translation (above), when Aurora Levins Morales used the imagery in 2017 (below) and when I focused on this imagery in writing as recent as last year, we had not yet seen a different kind of millstone imagery used from Christian Nationalists in the titles of bills introduced into state legislatures throughout the United States.

These "Millstone Acts" (see, e.g., this Religion Dispatches article) are dangerous pieces of legislation that threaten human rights of all, and specifically attack transgender youth and adults.

So let's be clear that millstone imagery in Hebrew scriptures is entirely unrelated, in terms of context and linguistics, to Gospel "millstone" imagery found, for example, in Matthew 18:6: "...better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."

In the Hebrew bible, and in Talmud and later commentary, a millstone is a functional, grain-producing image. It appears both literally and metaphorically to describe weight and grinding. A millstone is mentioned in Deuteronomy (24:6) as a tool so necessary to ordinary livelihood that it cannot be taken as surety for a financial debt. In Judges (9:53) and 2 Samuel (11:21), an incident is related -- the same one -- in which a woman uses an upper millstone as a weapon during a battle, stopping an intruder by dropping it on his head. Based on concordance studies, "millstone" NEVER appears in Hebrew scriptures as an instrument of torture or capital punishment.

I had not planned to include this clarification. I am honestly horrified to have to utter these words at all. I will be seeking comment from folks who write about Christian theology and are just as horrified.

Racism is like a millstone, a crushing weight that relentlessly presses down on people intended to be a permanent under-class. Its purpose is to press profit from us, right to the edge of extermination and beyond. The oppression of Jews is a conjuring trick, a pressure valve, a shunt that redirects the rage of working people away from the 1%, a hidden mechanism, a set up that works through misdirection, that uses privilege to hide the gears.

-- Understanding Antisemitism: An Offering to Our Movement, a resource from Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, 2017.

Available on their website.

So many of the details of the story seem somewhat old-fashioned, such as the smearing of lamb's blood over the doorway of one's home, which has been largely replaced by signs warning away solicitors. But in fact, the story of liberation is one that is still going on, as people all over the world are still in bondage, and we wait and wait, as the Jews in [Mitzrayim] waited and waited, for the day when freedom will be spread all over the world like frosting on a well-made cake, rather than dabbed on here and there as if the baker were selfishly eating most of the frosting directly from the bowl. The story of Passover is a journey, and like most journeys, it is taking much longer than it ought to take, no matter how many times we stop and ask for directions. We must look upon ourselves as though we, too, were among those fleeing a life of bondage in [Mitzrayim] and wandering the desert for years and years, which is why we are often so tired in the evenings and cannot always explain how we got to be exactly where we are.

– Lemony Snicket (“Playground”) commentary, New American Haggadah, p.79