san francisco based performance group foreignfire creates aesthetically powerful events in the overlapping area of performance art and jewish ritual

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this week’s reading comes from deuteronomy 21:10-25:19 with animations from milka sigalla and translations by caroline kessler

If you see (with your eyes open & expanded, not tightly shut against) your friend’s animal gone astray / don’t ignore the animal’s body / take the furred one back to your friend / maybe your friend lives down a distant road or is unfamiliar to you in this now moment of unfamiliarity / so bring the animal home / allow it a rest until your friend can claim the alive body / & you will give the animal back with an open hand / you will unfold the same process for another furred one or a piece of clothing or anything that could be construed as lost / you will not press your hands’ heels into your eyelids, closing them / you will not be indifferent /

deuteronomy

22:1-3

as in you will re-load any burden that has fallen / if you see your friend’s ass or ox is on the road’s side / don’t ignore that / raise it / okay / a woman must not put on a man’s clothing / nor vice versa / because this is altering g!d’s design / if you yourself now are going down the road / happenstance along a bird’s nest / with young ones or eggs & the mother squatting over them /

deuteronomy

22:4-6

do not take the mother from her young ones / let her go / take the young ones / & you will live long / & when you build a new home, make a guardrail on the roof so that if someone falls from grace / there is no bloodguilt on your hands / & don’t plant your vineyard with other seeds or else you cannot use the grapes

deuteronomy

22:7-9