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Michael S. Diamond
Torah Obscura

Which Profession is Most Like God?

Glasses off, the rumble begins... (Getty images))

Some time after the creation of the world, the blink of an eye really, all the professions of mankind got together to ask the Creator to decide which one’s work most resembled the work of the Creator. The farmers jumped in right away, “Hey, we’re so important it took two days of creation to provide what we bring into the world, plants and animals. That’s pretty hard to top.” They all sat back, pretty sure that it was a shoo-in.

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The fisherman shuffled nervously, but finally spoke up, “Well, we’ll give you farmers plants alright, that’s a pretty good one. But fish came before animals, first higher life-form and, more importantly, edible animal protein. So for the human diet you can’t beat that.” They too were pretty sure they had it in the bag.

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Silence. Then the healthcare professionals all cleared their throats at once and broke in, “Well, we’re afraid it’s rather obvious, humans are at the top of the food chain, and without us they’d all die. Q.E.D.” And they sat down with self-satisfied smirks on their faces.

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Then a bunch of guys in coveralls, the electricians, butted in, “Fuggedaboutit. We were there on the first day. Who do think made the lights?”

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Finito. Nobody else knew what to say. The other professions were taking it on the chin. The plumbers had planned to mention the separation of water from water on day two, but before they could hike up their pants, the electricians had them beat.

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The arts crowd was eyeing the fourth day, but they couldn’t agree on who were the lesser and who the greater lights.

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The lawyers thought about taking credit for the chaos and void before creation, but they feared it might make them look bad.

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Suddenly there was a great scraping of chairs, and the sound of chalk on a chalkboard. When everyone looked up, they saw that the scholars had scrawled across the board a quote from Qohelet, “Of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh.” Putting down the chalk, the scholars turned to the rest of the professions and said, “Read the text. It says right there, God sabbaticalled, vayishbot, on the seventh day. We and only we, like God, give ourselves sabbaticals.” With that, all of the other professionals, bested, got up and left, as did the Creator as well.

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About the Author
Michael Diamond is a writer based in the Washington, DC area. He practices psychiatry there and is a doctor of medical qigong. He has published verse, fiction and translation in Andrei Codrescu’s journal, The Exquisite Corpse; in the journal Shirim courtesy of Dryad Press; in the online journal for Akashic Press; in New Mexico Review, The Deronda Review, The Atherton Review, The Blood Project, Ars Medica and in The Journal of the American Medical Association. He lives in the suburbs with his wife, an artist and illuminator of Hebrew manuscripts, their dog, two cats, a cockatiel named Peaches, a tank of hyperactive fish and ten-thousand honeybees. He has had a strong interest in Torah since first exposed to traditional stories as a child. Over the course of his life he has run the gamut of spiritual exploration of many world traditions of meditation and mythology. For the last several decades he has landed squarely in the traditional Jewish world. His writing is informed by all of this experience, by his curiosity about today's world and by his desire to mine the Jewish experience for its hidden and revealed wisdom. Torah Obscura, a glimpse of an otherwise invisible world afforded by a small aperture for light. All materials herein copyright © 2018 Michael S. Diamond. All rights reserved.
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