Return of the Pigs
The verb, to return (לחזור), was something of a mystery to me because its root is the same as “pig” and “alien” – ח ז ר (as was discussed in Pigs in Space). The whole notion of strange and foreign is anathema to returning. Not unsurprising, the key to this etymological query has its origin in religion.
One day, some day when the forever tardy Messiah returns, the world will be set in order and all will be well; the outcast and the deceptive will be welcomed back into the fold. The pig will come squealing back and the alien will become the familiar.
The underlying linguistical connotations are fascinating. It presents a worldview that is essentially incomplete until the Messiah returns and that the function of the alien and the pig – and generally of the unknown and outside – is to serve as a contrast between the incomplete and complete.
Every culture or group has a definition of within and without but to define an animal (the deceptive one) and the foreigner in terms of their eventual return is quite extraordinary.
What’s strange, though, is that the pig is treated with such disdain. All the reasons written about in the Pigs in Space notwithstanding, the root – ח ז ר – from which pig comes has something of a positive connotation.
Someday, the root urges, this curlicued beast will – with the certainty of a zealot – come back to the community. It seems like the pig should be revered because its entrance into the fold will be heralded with the world’s ordinance. Instead, the pig is held apart as a reminder of its deception and its future redemption will remain unheralded –despite the etymological guarantee of a return.