Wanderlust

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STRONGS H8446:Abbreviations

† תּוּר verb seek out, spy out, explore (Late Hebrew id. (rare); perhaps originally turn (to or about), Assyrian târu, turn about, back, taiâru adjective turning back, also merciful, and substantive mercy; Arabic () IV. go about (rare), a go-between) —
Qal Perfect 1st person singular תַּרְתִּי Ezekiel 20:6; Ecclesiastes 2:3; 3rd person plural תָּרוּ Numbers 13:32; 2nd person masculine plural תַּרְתֶּם Numbers 14:24; Imperfect 3rd person masculine plural יָתֻ֫רוּ Numbers 13:2, וַיָּתֻ֫רוּ Numbers 13:21; read also 3rd person masculine singular, יָתוּר Job 39:8 Ew Di Bu Du and most (for יְתוּר); 2nd person masculine plural תָּתוּ֫רוּ Numbers 15:39; Infinitive construct תּוּר Numbers 10:33 +; Participle plural תָּרִים Numbers 14:6, on 1 Kings 10:15; 2 Chronicles 9:14 see infra; —

1. seek out, select: לָתוּר לָהֶם מִנוּחָה Numbers 10:33 (J, subject ark of י׳), compare Deuteronomy 1:33 (subject י׳), Ezekiel 20:6 (id., accusative land); followed by infinitive = find out how to do something, בְּלִבִּי לְ ת׳ Ecclesiastes 2:3.

2. spy out, explore, accusative of land Numbers 13:2, 16, 17, 21, 23, 32 (twice in verse); Numbers 14:7, 34, 36, 38, accusative of mountains Job 39:8 (see above), compare Participle as subject explores, spies Numbers 14:6 (all P); explore mentally, וּבַקֵּשׁ חָכְמָה לָדַעַת וְלָת׳ Ecclesiastes 7:25, compare Ecclesiastes 9:1 Gr (ת׳ for בוּר which see), בְּחָכְמָה עַלֿ לָת׳ Ecclesiastes 1:13 (Kue^{Ond. 2, iii. 196}).

3. go about, figurative אַהֲרִי לְבַבְכֶם Numbers 15:39 (P); Participle אַנְשֵׁי הַתָּרִים 1 Kings 10:15; 2 Chronicles 9:14, usually merchants (|| סֹחֲרִים רִכְּ לִים); Kit, after 2 Chronicles, proposes הֶעָרִים for הַתָּרִים.

Hiph. Imperfect 3rd person masculine plural וַיָּתִ֫ירוּ בְּבֵיתאֵֿל Judges 1:23 they made a reconnoisance at Bethel (Vrss disagree, Gie וַיַּחֲנוּ, compare GFM); 3rd person masculine singular יָתֵר מֵרֵעֵהוּ צַדִּיק Proverbs 12:26 the righteous searches out (RV is a guide to) his friend, AV is more excellent than (reading יָתָר), Hi Ew De and others spies out his pasture (מִרְעֵהוּ, in spiritual sense), all dubious; Toy conjectures יָסֻר מֵרָעָה.

See Strongs Lexicon: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h8446/kjv/wlc/0-1/

tour (n.)

c. 1300, "a turn of events; one's shift on duty," from Old French tor, tour, tourn, tourn "a turn, trick, round, circuit, circumference," from torner, tourner "to turn" (see turn (v.)).

The sense of "a going round (a place, or from place to place), a continued ramble or excursion" is from 1640s. Compare tourism. The literal sense of "a turning round, circular movement" is rare in English and obsolete.

For Grand Tour, see grand (adj.). Tour de France as a bicycle race is attested in English by 1916 (Tour de France Cycliste, distinguished from a motorcar race of the same name). A tour d'horizon (1952 in English) is a broad, general survey. A little tour or excursion is a tourette (1881).

also from c. 1300

tour (v.)

1746, "travel in or about," especially "make a circuitous or prolonged journey, visiting here and there" (by 1789), from tour (n.). In reference to plays or entertainments, by 1897. Related: Toured; touring. A touring car (1903) is one fitted for extra passengers and luggage.

also from 1746

See: https://www.etymonline.com/word/tour

The story of the Pentateuch can be told as a traveller’s tale : the preparations for a departure , the hazards of departure , privations and dangers on the journey , decisions to go back and to move on , moments of rest and days of march , failure to reach the goal even when it is within sight [ after ] years of fruitless wanderings and encampments .

Jews and Journeys: Travel and the Performance of Jewish Identity (Jewish Culture and Contexts)

Levinson, Joshua; Bashkin, Orit

the travel narrative, travel literature.

writings (literary or documentary) that take travel (real or imagined) as an essential condition of their production or dramatic situation, that describe the movement of individuals across some kind of boundary (usually geographic, but not necessarily so).

Homer: while Odysseus travels home from a strange land, Abraham travels to a strange land from home

Geoffrey Chauser – Canterbury Tales

the dominant themes of travel writing:

a nostalgic yearning to return home and a desire to leave home and seek out a new world.

travels of dislocation and return, discovery and conquest, hold a prominent place in formative Jewish and non - Jewish fictions of identity.

travel writing as a cultural mechanism for exploring and shaping its own fictions of identity…. when “ constructing ” the other , the self also constructs itself .

What is it about travel writing that enables it to become one of the central cultural mechanisms for exploring and shaping themes of identity? How does this genre produce representations of “another” and his world, against which and through which it explores and invents a particular sense of self? How do travel discourses work with and against other forms of cultural representation and give contour to territory and experience? Do the different types of travel construct different types of self, of others, and self - other interaction, and how do the various types of travel writing interact and influence one another? In other words, what cultural and ideological work is performed by these texts?

Each time the character or gender of the traveler changes, each means of representation, of direction, motivation, and destination — so the nature, purposes, and traits of travel writing are transformed

At the origin of any journey, real or imagined, there is always another journey or another story. The most real of travelers is already a viator in fabula, a traveler traveling in a story he has read or imagined.

Christian pilgrimage also gave rise to special genres, mainly the itineraria, that describe the pilgrimage route and the pilgrims ’ experiences , as well as Holy Land descriptions

how Jewish travel narratives function as a vehicle of cultural self - perception and produce representations of an other and his world , against which and through which it explores and invents a particular sense of self.

the Jewish diasporas created a network of communities that enabled the homo viator judaicus ( traders , preachers , emissaries , paupers , and pilgrims ) to move from community to community in a way that undermines any simplistic dichotomies between self and other , here and there .

the Christian figure of the wandering Jew (The Jew is punished to wander)

“While sojourn may appear at some points to weaken Israel’s territorial myth, it serves to buttress its election myth.”

Themes of the Travel Narrative

Wonders

Danger

a journey back in time.

Our Sikh driver had heard of Muslims and met some Christian tourists. To him, Jews were news. That pricked my vanity. I didn’t like to think that in vast areas of the planet, the story of my people is unknown. … After all, Jews make up less than half of one percent of the world’s population. There are as many Sikhs in the Punjab as Jews on the planet. … Just outside my car window there was enough human tragedy, comedy, and heartbreaking struggle to fill a dozen Torah scrolls.

I decided that the most important baggage Jews carry is an absolute conviction of our significance because we are Jews, because we have survived. On Route One, the whole grand story of Jewish survival, the tremendous importance I attach to my history, my Torah, shrank in perspective: to a single line, a single letter. I felt absurd: in the middle of India, did it really make any difference that we were Jews? (pp. 26-27)

The Jew in the Lotus

Seeing is not only the pivotal act that structures the narrative , but it is an essential component of this text as a travel narrative , for without seeing ( real or imaginary ) there is nothing to tell . However , looking relations are never innocent because what we see and how we interpret are always determined by the cultural system of the traveler .

the importance of the visual by means of which the traveler perceives and interprets events , landscapes , and persons he or she encounters , be it under the guise of the tourist gaze , the colonial or ethnographic gaze , or others .

it is not a passive recording of experiences but a reconstruction of events , people , and landscapes from the perspective of the travelers ’ intentions and prejudices .

Abraham here sees both difference in Aram and sameness in Canaan . His gaze seems to lack the perspective of superiority inherent in the colonial gaze or the categorizing detachment of the ethnographic gaze . He observes and appraises the behavior of those he encounters not in order to displace or conquer them ; rather his greatest anxiety is to be influenced by them .

the immigrant’s gaze . world with mixed emotions of anxiety and hope .

By the mid nineteenth century it became common for the Palestinian Hasidim to travel to Poland before the High Holidays and spend the holidays at the court of R. Aharon. This is the background for the following story about one of these visits in the recollections of one of the Hasidim:

אויף ימים נוראים זיינען אנגעפארן צווישן אנדרע אויך חסידים פון ירושלים. זיי האבן דערציילט מעשיות פון לאנד און אויך פון די בעדואינער, אז זיי זיינען גנבים גרויסע. זאגט ר׳ אהרן: ״דער ייד האט א ניצוץ פון די מרגלים.״ זאגט דער ייד: ״רבי – איך רייד ניט חס ושלום אויף יידן״. זאגט רב אהרן: ״די מרגלים האבן אויך ניט גערעדט אויף קיין יידן. אויף קיינעם פון די ארץ-ישראלדיקע תושבים טאר מאן ניט ריידן.

For the High Holidays a group of Hasidim from Jerusalem, among others, journeyed to the court of R. Aharon. They told various stories about the land, and they also said that the local Bedouins are great thieves. Hearing this, R. Aharon responded: “I see my friend that in your soul there is a spark from the soul of the biblical spies.” The Hasid who told the story about the Bedouins objected: “But Rabbi, I have not, God forbid, spoken ill of any Jew.” To this R. Aharon answered: “The spies didn’t speak ill of any Jew either. We must not speak ill of any resident of the Land of Israel.”

See: ​​​​​​​Hasidic-Muslim Relations in Ottoman Palestine, Prof. Yitzhak Y. Melamed

Orientalism, Edward Said 1978

In his posthumous satirical Dictionnaire des idées reçues, Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) defined an Orientalist as “a man who has traveled a lot.”1 Flaubert may have been lampooning the cliché figure of the Orientalist, but his mocking characterization aptly captures the intimate relation between Orientalism and Middle East travel writing. Indeed, at the origin of Orientalism are the numerous travelogues by European travelers to the Middle East. Although Europe’s geopolitical interest in the Middle East dates back at least to the days of crusades in the eleventh century, starting in the late seventh century European travelers to the Middle East produced a substantial body of literature about the region, describing its geography, people, languages and cultures, which facilitated the rise of modern Orientalism both as an academic discipline and as a discourse of power. Indeed, modern Orientalism would have not been possible without travel literature, for, to understand and write about the Orient, Europeans had to first explore the region as travelers.

On Edward Said: Orientalism and Literature: by Ali Behdad Chapter 10 - Orientalism and Middle East Travel Writing