22 February 2024
On the one hand, the Bible clearly accepts that left-handed people are normal and okay; the Benjamites included a lot of lefty warriors. However that does not take away from the mythology about the left being awkward compared to the right in most of the human race. Nobody took it personally; it was just the way the Hebrew thought process worked. And ambidextrous folks (like me) simply don't even enter the picture. There was no place for snow-flaking. You have to keep it in perspective with the various levels of context.
For most humans who perform some kind of manual labor, the right hand is more precise and skillful, but often the left hand is best at gripping things for the right hand to work on. Most righties today cannot write with both hands, but can hold a clipboard very firm in their left when standing to write on it. And when people try to perform skilled tasks with the left, it's often for the sake of humor, knowing it will turn out poorly. Most handwriting is poor enough without trying to use the other hand.
This shows up in English, which language has a habit of stealing words from other languages. We took the word "sinister" from the French, in which "left handed" was the basic meaning, but for us it became synonymous with evil or unlucky. And that was something resurrected from the Latin and the Greeks before the French. To be honest, it was rooted in bird watching for the sake of omens. Certain key species of birds were considered omens; if they flew to your left, you were in for a run of bad luck, the Romans and Greeks thought.
The Hebrews were not so literal about it, but the imagery was still a bit tough on the left hand. Pageau notes that it symbolized doing things awkward, wrong or backwards. Thus, the right hand was for building space, and the left was for spinning chaos -- left is the time axis, and right is the pillar of space. In this, Adam is yet again a microcosm of Creation. His right hand is best for building and making, while the left is best for maintaining or keeping things. This is on the individual level.
The same truth applied on the community level would be the indication that left-hand folks would bring change, and may represent bucking the system. Keep in mind that a major emphasis in the Covenant was always community stability. Again, it's not that lefties are sinful people, but that their presence, or ascendancy in any way, indicates God will use them to bring challenges and chaos. They have a tendency to move along the margins of social order, heralding departures from the mainstream, and often performing as artists, musicians, and even spies.
Pageau notes our western minds instinctively associate causality here, when the Hebrews would reject that notion. It's not that lefties are bad news when you see them. It's that God often uses them in ways that work His will in shaking things up. If you see a lot of lefties, then you should wonder and seek God's face to ensure you didn't leave the moral hedge down somewhere. You may be in for some wrath, and lefties will be viewed as God's instrument for it.
Keep in mind, I've already pointed out that in the typical sheikh's court, his left-hand man was the "black hat" -- the guy who would check up on folks and bring them up on charges if they failed the sheikh. On a cosmic level, this is the Devil's role in God's Creation.
Comments
Jay DiNitto
I was going to ask if the left/right dichotomy was related to the left/right hand of God or ANE potentates, but then I got to the last line.
One thing I noticed is that right handed folks playing stringed instruments fret or sound out the notes with the left and pluck/strum, etc., with the right. The left seems to do most of the important "visual" work of determining what note is being played. Obviously, the whole thing is reversed for the lefties. Not really sure what to make of that, or even if there is anything to make of it.
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