This sheet on Genesis 10 was written by Hagit Bartuv for 929 and can also be found here
My son likes to invent names and meaningless words. When you ask him, for example, what he calls his doll he will never mention a familiar name, he will always choose “Kondivis” or “Koklia.” I'm not sure I understand why he likes incomprehensible combinations of letters. Sometimes, I think he wants us to have a secret language, that he made up, so that he can tell our stories. Sometimes, I think that he is trying to suggest that conventional words are not so logical in his opinion, and the combination of letters that make up those words are no more reasonable than his letter combinations.
I thought of his gibberish when I read Chapter 10 about the Ludim and the Naphtuhim in verse 14 and Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash in verse 23 and all their buddies. And, as always, I felt myself drowning in letters and genealogies that I could not possibly repeat. Why was it not possible to simply write - and the sons of Noah multiplied very much and “from these the nations branched out over the earth after the Flood” (Genesis 10:32)?
But perhaps one moment, in the transition from the grand story of creation and destruction and a new beginning to the magnificent story of Abraham and his sons, we stop to remember that apart from the grand narrative there were and there are countless private stories of Ludim and Naphtuhim, for whom our grand narrative is a little like gibberish. Maybe somebody wants to remind us that there is an alternative, that there are other stories that can be told.
Hagit Bartuv is the project and content leader of the Srigim initiative on Israeli moshavim
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